[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9823-9827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. DURBIN (for himself, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Byrd, Mr. 
        Hollings, Mr. Specter, and Ms. Mikulski):
  S. 979. A bill to amend United States trade laws to address more 
effectively import crises, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce bipartisan 
legislation known as the Fair Trade Law Reform Act of 2001 with my 
colleagues Senators Rockefeller, Byrd, Hollings, Specter, and Mikulski. 
This legislation will change for the better the way we trade with our 
global trading partners.
  We talked a lot about trade in the last Congress. We voted to extend 
Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to China. We debated and passed 
the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act. Now, we have a new 
administration

[[Page 9824]]

asking for Trade Promotion Authority and bilateral trade agreements 
with Jordan and Vietnam.
  Today, we have just passed the President's tax bill. As far as I am 
concerned, the Congress and more specifically the Senate Committee on 
Finance should now turn its attention to the important matter of trade 
between our country and our global trading partners around the world. 
We need to have a discussion about what we are doing to make sure our 
manufacturers, our steel makers, our textile workers and our farmers 
are able to compete on a level playing field.
  One industry, in particular, has been facing a deluge of imports from 
some 30 nations. The U.S. steel industry has for the last 4 years been 
battered by imports from foreign countries. We know from prior unfair 
trade cases that much of it is being dumped on our shores, and 
subsidized by foreign governments, at prices that are at historic lows. 
And we are talking about blatant subsidization. Look at the Korean 
government's relation to Hanbo and Posco. To this date, they have not 
fully divested their government role in those two steelmaking entities.
  Many of the same nations who have been exporting steel to the U.S., 
have erected import restraints in their own countries or have filed 
dumping cases to keep this deluge from their own shores. The U.S. has 
become the export market of first and last resort for the whole world.
  Some of these same nations throughout Europe and Asia, who erected 
trade barriers to this onslaught because of the harm it threatened over 
there, are arguing that our industry is not similarly threatened, or 
that our law doesn't permit us to take remedial action, even 
temporarily. Some argue that the industry has not been sufficiently 
harmed by this situation. Not enough firms have gone under, not enough 
workers have been laid off. In other words, in order to prove 
sufficient harm to save your job, you must first lose it.
  One week ago today, Northwestern Wire and Rod in Sterling, IL, shut 
down its furnace. It will roll out the rest of its billets and then 
close its doors. That's almost 1,500 employees. Over one-third of the 
residents of Sterling get their health insurance through Northwestern 
steel. Acme Steel has had financial difficulties. Five Illinois steel 
companies have either shut their doors or declared bankruptcy since 
1998 and I don't see an end in sight.
  My constituents are told that this is just the ``free market'' at 
work. That this is just the world markets working out the kinks. I find 
all this incredible. Some of these other nations must be laughing up 
their sleeves at our apparent helplessness and we are the only ones who 
don't get the joke.
  Let me state for the record: I believe that free trade is very 
important for the United States. I also believe that fair trade is just 
as important. We are not helpless. We do not expect our businesses to 
all go under, our workers to all be laid off, before we wake up and 
take action.
  We must take action in the 107th Congress to address basic 
inadequacies of our trade laws. We have made it easier to send our 
products and services to other countries. Yet, we haven't seemed to be 
able to address successfully the steel crisis that's been with us now 
for nearly 4 years.
  Our trade laws, particularly the antidumping and countervailing duty 
laws, have long been, and remain, critically important to the U.S. 
manufacturing sector. They are the last line of defense for U.S. 
industries, operating on market-economy principles, against injury 
caused by unfairly traded imports. The heart of U.S. trade policy 
