[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20885-20911]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to consideration of H.R. 2660, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (H.R. 2660) making appropriations for the 
     Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
     Education, and related agencies for fiscal year ending 
     September 30th, 2004, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I have 
been asked to make his introductory statement, and as indicated by the 
President pro tempore, we are taking up H.R. 2660, which is the 
appropriations bill for the Department of Labor, Health and Human 
Services, and Education.
  As a procedural matter, in accordance with the custom of the Senate, 
I ask unanimous consent that all after the enacting clause be stricken 
and the text of Calendar No. 175, S. 1356, the Senate committee-
reported bill, be inserted in lieu thereof, and the bill, as amended, 
be considered as original text for purpose of further amendment, and 
that no points of order be waived by reason of this agreement.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there an objection?
  Mr. REID. On behalf of two Senators, I object.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The objection is heard.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the bill which we are considering today 
is the largest of all of the appropriations bills, consisting of some 
$472 billion, even larger than the Defense appropriations bill, 
although a major portion of that is on mandatory spending--Medicare, 
Medicaid, family assistance, and other mandatory provisions--which 
leaves $137.6 billion to fund the three departments: the Department of 
Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department 
of Education.
  The amount of the discretionary spending is $380 million below the 
President's budget request and $435 billion below the amount the House 
of Representatives had to spend on Labor, HHS, and Education programs.
  It is important to note that the House and Senate bills also have an 
additional $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2004 which was achieved by 
pushing back advanced appropriations from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal 
year 2003.
  On August 1, the last day of the session before the August recess, 
the majority leader, Senator Frist, and I had a brief colloquy where 
the majority leader announced at that time for the information of all 
Senators and others that the first order of business of 9:30 on 
Tuesday, September 2nd, would be this appropriations bill. The Senate 
has an enormous agenda to take up during the month of September. As is 
well known, the fiscal year ends on September 30th and if there is to 
be any realistic chance of completing all 13 appropriations bills, with 
only two having been completed so far--the Department of Defense 
appropriation and the military construction bill--we are going to have 
to take up these bills in an orderly and expeditious way. When I say 
``expeditious,'' I do not mean in a hurried way. It is a matter of 
taking up the amendments so we can move through them.
  In advance of the August 1st departure date, I conferred with the 
distinguished ranking member, Senator Harkin, who agreed with that 
approach. I conferred with the ranking member of the full committee, 
Senator Byrd, who agreed with that approach. I conferred with the 
chairman of the full committee, the distinguished President pro 
tempore, about the processing of this bill. I talked to many of the 
Senators on both sides of the aisle who would be expected to offer 
amendments. It is my hope amendments will be offered, that we can work 
through time agreements. The distinguished assistant leader of the 
Democrats is here and has been very diligent in moving the legislative 
matters through. It would be my hope we would have the amendments come 
to the floor, offered, that we could get time agreements, and we could 
proceed to vote on whatever amendments may be offered.
  I am advised by staff there are 45 amendments pending--amendments 
which we know about. That is a large number but it is well known that 
amendments tend to be refined as Members consider the matters.
  We have a major job ahead of us. But it would not be out of reason to 
consider amendments today. We are advised that two Senators on the 
other side of the aisle have amendments which they are prepared to 
offer. If those come to fruition, we can move right ahead with the 
debate at an early point.
  In the colloquy on August 1, reflected in the Congressional Record, I 
made a point that the grave difficulties which I have seen in my tenure 
in the Senate occur when the quorum calls consume a great deal of the 
Senate's time, when those two lights are on, signifying that there is 
no business pending before the Senate. I expressed the view that if 
Senators were not prepared to offer amendments, that the majority 
leader ought to consider moving to third reading, that is final 
passage, and try to move the bill along.
  I fully understand that requires cooperation from the other side of 
the aisle. If the other side of the aisle decides we are not to move to 
third reading, there are ample procedures available to preclude the 
majority from moving to third reading. But, having given that notice 
more than a month ago that we would be taking the bill up at this time, 
9:30 on September 2, and that the expectation was to move ahead, if we 
were to have any chance of completing the appropriations bills by 
September 30 that this bill would have to serve as a flagship for the 
month of September.
  I might add that the Senate has a very crowded agenda. There is 
already

[[Page 20886]]

considerable speculation in the media about what will happen in the 
Congress, the House and the Senate, now that we are back from the 
August recess and we face many contentious matters.
  There is no doubt that an overlay, the international issue of Iraq, 
is very much on all of our minds. I was very glad to see the Bush 
administration sent a signal 10 days ago that there would be 
consideration to United Nations participation in Iraq. The precise 
formula was not indicated. I think that can be achieved, maintaining 
U.S. military command.
  There have been strong requests for a statement from the 
administration as to what Iraq is going to cost. All of us would like 
to know what those parameters are and what the expenses are going to 
be. That is a difficult matter to calculate because of the 
uncertainties over Iraq in so many respects.
  There are efforts being made to bring other nations into the 
operation there, into the policing operation, and a special effort to 
bring in Muslim nations, Pakistan and Turkey illustratively, to give 
the Arab world more confidence as to what is going on. Certainly, if we 
are successful in bringing other nations in, that will have a material 
impact on what the cost will be to the United States.
  Beyond the issues of Iraq and other matters for the Department of 
State on international expenditures, there is the issue of prescription 
drugs, where legislation has been passed by both the House and the 
Senate which will have to be submitted to conference.
  The Energy bills will be a major matter with Congress really on the 
spot to respond to the blackouts affecting 50 million people. From the 
Judiciary Committee where I serve, there are a number of matters which 
will be coming to the floor, litigation matters, most prominent of 
which is the legislation pending on asbestos. A bill was reported out 
of committee, largely along party lines.
  During the month of August, considerable work has been done by many 
of us, including an effort to bring in a very distinguished Federal 
judge, Edward R. Becker, Chief Judge Emeritus of the Third Circuit, to 
analyze the issues in an effort to be helpful. Obviously the matter is 
a congressional matter, but Chief Judge Becker has special expertise in 
the field by virtue of being the judge who wrote the major opinion on 
the issue of class certification. That is mentioned as one of the many 
items.
  The key to the success of our Senate will turn on getting started 
with this bill and moving ahead. I think it is not unreasonable to 
think, if we have cooperation on all sides, that this is a matter which 
could be completed during the course of this week.
  The bill which is now before the Senate contains funding for medical 
research in the amount of $27.9 billion for the National Institutes of 
Health. This is $1 billion over the fiscal year 2003 appropriation, and 
will continue the work of thousands of researchers across the United 
States.
  The distinguished ranking member of this subcommittee, Senator 
Harkin, and I have taken the lead in the course of the past 5 years in 
more than doubling the allocations on the National Institutes of 
Health, from $12 billion to more than $27 billion. The increase of $1 
billion is a sum which I personally would like to see increased. We are 
considering an amendment which would have a significant increase in the 
National Institutes of Health funding.
  When you take a look at the diseases which are affected, they touch 
virtually all Americans either directly or through families or close 
friends: autism, stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal muscular 
atrophy, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, 
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, heart disease, arthritis, schizophrenia, 
Cooley's anemia, kidney disorders, spinal cord injury, cancers of many 
varieties, including but not limited to breast, cervical, lymphoma, 
prostate, pancreatic, brain, lung, and colon.
  The increases in funding here have had a very material effect for 
enormous advances in research which moves toward the prevention or cure 
of many of these matters.
  This bill includes $944 million for obesity prevention and nutrition 
initiatives. We see more and more that there is a need for programs 
designed to increase physical activity, promote healthy lifestyles and 
good nutritional benefits. This is an increase of some $34.2 million 
over funds available for fiscal year 2003.
  In the course of the preparation of this budget, obviously the 
subcommittee and then the full committee have considered a wide range 
of priorities. I think it should be noted that when there is the 
contention raised about cuts in the funding for this subcommittee, it 
is not accurate. For fiscal year 2003, the total discretionary budget 
was $134.6 billion. The total budget for fiscal year 2004, which we are 
considering today, as I have said, is $137.6 billion. So that is 
essentially flat funding but not a decrease.
  My preference would have been to have had a significant increase in 
the funding for this subcommittee, as I argued in the full committee, 
and repeat that argument here on the floor. But we live within the 
constraints of the budget resolution which was enacted and with the 
allocations which have been made pursuant to the budget resolution. So 
on some of these items there are increases, on some of these items 
there are decreases, but the overall budget does not have a cut. It is 
essentially flat.
  The budget also contains $63 billion for the prevention and reversal 
of heart disease. Americans of all ages live with the effects of 
cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is the Nation's No. 1 killer, 
with over 960,000 deaths attributed to this disease each year. To 
address this initiative, the bill includes $5.7 billion for 
cardiovascular research, prevention, and education.
  That is obviously an increase which we think is well warranted by the 
impact of heart disease on the lives of Americans.
  The bill includes $4.6 billion for programs for the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention. It includes $250 million to continue 
planning, design, and construction of new facilities, as well as repair 
and renovations of the existing structures.
  Several years ago I made a trip to Atlanta to the Centers for Disease 
Control because I had heard a great deal about the deplorable 
conditions there. I found that was true. Senator Harkin made a similar 
visit. Upon returning, we added $170 million to the funding. In the 
ensuing years, we added $250 million in each of 2 years. This is the 
third year for this increase in funding.
  The Centers for Disease Control is at the forefront of so much of 
what we are doing trying to combat AIDS worldwide, dealing with the 
SARS epidemic, and planning for potential terrorist attacks. The 
Centers for Disease Control is one of the areas which urgently requires 
adequate funding.
  This bill also contains funding for infectious disease initiatives. 
More than 35 new emerging infectious diseases were identified between 
1973 and the year 2000. Recent experiences with the West Nile virus, 
SARS, and monkey pox illustrate the vital need to strengthen this 
Nation's capacity to identify and combat emerging infectious diseases. 
The bill includes $2.2 billion to improve United States research 
capabilities and to detect and control emerging infectious disease 
threats in the United States and around the world.
  Also included in the bill is funding for the National Cord Blood Stem 
Cell Bank Program--some $10 million to create a National Cord Blood 
Stem Cell Bank to be used for patients who need transplants but lack 
suitable family donors. The stem cells found in cord blood are useful 
in treating a variety of blood disorders.
  Following a report from the Institute of Medicine, the subcommittee 
took the lead in appropriating funds to deal with medical errors 
reduction. This bill contains $84 million, an increase of $29 million 
over the previous year's amount, to determine ways to reduce medical 
errors.
  I note the presence on the floor of the distinguished ranking member 
of the full committee. I think it might be appropriate to try to move 
the sequencing along, so I am going to interrupt

[[Page 20887]]

my opening statement so I can confer with the Senator from West 
Virginia.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me to say a few 
remarks prior to that without the Record appearing interrupted.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am delighted to yield to the 
distinguished assistant leader of the Democrats.
  Mr. REID. I thank the Senator very much.
  Mr. President, let me say first of all that the Senator from 
Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa have done remarkably important 
work over the last many years on this most important piece of 
legislation which we have to move every year. They have done tremendous 
work for the National Institutes of Health and for the Centers for 
Disease Control. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude for 
recognizing the problems which we have and which have been addressed.
  Let me say very briefly that if we maintain the schedule we have now 
had for this entire year where we have very few votes on Fridays--if we 
have votes, they are usually inconsequential--and we have no votes 
until late Monday, we can't do all the work that needs to be done. 
Everyone might as well acknowledge that. We work here on a 3-day 
workweek basically. That is what we have been working on. We can't do 
the nine appropriations bills that need to be done and the mass of 
other very important legislation. Once we get the bills passed, we have 
to do the conferences and bring those back. We have the important bills 
that are already in conference that are nonappropriations matters. Of 
course, we have the three appropriations bills in conference. But we 
have lots of things to do. I just alert everyone that it can't be done 
on a 3-day workweek.
  I think it is very important to note that today there will be no 
votes. Yesterday was an important holiday. There were parades around 
the country and other festivities that Members of the Senate and House 
were involved in.
  This bill is extremely important. It is a difficult bill. We are 
going to cooperate in any way we can.
  We do have one procedural problem. I don't know how long it will take 
to work that out. We have the overtime amendment which the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is aware of. It will take some time.
  We also have the Leave No Child Behind Program. I spoke to the State 
legislature in Nevada in February and said unless something happened we 
would be leaving lots of children behind. The State of Nevada and other 
States are really in deep trouble in education because the Federal 
Government is not doing what it needs to do.
  There will be a series of amendments. They are 60-vote amendments. We 
have to go through those. At the present time, we have about 40 
amendments, most of which are Democrat amendments. We acknowledge that. 
We are going to be as positive and as cooperative as we can be on this 
legislation, recognizing that it is a difficult bill.
  I think realistically, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, who is 
much more experienced than I, having been here as long as he has been, 
it is going to be extremely difficult to finish this bill this week. 
Today is Tuesday. There are no votes today. We have Wednesday and 
Thursday. Unless we suddenly adopt a new procedure where we work more 
than 3 days a week--we will not be doing anything on Friday, but we are 
willing to work with the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from 
Iowa.
  Senator Daschle indicated to me this bill is important and that we 
have to work in any way we can to move it along, and we will do that.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished assistant 
leader for the Democrats for those comments. I know from working with 
Senator Reid for many years that he is consistently cooperative. I 
agree with his characterization of the importance of this bill and the 
complexity of the bill.
  When he commented about 40 amendments mostly from that side of the 
aisle, that is consistent with the preliminary report which I have 
heard. It also accurately states that the amendments are 60-vote 
amendments, as required under the budget resolution.
  When he comments about my greater experience, I may have been here a 
little longer, but I don't have any more experience than Senator Reid 
does. Those who have been in the Senate or who have observed the Senate 
know we have an amazing capacity for moving promptly when we decide to 
do so and when we decide to make relevant comments. If we can stay on 
the bill, I think we ought to take whatever time we need on this bill. 
I don't disagree with that a bit. But it is possible to work out time 
agreements. I do not disagree with the statement of the Senator from 
Nevada that it would be difficult--perhaps even unlikely--to finish the 
bill this week. But it can be done. The last time I managed this bill 
was in June of 2000. We finished the bill on June 28 in advance of the 
conventions that year. When this Senate starts to move in a definitive 
way, this Senate has the capacity to move expeditiously.
  I had been in the middle of my opening statement and had come to a 
number of the main categories. But I am going to abbreviate this 
opening statement because I have conferred with the distinguished 
Senator from West Virginia, the ranking member of the full committee, 
who has advised that he is prepared to move immediately with an 
amendment.
  To repeat, there is nothing like using the time on the Senate floor 
for amendments as opposed to statements. As important as opening 
statements are to the bill's managers, an opening statement is a 
statement. And if we move to amendments, I think that would be the most 
effective use of the Senate's time.
  We might also be establishing a new record on moving to an amendment 
within a half hour of the opening of the Senate, especially on a day 
when, as the majority leader announced, there will be no rollcall 
votes. But any amendments which will have votes ordered on will be 
taken up according to the majority leader's schedule, no earlier than 
tomorrow.
  I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am delighted to see my friend. I have 
several friends in the Senate, but there is one very special friend of 
mine who is presently in the chair. He is the President pro tempore of 
the Senate and a man who is well equipped for that position. He has had 
a long service in the Senate and, of course, long service on the 
Appropriations Committee. He has been chairman. He has been ranking 
member. He is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee now. I speak 
of course of my dear friend, the distinguished senior Senator from 
Alaska, Ted Stevens, who is the Man of the Century for the State of 
Alaska, and rightly so.
  I also am very proud to say I have another friend in the Chamber at 
the moment, among several friends in the Chamber, and this friend of 
whom I speak is the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that 
has in its jurisdiction the bill that is before the Senate at this 
time, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill.
  Senator Specter is a man--I speak of Alexander Pope, who said about 
another gentleman: ``Thou art my guide and friend.'' Arlen Specter is a 
man after my own kidney, as Shakespeare would say. And he recognizes 
the needs of the country, as I think I do. His heart is in the right 
place when it comes to the education of our young people, and I am very 
proud to call him my friend. I thank him for his courtesies always, 
which are characteristic of him. He is one of the special people who 
have served in this Senate with me.


