[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S760-S769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SAFE, ACCOUNTABLE, FLEXIBLE, AND EFFICIENT TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT OF 
                                  2003

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 1072, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1072) to authorize funds for Federal-aid 
     highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and 
     for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Modified committee amendment in the nature of a substitute.
       Dorgan amendment No. 2267, to exempt certain agricultural 
     producers from certain hazardous materials transportation 
     requirements.
       Gregg amendment No. 2268 (to amendment No. 2267), to 
     provide that certain public safety officials have the right 
     to collective bargaining.
       Dorgan amendment No. 2276 (to the language proposed to be 
     stricken by the committee amendment), to modify the penalty 
     for nonenforcement of open container requirements.

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we had a number of presentations made 
yesterday. There is a great deal of confusion as to what this bill is 
all about. I would like to go over a couple points.
  First, I invite all Members with amendments to bring them to the 
floor and discuss them. We are rapidly approaching the point where we 
are going to be considering amendments. I am very proud of the staff, 
Democrats and Republicans, who staffed an office over the weekend to 
get information from Members who had amendments to offer.
  For those who have not had a chance to become familiar with what we 
are doing, an injustice has been done to some of the members of the 
Finance Committee, particularly the chairman and the ranking member. 
They have worked long and hard. They have come up with something that 
meets the criteria originally put forward by the administration, such 
as not including a gas tax. It does not include going into the general 
fund. I do believe there are some areas where we have rectified 
problems with treatments that had been taken previously to the highway 
trust fund. Of course, I consider that something that should have been 
done anyway.
  We are now in position to consider the bill. It is going to be a huge 
jobs bill. It is going to accomplish great work for the country.
  A lot of people do not understand the formula aspect. One Member came 
down yesterday and talked about how one State is doing better under the 
formula. There are a lot of considerations to the formula, 
considerations such as the total lane miles of interstate, the vehicle 
miles traveled, the annual contributions to the highway trust fund 
attributed to commercial vehicles, the diesel fuel used on highways, 
relative share of total cost of repair and replacement of deficient 
highway bridges--I can identify with that, as in Oklahoma we have the 
worst bridges in the country--weighted nonattainment in maintenance 
areas, rate of return of donor States. That is one of the problems 
people have failed to understand, that we are getting all donor States 
up to 95 percent.
  To do this, there have to be some who have been actually in a better 
position than they should have been by any formula because let's keep 
in mind that in TEA-21, 6 years ago, we had the minimum guarantee. The 
minimum guarantee was a political document. Let's look at who was in 
charge at that time. We had quite a disproportionate number of leaders 
from the Northeast. We had Senator Moynihan, Congressman Shuster over 
in the House who was driving the boat, Senator Chafee, Senator Baucus 
from Montana. As a result, there are some States that got up to a 
larger share than they would have achieved under any type of formula.
  What they did was start with the same formula, using the factors I 
just outlined, and then, halfway through the process, went to the 
minimum guarantee. The minimum guarantee is the easy way out. All you 
have to do is count up 60 people, give them what they want, and you 
have 60 votes. That is not the right way to do it. We are doing it the 
right way.
  I haven't seen anyone who really understands the formula, and 
everything that went into the last year we spent working on it, who is 
not supportive. They may not like how their State fared. Their State 
may have been in a position where they were getting more than they were 
entitled to for a period of time. That might be rectified by this. But 
we have the best intentions of going ahead. I am quite sure, in the 
final analysis, we will have a bill that is far greater and better and 
more equitable than ISTEA was--I was here during the ISTEA debate--and 
TEA-21 in 1998. I believe we have done a good job.

  I refer again to the cooperation we have had on both sides of the 
aisle. We have had an opportunity to work with the leadership, and 
Senators Jeffords and Reid have been great to work with. They have set 
partisanship aside. Historically, this has been a nonpartisan bill. It 
should be that way. A lot of the actions of the Environment and Public 
Works Committee are nonpartisan. Certainly at the top of that list is 
this bill. I don't think anyone would accuse us of being at all 
partisan in this legislation.
  There are winners and losers--no question about that--when compared 
to TEA-21. But let's go back to see what happened in TEA-21 before we 
are critical of where we are today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator from 
Oklahoma has to be gone from the floor this morning. We have our 
caucuses at 12:30. There are a number of people on our side who have 
requested time for morning business. I am wondering if it would be 
appropriate, in that we are in kind of a procedural tangle anyway, that 
we have time for debate only until the caucuses.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I propound that as a unanimous consent 
request, that we have debate only until after the conclusion of our 
conferences.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. What is the request?
  Mr. REID. The request is that we remain on the bill, but for debate 
only, until 12:30.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, the EPW Committee has been working this 
bill for the past 2 years. Senators Inhofe, Bond, and Reid and I have 
been very involved in this process. From the beginning, we wanted to 
accomplish a few important national goals: First, improve roads and 
bridges; second, move freight; third, address congestion; and fourth, 
improve safety.
  Congestion is a growing concern all across America. Each day, 
Americans spend more time in their cars as they pursue routine 
activities, such as going to work, taking the kids to school, or 
picking up some groceries. As our Nation's population grows, travel 
demands grow as well.
  The number of miles traveled annually on our Nation's roads is 
increasing at a substantial rate.
  Many roads are at or approaching their physical capacity. In many 
areas of the country, it is both impractical and financially infeasible 
to add lanes to existing roadways.
  However, we can increase capacity by actively managing the 
transportation network.
  Intelligent transportation systems provide State and local 
governments the data and tools necessary to undertake time saving 
activities like incident management, ramp metering, traveler advisory 
systems, and variable pricing.
  Over the past 10 years, some areas of the country have begun to 
implement these techniques, and they have realized numerous benefits.

[[Page S761]]

  Areas that employ transportation management techniques enjoy improved 
travel times, more timely incident management, and improved 
communication with the traveling public.
  Crafting this reauthorization bill, we recognized the importance of 
enhancing State and local governments' ability to manage their 
infrastructure now and in the future.
  S. 1072 expands Surface Transportation Program eligibility to ensure 
that States may use Federal highway dollars to manage their network.
  The bill shifts Intelligent Transportation Systems out of the 
research realm and into the mainstream program. States may use core 
highway program dollars to fund ITS projects.
  S. 1072 directs the Secretary to implement a nationwide real-time 
travel data network. Additionally, States are directed to develop 
statewide incident reporting systems.
  Implementation of these systems will assist travelers and provide 
State and local transportation agencies the information they need to 
manage our current infrastructure and to plan for future improvements.
  Finally, S. 1072 provides resources to examine future management 
technologies. The research title of the bill includes provisions to 
develop the next generation of intelligent transportation systems and 
management tools.
  The research title also provides resources to train the engineers who 
will design, build, and manage our future transportation 
infrastructure.
  Mr. President, I think it is clear that S. 1072 addresses congestion 
in a proactive manner by providing policy changes and financial 
resources to promote the efficient use of our Nation's transportation 
infrastructure.
  As I have said before, passage of this bill is critical. I urge my 
colleagues to support this effort to provide much-needed resources to 
our States.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        The Cost of Health Care