maintains that while America keeps an open market to fairly traded 
goods of any origin, our industries and workers will not be subject to 
injury from unfairly traded imports because the trade laws will be 
enforced and kept up-to-date.
  The last general reform of the U.S. trade laws, unconnected to any 
particular trade agreement, occurred more than a decade ago. In that 
time, the problems to which these laws must respond have changed 
considerably, as underscored by the late 1990s Asian and Russian 
economic conflagrations and the ripple effect of results felt 
worldwide. It has become painfully clear that current trade laws are 
either incapable of responding to the kinds of sudden import surges--
causing dramatic and rapid injury--or we have had various 
administrations that were unable to enforce them.
  Our trade laws themselves are fully consistent with WTO rules. But 
they need to be revisited and made stronger. This bipartisan 
legislation would do several things:
  First, we should strengthen section 201 language by removing a very 
high causation standard and replacing that standard with a lower 
threshold by which U.S. industries and workers can prove their cases 
more easily. Let me state for the record that if we reform our trade 
laws and we ensure our trading partners know we are serious about 
enforcing those laws, the incentive to dump steel or other imported 
products will be reduced.
  Second, the AD/CVD sections of this bill respond to the fact that 
current U.S. law makes relief unnecessarily difficult to obtain, 
imposing standards more onerous than those in the relevant WTO 
agreements. By updating the antidumping and countervailing duty laws, 
in light of new global economic realities to which those laws must now 
respond, we will reverse errant court decisions that had limited the 
laws' remedial reach in a manner never contemplated by the Congress.
  And finally, we will establish a steel import monitoring provision, 
comparable to WTO-compatible programs maintained by other WTO members 
such as the EU, Canada, and Mexico.
  The Congress, I might add, has not been silent during this debate 
over the last several years. We have had extensive debate in both the 
House and Senate and we passed the Byrd-Durbin Steel Loan Guarantee 
Program last year. This legislation was intended to provide immediate 
relief to qualified steel firms that have fallen on hard times. 
Unfortunately, the loan guarantee wasn't as successful as we had hoped. 
Despite a guarantee of 85 percent by the Federal Government, private 
creditors didn't step up to the plate and do their part to help our 
Nation's steel industry.
  So, despite our still growing economy, despite our efforts to date, 
despite fiscal dilemmas in other parts of the world, we can't forget 
the steel industry. With over 10,000 steelworkers out of jobs and 
imports still fluctuating, I want to go home and tell my constituents 
in the steel pipe and tube industry that we have a solution to their 
woes. Let's send a clear signal to our trading partners, to our 
farmers, and to our manufacturers that we don't intend to stand by and 
lose more and more jobs because of unfair trading practices.
  I thank my colleagues for helping me draft this legislation and I 
look forward to working with my colleagues on the Finance Committee to 
having hearings, to marking up this important piece of legislation, and 
enacting it into law.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues, 
Senators Durbin, Hollings, and Byrd, in introducing the Trade Law 
Reform Act of 2001. It has been far too long, well over a decade in 
fact, since the last general reform of our trade laws, and current 
circumstances, particularly the ongoing steel crisis that has resulted 
in 18 American steel companies declaring for bankruptcy since 1997, 
necessitate the prompt action of Congress.
  Nothing short of section 201 can save the American steel industry. I 
have written President Bush twice since he took office in January 
urgently pleading with him to initiate a section 201 case before the 
International Trade Commission. In the time between my first and second 
letters, five U.S. steelmakers filed for bankruptcy. Imports have 
continued at record levels and prices have not rebounded. Absent a 
Section 201, any measures we take up in the Congress to redress the 
steel crisis are akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
  Despite the necessity of an immediate section 201 on steel, we must 
not cease in our efforts to improve the proper functioning of our trade 
laws.