                           Amendment No. 1543

  Now to the business at hand. I have an amendment. Before I send it to 
the desk, let me make a brief statement.
  When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, we made a deal 
with the American people. I am speaking of a time which was nearly 2 
years ago when we made this deal with the American people. We said that 
from now on

[[Page 20888]]

we will hold schools more accountable--more accountable--than ever 
before; we will require them to make sure that all children succeed 
academically, not just the wealthy, not just those who live in the 
nicer parts of town, but all children--poor students, students from 
Appalachia, across the prairies, across the Great Plains, across the 
Rockies, to the Pacific coast--yes, all the way to Alaska--children 
with disabilities, and students of all races and ethnicities. Schools 
must leave no child behind. But, in return, we promised to give schools 
the resources they need to make these improvements.
  This bill does not fulfill that promise, and there is no better 
example of that broken promise than the title I program for 
disadvantaged students. Title I helps the students who need help the 
most, the millions who are being left behind. It is also the program 
that, under the No Child Left Behind Act, will hold schools accountable 
for improving student performance. That is why, when Congress wrote the 
No Child Left Behind Act, it authorized specific funding levels for 
title I for every year through fiscal year 2012.
  Now, I went to school--many years ago, of course; I started in 1924--
and it was a little two-room schoolhouse in a coal camp in southern 
West Virginia. It was at Algonquin, WV. That is the mining camp in 
which I started school. That is the mining camp in which my foster 
father worked in the mines.
  We did not have the Government support in those days that students 
have now. I was one of the students who today would be considered a 
disadvantaged child. Of course, about all the children in that coal 
camp were disadvantaged. But we had caring teachers. We had good 
teachers.
  I remember being in the primer, starting out in the primer, and the 
leading character in the primer was Baby Rae. I studied about Baby Rae. 
But those were disadvantaged children. All of us were disadvantaged. We 
all came from poor families, but we studied hard. We had caring 
teachers, as I say, and they encouraged us to study. Mine were foster 
parents, I having lost my mother when I was 1 year old in the great 
influenza epidemic in 1917 and 1918. But those foster parents cared for 
me, and they loved me, and they encouraged me to study and to study 
hard.
  So I am a supporter, a strong supporter, of education. I come here as 
one who has supported Federal funds for education practically all the 
years I have been in Congress. And this is the 51st year I have been in 
Congress. There was a great debate in the early years when I was in the 
House about Federal aid to education. Well, it is an accepted factor 
now in our thinking. So today I have come to support an amendment which 
I will offer shortly.
  Let me say again that when Congress wrote the No Child Left Behind 
Act, it authorized specific funding levels for title I for every year 
through fiscal year 2012. The authorized amount for fiscal year 2004 is 
$18.5 billion. That is enough to fully serve 6.2 million needy 
children, according to the Congressional Research Service. This bill 
before the Senate today provides just $12.4 billion.
  That is enough to fully serve only 4.1 million children. The 
amendment I am about to offer would increase title I funding by $6.1 
billion for a total of $18.5 billion, the fully authorized level for 
fiscal year 2004, and it would extend the full educational benefits of 
title I to 2.1 million children who otherwise would be left behind. 
This would allow us to keep the promise we made in the No Child Left 
Behind Act.
  This amendment is fully offset, may I say, for fiscal year 2004, and 
it achieves this by rescinding fiscal year 2004 advance appropriations 
in the fiscal year 2003 Labor-HHS appropriations bill and 
reappropriating those monies in fiscal year 2004. This is the exact 
same mechanism that Chairman Stevens and Chairman Specter are using to 
add $2.2 billion to the base bill. My amendment simply builds upon this 
and adds $6.1 billion more for title I.
  Students and teachers across the country are desperate for more 
funding. In West Virginia, the Department of Education announced this 
summer that 326 of the State's 728 schools failed to make adequate 
yearly progress. That is 45 percent of all the schools in the State. 
May I say to the distinguished Presiding Officer, Mr. Smith, that in 
many other States, more than half of all the schools failed to make 
adequate progress. Let me repeat: In my own State, 326 of West 
Virginia's 728 schools failed to make adequate yearly progress. That is 
45 percent of all the schools in the State, almost half. But in many 
other States, more than half of all the schools failed to make adequate 
progress.
  I ask my fellow Senators: Where is the money going to come from to 
help these schools improve? The State governments, as we all know, are 
facing a fiscal crisis. Yet this appropriations bill underfunds title I 
by more than $6 billion. This bill, indeed, is a bit frail on the No 
Child Left Behind Act, and it is unfair to all the people in this 
country who are working so hard to implement the provisions of that 
act.
  Parents and teachers want their schools to be held accountable. They 
want every child to succeed, and they are holding up their end of the 
bargain. Now is the time for the Federal Government to hold up its end 
of the bargain.
  As students all over the country return to their classrooms this 
month, it is important to remember that this amendment is not just 
about dollars; it is about hiring good teachers. It is about improving 
the curriculum; it is about reducing class sizes; it is about buying 
educational materials--all the elements that are key to helping 
students reach their academic potential.
  I voted for the No Child Left Behind Act. I support the reforms in 
that law. But schools need more funding if we are truly going to leave 
no child behind.
  I urge my fellow Senators to approve this amendment. We gave our word 
to the people when we passed the No Child Left Behind Act. We must keep 
our word.
  Everything I have said is certainly meant to be no criticism of the 
chairman of the subcommittee or the ranking member or the members of 
the subcommittee. They have all done the best they could do. Mr. 
Specter has done the best he could with what he had, and so has the 
ranking member. I offer this amendment not in criticism of them or the 
members of the subcommittee. They simply did the best they could with 
what they had. I fully support the chairman and ranking member and the 
subcommittee. I simply offer this amendment because I think the 
Nation's children deserve it. I hope Senators on both sides will 
support it to the fullest.
  I send the amendment to the desk.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if the distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia will yield for a moment.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. SPECTER. As a procedural matter, with an objection having been 
lodged, if I may have the attention of the Senator from West Virginia, 
the procedure would be appropriate if the Senator from West Virginia 
would allow me first to send a substitute amendment to the desk and 
then the amendment offered by the Senator from West Virginia would be 
in the nature of a second-degree amendment and would obviate the 
objection which was made earlier procedurally.
  Mr. BYRD. Very well, yes.
  Mr. SPECTER. This certainly is not clear, if anybody is watching on 
C-SPAN, but that would set the procedural status in the correct shape.
  Mr. BYRD. Yes, it would.


                           Amendment No. 1542

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I send a substitute amendment to the 
desk. For the information of all Members, this is the text of the 
Senate-reported bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1542.

  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. SPECTER. Parliamentary inquiry. Would it be in order now for the 
amendment to be offered by the Senator from West Virginia?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendments to the Senator's amendment are now 
in order.

[[Page 20889]]


  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and my colleague from West Virginia.


                Amendment No. 1543 to Amendment No. 1542

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the 
subcommittee for his accommodations that have been extended at this 
point. I send the amendment to the substitute to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Byrd] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1543 to amendment No. 1542.

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

     (Purpose: To provide additional funding for education for the 
                             disadvantaged)

       On page 36, line 16, strike the period and insert ``: 
     Provided further, That of the funds appropriated in this Act 
     for the National Institutes of Health, $1,500,000,000 shall 
     not be available for obligation until September 30, 2004: 
     Provided further, That the amount $14,103,356,000 under the 
     heading `Education for the Disadvantaged' in title III of 
     this Act shall be deemed to be $20,253,356,000: Provided 
     further, That the amount $6,582,294,000 under the heading 
     `Education for the Disadvantaged' in title III of this Act 
     shall be deemed to be $12,732,294,000: Provided further, That 
     the amount $1,670,239,000 under the heading `Education for 
     the Disadvantaged' in title III of this Act shall be deemed 
     to be $4,745,239,000: Provided further, That the amount 
     $2,207,448,000 under the heading `Education for the 
     Disadvantaged' in title III of this Act shall be deemed to be 
     $5,282,448,000: Provided further, That the amount 
     $6,895,199,000 in section 305(a)(1) of this Act shall be 
     deemed to be $13,045,199,000: Provided further, That the 
     amount $6,783,301,000 in section 305(a)(2) of this Act shall 
     be deemed to be $633,301,000.''.

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have already spoken on behalf of the 
amendment. I do not ask for recognition at this point.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I note the distinguished Senator from 
Iowa advancing toward the podium. I yield to him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first, I am very pleased to join my 
colleague and friend, Senator Specter, in bringing to the Senate floor 
the fiscal year 2004 Labor, Health and Human Services, and related 
agencies appropriations bill.
  Let me begin by thanking my good friend and partner in this endeavor, 
Senator Specter, and his excellent staff, for always working closely 
with me and my staff in putting this bill together on a bipartisan 
basis. It is always one of the most difficult bills to put together and 
it is also one of the most important. Our Nation's health and the 
strength of our tomorrows are shaped by the critical health, education, 
and labor investments made by this bill.
  I will say at the outset that this bill is not perfect--at least in 
my estimation. I will also say that my distinguished chairman did the 
best he could with the bad hand he was dealt by a very shortsighted 
budget resolution. As we have done in our over 12-year partnership 
working on this subcommittee--sometimes I am chair and sometimes he is 
chair, and it goes back and forth. But it has been a great partnership 
working together on this subcommittee over all these years.
  This bill is no different. It is truly the product of bipartisan work 
and negotiation. We have worked closely to shape it. We have done our 
best to accommodate the literally thousands of requests. I assume 
Senator Specter has gotten about the same number as I have--which adds 
up to about a thousand, I suppose--to try to accommodate those requests 
we have received from colleagues.
  Again, at the outset, I don't think our subcommittee allocation was 
adequate to meet the demands we face in job training, health care, and, 
of course, education. I will be speaking again shortly on the pending 
amendment that was just offered by Senator Byrd because we are very 
short in the area of education.
  I look forward to the Senate debate. There will be a number of 
amendments offered. I don't know the exact number that will be offered, 
but this bill always attracts a number of amendments, and rightfully 
so.
  As I said, I think we are short in the bill in meeting the critical 
health, education, and labor-related issues that confront the country. 
For example, with this allocation, we are only able to increase 
education funding by 2.8 percent over fiscal year 2003. The President 
promised that the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act would be 
accompanied by the money needed to implement those reforms. In that 
act, we put a lot of mandates on local school districts and authorized 
monies to back up those mandates. We are $8.4 million short of meeting 
those funding goals.
  I look forward to the Senate debate as we consider this important 
bill and hope to work with my colleagues to increase funding for a 
number of important programs funded in this bill before the bill leaves 
the Senate floor.


                           amendment no. 1543

  Mr. President, I will speak for a few minutes on the amendment 
offered by Senator Byrd. First, I thank him for his leadership in 
offering this amendment on title I funding for education. This 
amendment, more than any other that will be offered on this bill, will 
show the Nation--our parents, teachers, kids, and school boards--how 
serious we are about leaving no child behind. Do we give schools the 
money they need to improve or do we give them just a bunch of mandates 
and leave them out to dry? That is what is at stake with Senator Byrd's 
amendment.
  Now, to make the record clear, as most Senators, I supported and 
voted for the No Child Left Behind Act. Being a member of the 
authorizing committee under the able leadership of the Senator from New 
Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, and the ranking minority member, Senator Kennedy, 
and also being the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee that 
funds these programs, I followed the development and was involved in 
the discussions with the White House as the bill was developed.
  The No Child Left Behind Act, more than any other educational bill in 
our history, holds schools accountable for performance. It demands that 
we hold every student, including those most disadvantaged, to the same 
high standards. That is fine. We all agreed on that. We all want high 
standards. We want those standards to be met even among the most 
disadvantaged of our kids.
  But the bill we passed also says that schools should have the money 
to do the job, that they should have the resources to hire the 
teachers, reduce class sizes, update their curricula, get the new 
technologies that are out there, and make all the improvements they 
need to leave no child behind.
  Now, in particular, the No Child Left Behind Act sets specific 
authorization levels for title I. We did that because title I is the 
key to the success of the No Child Left Behind Act. This program is 
designed to help the children who are most at risk of falling behind. 
It is also the program that includes the loss accountability measures.
  President Bush and Members of Congress spent a lot of time 
negotiating over how much money was needed for title I. This wasn't 
something just plucked out of the air. This was during a long period of 
negotiation. What did we need to put into title I so that the most 
disadvantaged kids could really be held to the same high standards 
because they would be given the resources they need to achieve those 
standards? Well, we settled on an authorization of $16 billion for 
fiscal year 2003, $18.5 billion for fiscal year 2004, and so on, for 
every year through fiscal year 2012.
  Looking back on it now, as I voted for the bill, perhaps I was a 
little bit too overeager to believe that the President would, indeed, 
step forward and ensure that we had the resources to do the job. I 
believed him when he said he was serious about increasing funding for 
education to meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind. Well, now we 
have a bill before us that underfunds title I by more than $6 billion.

[[Page 20890]]

  As I said, the authorization for fiscal year 2004 is $18.5 billion, 
which we negotiated and put into the law. This bill provides $12.35 
billion, which is exactly the amount requested by President Bush. So, 
again, my question is, if the President was serious about both the 
mandates and the resources needed to meet those mandates--the President 
was very eager to sign the bill and get the mandates but when it came 
time to get the money out, he shortchanged it by $6 billion. That is 
his request.
  Again, I don't blame anybody on our committee. I don't blame our 
chairman or anyone else. We worked together closely. I am sure a lot of 
us would have liked to have provided more for title I but we simply 
didn't have the resources. We were hemmed in by the budget agreement. 
So now the bill is exactly where President Bush wanted it for title I. 
It is nowhere close enough. It is $6 billion short. That is why we need 
Senator Byrd's amendment to fund title I at the level we agreed during 
the negotiation process. We need to fulfill the commitment we made to 
the students, parents, and educators of this country when we passed No 
Child Left Behind.
  I can already tell you what some on the other side will say about 
this amendment. They are going to say President Bush has already done a 
lot to increase funding for title I. They will say title I funding has 
increased from $8.8 billion to $11.7 billion during his administration. 
I love that phrase, ``during his administration.'' When my friends on 
the other side say ``during his administration,'' they want people to 
think title I funding went up because of President Bush's 
administration. But they cannot truthfully say that, so they use the 
phrase ``it went up during his administration.''
  It is like the weather: It has rained a lot during President Bush's 
administration. Sometimes it has been very hot during President Bush's 
administration. It has even snowed during his administration. But his 
administration did not have anything to do with any of that. It is the 
same with title I. President Bush deserves as much credit for recent 
title I increases as he does for the weather outside.
  The fact is, President Bush requested only $1.3 billion of the $2.9 
billion we increased during his administration. The only reason title I 
increased more during his administration was because we Democrats in 
the Congress insisted on it over the White House's strong objections. 
And now President Bush wants to underfund title I by more than $6 
billion.
  I guess what Senator Byrd is saying and what I am saying and I know a 
lot of others will be saying is we have to help President Bush keep the 
promise he made when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act, and we 
intend to help him keep his promise.
  This is back-to-school time across the Nation. I was driving in this 
morning, seeing kids waiting on a corner for a school bus, remembering 
when I used to walk my daughters down to the same corner to catch a 
school bus. Parents were standing there. The kids were eager and 
excited, looking forward to going to school.
  I met teachers in Iowa when I was there in August, excited about the 
new school year and the prospect of getting these kids interested in 
learning, expanding their horizons and their knowledge of the world 
around them. But mixed with that excitement was a lot of worry about 
this new education bill. I have not met one teacher, I have not met one 
principal, I have not met one school board member who is afraid of 
reforms, who is afraid of accountability, who is afraid of high 
standards. They all want those standards. What they are really afraid 
of is the law is going to designate their school as failing, leaving 
them out to dry with no additional funding.
  Throughout the summer, we have gotten our first look at how big a 
challenge we face, as States have been reporting how many of their 
schools are making ``adequate yearly progress''--that is the phrase, 
``adequate yearly progress''--under the No Child Left Behind Act. It is 
not a very pretty picture. In many States, more than half the schools 
are falling short of their goals. If they do not turn it around, they 
will face sanctions. They get tougher and tougher every year until 
ultimately the school can be taken over by the State or everyone who 
works in the school can be fired. It is a whirlpool effect, and once 
they get in the whirlpool, they cannot get out unless something reaches 
in to either stop that whirlpool or yank them out, and that is what 
title I does. But we are underfunding title I.
  What is going to happen is the schools that are located in high-
income areas, where they have a high property tax base--and we see them 
in the suburbs. Both my kids were privileged to go to Fairfax County 
public schools, one of the great public school systems in America. A 
lot of wealthy people live in Fairfax County. The county has a high tax 
base.
  How about kids who are not so fortunate, kids just across the river, 
maybe in southern Prince George's County or maybe in places in Iowa, my 
home State. We have the same problem. In some places there are great 
schools located where they have a good property tax base. Others 
schools, where they have a low property tax base, cannot make it. That 
is where the kids are disadvantaged. The mandates we put on schools 
under No Child Left Behind do not distinguish between those schools 
that are located in high-income areas and those schools located in low-
income areas. They all have to meet these annual yearly progress 
reports.
  What is going to happen if we do not pass the Byrd amendment and if 
we do not step up and fund title I as we previously agreed we were 
going to with the administration? Simply, the schools that are already 
in trouble are going to get in worse trouble. They simply have no other 
recourse. The schools that are in good shape are going to be fine; they 
have a high property tax base. They are in affluent areas. They are 
going to be fine. So we are going to have a division in this country. 
We are going to have two educational systems: One that will be moving 
up, meeting the mandates of No Child Left Behind, and schools that will 
be going down because we are not reaching in to help fund the mandate.
  Make no mistake about it, No Child Left Behind is the biggest Federal 
mandate on public schools ever enacted by the U.S. Congress. It is a 
Federal mandate. I hear all this preaching around here all the time 
about local control of schools and letting the States run the schools 
and local communities run the schools. The great genius, I think, of 
our education system in America is it has been widely dispersed because 
they have experimentation and new programs happening in different parts 
of the country. We do not have top-down bureaucratic control of all 
these schools, as they do in some countries. We have had a wide 
dispersal of control of education in our country, and that has been the 
real genius of our school system.
  The failure of our education system is how we pay for it: paying for 
it on the basis of property taxes. I have asked many times: Would 
someone please show me in the Constitution of the United States where 
it says that public education is to be funded by property taxes? We 
will not find it anywhere. But that is the way the system evolved in 
our country. Public education is basically funded on the basis of 
property taxes.
  Congress came along after a couple hundred years, first in the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the 1960s, and later with the 
Education of All Handicapped Children Act, IDEA, and title I, and said 
we need to help provide additional resources, and that has been good. 
Then the Federal Government comes along and lays a heavy mandate on 
these schools to meet certain requirements and they refuse to come up 
with the money.
  The burden lies upon President Bush, but if he will not do it, then 
we have to do it. We do not want these schools to be taken over. We do 
not want them to fail. We want them to meet these high standards.
  Again, we will hear people say: Money is not just the answer. They 
will say: Harkin, all you want to do is throw money at this problem.
  I do not think money is the only solution for our schools, but I ask 
this