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will use my leader time for the day. I 
want to talk about health care today for a few minutes. Health 
expenditures in this country are at the highest levels now that they 
have been in our Nation's history. Not only are they at the highest 
levels in our history, they exceed, by some magnitude, the health 
expenditures in other countries.
  The World Health Organization, in its most recent calculation of what 
we spend, lists the United States at $4,500 in total expenditures per 
capita; Canada, $2,058; United Kingdom, $1,774; Japan, $2,009; France, 
$2,335; and Sweden, $2,097. So we spend more than twice what other 
countries are currently spending for health care.
  One would hope that if we spent twice as much, we would get twice the 
result. But just the opposite is true. We have the lowest life 
expectancy of any of the countries I have listed. Our life expectancy 
is 77 years. That is over 4 years less than Japan. I would hope that at 
least when it comes to infant mortality, we would get twice the result. 
But, again, it is just the opposite. We have the highest rate of child 
mortality of any country I have mentioned--eight deaths per thousand. 
In Sweden, it is three and a half per thousand. So one could only 
conclude from these numbers that we are not getting what we are paying 
for; that we are not getting a bang for the buck.
  We will not have the opportunity to address infant mortality, life 
expectancy, and all of the other challenges we face in our health care 
system without making some fundamental changes in the system itself.
  There are those who have argued it is now impossible for us to 
achieve universal insurance coverage. Some have even suggested that we 
would go bankrupt if we were to do that. What I find ironic is that 
these countries I have listed all have guaranteed health care. That has 
been the essence of their success, the secret to their success--this 
ability to cover everybody and, in so doing, reduce child mortality, 
increase life expectancy, and find ways in which to keep people healthy 
throughout their lives.
  So we are paying more and not only do we have unacceptable results--
at least measured by child mortality and life expectancy--we also have 
unacceptable levels of health coverage. Mr. President, 43.6 million 
Americans last year had no coverage. That is an increase of 2 million 
people over the year before. About 75,000--12 percent--of the people in 
my State have no health insurance. But statistics don't speak to the 
anguish that is felt by so many people in our country regarding an 
issue as personal as their health care.
  Last summer, I spent a good deal of time on the road, dedicating 
virtually the entire month of August to talking with people as to how 
they feel about health care. The anguish, the stories of financial 
ruin, the extraordinary dilemmas and life-threatening circumstances 
that so many of these people face are still indelibly printed in my 
mind.

  Yet there are those who say it is impossible to get everybody 
covered; it is impossible to get to 100 percent. It may be impossible 
to get to 100 percent, but I am told virtually every country I have 
listed--and I will list them again: Canada, Britain, Japan, France, and 
Sweden--virtually every industrialized country has guaranteed coverage 
today, near 100-percent coverage.
  The Bush administration's chief architect on health issues, Health 
and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, was quoted that he does 
not think that administratively or legislatively it is feasible to 
cover everyone. I find this a remarkable statement because we have 
always prided ourselves as Americans on having a can-do spirit. We have 
always said if we can go to the Moon, if we can set out challenges for 
our Nation, we will achieve them because of good leadership, and 
because of our values, and because of our attitude.
  What does it say about our leadership, our values, and our attitude 
if we say we can't do what every other industrialized country has done? 
What does it say about our commitment? What does it say about this 
spirit of America about which we hear so much? We can't? Or we won't? I 
don't think it is impossible to ensure coverage for all Americans. I 
think it is imperative we do it.
  The United States, as I have said, is the only industrialized country 
that has not. In each of these countries, one does not need to be a 
brain surgeon to see the connection between universal coverage and 
better life expectancy; universal coverage and higher rates of infant 
survivability, lower infant mortality. That is the key, that is the 
essence of our need, of our success, and of finding a way to do what we 
have said from the very beginning: We will always attempt to do our 
very best.
  If we say we can't, if we think we can't, we are right. If we say we 
can, if we think we can, we are right. It is up to us. It is a question 
of our leadership, our commitment, our willingness to excite and ignite 
an interest and a commitment and an enthusiasm about this issue as we 
have done on so many other issues.
  Last month, the Institute for Medicine called for universal health 
coverage by 2010. They think we can do it.
  Bob Dole, the former Republican leader, could have spoken for all of 
us when he said: The bottom line is, I think we have what it takes to 
get it done. I think we have what it takes.
  I think we have what it takes as well, but we have to demonstrate 
what it takes is a commitment, not an ``I can't.'' What it takes is 
bipartisan support for a goal shared by millions of Americans today. 
Let's provide universal coverage. Let's begin to address this 
embarrassment for our country. Let's recognize if Britain, Canada, 
Japan, France, and Sweden can do it, so can we, and we can do it 
better. Let's accept the fact that $4,500 for every man, woman, and 
child with less results in infant mortality and life expectancy than 
other countries is unacceptable in this country. We can, and we must. I 
hope it starts this year.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S762]]

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                  Jobs and the Annual Economic Report

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to comment about 
the report that was just released yesterday, the White House Annual 
Economic Report of the President, because I was stunned to see the 
statements regarding the economic report to the country as it relates 
to jobs.
  I invite any member of the group who put this report together or 
anyone from the administration to visit us in Michigan and see 
literally every day now the headlines in the papers. It doesn't matter 
if you are in Detroit or Grand Rapids or in northern Michigan or 
southern Michigan; we have headlines about jobs that are leaving this 
country and going overseas, good-paying jobs, white-collar jobs, blue-
collar jobs, service jobs, and manufacturing jobs.
  When we look at the report of economic advisers and we hear them 
saying, ``President Bush's top economist yesterday said the outsourcing 
of U.S. service jobs to workers overseas is good for the Nation's 
economy,'' I wonder what nation are they talking about. Whose economy 
are they talking about? It is certainly not good for our economy when 
people are losing their jobs.
  Let me go on to some of the other statements that are quoted in 
today's Washington Post:

       Shipping jobs to low cost countries is the latest 
     manifestation of the gains from trade.

  These were not the gains from trade I was hearing about. I was 
hearing that we were going to actually be creating more markets to 
produce more goods and services that would be increasing jobs, not 
losing jobs.
  It says:

       Just as U.S. consumers have enjoyed lower prices from 
     foreign manufacturers, so, too, should they benefit from 
     services being offered by overseas companies that have lower 
     labor costs.

  It is stunning to me that we would not be concerned about the 
outsourcing of jobs, good-wage jobs to other countries. I commend any 
of my colleagues to watch, as I do nightly, Lou Dobbs on CNN with the 
continuing critique of what is happening to our country, including 
service jobs.
  I have friends and constituents in Michigan who have been in good-
paying service jobs who are now unemployed and have lost their 
insurance, many of them struggling to see whether they will lose their 
homes as a result of having lost their job. They would not agree with 
this report. What we are seeing is the assumption that somehow moving 
out of this country to lower cost labor countries, whether it is goods 
or services, is ultimately better for the United States. Now think 
about this for a moment. They are embracing a race to the bottom that 
will only eliminate middle-class America.