[[Page 9825]]

The safeguard, countervailing duty, and anti-dumping laws are vital to 
the manufacturing sector of our economy. They are often the first and 
last line of defense for U.S. industries injured by unfairly or 
illegally traded imports. Companies, workers, families, and communities 
rely heavily on these laws to prevent the ill-effects of unfair trade 
by our trading partners.
  Unfortunately, recent events like the steel import crisis have 
demonstrated how painfully inadequate our current trade laws are in 
responding to rapid import surges. The flooding of U.S. markets with 
unfairly or illegally traded steel has caused severe and irreparable 
harm to our steelworkers, their families, and communities, and it is 
high time we revisit our trade laws in an effort to make our laws more 
responsive to the changing realities of the global economy. In the case 
of steel, I refer to the problem of foreign steel overcapacity that 
continually finds its way into the open U.S. market where it seriously 
injures our domestic steel manufacturers.
  The reforms we are proposing today fall into three categories. Title 
I of the act improves the ability of our safeguard laws, often referred 
to as section 201, to adequately respond to import surges such as the 
flood of cheap steel that began to hit U.S. shores in 1997 and has not 
yet abated. Section 201 allows U.S. producers to obtain relief from 
serious injury that is substantially caused by imports even in the 
absence of unfair trade. However, the current U.S. safeguard standard 
for proving that a U.S. industry has been seriously injured by imports 
is stricter than the corresponding standard in the WTO Safeguards 
Agreement, a discrepancy which places U.S. manufacturers at a 
disadvantage with regard to their foreign trading partners. Whereas a 
foreign producer must prove only that an import surge, like the current 
steel import crisis, is a cause of injury, domestic producers are 
hindered by our trade laws which require our domestic industry to prove 
that the imports are a substantial cause of injury.
  This inequity hampers the ability of our domestic industries to 
obtain relief from unfairly traded imports and creates an unequal 
playing field on which our foreign trading partners have an advantage. 
It also contributes to making the U.S. the premiere dumping ground for 
illegal and unfairly traded imports, particularly in the case of steel. 
Our trading partners know the U.S. injury standard is high, and they 
exploit that fact. Title I simply brings the U.S. safeguard law with 
respect to the injury test into line with the WTO standard, thereby 
putting our domestic industries on equal footing with the rest of the 
world. Title I also contains other language to make section 201 more 
effective, such as provisions that expand the availability of early and 
meaningful provisional relief and more rapidly and effectively address 
import surges.
  Title II of this legislation updates our anti-dumping and 
countervailing duty laws to make them more effective for a rapidly-
changing marketplace. First, the bill makes it tougher for our trading 
partners to circumvent an anti-dumping or countervailing duty order. No 
longer will foreign nations be able to skirt around our laws by making 
slight alterations to the products they are exporting to the U.S. This 
legislation clarifies that antidumping and countervailing duty orders 
include products that have been changed in only minor respects.
  In addition, the bill provides that the ITC cannot conclude that 
imports do not have a significant effect on domestic prices simply on 
the basis of the magnitude or stability of the volume of imports. This 
allows the Commission to take into account the fact that in some cases 
and for some industries, even small volumes of imports can have 
significant price effects and negatively impact the domestic industry.
  Title III creates a steel import monitoring program designed to act 
as an early notification system when imports begin flooding the U.S. 
market. When the steel import surge began in July 1997, it was many 
months, even close to a year, before anyone in the administration would 
even admit that there was a spike in imports that was potentially 
harmful to the domestic industry. During that time, companies went 
bankrupt and thousands of steelworkers were laid off.
  These provisions will make it easier to track imports and provide 
much quicker notification of potentially harmful import surges. Quite 
simply, the sooner we learn of unfair import surges, the sooner the 
administration, Congress, and the industry itself can take the 
necessary steps to provide steelworkers and steel companies with the 
relief they deserve.
  By recognizing the changed reality of the international marketplace 
and how quickly import surges become major crises, the bill being 
introduced today provides much needed improvements of our trade laws. 
Too many of the current provisions designed to provide relief to our 
domestic manufacturing sector have been antiquated by recent changes in 
the global economy and the structure of international trade. It is time 
we reaffirm our commitment to our manufacturing base by updating and 
enhancing the very laws designed to protect U.S. manufacturers from 
unfair and illegal imports from abroad. The Trade Law Reform Act of 
2001 does just that.
  Once again, I must reiterate that only an immediate section 201 on 
steel can preserve basic steelmaking capacity in the United States. 
While this bill cannot solve the steel crisis by itself, it does 
represent a significant step in the right direction.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. FITZGERALD (for himself and Mr. Dorgan):
  S. 980. A bill to provide for the improvement of the safety of child 
restraints in passenger motor vehicles, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, late last year, Congress passed the 
Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation, or 
TREAD Act. That new law includes a bill I authored, the Child Passenger 
Act of 2000, which requires the Department of Transportation to update 
its standards on child safety seats for infants and toddlers. Today, I 
rise to introduce another bill, which represents the next step in our 
effort to ensure that all of our Nation's children are adequately 
protected in motor vehicle crashes.
  The purpose of this bill is to encourage greater use of booster 
seats, and thereby reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries 
to young children. Booster seats are seat belt positioning devices that 
are designed to protect children who have outgrown their car seats but 
are still too physically small to fit properly in an adult-sized safety 
belt.
  Safety advocates have coined the term ``forgotten child'' to describe 
the average occupant of a passenger vehicle who is at least 4 years 
old, but usually less than 8 or 9 years old, and less than 4'9" tall. 
According to the National Highway traffic Safety Administration, or 
NHTSA, only about 6 percent of children between the ages of 4 and 8 
years currently use booster seats when riding in motor vehicles. Too 
often, the child in this category has outgrown his child safety seat 
and is inappropriately placed in an adult-sized safety belt without a 
belt-positioning booster, or worse still, left completely unrestrained.
  Three-point shoulder and lap belts, even those in the back seat where 
it's recommended that children sit, currently are not made or tested 
for children. Children who are graduated at 40 pounds or so directly 
from their child safety seat to adult seatbelts can suffer serious 
harm, say researchers. In some crashes, the seatbelts don't restrain 
the child. In others, they do, but the shoulder belt that cuts across 
the small child's neck, and the lap belt that rides high over her 
abdomen, cause severe internal injuries to the liver, spleen, 
intestines and spinal cord. Medical doctors have characterized such 
injuries as ``lap belt syndrome.''
  Parents obviously want to do what is best for their children. Safety 
restraint use for children under a year old is 97 percent, and 91 
percent for children