[[Page 20891]]

question: If we want to hire good teachers, can we hire them on the 
cheap? We already know how many teachers are leaving education today, 
especially in the elementary schools, because today the private sector 
can compete for those teachers, and when those teachers find that their 
hands are tied, that they have all these mandates, and they do not have 
the resources to meet their annual yearly progress, they become 
frustrated. They want to teach, but, quite frankly, they can get paid 
more and put up with less of those frustrations on the outside. So 
today there is a huge exodus of teachers in elementary education in 
America. These mandates are one of the causes of it.
  If you want to hire teachers, it takes money. If you want to reduce 
class sizes, with fewer kids per teacher, guess what. That costs money. 
If you want to replace 20-year-old textbooks and get new technologies 
in the classrooms, guess what. It takes money. If you want to fix up 
some of our crumbling schools that now have inadequate heating and 
ventilation systems which have mold--I visited a school in Council 
Bluffs, IA, a couple years ago. This is a school that was built in 
1939. It is in not a very high income area of Council Bluffs. It is an 
elementary school. They had an old heating system in the basement, a 
boiler, and there was mold all over everything. Every year, kids would 
get sick from all of this mold.
  Well, they received a grant through our committee. They replaced the 
heating system with a brandnew heating system. They put in new windows. 
They fixed up the school. In the first year, the number of kids staying 
home from school because of illness fell 90 percent, simply because 
they were not getting sick.
  Now they are proud of their school. It is well lit. It is a wonderful 
thing to see. But that costs money. When one is in a low-income area 
and they do not have the property taxes to pay for it, that is when we 
have a responsibility to step in.
  So again, Senator Byrd's amendment meets the other half of No Child 
Left Behind. We have already fulfilled one-half of it, and that is put 
in the mandates. That half has been enacted into law and it is 
proceeding right now. Schools have to meet those mandates. The other 
half, which was President Bush's assurance that we would have the money 
to do that, is not there. It is about $6 billion short. That is why 
Senator Byrd's amendment helps us help President Bush keep his promise 
to the teachers, the kids, and parents of our country.
  I urge my colleagues to give us the 60 votes necessary to overcome 
the point of order. This is the education amendment. This is the 
amendment that will send the signal whether or not we really care about 
the future of our kids and care about making sure all of our schools 
can meet these annual progress levels, making sure our kids and our 
teachers have the wherewithal to meet these mandates.
  This is the amendment. Make no mistake about it. I hope we get the 
60-plus votes. I hope we get 70 or 80 votes to send a strong signal 
that we are not going to leave any kid behind, especially those who are 
disadvantaged.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have listened closely to the comments 
by the distinguished Senator from Iowa. At the outset, I will say our 
working relationship has been excellent. We have had what both of us 
describe as a seamless change of the gavel. Each of us says we liked it 
better when we were chairman than ranking member, but we have worked on 
a bipartisan basis to see to it that the public interest was taken care 
of when we have worked on this subcommittee.
  This bill has been produced on a bipartisan basis and our staffs work 
very closely together. We have set an example for bipartisanship on 
this very important bill.
  When the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from West Virginia talk 
about increases in funding public education, I agree with them that it 
would be highly desirable to appropriate more for education. There are 
limits, though, as to what we may do. As the manager of this bill and 
chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, it is my duty and 
responsibility to work within the allocations which have been given.
  The Senate has passed a budget resolution and allocations have been 
given to each of the 13 subcommittees. As the manager of the bill, it 
is my responsibility and duty to stay within those limits.
  When the argument is advanced that the appropriation is not as high 
as the authorization, that is correct, but I reply that that is 
characteristic. In the Senate, we have authorizing committees and we 
have the Appropriations Committee. It is the standard practice that the 
authorizers come in at a figure which is characteristically higher than 
what the appropriators will put up. That is done to give more latitude 
to the appropriators to see how close we can come or think we should 
come, as a matter of priority, to what the authorizers have said. It is 
the exception to the rule that the appropriators come to the 
authorizing level.
  When we take a look at the specific figures in this bill, the bill 
authorizing No Child Left Behind was passed by the Senate on December 
18, 2001, by a vote of 87 to 10 and signed into law on January 8, 2002. 
The appropriations bill was passed, the conference report, on December 
20, 2001, on a vote of 90 to 7 and signed into law on January 10, 2002.
  As we look at these dates of enactment, December 18 for authorization 
and December 20 for appropriations, we tend to forget how late we 
worked into December in the year 2001. I have a strong belief that if 
the 13 appropriations bills are not finished by September 30 of this 
year, we are likely to be here on the eve of Christmas in the year 
2003. I think it is a fair statement that we forget how late we worked 
in the year 2001, how we had targeted October to finish, and then 
Thanksgiving to finish, and then we are back, and how impossible it is 
to make any plans into November, into December, when we have other 
commitments we would like to undertake, State travel for one thing.
  I mention those dates really to focus on the authorization of title 
I, which was $13,500,000,000. The appropriation was $10,350,000,000. So 
the authorization was $2,850,000,000 over the appropriations. That was 
a year when Senator Harkin was the chairman of the subcommittee, 
Senator Byrd was the chairman of the full committee. I think they did a 
great job in coming as close as they did on appropriations, but the 
critical factor is the appropriations were not as high as the 
authorization.
  Then on other facets of Leave No Child Behind, improving teacher 
quality authorization was $3,175,000,000. The appropriation was 
$2,850,000,000. So the appropriation was $325,000,000 less than the 
authorization. Again, that was during the tenure of Senator Harkin as 
chairman of the subcommittee and Senator Byrd as chairman of the full 
committee. I compliment them for what they did. I think they did a 
great job, but they did not have an appropriation quite as high as the 
authorization.
  The other aspect of No Child Left Behind was the century community 
learning centers. Here, the authorization was $1,250,000,000 and the 
appropriation was $1 billion. So, again, it was slightly under by $250 
million. But again, Senator Harkin and Senator Byrd did a very good job 
in coming as close as they did.
  So the point I am making is it is not unusual for the appropriation 
to be less than the authorization.
  When Senator Harkin very effectively makes the analogy to the snow, 
the rain, and the heat, I want to agree with him about that, but 
President Bush was not responsible for the snow, the rain, or the heat, 
nor was Senator Harkin, nor Arlen Specter, nor Senator Byrd. But when 
we take a look at what has happened during President Bush's tenure, 
where Senator Harkin says President Bush was not responsible for the 
increase in appropriations, President Bush was responsible for his 
budget request.
  President Bush's budget request for the year 2002, his first year, 
was $44.541 billion, which was $4.5 billion over the

[[Page 20892]]

previous year. That is a very substantial increase. If you look at the 
increase in what President Bush has requested for 2002, 2003, and 2004, 
he has made a request of more than $53 billion, which is $13 billion 
more than President Clinton's request in the year 2001, which was an 
increase of $13 billion, which was roughly an increase of one-third 
over the $40 billion which President Clinton requested in 2001. No one 
would say President Clinton shortchanged education. I don't think 
Senator Harkin or Senator Byrd would suggest that, and Senator Specter 
is not making that suggestion.
  If you look at where President Bush was in his first 3 years, his 
request in the year 1996 was a little over $26 billion, and his request 
in 1999 was a little over $32.5 billion. That is a $6.5 billion 
increase by President Clinton in 3 years, an increase of about 18 to 19 
percent. No one would say that President Clinton shortchanged 
education. But in his first 3 years in office, his increase was 18 to 
19 percent compared to President Bush's increase of about 33 percent.
  If you look at President Clinton's increases in other years, 
President Bush compares very favorably and nobody would say President 
Clinton underfunded education. A fair interpretation would be that 
President Bush has not underfunded education.
  Having an increase in his request from $40 billion to more than $53 
billion, a 33-percent increase, is a very substantial increase and 
better than what President Clinton did in the 3 years from 1996 through 
1999.
  I notice that the distinguished Senator from Hawaii is in the 
Chamber. I wonder if I might inquire, is Senator Akaka prepared to 
offer an amendment?
  Mr. AKAKA. I have an amendment to offer.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is more argument to be made, more 
debate to be made on this amendment. But when there is another Senator 
ready to offer an amendment, and we have not had a quorum call at all, 
which is unusual when a bill starts the first day after a recess, with 
no votes scheduled, I will utilize our time and ask unanimous consent 
we temporarily set aside the amendment.
  Is that satisfactory with Senator Byrd?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. SPECTER. And Senator Harkin is nodding in the affirmative.
  I yield to Senator Akaka for his amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
  Mr. AKAKA. I ask unanimous consent the Byrd amendment be set aside so 
I can offer an amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Amendment No. 1544 to Amendment No. 1542

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Akaka] for himself, Mr. 
     Sarbanes, Mr. Allen, Mr. Corzine, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dodd, and 
     Ms. Stabenow proposes an amendment numbered 1544.

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To provide funding for the Excellence in Economic Education 
                              Act of 2001)

       At the end of title III, insert the following:
       Sec. 306. In addition to any amounts that may be made 
     available under this Act to carry out the Excellence in 
     Economic Education Act of 2001 under subpart 13 of part D of 
     title V of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 
     1965, there are appropriated, out of any money in the 
     Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $5,000,000 to carry out 
     the Excellence in Economic Education Act of 2001.

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 minutes to offer an 
amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill to add $5 million in 
funding to the bill before the Senate for the Excellence in Economic 
Education Act.
  I thank amendment cosponsors Senators Allen, Sarbanes, Corzine, 
Kennedy, Stabenow, and Dodd for their support. Our leaders on the 
Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, Senators Specter and Harkin, 
have been helpful in working with me on this effort. I appreciate the 
difficult job they have before them to remain within tight budget 
constraints imposed on us by necessary increases for military 
operations in Iraq and the newest round of tax cuts. I opposed the 
budget resolution and the tax bill because I knew that it could lead to 
this appropriations fight, spurred by unrealistic caps on important 
education, social welfare, and other domestic programs, pitting 
important priorities against each other. Despite these challenges 
facing the bill before us, I hope that we can work something out to 
have the Excellence in Economic Education Act, or Triple-E, funded.
  The Triple-E provides significant resources for economics and 
personal finance education, which are not receiving due attention by 
Congress. Although the Triple-E was included in the No Child Left 
Behind Act, the only comprehensive economic education program being 
funded by this bill is one to assist the teaching of economics outside 
of this country. I fully support grants to improve the quality of civic 
and economic education through exchange programs with emerging 
democracies, which represent important efforts to foster democracy in 
former Soviet states and other areas of the world. However, the lack of 
support for a corresponding authorized domestic program is 
unconscionable. This is particularly disturbing as schools must prepare 
for the first National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, in 
Economics, which according to the National Assessment Governing Board, 
is on track for 2006. The Triple-E can fill this gap in domestic 
support for economic and financial literacy, but the program must be 
funded.
  Let me tell you what I am referring to when I mention economics and 
personal finance education. These are very practical subjects that 
everyone should know--as basic in many cases as are reading, writing, 
and arithmetic. Again, referring to the 2006 NAEP in Economics, the 
framework for the assessment states that economic literacy includes an 
understanding of ``the fundamental constraints imposed by limited 
resources, the resulting choices people have to make, and the trade-
offs they face; how economies and markets work and how people function 
within them; and the benefits and costs of economic interaction and 
interdependence among people and nations.''
  The framework continues to note that literacy in this area ``also 
includes having the skills that allow people to function effectively in 
their roles as consumers, producers, savers, investors, and responsible 
citizens. These skills include economic reasoning, problem solving, 
decision making, and the ability to analyze real-life situations.''
  Personal finance, which is an important component of economics, 
speaks cogently to situations that Americans face every day. How are we 
making decisions when we pull out our wallets at the grocery store or 
in the lunch line? Are we each checking our credit reports regularly 
and understanding how they contribute to a bank's or credit union's 
decision about whether our loan applications will be approved? How are 
families making budgeting choices every week, and are they sticking to 
those choices? This is difficult to say, given that personal bankruptcy 
filings continue to set record levels. For the first quarter of 2003, 
household debt service payments were almost 14 percent of disposable 
personal income. During the first 3 months of 2003, the percentage of 
mortgages in the foreclosure process climbed to another record high. We 
may attribute much of this to current economic conditions. However, I 
daresay that some of the financial troubles faced by Americans today 
could have been mitigated if they received pragmatic, standards-based 
education from a young age, when individuals are forming the habits 
that they may take with them throughout their lives.
  Indeed, our children are not being fully prepared by our schools to 
face

[[Page 20893]]

the realities of life because they are proving to be illiterate in 
economics and personal finance. According to the 2002 National 
Jump$tart Survey, economic and financial literacy scores have declined 
since the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy conducted 
its first survey of high school seniors in 1997. The significance of 
surveying high school students is that high school is the last formal 
opportunity many individuals will have to acquire a comprehensive 
understanding of economic and personal finance. Therefore, the results 
from the 2002 survey indicating failing scores from more than 68 
percent of high school seniors taking the survey are troubling. They 
failed to demonstrate an understanding of the basic fundamentals of 
economics and personal financial management. For instance, the survey 
found that the majority of students believed that interest from a 
savings account may not be taxed. They also thought that an elderly 
retired man and his wife, who is also retired, should have the highest 
amount of life insurance, as opposed to a young single mother with 
children. While some may not think that this is important, young adults 
entering the workforce should understand that interest from 
investments, including savings accounts, is a form of income that is 
taxable just like one's salary. In addition, life insurance is meant to 
provide income for those who are significantly dependent upon the 
primary income earner in the family. The survey also found the greatest 
declines in scores on questions relating to money management and 
savings.
  The need to provide funding for the Triple-E Act is now. We need to 
send a message to our schools that we will support economic and 
personal finance studies. While results from the Jump$tart survey are 
illuminating, many public high schools did not participate out of 
concern that poor scores would require them to focus valuable and 
limited resources on courses other than those such as math, English, 
and science. As schools hesitate to understand the real-world 
implications of this attitude toward personal finance and economic 
education, it is the students who are the real losers.
  My attention was drawn to the need in this area faced by the State I 
represent. Over the August recess, I cosponsored with the Hawaii 
Council on Economic Education Hawaii's first ever Economic and 
Financial Literacy Conference, which drew tremendous support from many 
different levels and sectors of the community. I was pleased to have 
representatives from the Departments of Education and the Treasury, the 
Federal Reserve Board, Jump$tart and the National Council on Economic 
Education--NCEE, as well as a broad array of representatives from 
Hawaii's business and education sectors, State Legislature, and 
Governor's office. The more than 200 people at the conference heard the 
results of a survey of adults in Hawaii's workforce-- beneficiaries of 
Hawaii's education system. Although those taking the survey correctly 
answered an average of 13 in 20 questions, many did not have a clear 
understanding of basic concepts such as what constitutes a budget 
deficit and what is the significance of the stock market. Furthermore, 
the University of Hawaii department of economics unveiled a paper 
showing a steady increase then sharp decline in economic education in 
Hawaii in 1999. Thus, in the State I know best, despite a clear 
community interest in economic and personal finance education, we have 
a long way to go toward serving our children in these important 
subjects.
  Furthermore, students are not receiving this education at home, with 
only about 1 in 4, or 26 percent, of 13- to 21-year-olds reporting that 
their parents actively taught them to manage money. I am not advocating 
for government to be assuming this role in lieu of parents doing so. 
However, many Americans begin their roles as parents without having 
received adequate economics and personal finance education themselves, 
and thus lack the tools to provide their children with sound advice or 
the ability to steer them to useful resources.
  With this point made, let us turn the spotlight on state education 
systems. How are they doing in this area? I am sad to say not as well 
as they could be doing. According to the third biennial survey of 
States by the NCEE, the number of States having economic standards grew 
dramatically. In 1998, 38 States included economics in their standards. 
In 2000 and 2002, ten more States adopted economic standards. However, 
the percentage of States with standards who required them to be 
implemented dropped from 75 to 71 percent from 2000 to 2002. 
Furthermore, only one in four States tested students' economics 
knowledge in 1998. The current economics testing picture is in the 
chart behind me, where you can see only a marginal improvement to 27 
States testing students, with four others--Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, 
and Utah--in development. Hawaii is included in those States not 
testing students. Again, with the upcoming 2006 NAEP, although we are 
presently unsure which students will be tested, it would behoove States 
to begin assessing where their students are in terms of understanding 
economics.
  Measuring the presence of personal finance in State standards 
produces a picture even more bleak, with ground lost in key measures. 
According to NCEE, the number of States including personal finance in 
education standards grew from 21 to 40 from 1998 to 2000, but then fell 
dramatically to 31 States in 2002. The status of standards 
implementation is even worse, but slowly improving, from 14 States in 
1998 to 17 in 2002. Regarding testing, although personal finance is 
often part of another subject test such as economics, only eight States 
conduct personal finance testing, with another two States with tests in 
development. As you can see in my next chart, testing is currently 
required in Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, 
North Carolina, and Rhode Island, with tests planned or in development 
in Oregon and Utah. The bright spot there is that this is a significant 
increase from 1998, when only one State tested student achievement in 
personal finance.
  In a related testing matter, Triple-E funding would be an important 
help at the State and local levels as school districts are facing the 
challenges of meeting Annual Yearly Progress requirements under the No 
Child Left Behind Act. We must provide States the opportunity to 
explore the possibility that math and reading scores could be 
increased, if economics and personal finance are integrated into these 
other basic subjects. We all know children who may not easily be able 
to add apples and oranges but can instantly arrive at an answer to a 
calculation involving dollars and cents.
  In fact, this type of integration in teaching economics and personal 
finance was discussed at length at a roundtable sponsored on May 16, 
2002, by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, involving the U.S. 
Department of Education, education groups such as the Council of Chief 
State School Officers and National Association of Elementary School 
Principals, and economic and financial literacy organizations such as 
the National Council on Economic Education, Junior Achievement, and the 
Jump$tart Coalition. The roundtable resulted in a white paper which 
says that if we dedicate ourselves to integrating financial concepts 
into reading and mathematics curricula, we can teach children the 
basics of financial education via several access points. Modes of entry 
include developing standards of financial education, creating tests 
that correspond to the curricula taught in classrooms, cooperating with 
publishers of textbooks and other instructional materials to stress the 
incorporation of financial concepts into their products, promoting the 
use of ``off-the-shelf financial education curricula'' distributed by 
community groups dedicated to financial education, and training those 
most responsible for conveying these valuable lessons to students--our 
educators.
  It is also noted in the white paper that States requiring students to 
complete financial education courses produce graduates who have higher 
savings rates and net worth, as a percentage of earnings, compared with