  We had a recent situation occur in Greenville, MI, a small community 
of 9,000 people. There are 2,700 people who work at the local 
refrigeration plant, manufacturing refrigerators, Electrolux. They 
added a third shift. They have been productive. They make money. But 
the company came in this fall and said even though they make money, 
they make a profit in Greenville, MI, and people are productive, they 
could make more money if they went to Mexico and paid $2.50 an hour 
with no health benefits.
  Well, I am sure that is true. I am sure any business could make more 
money if they paid $2.50 an hour with no health benefits. I am sure 
they could make more money if they paid $1 an hour or 50 cents an hour 
with no health benefits. My question to the management was: Who will be 
able to afford to buy your refrigerator? Who will be able to afford to 
buy our automobiles? Who will be able to afford a middle-class standard 
of living in this country if this is only about a race to the bottom?
  When we look at what is happening in our country today, not only in 
manufacturing but in the service industry, we see a race to leave the 
country because instead of having trade policies that encourage a 
middle class in Mexico, in China, in India, and other places around the 
world so they bring up their standard of living, so they can have good 
wages and buy our products, we see instead pressure on our businesses 
and our workers to lower our standard of living, to lower our costs, 
and there is a race to the bottom.
  This race ultimately will cost us our way of life and our middle 
class. But that is how we are different and strong. That is why we are 
the greatest country in the world--because we have a strong middle 
class.
  I am extremely concerned when I see these kinds of statements. In 
fact, also quoted in this article from the Washington Post is a 
statement by Franklin J. Fargo, vice president of International 
Economic Affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers:

       It is kind of a flip thing to say when people are losing 
     their jobs.

  I would agree with that. It is more than flip; it is outrageous to 
say we as a country somehow benefit by the outsourcing and the 
elimination of jobs.
  In recent years, companies have shipped out software engineering 
jobs, data entry, customer service, hospital jobs, as well as 
manufacturing. We know when we pick up the phone--in fact, I picked up 
the phone one time to talk to a credit card representative and asked 
where they were. They said: A facility near you. Well, I knew it was 
not a facility near me in Michigan, where I was calling from, but it 
was a facility overseas.
  I think often of a friend of mine who goes to my church in Lansing, 
MI. He is a trained engineer, a very competent individual who has lost 
his job. He told me he is now working for $19 an hour with no health 
benefits, that he is now struggling with whether he will be able to 
keep their home with kids in college. That is very real.
  I urge those making statements that losing jobs to other countries is 
a good idea to talk to somebody who has in fact lost their job and may 
lose their home, and may not be able to send their kids to college, may 
not be able to buy that new car or keep the house, the cottage up 
north, be able to do those things that spend dollars in our economy, 
buy that new refrigerator. How in the world have we gotten to a point 
where we do not understand the basic economics of people being able to 
have a good wage so they can purchase goods and services and care for 
their families and be successful in this country? We know there are 
serious issues.

  Looking at something else in this report, it says: Indeed, 
outsourcing health care jobs to lower wage countries could help control 
the upward spiral of health care costs. When a good or service is 
produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to 
make it here.
  First, as someone who has worked on health care issues and helped to 
lead efforts to try to move us to lower health care costs, health care 
prices, the idea of saying the way we are going to lower health care 
prices is by losing jobs rather than tackling the big issues of 
lowering prescription drug prices, rather than allowing Medicare to 
negotiate group discounts under the new Medicare bill, which we did not 
do because the prescription drug company wants to be able to stop us 
from lowering prices--instead of addressing those things that will 
bring costs for businesses down, the suggestion is we should export 
health care jobs. So maybe if all of our nurses, doctors, and health 
care workers were all in another country where they were making less, 
we would be lowering our health care costs.
  I find this report and the comments in it and the public comments in 
the paper extraordinarily out of touch with what is happening to the 
people of our country and what is good for our country.
  I argue instead that in fact we do need to tackle health care costs. 
It is a major issue for businesses, large and small. In a global 
economy, it is a major issue for them to be able to compete. It is a 
major issue for our families and workers who are being asked to pay 
more, take a pay cut, pay more in a premium or copays. We should tackle 
that by addressing what is actually causing the health care costs to go 
up--the lack of competition, an explosion in prescription drug pricing. 
If we want to lower prescription drug prices and lower health care 
costs, rather than having the jobs go to Canada, let us open the border 
and bring the prescription drugs back from Canada at a cost of 50 
percent less. We could do that tomorrow if the administration

[[Page S763]]

would look at what is best for our families instead of what is best for 
the pharmaceutical lobby.
  We do not have to export jobs. We can import safe prescription drugs 
that are actually made here, which we help to produce, that taxpayer 
dollars subsidize, that are then allowed to be sold in other countries 
around the world for half the price.
  I agree, health care costs are a huge issue for our businesses, and 
we need to tackle it in a way that brings down prices, that maintains 
our quality and does not say the way we are going to cut costs is to 
export our jobs.
  As I mentioned earlier, I also ask all of us to rethink what we are 
doing on trade. We must trade in a global economy, obviously. But our 
trade laws need to focus on incentives and on policies that will 
increase the standard of living in other countries, not decrease ours.