[[Page 9826]]

ages one to four. These high usage rates are due in part to the 
education and outreach that has occurred through the Occupant 
Protection Incentive Grants Program, enacted in 1998. The authorization 
for that annual, $7.5 million grant program is about to expire. The 
legislation that I am introducing would extend the program for an 
additional two years.
  To an even greater extent. These high restraint usage rates for 
infants and toddlers are due to the enactment of mandatory child 
restraint usage laws in all 50 states. There is no similar uniform 
requirement for booster seat use, and there are very serious gaps in 
state laws regarding child restraint generally. For example, some 
states require seatbelts only for children sitting in the front seat, 
and others only require children to wear seatbelts if they are younger 
than 5 or 6 years. According to NHTSA, for children between age five 
and fifteen, restraint use is only 68.7 percent, and NHTSA data for 
1998 shows that over 47 percent of fatally injured children ages four 
to seven are completely unrestrained.
  Education is critical to closing this safety gap. A recent survey of 
1,000 parents and care givers conducted by NHTSA and DaimlerChrysler 
revealed that about 96 percent of parents and caregivers did not know 
the correct age for which a child no longer requires a booster seat or 
child safety seat.
  We know booster seats save lives, yet the overwhelming majority of 
states don't require them. Only three states, Arkansas, California, and 
Washington, have adopted mandatory booster seat laws. Recent attempts 
to pass meaningful legislation in other states, including my home state 
of Illinois, have failed.
  One obstacle that is holding back the states from adopting stronger 
laws is the lack of a Federal performance standard for booster seats 
for children who weigh more than 50 pounds. The legislation I am 
introducing today would give the Secretary of Transportation two years 
in which to come up with a new performance standard for booster seats. 
That standard would, of course, cover all children in booster seats, 
including those who are heavier than 50 pounds.
  In addition, this bill provides strong incentives for states to adopt 
responsible highway safety laws. It would extend grant money to states 
if they adopt seat belt laws for all children under the age of 16 as 
well as booster seat laws for some of these children.
  Many passenger cars have only a lap belt in the rear, center seating 
position of the vehicle, which generally means that you cannot install 
a booster seat there. Yet safety advocates say that the rear, center 
seating position is generally the safest place for a child to be in the 
event of a crash. To close this safety gap, my bill also would require 
the installation of lap and shoulder belts in each of the rear seats of 
newly manufactured passenger vehicles offered for sale in the United 
States. That new requirement,which may be phased in over a three-year 
period, is based on a recommendation of the National Transportation 
Safety Board.
  In closing, comprehensive medical data evidencing the benefits of 
booster seats is still being developed; and a lot of states have yet to 
adopt adequate safety belt laws. I believe that the safety of the 
``forgotten'' child is extremely important, and we need to consider all 
of the tools at our disposal to advance it. I therefore urge my 
colleagues to support this important measure.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                 S. 980