[[Page 20894]]

those who graduate from schools in States with no such requirement. 
Society as a whole benefits from higher levels of savings and 
investment, which drive economic activity.
  All of this provides the broad context of why I am offering my 
amendment today. The Triple-E will ensure that vital resources will go 
to the national, State, and local levels to provide a needed boost to 
economic and financial literacy. The Triple-E Act would work to do this 
by awarding a competitive grant to a national nonprofit educational 
organization that exists primarily to improve student understanding 
about economic and financial literacy through the classroom. The 
organization would distribute 75 percent of funds to State and local 
partnerships for teacher training, assistance to school districts 
desiring to incorporate economics and personal finance into curricula, 
evaluations of the impact of economic and financial literacy education 
on students, related research, and school-based student activities. The 
national organization would use the rest of the grant for the 
strengthening of relationships with State and local entities, teacher 
training, research on effective teaching practices, assessment 
development, and material development and dissemination.
  Furthermore, the intent of the approach in the Triple-E, due to a 
federal match requirement, is to help existing and new programs to be 
self-supporting and involve the entities that should be on the front 
lines advocating financial and economic literacy; that is, banks, 
credit unions, businesses, and private industry. They are the very 
entities that benefit from a well-educated citizenry that knows how to 
take advantage of opportunities for savings, borrowing, and investing, 
and avoiding financial mistakes such as misusing credit or having to 
file for bankruptcy. In general, these entities want the very best 
education for the next generation of managers, entrepreneurs, business 
leaders, and consumers so that sound financial decisions can be made, 
economic growth can continue, and Americans can be good consumers who 
pay their bills on time and remain personally financially independent. 
As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted in a recent speech to 
the Jump$tart Coalition, ``Building bridges between community 
organizations, our educational institutions, and private businesses 
will be an essential aspect of our efforts to increase familiarity with 
new technological and financial tools that are fundamental to improving 
individual economic well-being. And the success of such efforts will 
bear significantly on how well prepared our society is to meet the 
challenges of an increasingly knowledge-based economy.'' A cooperative 
approach is necessary to help current efforts thrive, which is the type 
of effort supported by the Triple-E Act.
  I would like to note at this time that this body already expressed 
support for the type of education advocated by the Triple-E Act when it 
passed my resolution designating April 2003 as Financial Literacy for 
Youth Month. I am pleased that the other body followed suit by passing 
a similar version of my resolution, both of which contributed to the 
effort to raise awareness for financial literacy. This effort is also 
supported by various organizations, many associated with the Jump$tart 
Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. For example, America's 
Community Bankers stated, `` . . . we are strong supporters of 
financial literacy initiatives because ACB believes that informed 
consumers--including young consumers--are better able to make wise 
credit and other financial decisions.''
  Another letter from the North American Securities Administrators 
Association states:

       As a majority of Americans have become investors, there is 
     an obligation to ensure individuals have a basic 
     understanding of the principles of savings and investing, as 
     well as preserving their accumulated wealth. Every day, it 
     becomes more apparent that there is a population of investors 
     who are ill equipped to make critical financial decisions for 
     their lives.

  One could only read the names of entities and organizations that are 
a part of the Jump$tart Coalition to understand how broad the base of 
support is for financial and economic literacy.
  Many States are echoing these supportive statements, including my 
State of Hawaii. I was delighted that the Hawaii State Legislature 
approved a resolution similar to my Senate resolution and Governor 
Linda Lingle signed a proclamation for Financial Literacy for Youth 
Month. Furthermore, I have been working closely with the Hawaii Council 
on Economic Education, which supports funding for the Triple-E. I ask 
unanimous consent that a support letter from the Council be printed in 
the Record following my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. AKAKA. Hawaii Council member John Knox in the letter relays a 
personal story about his son, who is now a history major at American 
University. When John's son was a senior in high school, his son told 
him that he was ``angry that I wasn't offered economics till this year. 
I feel cheated, because most of the history courses I've taken didn't 
talk much about economics, and now I can tell that I just wasn't 
getting the full story.'' We must fund the Triple-E to help to expose 
more students to economics and personal finance education early in 
their school years, before they feel cheated out of the ``full story.''
  Referring again to the Hawaii conference that I cosponsored with HCEE 
2 weeks ago, the issues of integrative versus modular teaching in 
economic and personal finance education and challenges to fit these 
subjects within the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act were of 
tremendous interest and debate. One of the main strategies produced by 
the education discussion, which featured participants from the Federal 
and State Departments of Education and other interested parties in a 
separate breakout session, was to provide teachers with more support, 
such as meaningful professional development and related incentives, in 
order to provide them with the tools that they need to teach economics 
and personal finance. The Triple-E Act is a good starting point for 
teacher support, and it must be funded so that we can meet real needs 
that are faced by teachers and schools on the non-Federal levels.
  To conclude my remarks, we all face a professional and personal 
calling to support economic and personal financial literacy for all 
Americans. Professionally, as policymakers, advocates, and educators, 
we want to enable individuals and families. We want to give them access 
to the tools and knowledge that they need to make sound financial 
decisions. And we want to begin that education at a young age, ideally 
when they are first learning the look and feel of money, or learning 
how to work with limited resources. Personally, each of us should be 
literate in this area, and try to encourage our family and friends to 
check their credit reports annually, understand economic trends, or 
increase their financial and economic literacy in other ways.
  Funding the Triple-E is an important step in fulfilling our 
professional obligation to financial and economic literacy, so that we 
can help others to meet their personal obligations in this area, for 
themselves and their families. I hope that something can be worked out 
with the managers of the bill before us, but if we are unable to do so, 
I will ask for a recorded vote at that time. Again, I hope that we can 
work something out before that occurs. Otherwise, I urge my colleagues 
to support my amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield my time.

                               Exhibit 1

                                                 Hawaii Council on


                                           Economic Education,

                                      Honolulu, HI, July 14, 2003.
     Hon. Daniel K. Akaka,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Akaka: On behalf of the students and teachers 
     in Hawaii served by the Hawaii Council on Economic Education 
     (the Council), I am writing to express our strong support for 
     the Excellence in Economic Education Act (EEE Act). Congress 
     approved the EEE Act as a part of the No Child Left Behind 
     Act, but has not yet funded this important program. The EEE 
     Act provides resources for teacher training, assistance to 
     school districts looking to incorporate economics and 
     personal finance into

[[Page 20895]]

     curricula, evaluations assessing student understanding, 
     research, and school-based student activities.
       The Hawaii Council on Economic Education was organized in 
     1965 to promote and improve the teaching of economics in 
     Hawaii's public and private schools and increase the economic 
     and financial literacy of Hawaii's students and residents. 
     The Council is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 
     501(c)3 educational organization that focuses on the teacher 
     as the key to Hawaii's economic literacy. Over the span of a 
     teacher's career, he or she can influence over 3,000 
     students. This impact is truly significant.
       The Council commends you on your tireless effort to educate 
     the public and your peers on the importance of economic and 
     financial literacy and we support your amendment to the FY 
     2004 Labor-HHS, and Education Appropriations bill which would 
     fund the EEE Act, which will provide vital local, state, and 
     national resources to boost economic and financial literacy 
     in America.
       Several Council Members have asked me to pass on their 
     messages of support.

       ``This is to encourage the Senate to accept the 
     principles--and to fund the activities--embodied in Senator 
     Akaka's Excellence in Economic Education Act. For more than 
     15 years, I have been an active volunteer and donor 
     supporting economic education, as has my company, Alexander & 
     Baldwin, Inc. We believe that citizens in a democracy can 
     participate more thoughtfully in its processes if they have a 
     basic understanding of economic principles. Regretfully, 
     tightened local school budgets are reducing, rather than 
     expanding, the chances for youngsters to have an early 
     exposure to economics. Among other benefits, federal 
     recognition and support of economic education would serve to 
     ratify and strengthen our arguments about its value on the 
     local level. As a former educator, Senator Akaka has a 
     special appreciation of this need, and we urge you, his 
     respected colleagues, to acknowledge and support his 
     sensitivity to this issue.''
     --John B. Kelley, Vice President, Investor Relations, 
           Alexander & Baldwin, Inc., Board Member, Hawaii Council 
           on Economic Education.
                                  ____

       ``I support the inclusion of funding for the Excellence in 
     Economic Education Act in the FY 2004 Labor, Health and Human 
     Services, and Education Appropriations bill, S. 1356.
       ``Economic and financial literacy are critical to the 
     successful operation of our democracy, improving our 
     citizens' ability to make informed choices about their own 
     lives, as well as issues of national and international 
     importance.''
     --David McClain, Vice President for Academic Affairs, 
           University of Hawaii System, Board Member and Former 
           Board Chair, Hawaii Council on Economic Education.
                                  ____

       ``The Money needed for economic education is critical. We 
     have young adults graduating from high school as well as 
     college with little, if any economic or personal finance 
     education. They are expected to manage household budgets to 
     include checkbook maintenance, credit management, car 
     purchasing, house renting/buying, risk management 
     (insurance), and much more without any formal education in 
     these matters. The fast paced financial world facing them is 
     daunting to say the least. Consider the credit card companies 
     that hound us everyday to mention just one challenge. No 
     wonder such a large percentage of our young families file for 
     bankruptcy!
       ``We need economics education to be required in our high 
     schools to ensure every student has an opportunity to succeed 
     as a money manager in their personal lives. Further, we 
     desperately need the resources (trained teachers) to ensure 
     these skills are taught to our youth.''
     --Colonel Richard Rankin, Iolani School Teacher, Board 
           Member, Hawaii Council on Economic Education.
                                  ____

       ``I support Senator Akaka in getting more funding to 
     promote improving the economic/business understanding of our 
     kids in K-12 in the state of Hawaii to prepare them to enter 
     society with an understanding of the free enterprise system 
     as it exists in our country.
       ``To this end I have been active in HCEE and Junior 
     Achievement who work toward these goals. HCEE supports the 
     Economic education of our teachers to enable them to better 
     teach our kids. Junior Achievement provides curriculum 
     materials and supplies volunteers to assist the teacher.''
     --Will Sanburn, Board Member, Hawaii Council on Economic 
           Education.
                                  ____

       ``I am a member and past Chair of the Hawaii Council for 
     Economic Education. However, this letter is actually written 
     to forward to you the views of my son, Edward ``Mickey'' 
     Knox, who is currently a history major and economics minor 
     attending American University in Washington D.C.
       ``When a senior at Hawaii's well-regarded Iolani private 
     high school, he took his first economics course from retired 
     Colonel Dick Rankin, recently recognized by the National 
     Council on Economic Education as one of the country's top 
     economics teachers. Mickey told me at the time that he felt a 
     little cheated * * * because Colonel Rankin made him realize 
     that all his previous American history courses had not really 
     explained how much economics drives our political system and 
     the course of history.
       ``He e-mailed me to ask that this brief testimony be 
     conveyed to the United States Congress as part of the 
     submittal being assembled by the Hawaii Council:''

       Before the end of high school, every child is expected to 
     learn English, to know that subjects have predicates * * * 
     Science, to know that gravity pulls * * * Math, to know that 
     terms equate * * * and History, to know that it repeats.
       But how can a person get a public education, graduate high 
     school, and be a competent citizen without understanding 
     economics? History suggests humans may even have developed 
     math and the drive to understand other languages because 
     market forces led them to barter with each other. Economics 
     was the whole point!
       When I was in high school, Col. Rankin's course opened my 
     eyes to a new perspective on the way the world works. But 
     that perspective should be a common one, not a secret. Please 
     vote to appropriate funds that would encourage economic 
     education. It is vitally important.--Edward ``Mickey'' Knox.

     --John M. Knox, President, JMK Associates, Board Member, 
           Hawaii Council on Economic Education.
                                  ____

       As you are aware, the importance of economic and financial 
     literacy cannot be understated. The ability to understand and 
     make sound economic decisions is a basic survival skill that 
     will enable students--our future employees, business people, 
     and government leaders--to effectively cope with the economic 
     uncertainties affecting all our lives.
       Without a serious demonstration of support for economics 
     and personal finance, State and local support for these real-
     world subjects could disappear in the face of budget cuts and 
     new requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act.
       Thank you for leading the charge to equip students well 
     with the tools that they need to become heads of households, 
     members of the workforce, entrepreneurs, business leaders, 
     and voting citizens.
           Sincerely,

                                          Kristine Castagnaro,

                                               Executive Director,
                             Hawaii Council on Economic Education.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, at the outset I thank the Senator from 
Hawaii for coming forward at an early time to offer an amendment. And 
in thanking him for offering the amendment at an early time, I urge my 
colleagues who have amendments which they intend to present to come to 
the floor and offer the amendments.
  There are more than 40 amendments which have been suggested. How many 
of them will reach fruition to be offered we are not yet sure. But we 
have proceeded for almost 2 hours without having a quorum call. And if 
we are to proceed to complete this bill at an early date, hopefully 
notwithstanding the difficulty even this week, we are going to have to 
proceed with other amendments.
  If there is staff available to inform the managers' staff as to what 
amendments may be in a position to be offered later this afternoon, 
that would be helpful. If we can get an idea as to what Senators may be 
arriving in town later today--we understand the absence of a vote will 
enable Senators to come to town without the pressure of a vote, but if 
staffers could tell us whether Senators will be in town for offering 
amendments later today, that would be very helpful so the managers can 
plan their activities.
  With respect to the amendment offered by the Senator from Hawaii, I 
think there is a real merit in what has been proposed to have 
information to promote economic and financial literacy among all 
students in kindergarten through grade 12. This item, although 
authorized, was not subject to funding by the subcommittee. Because of 
limitations in overall funding, the decision was made not to fund any 
new programs.
  I note that the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Education released a 
report which identified a number of options for incorporating financial 
education into schools, some of which would include financial concepts 
to material being asked on tests, urging textbook publishers to include 
more financial educational content, incorporating financial educational 
materials into classroom lessons, and training teachers on the 
importance of financial education.
  I think it is very significant to know that there are funds available 
for

[[Page 20896]]

States, some $345 million, for innovative educational State grant 
programs which could accomplish precisely what the Senator from Hawaii 
seeks to accomplish. Those $345 million in innovative educational State 
grants could well incorporate the ideas for which the Senator from 
Hawaii asks. In addition, there is already an appropriation of $2.850 
billion in teacher quality State grant programs which could be used for 
this purpose.
  So in opposing the amendment by the Senator from Hawaii, it is not 
because we do not think it seeks a worthwhile objective, but there are 
funds available in other lines which could fund this program. So it is 
with reluctance that I am constrained to say that our rule not to fund 
new programs because of overall limitations of funding would not have 
an exception for this amendment. Once we start to make exceptions on 
new programs, we obviously cannot adhere to that exclusionary rule.
  To repeat: There are funds available from other programs, funds 
available from other appropriations which could accommodate the ideas 
of the Senator from Hawaii.
  I note no other Senators on the floor seeking to offer amendments. In 
fact, I note no Senators even on the floor not seeking to offer 
amendments. We have a cozy twosome, Mr. President, the Senator from 
Wyoming and this Senator.
  Again, I urge my colleagues, among a list of some 40 prospective 
amendments, to come to the floor to offer amendments.
  In the absence of any Senators who are coming to the floor to offer 
amendments, this is an appropriate time to return to the opening 
statement which I interrupted to yield to the Senator from West 
Virginia who offered an amendment.
  In addition to the categories already identified, this bill provides 
for biodefense to continue the Nation's efforts to address 
bioterrorism, a very important subject, in the amount of $3.6 billion. 
On this subject, it is worth noting that during the August recess, I 
traveled to many fire departments and locations of first responders in 
my State of Pennsylvania to see the level of preparedness of many of 
the fire departments. We have allocated in Pennsylvania alone some $68 
million for first responders and some $77 million in grants are 
available.
  In visits to many communities, there was a very refreshing sign of 
voluntarism in the volunteer fire departments but really a need for 
more volunteers. In Sunbury, PA, the suggestion was made that the 
schools might incorporate in the curriculum a program for seniors, 
maybe even for juniors, which would provide high school education on 
being a first responder and might even inculcate a spirit among high 
school students of a desire and an interest in volunteering, going back 
to the statement widely quoted of President John F. Kennedy: Ask not 
what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country, 
to try to bring high school students into the first responders line. We 
are going to be exploring in this bill the possibility of an earmark 
which might be devoted to an educational program in high schools to 
encourage students to become volunteers in fire departments or other 
first responder units.
  Again, I ask my colleagues to come to the floor to offer amendments. 
There is no Senator on the floor to offer an amendment. With some 
reluctance, having passed 2 hours and 5 minutes without a quorum, 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. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that the amendment 
pending is the Byrd amendment; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Akaka amendment is pending.