  I also would ask the administration to work with us on issues to 
level the playing field. We know China, Japan, and others manipulate 
their currency. What does that mean? It means it costs us more to sell 
into China. Our businesses can pay up to a 40 percent tax, essentially, 
for selling something into China because they want us to move the plant 
there. It costs us more to sell to them. It costs them less to bring in 
goods.
  If the Treasury Secretary will simply certify that this is going on, 
we have, then, the authority to begin to do something about it; we have 
legislation that will give us an opportunity to do something about it. 
I am proud to be a cosponsor, with Senator Schumer, in that effort.
  There are actions we can take to level the playing field. There is no 
doubt in my mind that if we give American businesses and American 
workers a fair shot, a level playing field, we will win every time. We 
can compete when the rules are fair. But instead of addressing those 
things, we have a report coming before us that says outsourcing of U.S. 
jobs to overseas workers is good for our Nation's economy. With all due 
respect, I think they should go back to the drawing board and try this 
again.
  I would just say one other thing. The Annual Economic Report 
predicted 2.6 million new payroll jobs by the end of the year. 
Certainly we would all greatly love to see that be the case. But last 
year they reported 1.7 million jobs would be created and the year 
before they said 3 million jobs would be created. Instead, the Nation 
lost 53,000 payroll jobs last year, according to the Labor Department.
  Instead of proposing, and suggesting, and proclaiming millions of new 
jobs without the right policies to actually make it happen, I hope we 
will place on our agendas the loss of jobs--manufacturing jobs, service 
jobs, professional jobs--happening in this country, all across our 
Nation, and certainly in my State of Michigan, where we have paid 
dearly for policies that have not worked. I hope we make this our top 
priority and that we focus on those things that will stop the exodus 
from the United States and the exporting of American jobs around the 
world.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from 
Michigan as she was commenting about this report about how sending jobs 
out of the United States is going to help with the cost of health care 
here in the United States, that is as ridiculous as the old medical 
practice, 200 years ago, of curing the patient of his disease by 
bleeding him.
  Ms. STABENOW. That is right.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. What we need to do about the cost of health 
care is get to the cost of health care. The cost of health care is 
going up. Technology has brought us miraculous new medicines and 
procedures. All of that is going up. But where do you have an 
opportunity to bring down the cost of health care? You do it by having 
best business practices that allow you to have the economies of scale, 
ergo health insurance, the largest possible pool of people. You use the 
principle of insurance to work for you, which is take the health risk 
and spread it over the largest possible group so you bring down the per 
unit cost.
  But we are not approaching it that way. We divide up the population 
in these little narrow categories and then, when that category gets 
sick and it gets older, what happens to the costs of that health care? 
It goes up to the point they cannot afford it.
  Ms. STABENOW. That is right.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Or what about what we did in the Medicare bill 
here, the prescription drug bill, for which the Senator from Michigan 
and the Senator from Florida certainly didn't vote.
  Ms. STABENOW. Right.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. What it was billed as was a $400 billion bill 
for prescription drugs. We now find it is $525 billion over 10 years. 
And where did it go mostly? As a bailout to the pharmaceutical 
companies and as a bailout to the insurance companies.
  Ms. STABENOW. That is right.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Not in a way of providing a direct benefit. 
When the senior citizens in the State of Florida find out how meager 
this benefit is, when it kicks in in 2005, I predict senior citizens 
are going to be somewhat upset.
  I thank the Senator from Michigan for her comments.
  Ms. STABENOW. If I might ask a question of my friend from Florida, as 
a former insurance commissioner, he certainly understands the insurance 
side of this. I think, first of all, he is absolutely right. I think 
the two major drivers for health care now are the explosion of 
prescription drug prices and the fact that every time a person loses 
his or her insurance and that person walks into an emergency room to 
get care and is sicker than they otherwise would be, and so on, people 
with insurance end up seeing their rates go up because there is a 
smaller and smaller group of people who actually have insurance, and 
they pay more and more. Wouldn't that be the philosophy?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. That is correct. There are 40 million people 
in this country who do not have health insurance. But they get health 
care. They often get it, as the Senator suggests, at the time of the 
emergency. Where do they get it? They get it in the most expensive 
place, the emergency room. Instead of treating the sniffles, they wait 
until it becomes pneumonia, so the care becomes so much greater.
  So you have to get that much larger a group and ensure that larger 
group. Do it in the private sector. That is the way it ought to be 
done. Let there be competition to get your most efficient health 
insurance product, and then give the consumers, also, a choice of plan. 
So if they want a Cadillac plan, they can take that. If they want a 
Chevrolet plan, they can take that.
  But mix all of those elements into it. That is how we are going to 
get health insurance and health reform. But we are not going to until 
we get to such a crisis because there are so many players who have so 
much at stake and there is so much money to be made.
  Ms. STABENOW. If I might ask my friend another question, wouldn't he 
share my amazement that, in this new economic report, the proposal is 
that the way we lower health care costs is to export the jobs? Export 
the nurses, export the doctors, radiological assistants, whoever it 
is--that is how we should bring down health care costs? Lose our jobs 
to other countries? Does that make sense?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. That is exactly the opposite of what ought to 
be done. What was that report the Senator cited again?
  Ms. STABENOW. This report actually is the new report from the 
economic advisers to the President on the state of the economy and 
jobs, where they are saying outsourcing to other countries is, in fact, 
a good thing and, in fact, outsourcing health care jobs will actually 
bring health care costs down.
  I was stunned at what I was reading. Certainly, it is not something I 
know the people in Michigan are going to be very happy to hear about.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. What has happened to our world today? It is 
almost, if one person says it is white, another person says it is 
black; if a person says it is up, another person says it is down. Where 
is common sense? Where is reconciliation? Where is consensus building? 
Where is bipartisanship?
  Take another issue. As I continue to have this dialog with the 
Senator from Michigan, take another issue, take the issue of the so-
called independent commission that has just been appointed to

[[Page S764]]

find out what went wrong with intelligence. How can a commission be 
independent when it is just appointed by one authority, i.e., the 
President, who is going to be part of the subject of the investigation 
of the commission? That is not independence. What we need is a 
commission that is truly independent, that is appointed by the Congress 
and the President.
  Ms. STABENOW. Absolutely.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Both parties. That is not a commentary on the 
people on the commission because these people seem to be--several of 
them are personal friends of mine--enormously accomplished people. It 
is the question of setting up the commission.
  If I have been informed correctly, it is hard for my ears to believe 
what I have heard, which is that in setting up this commission to 
examine the intelligence that was faulty in Iraq, they are not giving 
this commission subpoena power.
  Then how are they going to get the documents? How are they going to 
compel the witnesses? Is it all going to be voluntary? Our very 
existence is on the line in order to have adequate, timely, and 
accurate intelligence to protect ourselves in this era of terrorism in 
which we find ourselves.
  Where is common sense in this country?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I am happy to yield to the distinguished 
ranking member of this committee, as we consider this transportation 
bill, even though we are talking about other very timely topics.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Is my understanding correct that the Senator said there 
will be no authority to be able to get documents or be able to subpoena 
information?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. This is what I was informed this morning by 
the leadership of this, that this commission is not going to have the 
ability to subpoena. If that commission that has just been announced 
over the weekend doesn't have the ability to subpoena people--witnesses 
and documents--then how can we get at the truth?
  What we want to do is get at the truth. We were told there were 
weapons of mass destruction and we were told there were unmanned aerial 
vehicles, pilotless drones, and we were told there was even a potential 
plan to put those drones on ships off the Atlantic coast to drop those 
chemical and biological weapons over eastern seaboard American cities, 
and all of that turned out not to be true.
  We were told that was the gospel truth when, in fact, as the 
Washington Post reported a week ago, there was a huge dispute in the 
intelligence community, including Air Force intelligence which knows 
best about unmanned aerial vehicles, and, as reported by the Post, that 
those UAVs did not exist to drop biological and chemical weapons.
  So why were we not told that there was a dispute in the intelligence 
community? It was presented to us before we voted on that resolution in 
October of 2002 as if it were the gospel truth.
  The long and short of it is the whole point of a commission is to get 
to the truth so we don't make these mistakes in the future. If the 
commission--a so-called independent commission--is not given the power 
to subpoena, how in the world are you going to get to the truth?
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Being one of those who never believed there was a 
threat of any kind and a sufficient level to warrant the war, it shocks 
me to find out the route being set up to verify what I believed to be 
the truth will have no power to find the truth. This is very disturbing 
for me.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. The distinguished 9/11 commission composed of 
well-respected and very accomplished people, headed by former Governor 
of New Jersey Kean and so many other distinguished citizens on that 
panel questioning the intelligence and trying to find out what went 
wrong on the September 11 attack, has been frustrated over and over 
again by delays and a lack of willingness to come forth with the 
information. If they have had that experience in the last year and a 
half, why are we to think this next so-called independent commission is 
going to have any different experience? I think, since what is at stake 
is the security of our homeland, raw election year politics is getting 
in the way much to the frustration of those members of the panel and 
certainly to the frustration of this Senator.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Senator from Florida for enlightening me on 
this very disturbing news. I will do whatever I can, working with him 
and with others, to make sure we get the kind of resolution for finding 
the information which should be ours to be able to make judgments. I 
thank the Senator very much for his statement.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Intelligence Community Assessments

