[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16981]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   FIREFIGHTING HELP IN SOUTH DAKOTA

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I haven't had the opportunity yet today 
to welcome all of our colleagues back and to express my hope that we 
use this next period as productively and as successfully as we can.
  As have most of my colleagues, I had the opportunity to spend a good 
deal of time at home in South Dakota for the last 3 weeks.
  I especially want to commend the Forest Service for the extraordinary 
job they have done in fighting historically the most consequential fire 
we have had in the State now, with 85,000 acres of timberland burned. I 
am grateful for the response we have had from people all over the 
country. I especially thank the Forest Service, the Governor of the 
State of South Dakota, William Janklow, for the remarkable job he has 
done, the National Guard for their response, and the volunteer fire 
departments from all over the State of South Dakota and surrounding 
region.
  We are grateful for their extraordinary response, and we are grateful 
as well for the effort that has been made to contain the fire which is 
now 85-percent contained.
  I thank the volunteer ambulance personnel whom I met from all over 
the State. We are experiencing what many of our colleagues are 
experiencing with volunteer ambulance service. Many of them are on the 
verge of going out of business because of reimbursement schedules for 
Medicare and Medicaid. Without those, especially in rural areas, we are 
in a very serious set of circumstances involving the health and in many 
cases the lives of people who live in rural areas today.
  I thank those in schools all over South Dakota who opened their doors 
and their offices to me in Kadoka, White River, Lemmon, and most of our 
Indian reservations in Belle Fourche. I thank them.
  I thank those who especially were willing to meet with me on hospital 
reimbursement and appreciate very much their willingness to talk about 
how serious the circumstances were with regard to Medicare 
reimbursement for hospitals and clinics throughout our State.
  I must say, at virtually every one of our stops we had occasion to 
talk about the unfinished agenda here in the Senate. I want to talk 
just briefly about that prior to the time we turn to another important 
piece of legislation, the energy and water bill.

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