                           Amendment No. 1543

  Mr. DORGAN. The amendment offered this morning by Senator Byrd is an 
amendment dealing with the issue of funding the requirements of the No 
Child Left Behind Act. I will talk about the Byrd amendment which 
provides additional funding for the Title I program, a major part of No 
Child Left Behind.
  The No Child Left Behind law passed the Congress with very wide 
support. It was proposed by the President. It was embraced by people on 
the left and the right in Congress. It had strong bipartisan support. 
But there are significant issues and problems attached to it, one of 
which is being addressed by this amendment offered this morning by my 
colleague. I come to the floor to support that amendment.
  I begin by saying that I am a little weary of people trashing public 
schools in this country. We have a wonderful educational system. We 
have significant challenges. There is no question about that. But we 
have a great educational system.
  We are one of the few countries in the world that early on started 
with a basic notion that every young child ought to be able to go 
through a classroom door and learn and become whatever their God given 
talents allow them to become. Through it all, we have had wonderful 
young men and women move from classrooms to experiments in research, to 
business, to academics, and to create in this country quite a 
remarkable record of achievement.
  I recall a story I have told my colleagues many times but it is worth 
telling again whenever I talk about education. The oldest man in 
Congress when I arrived was a man named Claude Pepper, the Congressman 
from the State of Florida. He was then in his late eighties. When I 
went to see him to say hello, because I knew a lot about him, behind 
his chair in his office on the wall were two interesting pictures. One 
was of Orville and Wilbur Wright making the first airplane flight. It 
was autographed to Congressman Pepper, by Orville Wright before he 
died, a picture of his first flight: To Congressman Claude Pepper, with 
great admiration, Orville Wright.
  Beneath it there was a picture of Neil Armstrong standing on the 
Moon, autographed to Claude Pepper. I thought about the distance 
between those two framed photographs, the first person to fly and the 
first person to walk on the Moon. December 17, 1903, for 59 seconds, 
Orville Wright left the ground and flew. And then in 1969 Neil 
Armstrong walked on the surface of the Moon.
  What is the distance between those two photographs framed on one 
Congressman's office wall? The distance is education, learning, 
knowledge. It did not happen in a European country. It did not happen 
in an African or Asian country. It happened in this country.
  Our system of public education gives every young child every 
opportunity to be whatever their God given talents allow them to be, 
which has spawned remarkable opportunities and challenges and 
remarkable achievements. Those achievements, the first person to leave 
the ground and fly and the first person to fly to the Moon and walk on 
the surface of the Moon is an achievement of technology, science, and 
knowledge.
  There are so many others. We could talk about, for example, Dr. Jonas 
Salk and the development of the Salk vaccine that prevents polio. There 
are so many other examples that I should not even begin to list them.
  The point is that all of this stems from America's public schools. 
Yes, we have some great private schools as well, but public education 
has been the way we have educated the large majority of American young 
people.
  I come from one of those schools, a very small rural school in a very 
small town with a senior high school class of nine students, a high 
school with four grades--freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior--
totaling 40 students. We didn't have foreign languages in that high 
school. We had a library the size of a coat closet. Disadvantaged? 
Probably. But did I get a great education? You bet your life I did. 
Because the school board members in that town

[[Page 20897]]

cared about that school and made sure it was a good school.
  Let me talk just a bit about where we are today. I talked about where 
I went to school. We still have a lot of rural schools. I visited many 
communities in August in my home State of North Dakota and talked with 
educators, talked with school administrators, talked with parents about 
the schools in their hometowns. We have many small community schools 
and they do a remarkable job of educating their kids.
  We passed a piece of Federal legislation that the President described 
as No Child Left Behind. I think it makes sense. I agree with President 
Bush. It makes sense to have accountability in education. 
Accountability is important. We spend a lot of money on schools and on 
education. We give report cards to kids for a reason--so that child and 
that child's parents understand how the child is doing in school. That 
is the report card. There is nothing at all wrong or inappropriate with 
us deciding we ought to have report cards on our schools as well, 
because some schools do better than others.
  The question is why. Why shouldn't a child walking through a 
classroom door in one State have the same opportunity at a quality 
education as a child walking through a classroom door in another State 
or another county or another city?
  Accountability is fine. We spend a great deal of money on education 
in this country. Public funding for education is important. We commit a 
great deal to it, so let's hold schools accountable. That is the 
philosophy behind this law, No Child Left Behind. The title itself 
simply begs the question: Would you want to leave a child behind? The 
answer is no, of course not. Has anyone proposed legislation here in 
the Senate that says: Let's leave children behind? Has anybody here 
said: My bill says leave children behind? Of course not. No Child Left 
Behind is a title. We all agree with that. It is a slogan, and an 
important slogan, I might say: No Child Left Behind.
  What is important, however, is what we do at the Federal level to 
create opportunities to improve our education system and, yes, to 
provide more accountability for how the resources are spent and how our 
schools are doing. It is very important for us to have passed this 
legislation and now to do what is necessary to make it work.
  I regret to tell you that at least my observation is that in two 
areas we are setting this law up for failure, which then means we are 
setting up for failure those children and the teachers and the parents 
and the school administrators who are a part of this large, wonderful, 
important industry called public education.
  The two areas are as follows. No. 1 is funding. There was an implied 
promise by everyone when this legislation was passed imposing mandates, 
certain requirements on school districts and schools in this country, 
that we would provide the funding for those mandates. In fact, when 
President Bush signed the law, he said:

       And a fourth principle is that we are going to spend more 
     money, more resources, but they'll be directed at methods 
     that work. We're going to spend more on our schools, and 
     we're going to spend it more wisely.
  Beyond this quote, the implied promise by the President and by 
Members of Congress, the bipartisan consensus, was that we will impose 
these mandates and we will provide funding to make them work. 
Regrettably, that has not happened. Providing the funding is the goal 
of this amendment that has been offered and it is one I support. The 
ink of the President's signature on this bill was hardly dry when the 
next Presidential budget was sent to the Congress that did not fully 
fund the authorized requirements in No Child Left Behind. In fact, the 
President's proposal cut some funding initially. The Fiscal Year 2003 
Omnibus Appropriations Act fell about $7.2 billion short of the 
authorized level for No Child Left Behind programs.
  Some will make the case that authorization bills are different from 
appropriations bills. It is not unusual that we authorize more than we 
actually appropriate, and I agree with that. That certainly is the 
case. But it is also the case with No Child Left Behind that we 
embarked on a new and aggressive education policy in this country that 
said we will seek accountability but we will also provide the resources 
to make that happen. Regrettably, the President has not requested those 
resources. His requests have fallen far short of that which I believe 
was promised. Also, the Congress has not provided the resources above 
the President's request. We have provided some additional resources but 
not sufficient resources to do what I believe we need to be doing.
  The second area I think will set this up for failure unless some 
changes are made is the issue of flexibility. This ought not and cannot 
and should not be a one-size-fits-all public policy. You simply cannot 
put the same template over a school with nine high school senior 
students as you do over a school in midtown Manhattan. They are 
different schools with different resources, different needs, different 
circumstances. So you have to have some flexibility to recognize that.
  If this law is administered with flexibility and with the sensitivity 
and understanding that you have different parts of the country with 
different needs, different school districts, different kinds of 
schools, different challenges with different kinds of students--if you 
understand that and are sensitive to it in the rules and regulations 
administered by both the Department of Education and the State 
education agencies, then this can work.
  But if this policy says to a small school in a small town: You have a 
teacher and that teacher has been teaching geography in your school for 
12 years, and he or she is, by all accounts, a wonderful teacher, loved 
by the students, teaches a wonderful course in geography, and produces 
from that course students who know that subject cold--by all accounts 
an all-star teacher, but that teacher is teaching in his or her college 
minor, not major if, because of this--legislation and the way it is 
interpreted in the rules and regulations at the Federal Department of 
Education and the State education authorities, you say to that teacher 
and that school: By the way, you are not highly qualified and therefore 
you are not eligible to teach that course in geography that you have 
taught so well and with such excellence for 12 years, then I say this 
legislation is destined to fail.
  We must recognize, and the legislation we passed does recognize, that 
there are alternatives and opportunities for teachers of the type I 
just described. Some, however, who administer this law, at both the 
Federal and State levels, say what we demand, then, is that teachers 
teach only in their major because that is the only teacher who is 
highly qualified. Nonsense. Total rubbish. There are teachers who teach 
in their minor who do a wonderful job and have developed the 
experience, the skill, and the capability to be wonderful teachers.
  If someone is going to say, especially to rural schools in this 
country: You must teach only in your major, and if you are teaching in 
your minor, you are not highly qualified and therefore you are not 
eligible to teach, then the question is, Who is going to come up with 
the extra money to fund all that? You are going to have teachers going 
through our colleges getting trained as teachers getting double majors? 
They have to stay in school longer. It is going to cost more money.
  We have States that do not pay teachers very much money. The fact is, 
they spend most of their day with our kids. Yet we do not, apparently, 
value that profession significantly enough to pay it the kind of money 
that is necessary to keep teachers in the profession.
  I think two things are at work here. First, if this is not funded, it 
is destined to fail. You cannot have an implied promise that we will 
impose the mandate and fund the mandate and then not fund it. And, 
second, if we do not have flexibility in how this is administered by 
both Federal and State education departments, it is destined to fail as 
well. I don't want it to fail. I want this law to succeed, and I want 
this to recognize with some significant

[[Page 20898]]

abundance of common sense that there is a way to hold schools 
accountable. There is a way for us to establish national aspirations 
and goals, to demand accountability, without being foolish about it and 
without telling a fair number of teachers, wonderful teachers, the best 
and brightest with standards of excellence by all accounts, that, 
somehow, you are no longer capable of teaching. That makes no sense at 
all. That is absurd.
  I want this to succeed, but the two areas I mentioned are two areas I 
think will destine this law to fail unless remedies are taken that will 
resolve both: No. 1, adequate funding and, No. 2, the implementation of 
this legislation in a way that recognizes the need for flexibility; the 
implementation ought to recognize that ``highly qualified'' is a 
description that ought to apply to all teachers who do an excellent job 
everywhere in this country. That is who highly qualified ought to apply 
to.
  All of us come from schools that gave us opportunities. I mentioned 
that my high school senior class was in a really small community in 
southwestern North Dakota with nine students. I had a couple of 
teachers, one especially who I think helped me a great deal. Teachers 
live with you the rest of their lives. In fact, when I was elected to 
the U.S. House of Representatives, my English teacher from high school 
would still from time to time send back to me newsletters I would send 
out to North Dakota constituents. She would edit them for grammar and 
mistakes and send them back. English teachers never leave you, of 
course. But there are wonderful teachers. They blessed my life and 
blessed the lives of so many American kids who have graduated from our 
school system.
  I come today to support the specific Byrd amendment that would 
provide the funding that is necessary to increase funding for title I 
to the $18.6 billion level that was authorized by law. Title I is the 
largest program funded by the No Child Left Behind Act, the major 
Federal aid program serving disadvantaged students--those students most 
in danger of falling behind. This amendment is the same amendment 
Senator Byrd offered during the appropriations committee markup, which 
was regrettably rejected on a party-line vote.
  We hear these days of teachers buying their own supplies for their 
classrooms because the school district doesn't supply them. We hear 
about states on the west coast where teachers worked the last 10 days 
of the year for free, without salary, because the school district 
didn't have the money to pay them. We hear all of these stories about 
what is happening with respect to the financial crunch both at the 
State and local governments. That applies to school districts as well.
  The question of whether we are going to allow this to succeed and 
make accountability something that really does work is I think a 
function of whether we are willing to put our money where our mouth is. 
If we are going to impose mandates, how are we going to fund those 
mandates? The implied promise was that we were. Regrettably, the 
history of this in the last couple of years is that we are not going to 
meet that promise. This amendment is one more opportunity to do what we 
said we were going to do.
  Second, I simply want my comments today to send a statement to those 
who are engaged both at the Federal level and at the State level in 
developing these definitions that if these definitions and the 
implementation of this legislation is done without common sense, once 
again this is destined to fail. We must have some common sense in how 
this is implemented. It can work. It should work. I hope it will work. 
But this law called the No Child Left Behind Act simply will not work 
unless these two conditions are met.
  I introduced a resolution a couple of months ago that would suspend 
the enforcement of the No Child Left Behind Act until full funding is 
provided and that called for flexibility in the implementation that 
will allow this law an opportunity to work.
  I see that the Senator from Pennsylvania, the manager of the bill, is 
on the floor. I was intending to say just a few words on a separate 
subject on the issue of trade, but I don't want to interrupt the 
discussions with respect to education. So let me ask my colleague if he 
was intending to speak on the bill at this point. If that were the 
case, I would defer.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I appreciate the invitation of the 
Senator from North Dakota, and I would like an opportunity to comment 
upon what he has had to say about the amendment by the Senator from 
West Virginia and also on the flexibility issue. Then I would defer to 
the Senator from North Dakota to speak additionally about trade.
  When the Senator from North Dakota calls for adequate funding, I 
would suggest to him that the determination of ``adequate'' doesn't 
necessarily turn on having an opportunity which meets the full level of 
authorization. Some of this I had submitted when Senator Byrd had 
offered the amendment, but I think it would bear just a little 
repetition. Perhaps the Senator from North Dakota didn't hear it, or 
perhaps there might be even somebody listening on C-SPAN who wasn't 
listening earlier, or perhaps there might be somebody on C-SPAN 
listening. But just because the appropriations bill figure is not up to 
the level of authorization does not necessarily mean it is not 
adequate.
  My preference would have been to have had a larger allocation for 
this subcommittee report and have had a larger allocation for 
education. But as Senator Byrd said earlier, and Senator Harkin said 
earlier, this appropriations bill goes about as far as you can. Senator 
Harkin and I had commented earlier this is a bipartisan bill. We have 
worked out the appropriations process in a bipartisan way.
  I became chairman in 1995, and Senator Harkin has been chairman 
intermittently and I ranking, and reverse. As we have frequently said, 
it has been a seamless transfer of the gavel. But as Senator Harkin 
noted, this appropriation bill did as well as you could, and Senator 
Byrd, the ranking member of the full committee, agreed with him. The 
question of what is adequate is a fair subject for debate. I repeat 
that it has always been desirable to have more funding on education. 
But just because the approprations is not up to the authorization 
level, it does not mean there has been a dereliction by the Bush 
administration.
  I refer the Senator from North Dakota and others to the fact that 
when the No Child Left Behind bill was enacted in January of 2002--and 
the appropriation followed a few days later--the authorization for 
title I was $13.5 billion but the appropriation was $10.35 billion, and 
that was when the Senate was controlled by the Democrats. So the 
appropriation was $2.85 billion under the authorization.
  On another aspect of the No Child Left Behind bill, improving teacher 
quality, the authorization was $3.175 billion, the appropriation was 
$2.85 billion. So the appropriation, under the Democrats' control, was 
$325 million under the authorization.
  On another aspect of the No Child Left Behind bill, the 21st Century 
Community Learning Centers, the authorization was $1.25 billion and the 
appropriation was $1 billion. So it was $250 million under the 
authorization.
  I commended Senator Harkin, who was chairman of this subcommittee at 
that time, and Senator Byrd, who was chairman of the full committee. 
But the fact is the authorization was higher than the appropriation, 
which is customary.
  As is reasonably well known, we have two committees, the authorizers 
and the appropriators, and the authorizers characteristically put up a 
higher figure than the appropriators may be able to manage.
  There has also been some question as to whether President Bush has 
adequately funded education. As I said earlier--and again I think this 
is worth repeating--if you take a look at what President Bush has 
requested in the President's budget, which is the determination as to 
what the President wants on education funding, in the year 2002, the 
first year President Bush submitted a budget, it was for $44.54 
billion, which was about a $4.5 billion increase over 2001, and if you 
contrast