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Child Passenger Protection 
     Act of 2001''.

     SEC. 2. IMPROVEMENT OF SAFETY OF CHILD RESTRAINTS IN 
                   PASSENGER MOTOR VEHICLES.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 12 months after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation 
     shall initiate a rulemaking proceeding to establish a safety 
     standard for booster seats used in passenger motor vehicles. 
     The standard shall apply to any child occupant of a passenger 
     motor vehicle for whom a booster seat, used in combination 
     with an adult seat belt, is an appropriate form of child 
     restraint.
       (b) Elements for Consideration.--In the rulemaking 
     proceeding required by subsection (a), the Secretary shall--
       (1) consider whether or not to establish injury performance 
     criteria for children under the safety standard to be 
     established in the rulemaking proceeding;
       (2) consider whether or not to establish seat belt 
     positioning performance requirements for booster seats;
       (3) consider whether or not to establish a separate Federal 
     motor vehicle safety standard for booster seats or 
     incorporate booster seat requirements into an existing 
     Federal motor vehicle safety standard; and
       (4) review the definition of the term ``booster seat'', as 
     that term is defined in Standard No. 213, set forth in 
     section 571.213 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to 
     determine if it is sufficiently comprehensive.
       (c) Completion.--The Secretary shall complete the 
     rulemaking proceeding required by subsection (a) not later 
     than 24 months after the date of the enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 3. REPORT ON DEVELOPMENT OF CRASH TEST DUMMY SIMULATING 
                   A 10-YEAR OLD CHILD.

       Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Secretary of Transportation shall submit to the 
     Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the 
     Senate and the Commerce of the House of Representatives a 
     report on the current schedule and status of activities of 
     the Department of Transportation to develop and certify a 
     dummy that simulates a 10-year old child for use in testing 
     the effectiveness of child restraints used in passenger motor 
     vehicles.