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the controversy 
surrounding the intelligence community's assessments of Iraq's weapons 
of mass destruction programs and capabilities in the months leading up 
to the military action in Iraq.
  It has been suggested that the intelligence community failed 
policymakers by presenting a picture of Iraq's WMD capacities that 
appears to have been far more advanced than the reality on the ground. 
It has been suggested that, as we have all heard, certain pieces of 
information were presented as certainties when, in reality, the 
accuracy of the information was very much in dispute among experts 
within the intelligence community.
  I made a concerted effort to go to every briefing that was offered, 
and I think I largely succeeded, or maybe had entirely succeeded. I 
went to briefings for all Members, and I also went, of course, to the 
special briefings that were held for members of the Foreign Relations 
Committee. I am not a member of the Intelligence Committee and perhaps 
that committee had access to information dramatically different from 
what was put before the rest of us.
  What I recall is that the CIA representatives who briefed us were 
careful and their statements were qualified. As CIA Director George 
Tenet recently indicated, it was made clear disagreements existed about 
how to interpret some pieces of information.
  What I remember about the CIA is that they played it straight. I wish 
I could say the same about the political rhetoric that some in the 
administration used to characterize the content of those briefings.
  Of course, I am certainly not saying the CIA is perfect or that the 
U.S. intelligence community is perfect. No one who reviewed the joint 
Intelligence Committee's report on 9/11 would make such a claim. And I 
am not asserting that all of the CIA's information and analysis 
presented in the lead-up to the Iraq war was correct. But what I am 
saying is, in the many briefings I attended I simply saw no evidence--
no evidence--to support the accusations that the CIA was trying to spin 
the facts or that they were trying to lead us in one direction or 
another.
  My sense was that they were professionals, and I remember being very 
grateful for their thorough and candid presentations. In fact, in those 
briefings, they didn't give us easy answers, and that made our 
decisions tougher. But the people expect us to make tough decisions.
  Time and again, I came away from the briefing room concerned about 
the unanswered questions related to Iraq's chemical and biological 
weapons capacities. But I also came away each time with the conclusion 
that we had no evidence of any imminent threat. Indeed, Director Tenet 
acknowledged that the CIA never characterized Iraq's WMD programs as an 
imminent threat when Mr. Tenet made his remarks last week.
  When the President of the United States called Iraq ``a threat of 
unique urgency,'' that sure sounded a lot like imminent to many ears. 
When senior officials, speaking about Iraq, told us they did not want 
the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud, that sure sounded like an 
imminent threat of nuclear attack to most Americans.
  Yet just last week, CIA Director Tenet reminded the country the 
agency made two judgments that are too often overlooked today. They 
said:


[[Page S765]]


       Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would 
     have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009.

  Of course, that is a serious issue certainly but not an imminent 
threat.
  The fact that the briefings we received did not present a picture of 
an imminent threat certainly did not mean there was no cause for 
concern or that the right course of action would have been to do 
nothing. Those who claim the only choices before us were rushing to war 
or being utterly complacent are quite simply misleading the American 
people.
  I had long supported regime change in Iraq, and I am pleased that 
Saddam Hussein's regime has fallen. But the facts did not suggest that 
we had to invade Iraq in March of 2003. That means we could have had 
more time to build a solid international coalition, to combat some of 
the most damaging misperceptions of American motives and intentions, 
and more time to put in place a plan of action that would address our 
security interests without leaving American troops and American 
taxpayers holding the bag at the end of the day, bogged down in a risky 
occupation and mortgaging our children's future to pay for it.
  Director Tenet said last week: To understand a difficult topic like 
Iraq takes patience and care. He is right. The same is true of 
understanding this debate and this controversy. That is why it is so 
important to discuss these issues carefully and responsibly. It is 
important because the stakes are so very high and because the public, 
especially our men and women in uniform and their families, who take 
tremendous risks and make tremendous sacrifices to serve this country, 
has every right to know what happened, what the facts were, what we got 
right and what we got wrong.
  One of the difficulties for those of us who attend classified 
briefings, of course, is that we have an obligation to protect the 
content of those briefings. So we are limited in what we can say 
publicly. We are left to generalize and we run the risk of 
characterizing the same briefings in very different ways, leading us to 
debates about one person's interpretation versus another's. For this 
reason, an independent commission is desperately needed.
  I am glad the President has agreed to establish a commission to 
examine our prewar intelligence. But I am concerned about the specifics 
of the commission's mandate. It is charged with examining the 
intelligence community's capacity to collect, process, analyze, 
produce, and disseminate information concerning the capabilities, 
intentions, and activities of foreign powers relating to the design, 
development, manufacture and acquisition, possession, proliferation, 
transfer, testing, potential or threatened use or use of WMD, related 
means of delivery, and other related threats of the 21st century. All 
of this, of course, is useful.
  In the wake of the horror of September 11, 2001, we must make every 
effort to ensure that America's intelligence services are as reliable 
and effective and accountable as they possibly can be. As I have 
indicated, I believe a large part of our problem in the runup to the 
war in Iraq was a problem of how intelligence was used, how it was 
invoked, sometimes out of context, and how in some cases it was used in 
powerful and often frightening rhetoric aimed at painting a much more 
conclusive picture than the actual intelligence revealed.
  Intelligence, as all data, can be manipulated. I am concerned about 
the appearance of a concerted effort to interpret information to 
justify a seemingly predetermined course of action and to too easily 
disregard information that could not be used for this purpose. I think 
such an approach serves no one. I think it actually diminishes American 
power. I think it risks making this country far less secure.
  So we must investigate matters such as the activities of the Office 
of Special Plans at the Pentagon, which seems to have been charged with 
sifting through information to assemble only those pieces that 
bolstered the case for going to war.
  We must also address the way that intelligence was alluded to in 
public settings, in ways that painted a much more decisive picture than 
actually existed. Obviously, not all Americans could be in the briefing 
room, but all Americans hear the public debate.
  Those of us who receive and act on classified briefings have a 
vitally important responsibility to ensure that we never abuse their 
trust. I believe we need to make sure that in our efforts to review 
intelligence-gathering capacities and analysis capacities we do not 
fail to take a hard look at how policymakers employ intelligence in 
public remarks. Our words and our characterizations matter. The context 
that it is or is not provided matters. Even now some would insist that 
Iraq was a threat to America because even if Saddam Hussein did not 
have WMD, he had the capacity to make a weapon. But chemical or 
biological weapons could be produced in dual-use facilities in almost 
every country that has any significant domestic, pharmaceutical, or 
chemical manufacturing capacity.

  This is a serious issue to be sure, but it does not make the case for 
the threat of unique urgency a good case. It does not make for a threat 
of unique urgency directed at the American people.
  Finally, I propose that we need to take a look at how people 
responded and prepared for things we were warned about in briefings 
about Iraq, some of which then became public knowledge. Given what we 
all heard in the briefing room about the possibility that Iraq 
continued to possess biological and chemical weapons stockpiles and 
given the administration's clear belief that such stockpiles existed, 
why was there no better policy planning and execution when it came to 
rounding up these things?
  Former chief weapons inspector David Kay has suggested that we may 
just all have to live with, as he called it, an unresolved ambiguity 
about what happened, that he traces to the failure on April 9 to 
establish immediate physical security in Iraq.
  The looting that ensued has introduced a host of alarming unknowns 
into our consideration of what might have happened to the materiel that 
may or may not have existed in the first place and, quite frankly, any 
assertion that the United States would not have anticipated this 
looting has no credibility whatsoever. From think tanks to military 
planners to nongovernmental organizations, there were multiple, 
consistent, and high-level warnings about the risks of chaos and 
looting in the wake of the regime's fall.
  There were plenty of questions about this issue which were never 
satisfactorily answered in the lead-up to war. In fact, I spent over 6 
months, primarily in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, repeatedly 
asking whatever administration witness I could the same important 
questions. For example, I remember asking Secretary Powell in 2002: Are 
you aware of any significant planning for securing weapons of mass 
destruction sites in Iraq in the event of a military invasion if the 
Government would be toppled and some degree of chaos were to rein for 
some period? Is there not a very real risk that WMD and the means to 
make them will be taken out of the country or sold off to exactly the 
kind of nonstate actors that the United States is worried about? Do we 
know enough about where WMD sites are to be confident in our ability to 
secure them, I asked the Secretary of State?
  Secretary Powell could provide no details. He simply assured me that 
our military planners were making this issue their highest priority. 
Those military planners never provided any details, either.
  In the end, we are left with video footage of the unchecked looting 
of the country, with unanswered questions, with David Kay's unresolved 
ambiguity. So we have a case of inadequate follow-up on a vitally 
important issue presented to us by the intelligence community and that, 
too, is something we need to review and address in the interest 
of national security.