[[Page 20899]]

the 3 years of the request on the budget by President Bush, the figure 
has gone from $40 billion to $53.3 billion, which is an increase of 
about 33 percent.
  If you take a look at the request by President Clinton from 1996 
through 1999, the figure went from $26 billion to $32 billion, or an 
increase of about 23 percent. No one said President Clinton had 
shortchanged education. If you take a look at the 3 high years for 
President Clinton--1999, 2000, and 2001--the budget increased from 
$29.5 billion to a little over $40 billion. That is about a 33 percent 
increase, a little over $10 billion. So whereas President Bush, in the 
3 years cited, had $13 billion and President Clinton, in the first of 
the 3 years cited, had $6 billion, and $10 billion in the second, I 
think President Bush's increases compare very favorably.
  Again, it would be nice to have more funding, but on the question of 
what President Bush has done by way of his request, I think it is a 
very strong showing.
  When the Senator from North Dakota makes reference to the issue of 
flexibility, I quite agree with him, there is a need for flexibility.
  If I might have the Senator's attention. When he talks about a one-
room schoolhouse, that resonates with this Senator. My younger sister 
Shirley taught in a one-room schoolhouse located about 6 miles from 
Russell, KS, when I was, I think, a senior in high school. And when the 
Senator from North Dakota talks about a rural school, where a teacher 
has to teach a number of grades, I recollect that very well. I would 
not take an oath to this, but I think she had about four different 
grades from first to eighth. The intervening grades, I wouldn't be too 
sure.
  But it was tough teaching in that country day school in a couple of 
respects. The first thing was there was no transportation. My father, 
who had a junkyard in Russell, KS, had to take time off to drive her to 
school and to pick her up from school. But that was what fathers did in 
about 1946 when she had this country day school.
  Also, the word problems for the eighth grade were very difficult. My 
older sister Hilda was living with us at the time. Her husband was 
fighting in World War II and was in the South Pacific. Hilda was a 
college graduate and I was a senior in high school, both of us 
substantially beyond the eighth grade, and we would sit for hours at 
the kitchen table working over these word problems.
  So when the Senator from North Dakota talks about the need--
occasionally we got the word problems, too. I don't want to leave that 
hanging. Occasionally we got them. We did not always get them. You 
know, the question: If X starts at point 1, and goes 20 miles an hour, 
and travels for 2 hours and 30 minutes, and B starts at point zero, and 
goes for 4 hours with deviation, et cetera, et cetera, who arrives at 
point Q first? Those are fairly tough questions.
  The question I would have for the Senator from North Dakota is 
whether these standards, which do not have to be met for a few years 
yet, require modification now. Each State has to submit a plan to the 
Department of Education for approval. Of course, each State knows what 
they are dealing with. The State director of education knows how many 
one-room schools he has in North Dakota or how many he has in Kansas. 
Maybe there are some even in between in South Dakota and Nebraska.
  The question I have for the Senator from North Dakota is: Has there 
been insufficient flexibility in the approvals given by the U.S. 
Department of Education on these plans submitted by the various States, 
if the Senator from North Dakota is familiar with that?
  Mr. DORGAN. I say, Mr. President, to the Senator from Pennsylvania 
that I am aware that the Secretary of Education at one point talked 
about being very ginger with respect to waivers and the kind of 
flexibility I think is necessary. I do not have his quotes in front of 
me.
  But the point I was trying to make is that as States determine what 
their specific needs are, of course the State education authority is 
going to be in touch with the Department of Education to determine how 
the Department of Education is going to send down the rules, how they 
are going to enforce this.
  My understanding, at least, is that the Department of Education has 
indicated it is not going to be very anxious or interested in waiver 
policies. So the point I was trying to make--and I don't think I 
mentioned one-room schools. I mentioned small schools.
  Mr. SPECTER. You can't get any smaller than a one-room school.
  Mr. DORGAN. But the point I was trying to make is, if we do not have 
flexibility and therefore describe wonderful teachers as not highly 
qualified, and you have to hire additional teachers in small schools so 
they are all teaching in their major, then the question is: Who is 
going to come up with the money for that?
  First of all, I do not think it would be smart to do that because you 
are telling some wonderful teachers they are not qualified. But second, 
if you do embark on that strategy, it is going to cost all of these 
school districts more money, and that becomes the mandate. And the 
question is: Who is going to fund the mandate?
  Those are the questions I raised that are related to both funding and 
also flexibility. I hope an abundance of common sense might well be 
applied to all aspects of this legislation.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, my response is that I agree with the 
Senator from North Dakota, there has to be flexibility. I am not 
conversant with what is going on in Kansas rural schools today, but I 
can become conversant. And perhaps the Senator from North Dakota is 
conversant on what is going on with rural schools in North Dakota.
  But if they still have a small school, where a single teacher is all 
there is in a one-room school, and they have four students to teach in 
four different grades, I don't think it is realistic to bring four 
teachers in with specialties. You might have to have more than four 
because they teach arithmetic, geography, English, and history, and 
many subjects.
  What I intend to do is to find out what is going on there.
  Mr. DORGAN. Might I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania to yield?
  Mr. SPECTER. I am glad to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. The point is not just a one-room school or one teacher 
teaching four kids. The point is, for example, a school of the type I 
described with four grades and 50 students and four teachers. Those 
four teachers are having to teach outside of their major. They are 
teaching in their minor and major, several different classes, and in 
many cases are wonderful teachers who produce great students. They know 
their subjects, and the demonstration of being good teachers is that 
they turn kids out of that classroom having completed their course, and 
these kids know the subject as well. In those circumstances, a school 
like that couldn't possibly hire another four teachers because they 
wouldn't have the money.
  The question is, are you still going to continue to keep those 
schools open and allow those teachers to teach in their major and minor 
provided they are good teachers?
  Unfortunately, I believe we are headed toward a time when the 
definition of who is highly qualified will exclude many of those great 
teachers.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, my question to the Senator from North 
Dakota, precisely stated: Does he know of any situation where there is 
any such school, where the State head of education has submitted that 
issue to the U.S. Department of Education for a waiver and had it 
turned down?
  Mr. DORGAN. Well, as the Senator from Pennsylvania notes, we are not 
down the road far enough at this point to understand exactly what the 
U.S. Department of Education is going to do in terms of allowing States 
to deal with their specific needs. I can tell you, having dealt with 
many Federal agencies for a long time--I know the Senator has as well--
having watched some of these statements coming from the Department of 
Education, we will at some point be on the floor talking about these 
circumstances because we will have Federal Rules imposed by the 
Government in a way that simply does

[[Page 20900]]

not match the needs or interests of the small local school districts.
  I will be happy to work with the Senator as we proceed so that if he 
indicates--and he did earlier--he believes flexibility is the hallmark 
and a watchword, you have to have flexibility and common sense, then he 
and I need to be very vigilant in making sure that both the State plans 
but also especially and most importantly the Federal Rules with respect 
to how those plans are evaluated give us the opportunity for some 
common sense and flexibility.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if we are not far enough down the road to 
know how it is going to work out, I don't think we are far enough down 
the road to criticize it. I think we are far enough down the road to 
make inquiries. But I think it is premature to criticize this bill for 
lack of flexibility, premature to criticize this bill for lack of 
funding to accommodate more flexibility until we see that the U.S. 
Department of Education has denied an application by North Dakota or 
Kansas or some rural State, which has a good educational system and has 
it taken care of, that is being turned down on the flexibility request.
  The issue has been raised. I think it is an important issue. As the 
chairman of the subcommittee, I will make inquiries to see how the 
flexibility rule is being carried out to date or how it is proposed to 
be carried out, to have hearings, if necessary, in the subcommittee. We 
ought to anticipate the problem, but it is too soon to criticize.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator from Pennsylvania will 
yield once again.
  Mr. SPECTER. I do.
  Mr. DORGAN. First of all, it is not so much a criticism as a 
determination of what is necessary to make this legislation or make 
this new law work. The State plans that were submitted to the 
Department of Education for approval deal almost exclusively with how 
states measure yearly progress for the school districts themselves. 
These plans that have been approved do not deal with the definition of 
``highly qualified'' teachers.
  If you take a look at what has been discussed and described, 
including the discussions around the provisions in the underlying law 
itself, there is enough to cause concern that ought to require us to 
talk about it at this point. Because if we don't do that, we will head 
towards 2005 and 2006, when the deadline exists with respect to the 
issue of highly qualified teachers, and we will find we have put in 
place a bureaucratic juggernaut that will cause chaos in school 
districts all across the country.
  It is very important for us to discuss this now.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I agree it is important to discuss. The 
information handed to me at the staff level represents that since the 
act was passed in 2001, funding for high quality professional 
development for teachers and school administrators has been increased 
by 32 percent during the Clinton administration in the seven years 
following the Elementary and Secondary Education Act authorized in 
1994, which also called for set standards to develop and implement 
assessments. The total increase provided for title I grants to LEAs was 
$2.4 billion or 38 percent. In contrast, at the level proposed in this 
bill, the total increase since the passage of the No Child Left Behind 
Program in 2001, would be $3.6 billion or 41 percent. So I think the 
funding in this bill is providing for improvements.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. I don't disagree at all with the data. I did not talk 
about Clinton versus Bush and so on. I didn't make that reference. The 
circumstances are dramatically different than they were previously. We 
embarked on a new, different, aggressive education policy called No 
Child Left Behind in which we imposed for the first time significant 
enforceable standards in order to measure accountability. That was my 
point.
  I like the work the Senator from Pennsylvania does. He and I have 
worked on a lot of things together. Notably, I was one who, along with 
the Senators from Pennsylvania and Iowa and others, worked to try to 
double the amount of funding in the National Institutes of Health, and 
the dividends that will pay for the American people in the future are 
significant. I like the work the leadership of this subcommittee does, 
the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa. I appreciate 
working with them. He indicated this is the best we can do on funding. 
He would probably wish to do more. I think I heard him suggest that. I 
sit back and try to figure out what are our priorities as a country. 
What are the priorities? Then I see stories.
  For example, in the middle of all of this, I was visiting schools and 
talking about funding that might or might not happen under these 
mandates. And at that time, we were simultaneously having a situation 
with Turkey this year. They would not let us use their bases or allow 
our troops to cross their borders into Iraq. So Mr. Wolfowitz was sent 
to Turkey and came back with a deal to provide $26 billion to Turkey. I 
called around to find out where that money was coming from. I found out 
$6 billion was to be in the form of direct grants and $20 billion in 
guaranteed loans. I am thinking, maybe I should change my name to 
Turkey. The old John Paxon song, I am changing my name to Poland.
  I think the issue for all of us is what are the priorities? What 
represents the significant priorities including national security, 
national defense, homeland security? Those are significant. But when 
you talk about education, it is also the case that education is our 
future. I want this law to succeed. I want it to work. The only point I 
came to talk about is, I don't think it can or will work unless, A, 
adequate funding exists to pay for the mandates we impose on local 
school districts and, unless, B, there is a reservoir of common sense 
used on how these rules apply to schools.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is traditional in the State of Nevada 
that the congressional delegation speak to the State legislature. In 
Nevada, the State legislature only meets every other year. This past 
February, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking to our State 
legislature. I spoke about a number of things, but one of the things I 
spoke about was the Leave No Child Behind Act, where I related to the 
recently convened Nevada State Legislature that I was terribly 
concerned about what was happening from a fiscal standpoint in the 
State of Nevada because I believed the Leave No Child Behind Act was 
leaving lots of kids in Nevada behind.
  When I gave that statement, there were some who said, I think the 
Senator from Nevada is a little bit off, that Leave No Child Behind is 
going to work out just fine, that it will not have any impact on the 
State.
  The State of Nevada, as with many States in the Union, went through a 
terrible fiscal crisis this year. The matter in Nevada had to finally 
be resolved in the courts. The State legislature was at an impasse. The 
Governor called several special sessions. As I indicated, he finally 
had to sue the State legislature and go to the Nevada Supreme Court. 
Following that, the supreme court ruled that certain parts of the 
method of obtaining money were unconstitutional, but the court did rule 
that education came first. The No. 1 requirement in the State of Nevada 
for the legislature was education.
  The Leave No Child Behind Act is legislation that is extremely 
important, and the law has all the markings of being good legislation 
that we initiated here if, in fact, it is funded properly. But it has 
not been. As a result of that, Nevada and other States are in a 
tremendous bind.
  It was 2 years ago that this Congress and the President made a 
promise to the children of America. We promised that every child would 
have an opportunity to get a good education and realize his or her 
dreams. We promised that teachers and schools would be held accountable 
for achieving results, but we promised extra help to those children who 
needed it the most so they would not get left behind.
  I think we all felt pretty good about that promise. There was a nice 
bill

[[Page 20901]]

signing ceremony at the White House and the new law was hailed as a 
great bipartisan achievement. That was 2 years ago.
  Today, the children of America are keeping their part of the bargain. 
In the State of Nevada, as well as all over the Nation, kids have 
returned to school this month with their backpacks full of books, their 
hearts full of hope, their minds full of dreams. Our children are eager 
to learn and their teachers are eager to teach. Teachers are doing 
their part. As part of our promise to America's children, our teachers 
are accepting a higher standard of accountability. They understand that 
when a promise is made to somebody, they are accountable for keeping 
that promise.
  I believe we should hold teachers accountable for getting results, 
but I think the American people should hold us accountable for keeping 
our promise that we made 2 years ago. That is why I have difficulty 
imagining that anyone would not support Senator Byrd's amendment. In 
effect, it is a commitment to fulfill our promise, the commitment that 
we already made to title I, the program that helps those children who 
need help the most. This amendment would mean a lot to the children of 
Nevada. It would provide more than $31 million for hard-strapped school 
systems that serve our neediest students. It would mean smaller 
classes, more training for teachers, and more educational materials.
  In April of 2002, I held a hearing of the Appropriations Subcommittee 
in Las Vegas to find out about the impact of title I programs on the 
children of Nevada. We learned a lot. One of our witnesses was a woman 
named Tammie Carter who had a child enrolled in the title I pre-K 
program at Kermit Booker Elementary School. Mrs. Carter told us how 
important title I programs are to her family. She told us how much our 
promise to all of America's children means to her own child.
  We should not break our promise, even to that one child, let alone 
millions across America. We should live by the words we uttered 2 years 
ago. We must be held accountable. So I hope this amendment, which will 
take 60 votes--60 percent of the Senate will vote to allow this 
education measure offered by the senior Senator from West Virginia to 
go forward.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on 
another subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                          International Trade

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I know some of my 
colleagues want to speak as well.
  Yesterday was Labor Day. I noticed this morning that there was a 
speech given by the President, which I welcome, in which he talked 
about increased attention to international trade issues, particularly 
trade deficits and the jobs that are flowing overseas. The story 
specifically talks about the difficulties we have in the manufacturing 
jobs that have left. I wanted to make a couple of points about that.
  I have talked before about the trade deficit. We have the largest 
trade deficit in human history. It is now over $470 billion. Let me 
just show a chart that shows this trade deficit, although the red marks 
on this chart really should read ``jobs.'' When your trade deficit goes 
to $470 billion, that means jobs that used to exist here exist 
elsewhere--in China, Japan, South Korea, Europe, Mexico, Canada.
  I want to make a point about this because I am heartened by the fact 
that the President talked about China. The Administration is talking 
about currency fluctuations, which is a separate issue. I have spoken 
about that many times. Having trade agreements with other countries and 
not having a shock absorber to adjust for currency fluctuations makes 
no sense at all. It never has. We negotiate with Mexico for a trade 
agreement and you ratchet down 10 and 15 percent tariffs to 5 percent 
and 2 percent. And then Mexico devalues its currency by 50 percent. You 
are 35 percent worse off.
  It has never made any sense to deal with trade agreements on tariffs 
and not worry about currency fluctuations. That is what we are finding 
with China. China is manipulating its currency values in a way that 
continues the trade deficit with China which is now $103 billion a 
year. They send us all their trinkets and trousers, tennis shoes, you 
name it. They produce it and send it here to go on our store shelves in 
Laramie, WY, Fargo, ND, Denver, CO for our consumers. Guess what. Try 
to send the Chinese some North Dakota wheat and see what you find out. 
The trade isn't two way. We don't really have a two-way trade agreement 
with China and Japan. We don't have an adequate trade agreement with 
Mexico, Canada, Korea, and Europe.
  The Senate will soon consider a Commerce-State-Justice bill, which 
funds the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce is a 
crucial agency when it comes to international trade, because it has a 
Market Access Compliance program responsible for knocking down foreign 
trade barriers.
  Do you know how many people the MAC program has to deal with trade 
barriers in China? Just 19. And we have a $103 billion deficit with 
China.
  Now, the Commerce Department is involved in the issue of knocking 
down trade barriers in other countries. We have a $70 billion trade 
deficit with Japan. Do you know how many people at the MAC program deal 
with Japan? Ten people.
  We have a $13 billion deficit with Korea and we have two-and three-
quarters people working on market access issues in Korea. I don't know 
how three-quarters of a person works on this; there must be a new, 
novel way to do that in Commerce.
  We have an $82 billion trade deficit with Europe and just 15 people 
working to open up those European markets and enforce trade agreements 
with Europe.
  This makes no sense at all because this relates to jobs. When I asked 
on Labor Day what happened to manufacturing jobs, I will tell you what 
happened. They have gone. Paul Craig Roberts, an economist in the 
Reagan administration, wrote an op-ed piece recently saying that this 
is not a jobless economic recovery. Yes, the country is beginning to 
show economic growth. No, we don't have additional jobs. We have lost 
several million jobs. Jobs are not being created in this country; they 
are being created elsewhere. That is the problem. Part of it, in my 
judgment, is simply enforcement, demanding that other countries own up 
to their responsibilities to us in our trade agreements.
  I have used this example often--and I will again briefly--with 
respect to Korea because it is such an appropriate example. Do you know 
that last year we imported from Korea very close to 680,000 vehicles 
into this country; 680,000 Korean cars came into the United States. 
Does anyone know how many American automobiles we were able to export 
to Korea? Just 2,800. So it was 680,000 to 2,800. Why? Because our 
markets are open to their cars. Good for us. Their market is largely 
closed to our automobiles. We don't do much about it. We just do not do 
much about it. Don't we care? I don't know. Nobody cares much, it seems 
to me, to begin to say to the South Koreans, with respect to automobile 
trade: If you want to sell cars in the U.S., open your markets wide to 
American vehicles. If you don't, then go sell your cars in Zambia, or 
in Libya, but not in our marketplace, until your marketplace is open to 
us.
  While I am on the subject of cars, in the last trade agreement we did 
with China--a country with a $103 billion surplus with us--our 
negotiators agreed, for reasons I would never understand, that with 
respect to future trade between the United States and China in 
vehicles, automobiles, we would agree, after a long phase-in, that we 
will have a 2.5-percent tariff on any Chinese automobiles that would 
eventually be sold in our country, and China would be allowed to have a 
25-percent tariff on any U.S. automobile sold in China.
  So our negotiators sat down with a country that has a very large 
trade surplus with us, and said we will agree, after a phase-in, for 
you to have a tariff that is 10 times higher in China on

[[Page 20902]]