     SEC. 4. REGULATIONS ON MANDATORY USE OF LAP AND SHOULDER 
                   BELTS.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 24 months after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation 
     shall complete a rulemaking proceeding to amend Standard No. 
     208, set forth in section 571.208 of title 49, Code of 
     Federal Regulations, in order to--
       (1) require each seat belt assembly in the rear seats of a 
     passenger motor vehicle to be a lap and shoulder belt 
     assembly; and
       (2) apply that requirement to passenger motor vehicles 
     beginning after the production year in which the regulations 
     are prescribed in compliance with the implementation schedule 
     under subsection (b).
       (b) Implementation Schedule.--The requirement prescribed 
     under subsection (a)(1) may be implemented through a phase-in 
     schedule prescribed by the Secretary which schedule may be 
     similar to the phase-in schedule set forth in paragraph 
     S.14.1.1 of section 571.208 of title 49, Code of Federal 
     Regulations, except that the requirement shall apply to not 
     less than--
       (1) 50 percent of a manufacturer's production of passenger 
     motor vehicles for the first production year to which the 
     requirement applies;
       (2) 80 percent of a manufacturer's production of passenger 
     motor vehicles for the second production year to which the 
     requirement applies; and
       (3) 100 percent of a manufacturer's production of passenger 
     motor vehicles for the third production year to which the 
     requirement applies.

     SEC. 5. TWO-YEAR EXTENSION OF OCCUPANT PROTECTION INCENTIVE 
                   GRANTS PROGRAM.

       Section 2003(b)(7) of the Transportation Equity Act for the 
     21st Century (23 U.S.C. 405 note; 112 Stat. 328) is amended 
     by striking ``and 2001'' and inserting ``through 2003''

     SEC. 6. INCENTIVE GRANTS FOR USE OF SAFETY BELTS AND CHILD 
                   RESTRAINT SYSTEMS BY CHILDREN.

       (a) In General.--Subchapter II of chapter 301 of title 49, 
     United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:

     ``Sec. 30128. Grant program for improving child occupant 
       safety programs

       ``(a) Authority To Make Grants.--
       ``(1) In general.--The Secretary of Transportation may make 
     grants under this section as follows:
       ``(A) A basic grant to any State that enacts a child 
     restraint law by October 1, 2003.
       ``(B) A supplemental grant to any State described by 
     subparagraph (A) if the child restraint law concerned is an 
     enhanced child restraint law.
       ``(2) Limitation on number of grants in any state fiscal 
     year.--Not more than one grant may be made to a State under 
     this section in any given fiscal year of the State.
       ``(3) Commencement.--The authority of the Secretary to make 
     grants under this section shall commence on October 1, 2003.
       ``(b) Amount of Grants.--
       ``(1) Basic grant.--The amount of a basic grant made to a 
     State under this section shall be equal to two times the 
     amount received by the State under section 2003(b)(7) of the 
     Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (23 U.S.C. 405 
     note) in fiscal year 2003.
       ``(2) Supplemental grant.--The amount of any supplemental 
     grant made to a State

[[Page 9827]]

     under this section shall be equal to three times the amount 
     received by the State under section 2003(b)(7) of that Act in 
     fiscal year 2003.
       ``(c) Use of Grant Funds.--A State shall use any amount 
     received by the State under this section only to enhance the 
     safety of child occupants of passenger motor vehicles.
       ``(d) Definitions.--In this section:
       ``(1) Child restraint law.--The term `child restraint law' 
     means a State law that prescribes a penalty for operating a 
     passenger motor car (as defined in section 30127(a)(3) of 
     this title) in which any occupant of the car who is under the 
     age of 16 years is not properly restrained by a safety belt 
     or otherwise properly secured in a child restraint system 
     that meets applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards 
     prescribed by the National Highway Traffic Safety 
     Administration.
       ``(2) Enhanced child restraint law.--The term `enhanced 
     child restraint law' means a child restraint law that 
     prescribes a separate or additional penalty for operating a 
     passenger car unless all of the vehicle occupants for whom a 
     booster seat, used in combination with an adult seat belt, is 
     an appropriate form of child restraint, are properly using a 
     child restraint system that meets applicable Federal motor 
     vehicle safety standards prescribed by the National Highway 
     Traffic Safety Administration.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections at the 
     beginning of that chapter is amended by inserting after the 
     item relating to section 30127 the following new item:

``30128. Grant program for improving child occupant safety programs.''.

     SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act:
       (1) Child restraint.--The term ``child restraint'' means a 
     specially designed seating system (including booster seats 
     and child safety seats) that meets applicable Federal motor 
     vehicle safety standards prescribed by the National Highway 
     Traffic Safety Administration.
       (2) Manufacturer.--The term ``manufacturer'' has the 
     meaning given that term by section 30102(a)(5) of title 49, 
     United States Code.
       (3) Motor vehicle.--The term ``motor vehicle'' has the 
     meaning given that term by section 30102(a)(6) of title 49, 
     United States Code.
       (4) Passenger motor vehicle.--The term ``passenger motor 
     vehicle'' means--
       (A) a ``passenger car'' as defined in section 30127(a)(3) 
     of title 49, United States Code; and
       (B) a ``multipurpose passenger vehicle'' as defined in 
     section 30127(a)(2) of title 49, United States Code.

     SEC. 8. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of 
     Transportation such sums as may be necessary to carry out 
     this Act, including the making of grants under section 30128 
     of title 49, United States Code, as added by section 6.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. ROCKEFELLER:
  S. 981. A bill to provide emergency assistance for families receiving 
assistance under part A of title IV of the Social Security Act and low-
income working families; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, we all know the cost of gasoline has 
been increasing very dramatically and the people of my State, a very 
rural State, have to travel very long distances. There is little public 
transportation in rural counties, and as a result they have to use 
their cars and have to, therefore, buy a lot of gas.
  Today I am introducing legislation to give temporary help to those 
who need it most, particularly low-income families, workers, seniors, 
and, frankly, students who have to drive long distances each day to get 
to their work, their school, and to critical health care.
  In West Virginia prices of gas have gone up, as they have everywhere. 
In the North and South they have gone up by a great deal. People suffer 
because of that. I know high prices affect everyone when it comes to 
gas, but they do hit lower income people in the most painful way. When 
you are already struggling to pay the cost of housing and the cost of 
education or whatever it might be, the cost of gas aggregated over a 
period of time becomes a very painful item. As I indicated, if you are 
in a rural area, your problem is much worse because there is not public 
transportation. This is a very crucial fact. It means you have to use 
your automobile. It means you have to buy the gas to put in the 
automobile.
  I support the development of long-term energy policies and hope we 
will do that in a wise way. But for those who pay their living expenses 
day to day, that will not come soon enough. Therefore, my bill is a 
simple one. It is a temporary approach to what I believe is already, in 
fact, something of an emergency.
  The bill is modeled on the successful Low-Income Home Energy 
Assistance Program, LIHEAP, which helps working families and seniors 
cope with home heating costs. The proposal which I call LIGAP--not out 
of my poetic sense but simply because it stands for Low-Income Gasoline 
Assistance Program--would give grants to States for an emergency 
assistance program for people who must drive 30 miles a day or an 
average of 150 miles a week for work, for education related to work, or 
scheduled routine health care.
  This new program will have similar income eligibility guidelines as 
the LIHEAP program. Therefore, it will not be difficult to administer. 
It is triggered when a State's average gasoline price hits the 
unmanageable current level. It is also triggered off when gas prices 
decline. Every eligible person or family will get a monthly stipend of 
$25 to $75 to help cover the high cost of gasoline.
  This legislation encourages States to use their block grant funding 
to help welfare recipients pay for transportation costs, necessary for 
people getting off welfare to get to work. Some States, including West 
Virginia, are already using welfare reform moneys as part of their 
welfare-to-work initiatives to help with transportation costs. I think 
that is a very important thing for States to do. I am proud of my 
State's initiative, and I am proud of their approach to welfare reform.
  There obviously are not any magic bullets in bringing some sanity 
back to gasoline pricing, but this bill is designed to offer at least 
much-needed relief to West Virginians and other Americans who simply 
cannot make ends meet while we are in the throes of high gasoline 
costs. I think it is a sensible bill, and I hope at the appropriate 
time it will get favorable consideration.

                          ____________________