  We have a lot of work to do. Some of that certainly does involve 
reforms of the intelligence community. I believe our biggest problems 
did not come in the briefing room. In the interest of our national 
security, in the interest of protecting the public's trust in 
Government, in the interest of this country's global prestige and power 
to persuade, we have to avoid scapegoating tactics. We have to face 
some hard truths about the process and the rhetoric that led this 
country into Iraq in March 2003.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

[[Page S766]]

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I came to the Chamber to speak about the 
highway bill, and obviously we hope to be talking about that later on 
today, but having taken the responsibility of serving on the 
Intelligence Committee, I thought I might add a few comments to the 
discussions begun by my colleague from Wisconsin.
  Let's be clear; the Senate Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan 
basis has launched a massive effort to determine whether our 
intelligence was accurate, where it had holes in it, where are our 
assessments and our estimates.
  In intelligence, they are all estimates. The only time there is 
absolute confirmation that something has happened is when the World 
Trade Center comes down or when the Pentagon is hit. Then one knows 
that terrorists have planned something and have executed it.
  We were dealing with an intelligence system that provided estimates 
throughout the 1990s and no action was taken. The intelligence service 
provided estimates about the danger of Osama bin Laden. We considered 
all kinds of actions, and then September 11 happens.
  Now, the September 11 commission goes in to try to determine why we 
did not act on the intelligence we had. The big charge there is that 
something should have been done about Osama bin Laden. Well, there are 
now published reports on the intelligence, and I would refer my 
colleagues to Richard Miniter's book ``Losing bin Laden.'' There were 
many instances where it was clear that Osama bin Laden was planning to 
attack the United States. In several instances, it appeared that in the 
1990s we might have had an opportunity to deal with Osama bin Laden in 
one way or another and we chose not to do it. So right after September 
11 we are looking backwards and saying, Why did we not act? Now my 
colleagues, primarily on the other side of the aisle, are saying, Why 
did we act in Iraq?

  Let's be perfectly clear. When people start talking about imminent 
threat, seeming to imply that the President said there was an imminent 
threat, I distinctly remember the State of the Union message in which 
the President said: We cannot wait until there is an imminent threat. 
In essence, he was saying we cannot wait until we see the second 
airplane heading for the second tower of the World Trade Center.
  Why were we suspicious of Saddam Hussein? The same reason President 
Clinton, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, Security Council Chief 
Sandy Berger had? They said Saddam Hussein was a real and great threat. 
He was in flagrant violation of all the U.N. resolutions which followed 
on the cease-fire in the first gulf war.
  He kicked the inspectors out in 1998. We know he was the only despot 
alive, the only tyrant ruling a country, who used weapons of mass 
destruction, and he kicked the inspectors out without ever saying what 
he had done with them.
  Sure, there will be things we can find out about what we should have 
done differently in intelligence. There has already been public 
discussion about the lack of human intelligence resources. We may find 
that. We may find other things when we complete our work in the 
Intelligence Committee and submit a report to be fully declassified and 
discussed.
  We need to make our intelligence system better. I think we have gone 
a long way. The PATRIOT Act broke down the walls between the CIA and 
the FBI, which legislatively prohibited them sharing information. That 
was a mistake. We have changed that.
  Some of my colleagues say we ought to look at the use, look at what 
people said about that. You don't need to have a commission to do that. 
You have a Lexis-Nexis search to find out what people said. Are some 
people making charges? Yes, everybody has a right to make their 
comments about whether they believed the intelligence. A lot of that 
intelligence has been laid out in the public.
  I was astounded at the degree to which Secretary Powell's discussion 
before the United Nations in February of 2003 went into so much of the 
intelligence we had at the time. That was out on the table. That was 
the best intelligence Secretary Powell had. Published reports indicate 
he went through that intelligence himself and asked questions and only 
used those things about which he was personally satisfied the 
intelligence estimates were accurate.
  So, yes, use--we did use it. We did act. Saddam Hussein is no longer 
ruling a country, murdering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of 
people. We pulled him out of a spider hole. He said he was a great 
ruler of the Iraqi people. He wanted to negotiate. Well, he is in jail.
  You know something, Muammar Qadhafi in Libya took a look at what 
happened to Saddam Hussein and said: ``Oh, I don't think I want to wind 
up like Saddam Hussein did.'' That is what he told Italian President 
Berlesconi. ``I don't want to see happen to me what happened to Saddam 
Hussein.'' So he is coming clean based on the information we had 
gathered about his weaponry, his participation with Dr. Kahn of 
Pakistan. We knew he had weapons and was working on a weapons program 
and he came clean. I think that makes a great deal of sense.

  There has been a tremendous change in the Middle East. There has been 
a change because Saddam Hussein no longer rules. It is a tragedy when 
we lose American lives. It is a tragedy when Iraqi lives are lost. But 
the Iraqis are slowly but steadily taking back control of their 
country.
  Let's talk about what David Kay found. David Kay said when all the 
facts are known, it will appear, I believe, that Saddam Hussein was a 
far greater danger than our intelligence even knew. Our intelligence 
was not adequate before the first gulf war. We didn't know how far 
along he was at that time with his nuclear program. We did not know, 
apparently, according to Dr. Kay, how far along he was with his long-
range missile program. It was a country, Dr. Kay said, which was 
attracting terrorists like ants to honey, to come to a country busily 
engaged in pursuing means of getting at the infidels. That means 
anybody who doesn't agree with them.
  It is clear Ansar al-Islam had a ricin factory manufacturing that 
potent chemical, attempting to weaponize it, in northeast Iraq. It was 
under the direction of al Zarqawi. Ansar al-Islam is part of the 
brotherhood with al-Qaida.
  By the way, you probably read in the New York Times about what we 
learned about the memo, from al Zarqawi. He was totally frustrated 
because he thinks the infidel, i.e., the coalition, our coalition, 
seems to be winning. We are making progress. We are turning Iraq back 
to the Iraqis and we have not cut and run. Their effort to conduct 
jihad is getting more and more difficult as we get more and more Iraqis 
engaged as police, as soldiers.
  Danger still exists, but the danger that Saddam Hussein or the 
terrorist groups operating out of Iraq will be able to do so with 
impunity and continue to pursue their weapons of mass destruction 
programs is much less now that Saddam Hussein is in captivity.
  You can talk about what the President said, what the President did, 
but I believe what we are seeing in the Middle East, what we have heard 
publicly from Dr. Kay, indicates we have taken a major step toward 
lessening the likelihood of terrorist attacks on the United States and 
toward stabilizing the Middle East so it will no longer be a hotbed and 
a haven for terrorists.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for 
his remarks. Perhaps they were intended as response to my remarks or 
perhaps they were general remarks, but my remarks have to do with the 
fact there is a perception in this country that somehow the briefings 
the CIA gave us with regard to Iraq were distorted or inappropriate or 
oversold the case for the war.
  My purpose here was to indicate that is not the way I saw it. I was 
in those briefings. As I have indicated, I felt the CIA was very 
measured and careful in its presentation.
  The Senator from Missouri can talk as much as he wants about whether 
Iraq worked or not, and what the consequences are. But there are real 
consequences when Members of both parties decide to tell the public the 
misinformation or the problems were the fault of the CIA.
  I think that is dangerous for the CIA. I think it is dangerous for 
our country.