U.S. automobiles going to China than we would have on Chinese 
automobiles coming into the United States. I don't understand how 
people think when they do that. They undercut our marketplace and throw 
away our jobs.
  Look, I am for expanding trade. I think expanded trade is good but it 
must be fair trade. If it is not fair and in our mutual best interests 
in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, then we need to rethink 
it.
  We face a circumstance in this country when we talk about the need 
for additional jobs. What happened to the 3 million jobs that used to 
exist here that no longer exist here? They exist elsewhere, where they 
can hire children at age 12 and put them in a manufacturing plant that 
doesn't have to be a safe workplace because you don't have OSHA; they 
can dump chemicals into the air and water because that country doesn't 
have an EPA, and it can pay 12-year-old children 20 cents an hour and 
work them 14 hours a day, and it is perfectly legal--by the way, a 
manufacturing plant that can prevent them, because their country 
prevents them, from organizing as a labor force.
  That is where the jobs are going. Too many are going in that 
direction, and too many American families who used to have decent jobs 
with decent pay and benefits now have to look at those jobs existing in 
other countries that didn't fight for the last century for the kinds of 
things that we did, such as safe workplaces, child labor laws, fair 
compensation, and a requirement that you not pollute streams and the 
air.
  Our country is losing ground, not gaining ground. If you look at the 
ocean of red ink on this chart in international trade, and at the loss 
of jobs, and if you look at what this translates into with respect to 
the weakening of our basic core manufacturing in this country, you 
simply must be concerned.
  I don't want to sound like someone who is a ``classic protectionist'' 
who doesn't believe in trade; I believe in trade. I believe in the 
doctrine of comparative advantage, when a country can produce something 
in a manner that is much more efficient than ours because of the 
resources they have, because of natural advantages they have, then it 
makes more sense for us to buy from them and sell to them that which is 
in our best comparative advantage. But it is not part of the doctrine 
of comparative advantage to have a country that says we are going to 
hire kids and pay them pennies and dump sewage in the streams and the 
air. That is not a doctrine of comparative advantage; that is a 
political imposition that creates circumstances by which we lose 
manufacturing jobs to other areas of the world and then have them 
produce the products and ship them back into our marketplace. We have 
the products, perhaps at a lower price, and what we also have is an 
economy that is losing jobs and steam. That is why we have to be 
concerned about this.
  I welcome the President's statement yesterday that he is going to 
have someone in the Administration dealing with this issue of China and 
dealing with the issue of the currency fluctuations. But there are far 
greater problems in international trade than just currency 
fluctuations. That is one of them but it is by no means the most 
significant.
  I will not spend more time going on and on about the specifics of 
potato flakes to Korea at a 300-percent tariff. I can spend time 
talking about these continuing trade barriers, such as beef to Japan, 
where 15 years after the beef agreement with Japan every single pound 
of American beef is set to have a 50-percent tariff on it. Fifteen 
years after our agreement with Japan--a country with a $70 billion 
surplus with us--for us to allow that to happen is shameful. I will not 
go further, except to say I will speak at greater length on trade and 
jobs, which are related in a significant way, because we must--
Republicans, Democrats, the administration, and Congress--tackle this 
issue in a significant way if we are going to preserve a strong, 
vibrant manufacturing base in this country and begin building jobs--
good jobs that pay well with decent benefits once again.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, will my friend yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. I can remember when my friend, the Senator from North 
Dakota, first started coming to the floor with charts indicating the 
trade deficits. I can remember back in 1996 and 1997 when I thought: 
The trade deficit is going up, but not very much; it is $170 billion. 
It went up $10 billion, and that sounds like a lot of money. Maybe 
there is something that can be done about that situation.
  Now I think there is no way to rationalize what is happening. It was 
$170 billion in 1996, and we are over double that in just a few years. 
I say to my friend, I take pride, even though I have received a lot of 
criticism, in that I have not voted for a single trade agreement. I 
thought they were shortsighted and bad for our country, and I think 
time is proving I was right and the twisting of arms to get votes for 
these programs saying it would help was simply wrong.
  I say to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, these are more 
than just statistics on a map or a chart or a graph. I have one 
daughter. My oldest child is a daughter. She is married to a wonderful 
man who was raised in Kannapolis, NC. I never heard the word 
``Kannapolis'' until they fell in love and were married. I now have 
three grandchildren as a result of that union.
  I have been to Kannapolis visiting with their family. Kannapolis is 
the sight of Cannon Mills where they make towels, sheets--all kinds of 
these products. It is a famous place in American manufacturing history 
and a very important part of North Carolina industry. Last week, Cannon 
Mills announced they were closing. The Cannon Mills plant in Kannapolis 
will be gone.
  Kannapolis used to be a factory town where everyone who worked in 
Kannapolis worked for Cannon Mills. Thousands of people were employed 
at that factory. Cannon Mills has sent notice to everyone that the 
approximately 5,000 people who are at the Kannapolis plant will no 
longer have a job.
  That is what Senator Dorgan's graph represents to me: Actual people 
such as Melvin Berringer, my daughter's father-in-law, a wonderful man 
in his eighties who spent his entire life working for Cannon Mills in 
Kannapolis. People who followed in his footsteps no longer work in 
Kannapolis. They are all through as a result of the trade policy of 
this country.
  I have heard my friend from North Dakota in the past try to describe 
what the trade policy is. Is it unreasonable? Yes. Is it unrealistic? 
Yes. Is it unfair to us? Yes. There isn't a word one can come up with 
that adequately describes how the world's only superpower would put 
itself in the position where we have a $470 billion trade deficit. And 
we had the President yesterday saying: I think what we are going to do 
to solve the problem is appoint an assistant secretary of Commerce. 
That should handle the problem. Instead of having 19 people working on 
the $100 billion trade deficit with China, we can now have somebody 
calling once in a while to see what they can do to help the program. We 
will have an assistant secretary. That should solve all the problems if 
we appoint an assistant secretary of Commerce to solve the $470 billion 
trade deficit. That should solve the problem quite well.
  I acknowledge, I appreciate, I compliment the Senator from North 
Dakota for being one of the few who understands trade policy and 
frequently speaks out, bringing it to our attention. It is something 
about which more should be speaking.
  This is a problem that is only going to get worse unless this country 
changes what is happening. I repeat, I do not apologize to anyone for 
voting against every one of those trade agreements which I think were 
unfair because they dealt with those countries with environmental 
standards much different than ours, working conditions much different 
than ours, and employment standards much different than ours, making it 
unfair to American business.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Nevada that the 
most

[[Page 20903]]

recent free trade agreement we voted on in the Senate was the Singapore 
Free Trade Agreement. It is an example of everything that is wrong with 
our trade policy.
  The Singapore Free Trade Agreement was negotiated in secret, as are 
all trade agreements, and then they are unveiled with great fanfare, 
and we are told: Here is the agreement. And because the Congress 
decided it would vote itself a set of handcuffs so that when a trade 
agreement comes to the floor of the Senate we cannot offer any 
amendments--that is called fast track--when the Singapore Free Trade 
Agreement came to the Senate, it had a provision in it that had nothing 
to do with the Singapore Free Trade Agreement--nothing at all. It had 
to do with immigration, and it said we will grant special visas to 
5,400 people from Singapore to come into this country to take American 
jobs. All of the folks on the committee who deal with immigration were 
apoplectic. They had apoplectic seizures on the floor of the Senate. 
What did we do? We constructed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that 
said to the Administration: Next time, you better watch it. What a 
wonderful piece of public policy. Why couldn't anybody offer an 
amendment to take out the 5,400 jobs that will be taken in this country 
by the special visas given in that bill? Because we cannot offer any 
amendments to the trade bill. And so they negotiated this Singapore 
Free Trade Agreement. It has other problems with it, I should say, but 
they negotiated it with this little provision, and we could not take it 
out. That is so symbolic of what is wrong with our trade policies.
  The minute you speak of this, as is always the case, the Washington 
Post, for example, which simply will not allow an op-ed piece on my 
side of the issue--you almost never see an op-ed piece talking about 
the requirement for fair trade because the Washington Post and most of 
the largest newspapers have the same view and that is: Free trade, free 
trade. It is like a mantra. We ought to put them in robes on a street 
corner and let them chant for a while, to get it out of their system, 
``free trade, free trade.'' The only thing that matters, it seems to 
me, is whether trade is fair and whether the engagement we have with 
other countries is mutually beneficial.
  After the Second World War, our trade policy was exclusively foreign 
policy for 25 years because we wanted to help other countries. So we 
did all kinds of concessional trade strategies with other countries 
that were fine. It was our foreign policy. It was a way for us to help 
them, and it did not matter because we could beat any country under any 
set of circumstances in the job market with one hand tied behind our 
back. We knew that. We were the biggest, the best, and the strongest. 
We had an economy that could compete with anybody with one hand tied 
behind our back. So for 25 years, our trade policy was exclusively 
foreign policy run out of the State Department.
  Twenty-five years after the Second World War, we began to see the 
emergence of some pretty tough, strong international competition--
Japan, Europe, others, now China. Our trade policy is still, in most 
cases, soft-headed foreign policy. Instead of saying, Let us make sure 
that as a strong economic power, the world's preeminent economic 
superpower, that we retain a basic core manufacturing base--because we 
will not long remain an economic superpower without a manufacturing 
base--instead of saying that, what we are saying as a country in our 
policies is we do not care what remains. If we have a complete 
decimation of the manufacturing base in this country, so be it, that is 
the way the world economy was intending it to be. That is so shallow 
and so fundamentally devoid of caring about this country's national 
security. Yet, I am telling you, there are people out there who believe 
that. They just say: Let's have whatever happens happen and no 
complaining.
  What bothers me the most about this situation, when we talk about 
these jobs, is we have set up the American workers to compete in a way 
that is fundamentally unfair because our country will not stand with 
its workers. We say to our workers: If you do not want to lose your 
job, then you better be prepared to compete. What does that mean? If 
you do not want to lose your job, you better take a pay cut. If you do 
not want to lose your job, you better be prepared not to get any 
benefits in the future. If you do not want to lose your job, be 
prepared to compete with that 12-year-old kid making 12 cents a day 
working 12 hours a day in an unsafe factory.
  When did that become the admission price of the American marketplace, 
the only marketplace of its type in the world, the most lucrative 
marketplace in the world? When did we decide the admission price is do 
anything under any circumstances and allow your goods to come onto our 
shelves? When did that become something we accepted as a matter of 
course?
  What about a sense of fairness in which this country says our workers 
will compete? The American workers are the finest in the world. We will 
compete anytime anywhere with anybody under any circumstances provided 
we understand that which we fought for a century in this country 
represents a value system by which we measure jobs. One ought to be 
able to have the right to organize as workers. One ought to be able to 
have the right to work in a safe workplace. One ought not to have to 
compete with 8-, 10-, and 12-year-old kids because they ought to have 
child labor laws. One ought to have some fair compensation capability. 
We fought for those issues for years. In fact, there are people who 
died on the streets in this country fighting for the right to organize.
  I thought we had gotten through all those issues and said, Here is 
what the American marketplace is about, but now there are executives of 
companies who say: Let's fly around in our jet and look at various 
places in the world where we might produce, where we pole vault over 
those questions. We do not have to answer questions about hiring kids. 
We do not have to answer questions about paying 12 or 20 cents an hour. 
We do not have to answer to an OSHA or EPA. We, in fact, are going to 
move our production to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka.
  Here is the result: A little story I read recently about producers in 
a manufacturing plant far away from here, in a portion of Asia, making 
baseball caps. Those baseball caps have 1\1/2\-cent labor in each 
baseball cap, and they are sent to the bookstore of an Ivy League 
college to be sold for $17. One-and-a-half-cent labor by a young Asian 
worker in a plant far away to produce a baseball cap that is then sold 
for $17 in the bookstore of an Ivy League college. I suppose that used 
to be a job in this country, to make baseball caps. It used to be we 
made shoes, shirts, and trousers, too.
  One day when I was speaking in the Senate Chamber, Fruit of the Loom 
decided it was gone. Fruit of the Loom made a big announcement that 
they were moving to Mexico. I said: It is one thing to lose your shirt, 
but I mean Fruit of the Loom, once they leave . . . Just think of the 
jobs that used to exist here, that supported families, are going 
elsewhere.
  I could understand that if it represented the doctrine of comparative 
advantage where one country had a specific resource or some specific 
advantage in which they produce something in a much more attractive and 
a much less expensive way than we do, provided that advantage is not 
some politically imposed advantage by a government that says you cannot 
organize, you do not have to have a safe workplace, you can pay 
pennies, and you can hire kids.
  That is not part of the comparative advantage. That is a political 
will and a political system that says let's take jobs from those 
industrialized countries that have already settled those issues.
  I hope to speak on trade at greater length later this week. It was my 
intention to mention the effort that was discussed yesterday in the 
newspapers about China and specifically about trade and jobs. I think 
this is a critically important issue. A recovery without jobs is not 
the kind of recovery we

[[Page 20904]]

need in this country. We need a recovery that produces decent jobs that 
pay well, that have good benefits. We specifically need to pay 
attention to and understand that a world economic superpower will only 
remain a world economic superpower if they have a strong manufacturing 
base. That is critical to any economy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. The matter before the Senate is the appropriations bill 
that is being managed by Senators Specter and Harkin; is that true?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. REID. 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. SPECTER. 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. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to reply 
briefly to the comments by the Senator from Nevada. It is very 
important to move on education in America; the legislation on Leave No 
Child Behind is very critical legislation on that important subject. 
But as we have heard the discussion move forward, there is a lot more 
commentary on President Bush than on the American schoolchildren. I 
suppose that is to be expected in the political context with a 
Presidential election coming next year, but the real focus, I suggest, 
is on the issue of adequacy of the funding.
  The program for funding the No Child Left Behind legislation has been 
moving on with substantial increases in funding. Earlier today, the 
argument was made that the funding has resulted from the action of a 
Congress which was under the control of the Democrats. I suggest that 
ignores the recommendations and the budget requests President Bush has 
made and the budgets which he has submitted to the Congress of the 
United States which have been acted upon with both Democrats and 
Republicans.
  When we look at the requests of the President to meet the legislation 
on No Child Left Behind, on the three budgets which he has submitted 
requests for fiscal year 2002, fiscal year 2003, and fiscal year 2004, 
there has been an increase in what he has asked for of some $13 
billion-plus, moving from $40 billion to more than $53 million. If you 
take the 3-year period from 1996 to 1999 with the fiscal years 1997, 
1998, and 1999, the funding increased from some $26 billion to about 
$32.5 billion, which was an increase of 23 percent. If you take the 
last 3 years prior to the budget submitted by President Bush, you have 
the funding from $29.700 billion to $40 billion, an increase of a 
little over $10 billion--there again, a 33-percent increase. So even 
when the Democrats controlled the Congress, the appropriations made 
were under the authorized amount which is a commonplace occurrence.
  If we focus on what has been done to increase funding for education 
and what has been done to move along the legislation on Leave No Child 
Behind, President Bush has made a showing at least comparable and 
superior to that which President Clinton undertook, and no one ever 
said that President Clinton underfunded education. Perhaps the focus 
ought to be on what is the adequacy of the funding as opposed to the 
consistent critique of President Bush for political purposes.
  I yield the floor.