[[Page S767]]

I think it is dangerous for how we are perceived in the world.
  Some of the members of the other party--including the administration, 
frankly--and some of the members of my own party are pointing their 
fingers at what we heard in the briefings. I want everyone to know that 
I went to the briefings. I did not hear a compelling case for the war 
to be conducted at that time.
  Regardless of what has happened since, I would be happy to debate at 
any point whether it was the right thing to do and whether how we did 
it was the right thing to do. Regardless of all that, the point is, as 
one Senator who went to those briefings and did not hear the case made, 
I give the CIA credit for being measured and careful. And we should 
thank Mr. Tenet for his leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a truly bad idea 
that has been proposed on this floor. I believe an amendment was 
discussed yesterday when I was not here--I didn't have an opportunity 
to hear it--to provide stiff sanctions on States which do not have 
primary seatbelt laws. The goal is to move every State up to 90 percent 
seatbelt use. It specifically says States would be sanctioned if they 
did not meet one of the following two conditions within 3 years of the 
enactment of this bill: Either have a primary seatbelt law which would 
allow law enforcement to pull over a driver if that officer sees the 
driver is not wearing a seatbelt without having to arrest them for any 
other infraction, or the State does not get up to a 90 percent seatbelt 
use rate.
  In other words, it would require a State to achieve a 90 percent 
seatbelt use, and it left it up to the individual States on how to get 
there.
  The objective of getting to 90 percent seatbelt use is a worthwhile 
one. As Governor of Missouri, I talked often about the need for 
seatbelts.
  When I was young, the primary entertainment when we weren't listening 
to Cardinal baseball was to crawl under the fence and go out and watch 
the stock car races. I watched stock car races every Friday night. 
Sometimes I paid to get in but not often. There were horrendous wrecks 
every night. Yet the drivers wore harnesses and seatbelts. I saw one 
driver taken off. He had severe alcohol poisoning because of fuel he 
had taken internally. But I never saw anybody hurt.
  I have been in two serious crashes in my life. Both times I had on a 
seatbelt. I was shaken up and scared. In the first one, the other 
driver was taken to the hospital unconscious. I did not find out until 
the next day whether he had survived.
  I am a believer in seatbelt use. I have sponsored and pushed for 
seatbelts and for safety seats for infants. I tried to get them on 
airplanes. But I don't believe taking money away from the 36 States 
that don't have primary seatbelt laws is a way to get there.
  If the State fails to meet either of the conditions--either the 90-
percent seatbelt use rate or enactment of a primary seatbelt law--the 
State would lose 2 percent of its general highway safety funds, and the 
sanction increases to 4 percent for each successive year. The sanctions 
approach would decrease the amount of funding available to make the 
necessary investment in safety for their transportation system.
  States that do not enact a primary seatbelt law or do not achieve a 
90-percent use rate will get less funding and fall behind other States 
in safety. That is not the way to encourage States to increase safety. 
That is a way to make some States fall further behind.
  I know more lives can be saved with seatbelts. Good friends of mine 
who are troopers have said they have never unbuckled a dead driver from 
a seatbelt, although they have taken a lot of dead people out of cars 
in car accidents. I do not believe, however, the Federal Government 
should sanction States, trying to get people to use seatbelts. The 
Federal Government would force enactment of primary seatbelt laws. This 
approach is essentially Federal blackmail by Congress. It is telling 
the States we are not going to return the money you pay into the 
Federal highway trust fund because some of us in Washington, DC, think 
your State legislature and your Governor need to enact this law. Well, 
that is the purpose of the folks we elect at the State level to 
represent us in our general assemblies and to represent us in our 
Governors' offices.
  I held the office of Governor at one point. I spent an awful lot of 
time looking at federally imposed mandates, many of which did not make 
any sense. They told us, for example, we had to use our clean water 
funds to clean up water from our major cities going back into the 
Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, putting in water that was higher 
quality than was already in the river. We wanted to use it on the 
pristine Ozark streams where small communities and septic tanks were 
seriously downgrading streams which had been fishable, swimmable, and 
drinkable. The priority did not make sense for Missouri.
  I came up here to try to work with the States, not to tell States 
that we are not going to send back money you send to Washington unless 
you adopt our idea.
  Only 20 States have decided to enact a primary seatbelt law. Other 
States have decided a primary seatbelt law is not the way to increase 
seatbelt usage.
  Missouri has made great strides in seatbelt use, and this has been 
done without a primary seatbelt law. As you can see on this chart, the 
States which have primary seatbelt laws have the bold numbers. You 
start out with Alabama, California, Connecticut, the District of 
Columbia--everybody in the District of Columbia knows you get pulled 
over if you are not wearing a seatbelt--Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, 
Louisiana, Maryland, and Michigan, to name the lefthand side.
  You can see what progress they have made. Alabama has a primary 
seatbelt law. In 2002, they had 79 percent usage, and it fell back to 
77 percent in 2003. They went down. Other States are nowhere near that. 
Virginia, for example, has no primary seatbelt law, apparently, 
according to this chart. In 2003 it only had 75 percent seatbelt usage. 
The good news is, reduction in non-use, from 30 percent to 25 percent, 
was a 17-percent reduction.
  The State of Missouri has gone from 31-percent non-use to 27-percent 
non-use without the seatbelt law. Why should this body say we are going 
to take money away from the State of Missouri because we don't like the 
way you are reducing non-usage of seatbelts?
  I think public statements--and I certainly have made them, and will 
continue to make them--educational campaigns and incentives are the way 
to go to improve usage.
  When you look at this chart, you see a lot of States with seatbelt 
usage that is definitely below 90 percent. For most of them, the usage 
is 70 and 80 percent. We are making progress. We ought to continue to 
do that with incentives. If you give States incentives, they have the 
flexibility to use their own solutions to increase seatbelt use. That 
flexibility would be lost. States would be limited in their ability to 
educate the public with regard to the importance of highway safety. 
They would lose safety money. That makes no sense.
  The enforcement of primary seatbelt laws costs the State a lot of 
money, from increased law enforcement personnel, hours of work for 
clerical representation, and prosecutions. Is that the best way to use 
their law enforcement people? I think that is something that is better 
left to the authorities in the individual States.
  We have to stop this sanctions approach and, I believe, use 
incentives. Under title I, under the Commerce Committee report, NHTSA 
would be authorized to use over $3.5 billion in grant funding and 
approximately $800 million for vehicle safety-related rules. The NHTSA 
programs would pay strong attention to driver safety and seatbelt use.
  Under the National Highway Safety Program, section 104 grants would 
be administered by NHTSA in three high-visibility areas of safety: to 
reduce alcohol-impaired driving, drug-impaired driving, and increase 
seatbelt usage. I

[[Page S768]]

believe that is the appropriate way to go.
  The amendment that was described yesterday represents a double 
penalty for States that do not enact primary seatbelt laws. In fiscal 
year 2005 and thereafter, 10 percent of section 148 funds--those are 
funds for highway safety improvement--would be transferred to the 
section 402 program unless the State has a primary safety belt law or 
has achieved at least a 90-percent safety belt use rate.
  Beginning in 2007, 2 percent of the interstate maintenance, surface 
transportation, and bridge programs would be withheld from States that 
do not have a primary seatbelt law or a 90-percent usage rate. The 
percentage withheld would rise to 4 percent in fiscal year 2008 and 
thereafter. If Congress enacts these sanctions, we are not likely to 
authorize incentives. The States have used section 157 safety belt 
incentive grant funding to support national safety belt mobilization 
and other safety belt enforcement activities. Without the incentives, 
the States would have drastically reduced resources for those purposes.
  I believe enactment of a primary safety belt penalty mandate, forced 
upon the States, is premature and unwarranted. There has never been a 
sufficient program to convince the States to enact primary seatbelt 
laws or to find other means of increasing usage and decreasing nonusage 
of seatbelts.
  Under the Senate Commerce bill, the new safety belt incentive grant 
program would provide the States with a grant of five times their 
apportionment if they enact a primary seatbelt law. We need to see if 
this program works and see if it is effective.

  Many Governors and State legislatures oppose penalties and sanctions. 
There are currently 18 penalties and sanctions, 7 of which are highway 
safety related. Increasingly, Congress has relied on punishing the 
States if they do not meet safety performance objectives. As a result, 
I think there is an understandable revolt and reaction growing to this 
approach. The ``Mother May I'' coming to Washington is bad enough, but 
when ``Mama Federal Government'' tells us: ``You have to do it this way 
or you don't get your supper,'' particularly when your voters, your 
constituents, your taxpayers have been the ones who have paid for that 
supper, that is, I think, a real problem. Typically, State legislatures 
being forced to do this are going to rebel, and I think it is very 
inappropriate.
  We have a letter from the executive director of the American 
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; the 
executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association; the 
president and chief executive officer of the American Highway Users 
Alliance; the executive director of the International Association of 
Chiefs of Police; the executive director of the Commercial Vehicle 
Safety Alliance; the chief executive officer of the Associated General 
Contractors of America; the executive director of the American Traffic 
Safety Services Association; the executive director of the National 
Conference of State Legislatures; the executive director of the 
American Road & Transportation Builders Association; the president of 
the American Council of Engineering Companies; the vice president of 
Public Affairs of AAA, and the executive director of the National 
Governors Association, all saying:

     . . . we oppose the use of penalties and sanctions.
       Our organization supports the underlying safety goals. We 
     believe the use of sanctions and penalties reflect an all-or-
     nothing approach that forces absolute and unconditional 
     compliance with Federal safety requirements or goals while 
     stifling innovation and redirecting funds from highway 
     construction and maintenance projects with tangible safety 
     benefits.

  That makes the case very well.
  I ask unanimous consent to print this letter in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 January 30, 2004.
     Hon. Senator Bond,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Bond: The organization listed below represent 
     a broad array of national, state and local elected leaders, 
     policymakers and transportation and highway safety interests. 
     Our organizations oppose the use of sanctions and penalties. 
     We believe the use of sanctions and penalties reflect an all-
     or-nothing approach that forces absolute and unconditional 
     compliance with federal safety requirements or goals while 
     stifling innovation and redirecting funds from highway 
     construction and maintenance projects with tangible safety 
     benefits.
       Currently states face eight highway safety-related 
     sanctions and penalties that are designed to force compliance 
     with various federal highway safety mandates or goals 
     including enactment, by specified deadlines, of various types 
     of state safety legislation. While our organizations support 
     the underlying safety goals, we oppose the use of penalties 
     and sanctions. In fact, many of our organizations have 
     adopted the new United States Department of Transportation's 
     safety goal of 1.0 fatalities per hundred million vehicle 
     miles of overall highway travel by 2008--a one-third 
     reduction in today's rate. Sanctions and penalties decrease 
     the amount of funding available to the states to make 
     necessary investments to the highway system, compromising the 
     construction, rehabilitation, operation and maintenance of a 
     safe highway system. Fewer resources to invest means delays 
     in roadway and intersection improvements, fewer dollars for 
     upgrading highway signage and markings, and less funding 
     available for investment in safety research.
       We urge you to employ incentives and positive strategies to 
     encourage states to accomplish both public safety and 
     transportation-related objectives rather than adopting a 
     negative sanctions approach. Incentives from an increased 
     overall multiyear funding program give states the flexibility 
     and resources to find creative solutions to safety problems 
     that fit their needs while ensuring stable funding for 
     improving, constructing, operating and maintaining safe 
     highways.
       As you consider reauthorization of the Transportation 
     Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), we urge you to 
     reject any changes to current law that would impose new 
     sanctions or penalties on the states for failure to comply 
     with federal highway safety mandates and goals.
           Sincerely,
         John Horsley, Executive Director, American Association of 
           State Highway and Transportation Officials; Barbara L. 
           Harsha, Executive Director, Governors Highway Safety 
           Association; Diane Steed, President and Chief Executive 
           Officer, The American Highway Users Alliance; David 
           Rosenblatt, Executive Director, International 
           Association of Chiefs of Police; Stephen Campbell, 
           Executive Director, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance; 
           Stephen Sandherr, Chief Executive Officer, Associated 
           General Contractors of America.
         Roger Wentz, Executive Director, American Traffic Safety 
           Services Association; William T. Pound, Executive 
           Director, National Conference of State Legislatures; 
           Peter Ruane, Executive Director, American Road & 
           Transportation Builders Association; David A. Raymond, 
           President, American Council of Engineering Companies; 
           Susan Pikrallidas, Vice President, Public Affairs, AAA; 
           Ray Scheppach, Executive Director, National Governors 
           Association.

  Mr. BOND. I urge my colleagues to oppose any effort to mandate 
primary laws or arbitrary usage of seatbelts on the States.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I would like to continue my discussion 
about key provisions of S. 1072. In particular, I would like to discuss 
some of the bicycle and pedestrian provisions. According to the 
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 5,600 pedestrians and 
bicyclists were killed in traffic accidents in 2001. Tens of thousands 
more were injured in traffic accidents.
  In that same year, more than one-fifth of the bikers killed in 
traffic crashes were between the ages of 5 and 15, our Nation's 
children. Pedestrian and bicyclist fatality numbers have been slowly 
decreasing over the years, but one death is too many. We must improve 
our record.
  S. 1072 provides resources to help States address this safety 
problem. Our bill reauthorizes the bicycle/pedestrian provisions found 
in TEA-21. We recognize the importance of these provisions. More people 
walking and bicycling means fewer people in cars. It means healthier 
communities and a cleaner environment. We should promote it. Under our 
proposal, States may continue to use core program dollars to fund 
improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians.

  However, if we really want to encourage people to walk and bicycle 
around

[[Page S769]]

our communities, we must make these activities safer. Mr. President, 
5,600 fatalities is an unacceptable number.
  In addition to reauthorizing current programs, our bill directs the 
Secretary of Transportation to make safety grants to fund an 
information clearinghouse and educational programs to promote bicycle 
and pedestrian safety. These provisions will support existing efforts 
to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to transportation facilities 
and to enhance safety for all transportation users.
  I believe that these provisions in the bill, if taken into use by our 
States and communities, will do a great deal to protect the children 
presently in our system and in the future.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________