                              Health Care

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I come for a couple of minutes this 
afternoon to reflect on both the recent holiday yesterday as well as my 
experiences in South Dakota over the last 4 weeks.
  We celebrated Labor Day yesterday with parades and celebrations 
around the country. We have been doing so now for 120 years. Peter 
McGuire was a carpenter and a labor organizer who brought 20,000 
workers to march in New York for better working conditions some 120 
years ago. Still today it is a day to honor our working people and 
their contribution and to recommit ourselves to advancing their rights 
and protections.
  I spent the August recess driving through South Dakota, as I do every 
year, without schedule or staff, talking to South Dakotans about the 
concerns they have. We have 66 counties in our State. I get into all 66 
every year. I went to just under 30 counties during the month of 
August. Driving as I did, talking to working men and women, families, 
business people, farmers, and ranchers, I heard a great deal about 
jobs, about health care, about the state of agriculture.
  Joblessness in our country has now reached 9.1 million people; 3.2 
million private sector jobs have been lost since January of 2001. That 
is a 50-percent increase. Another 5 million, we are told, are 
underemployed, forced to take part-time work because they cannot find 
good jobs.
  As I traveled the State, I talked to people who are unemployed, 
people who had good jobs. Surprisingly, large numbers of white-collar 
workers, people whose incomes exceeded $20,000 or $30,000, are now out 
of work. They expressed to me their concern for the state of the 
economy and the great difficulty so many South Dakotans are facing. 
That is true in small towns as well as large towns.
  There is more bad news for working families as they consider the 
implications of higher deficits on the interest rates we are now 
experiencing. It is harder to buy a home, to pay for college, invest in 
business, in part because, as we have predicted, as the budget deficit 
increases, so do long-term interest rates. The CBO has now projected we 
will see a $400 billion deficit in 2003, $450 billion if you eliminate 
the impact Social Security trust fund surpluses have had on the budget, 
and over $650 billion in fiscal year 2004. We expect to add $1.3 
trillion of additional debt, not to mention the higher increases in 
interest rates that everyone will be forced to pay, offsetting whatever 
marginal value to most working families the tax cuts have had now over 
the course of the last 2 years.
  I spent the bulk of my time talking to South Dakotans about health 
insurance. As I do my travels each year, normally it is to listen to 
others. It is my home. In so doing, I have the opportunity to listen to 
South Dakotans express themselves on whatever issues may be of interest 
and concern to them and I can come back with a better understanding as 
we consider the issues in the Senate.
  This year I asked more questions about health care, talked a good 
deal about health insurance to South Dakotans. We have over 100,000 of 
over 700,000 South Dakotans who at some point through the year do not 
have health insurance.
  I was at a barbecue early in August talking to a number of South 
Dakotans about the issues and about health care in particular. There 
must have been 300 or 400 people there. After I spoke, about half of 
them, I suppose, lined up to say hello. It took a couple of hours to 
say hello to those who had come. As I said my final farewell to the 
last person who had waited in line, I noticed over on a park bench 
there was an older man--older; I would say probably in his early 
seventies--who had waited all this time just to talk to me. He told me 
what had happened in his own circumstances. He said he and his wife had 
saved over $350,000 over their entire lives. About 6 months ago, his 
wife learned she had terminal cancer. She was too young for Medicare so 
they began spending their savings. They spent $200,000 and John's wife 
finally told him: ``I would rather die than have you spend the final 
$150,000. Let me die.'' She did.
  That was my first story that I recall, over a month of stories. I 
talked to Florence, who lives in Sioux Falls, SD. She drives all the 
way. She is 72 as well--early seventies. I can't recall now if it is 72 
or 73. She just got a job about a month ago because she can't afford 
the $400 she pays every month for prescription drugs. Every 3 months 
she goes to Canada because she can't afford to buy them in the United 
States. She saves $300 every 3 months on that trip to Canada. She is a 
woman

[[Page 20905]]

who now has been forced to go back to work at her age, just to pay for 
the drugs she needs.
  I talked to Alicia at the Brown County Fair. Alicia has diabetes, 
juvenile diabetes. She was just kicked off her family's insurance rolls 
because she is now over 18. She doesn't have insurance and can't get it 
because the insurance companies won't sign her up. She asked them what 
to do. They said: Go look for a job where they have group health 
insurance. Alicia broke down when she was telling me she hasn't taken 
the diabetes medication as regularly as she should because she can't 
afford it.
  I could take the rest of the afternoon talking about the stories I 
heard, about the crisis we face in health care today. I don't know 
about you, but when you are out there, outside of this town, and you 
are allowed to clear your mind, you wonder, with the positions we hold, 
how it is that year after year, session after session, these problems 
go by and in most cases continue to worsen. We come back and it just 
seems business as usual.
  I don't know how we solve the health care problem. But I must say I 
think it is the most pressing, most serious, most vexing, most 
troubling problem that most South Dakota families face, at least. All I 
had to do was ask the first question, and one after another came 
forward with their own nightmare about the crisis that they or their 
family are facing.
  So I learned a lot. I think I am far more aware today of the 
extraordinary problems and complications our South Dakota families are 
facing, but none like what they are facing with health care. We have to 
do something.
  Our first opportunity of course is to deal with this Medicare 
prescription drug benefit. We are going to redouble our efforts to see 
if we can find some solution, but I will say I am very concerned and 
troubled by the lack of progress we made at the staff level in the 
month of August. There is a lot of work that needs to be done.
  I will continue to go home of course and talk to South Dakotans. I 
will always remember the conversations and the willingness on the part 
of so many to open up, to share their private stories, to share their 
nightmares, to plead with me that Congress do something to address 
those concerns. Whether it is John, Florence or Alicia, they are 
watching, they are waiting, and they are hoping.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Steel Tariffs

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the distinguished majority leader has 
talked about jobs. Most of us in August talked to constituents who were 
talking about jobs. The President of the United States yesterday, in a 
Labor Day speech in Ohio, talked about jobs, and specifically 
manufacturing jobs. As he usually is, he was very straightforward about 
what is going on in our country. He said the economy is getting better, 
and I will give him some credit for that. He also said the jobs aren't 
coming along as fast as he would like. He pledged to work harder on 
that. He talked about appointing a sort of manufacturing job czar in 
the Commerce Department, which I would welcome.
  Over the past several weeks, the administration has held 19 different 
round tables with manufacturers in this country to try to understand 
from them what Government policies could be that would make it easier 
for us to keep our manufacturing jobs.
  I believe the President focused yesterday in his Labor Day speech on 
perhaps the greatest economic challenge we have before us in these very 
fortunate United States of America, and that is, how do we keep our 
manufacturing jobs from going overseas over the next 10 years as we 
participate in a global marketplace. We faced that before, with Japan, 
20 years ago. I can still remember how everybody thought Japan was 
going to drown us, and they didn't. Now we are faced with China as well 
as others. China is bigger--not as prosperous as Japan, but bigger. We 
have a terrific challenge in how do we keep our manufacturing jobs from 
moving overseas.
  On September 15, Commerce Secretary Don Evans is expected to announce 
more about President Bush's plan to save manufacturing jobs and to keep 
them from going overseas. The Secretary is scheduled to speak in 
Detroit on September 15. I have a respectful suggestion for what 
Secretary Evans might say in his speech in Detroit on September 15 
about saving manufacturing jobs.
  He will be there at the home of the American automobile industry, and 
I believe the most helpful thing he could say for the working men and 
women of America, especially in the automobile industry, is that we 
will end the steel tariffs now.
  I don't want to simplify this. Ending the steel tariffs that were 
imposed in March of 2002 will not by itself stem the loss of 
manufacturing jobs in the United States of America. Manufacturing jobs 
have been going away from our country for a number of years. They were 
going away a long time before President Bush became President.
  Manufacturing jobs have been leaving for a variety of reasons. The 
first is we have become more productive. When the Saturn and Nissan 
automobile plant came to Tennessee, they employed 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 
people at very good paying jobs. But if those plants were being built 
today, instead of employing 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 people, they would 
have to employ 25,000 or 30,000 people to make the same number of cars. 
So we are still doing plenty of manufacturing in America as well as in 
Tennessee. We are just not hiring as many people to do it because we 
are so much more productive.
  Then there are other reasons manufacturing jobs are under pressure. 
The Chinese currency is too low. Secretary Snow was in China today, 
working on that problem--we hope with some results.
  Another reason we have difficulty with our manufacturing jobs is that 
our international intellectual rights and copyrights aren't being 
respected or protected.
  Then the other reason, which every manufacturer in America knows, is 
cost. Every American manufacturer lives on the edge. It is always a 
battle with costs. If some unexpected cost comes along, the 
manufacturer cuts one or two jobs in order to stay in global 
competition. If too many costs come along, they go out of business or 
move their plants overseas.
  What are those costs? The cost of labor, the cost of health care, the 
cost of environmental control, the costs of runaway lawsuits. All of 
these costs are the costs we hear about as we talk to men and women who 
are manufacturing in America.
  But the cost I want to talk about today is a new cost that was added 
in March 2002 to manufacturers all across America, and that is the cost 
of the steel tariff. The President decided in that month, March 2002, 
to impose a tariff of up to 30 percent on imported steel, including 
hot- and cold-rolled steel, the kind used to make cars and trucks in 
our country. The idea was a noble one and a well-intentioned one. It is 
hard to argue with it. The idea was to protect steel-producing jobs, of 
which there are about 12,000 in Michigan where Secretary Evans will be 
making his address on September 15. The trouble is the steel tariff has 
been destroying steel-consuming jobs of which there are nearly 800,000 
in Michigan, including 300,000 at auto assembly or auto supplier 
plants.
  Let me do that math again.
  In Michigan, there are about 12,000 steel-producing jobs, about 
800,000 steel-consuming jobs, and 300,000 of them are in the auto 
industry. This is true all across America. There are nearly 13 million 
steel-consuming jobs, 2.1 million of which are automobile-related jobs. 
But the United States has only a fraction of that number in steel-
producing jobs--about 230,000 steel-producing jobs. Even West Virginia 
and Pennsylvania combined have at least 10 times as many steel-
consuming jobs as steel-producing jobs.
  On top of all of this, the World Trade Organization has ruled that 
the steel

[[Page 20906]]

tariffs imposed in March of 2002 are in violation of the global trade 
rule. As a result, the European Union has announced its intention to 
impose $2.2 billion in retaliatory sanctions on American imports sold 
in Europe, from footwear to fruits and vegetables. These sanctions will 
destroy yet another batch of American jobs.
  Here is the sad story of the steel tariff.
  In 2002, the automobile industry was purchasing only about 5 percent 
of its steel from overseas. But as soon as the steel tariff was placed 
on, it imported 5 percent, and 95 percent of steel produced in our 
country also raised prices. Suddenly, auto parts suppliers and other 
steel-consuming businesses, such as microwave oven makers, as an 
example, were paying up to 30 percent more for steel, which is 
sometimes their most important raw material.
  Because auto suppliers couldn't raise prices to cover costs, they 
suffered losses and began to lay off employees. In a few instances, 
whole plants closed. Jobs began to move overseas where parts suppliers 
pay a global price for steel. These parts can be made in South Korea, 
in Germany, in Mexico, in Canada, and all around the world. They don't 
have to be made in Michigan and Tennessee.
  Let me put this in a little more personal terms. In my first year as 
Governor of Tennessee--1979, nearly 25 years ago--our State was the 
third poorest in the country at 80 percent of national average family 
income. In some counties at that time, about one-third of our 
manufacturing jobs were in the textile mills. Tennessee at that time 
was making no cars and no trucks, and we had only about 2 dozen auto 
suppliers. Then the auto industry began to move south--not just into 
our State but all around us. Tennessee became the fourth largest maker 
of cars and trucks. Nine hundred auto parts suppliers followed with 
better paying auto jobs. These are jobs that are $30,000, $40,000, or 
$50,000 a year, replacing low-paying textile jobs. Our families' 
incomes grew faster than any family incomes in America. They jumped to 
almost 100 percent of the national average family income by 1990.
  Today, one-third--or at least 100,000--of all of Tennessee's 
manufacturing jobs are automotive jobs. These are the good jobs that we 
are glad to have.
  On January 21, 2003, ArvinMeritor closed its sunroof and seat plant 
in Gordonsville, eliminating 317 of these good-paying jobs. It reduced 
by 100 the jobs at its Pulaski plant. It did this because after the 
tariffs its steel prices rose between 13 and 40 percent.
  That is not all. The Dana Corporation, which employs 3,000 
Tennesseans making axles and brakes, watched its steel prices increase 
20 to 50 percent since the tariff.
  The Dura Corporation, which employs 176 at five facilities in my 
State, was purchasing all of its steel from United States producers 
when the tariff was imposed in March of 2002. As a result of the 
tariff, Dura lost money in 2002 and is considering moving to overseas 
production which is very bad news for 765 Tennessee families in 
Gordonsville, Greenbriar, Lawrenceburg, Milan, and Pikeville.
  I ran for the Senate last year to support President Bush, and I have 
proudly done that. I think he is on the right track with our economy. I 
believe our economy is beginning to move after a series of blows that 
no other economy in the world could have withstood. I support this 
President. But I also said in my campaign last year that I believe the 
steel tariff was bad for Tennessee and bad for American working 
families, and I still believe that.
  This fall the President will have an opportunity to review his 
decision to impose the steel tariffs. Shortly after Secretary Evans' 
speech in Detroit on September 15, the International Trade Commission 
will report on what the consequences of the tariffs have been. This is 
a welcome opportunity for the President to make a mid-course 
correction. I hope that he will decide he has made a good-faith effort 
to save steel jobs, but that the effort has lost almost as many steel-
consuming jobs as exist in the steel-producing industry in the United 
States. That it is the wrong policy, and that the right thing to do is 
to end the steel tariffs. The best thing Secretary Evans could do in 
his September 15 Detroit speech is to announce the President has 
decided to save thousands of jobs for working men and women in 
Michigan, in Tennessee, in America, in the automobile industry and in 
other steel-consuming plants by ending the steel tariffs.
  I yield the floor.
  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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think we need to have clear what numbers 
we are working with here. My friend--and I consider him a friend--the 
distinguished senior Senator from Pennsylvania, the comanager of this 
bill, has spoken about the good things that have happened by virtue of 
the President of the United States, George Bush, and his requests for 
additional moneys for education.
  But very seriously, that has to be tongue in cheek because the 
President has requested almost nothing as it relates to education. The 
Presiding Officer has not only been a distinguished Governor but also 
the Secretary of Education. I would ask that he and others look at what 
we are dealing with here. For example, in fiscal year 2003, the 
President of the United States requested an increase of $.4 billion. In 
the previous year, he requested $2.3 billion.
  The increases that have come that my friend from Pennsylvania has 
spoken about have come as a result of pressure placed on this 
President, this administration, this Congress, by Democrats. As a 
result of that, we have gotten an extra $8.2 billion. All you have to 
do is look at what this President has requested. This isn't some kind 
of mathematical genius who comes up with these numbers.
  In black and white, you see what the President requested. Those 
requests were an increase for fiscal year 2002 of $2.3 billion; for 
fiscal year 2003, $400 million. Fact. But as a result of work we have 
done here we were able to squeeze out additional moneys, an additional 
$8.2 billion. In fact, even for those, we had to fight the 
administration.
  Now, for fiscal year 2004, the President of the United States has 
requested $26 million for education. That is .05 percent over fiscal 
year 2003. And those fiscal year 2003 moneys were moneys that we forced 
upon the President. It is a .05-percent increase when States such as 
the State of Nevada are struggling for money, at a time when schools 
are struggling to meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act. 
But what this President is doing is leaving lots of children behind.
  So let's not talk about, on this Senate floor, the increases that 
President Bush has obtained on leaving no child behind. We have 
obtained $8.2 billion more than he has requested, and we had to 
struggle to do that.
  I repeat, this year, the President requested $26 million, a .05-
percent increase over fiscal year 2003. For fiscal year 2004, he has 
asked for $.4 billion. Now, we were able to do a lot more than what he 
requested, and the children of America should thank us every day for 
doing that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, are we in a quorum call?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to comment for a few minutes 
on an issue that I think is part of the appropriations bill before us 
and certainly one of the real issues that all of us are concerned about 
and that is health care and how we begin to deliver health care in a 
way that is more workable than what we have had in the past.
  The Senator from South Dakota has spoken for a moment or two about 
health care in his State. Of course, Wyoming and South Dakota are rural 
States, and there are some unique

[[Page 20907]]

things about the delivery of rural health care. But I think more than 
anything, we do have a situation with health care that has to do with 
access. It has to do with the availability of services wherever we are 
in the country. And it is becoming more and more evident that access is 
also a function of being able to afford those services. We find 
generally that it is becoming more and more difficult for most 
Americans to afford the services that are there, and therefore they are 
not as accessible or available as we would like them to be.
  Clearly, it is one of the most difficult issues we have before us. It 
is a complex issue. If you can afford a Cadillac, that is fine. I live 
with a Ford, and we are happy about that. But we all want ``Cadillac'' 
health service. I understand that. Most of us live, in many ways, in 
the market as to what we can afford, but health care has more demands 
because we all have problems with our health and it is very costly to 
deal with that.
  We talk about the issue a great deal, as we should, but, frankly, I 
think it is time for us to talk a little more about solutions than we 
do about the problem. And we have tried to do that.
  During the last month in Wyoming, I held a seminar on health care, 
particularly rural health care, because we are a rural area of the 
country. We asked the people on the panels, who were very good, by the 
way, to talk about solutions, to talk about the problem, which, of 
course, we have talked about a number of times.
  Now, what do we do about it? That is a challenge and one with which I 
think all of us need to deal. Some of the areas we spoke about, that I 
think we need to talk about, are, first of all, the Federal programs. A 
good many people in this country, although fewer than you normally 
think--I think in Wyoming about 13, less than 14 percent of Wyoming 
citizens are enrolled in Medicare. Sometimes it seems as if it would be 
higher than that but, nevertheless, it is a sizable amount. In addition 
to that, of course, the Federal Government has Medicaid. We have the 
kids program and others.
  So the Federal program is a substantial part of our health care. Some 
of the things we need to do there are to have programs that do pay the 
costs. I know we have to have some limits. I know it is easy to have 
things happen in the delivery of health care which we have to guard 
against so we do not waste money. But the point is, if procedures cost 
a certain amount, then the Federal Government programs need to pay 
substantially what that amount is. Otherwise those of us who have 
private insurance have to pick up the cost, or the lack of it, that is 
paid for by Government programs and, of course, the uninsured. So we 
have that problem.
  We have been working on and I have enjoyed being chairman of the 
rural health caucus, and I have been joined by many people. It is 
interesting, in the West when we talk about endangered species or 
public lands, you have the support of about eight or nine States that 
are involved. When you talk about rural health care, every State has 
some rural areas with rural health care needs. I think New York has 
some of the most rural areas.
  So we have made some progress. But what we have found is that 
basically rural hospitals, rural health care clinics, and so on, have 
not been paid equally with urban facilities. There is no equality 
there. Well, we say, my gosh, that is because the costs of living in a 
city are more than in a rural area. I think the fact is that to provide 
health care in low numbers, low volumes, perhaps is more expensive than 
providing it where there is high volume.
  All of us want the best care so we want the expensive equipment, much 
of which now has become very much a part of medicine. It costs millions 
of dollars. But if there are not very many people using it, then the 
cost per user is much higher. So we have made some success in looking 
for some equity.
  By the way, the large movement in that direction is in the Medicare 
bill that is now in the conference committee. We hope it will stay 
there and come out of there.
  A very large percent, almost half, of Medicare money is spent on a 
very small percent of the patients. They are the ones, of course, who 
have chronic diseases. They are the ones seriously ill. We have not had 
enough emphasis on seeking to treat people before and to avoid some of 
the illnesses that are so expensive.
  Those are some of the problems we have. We are beginning to have more 
and more problems with the service personnel, the number of nurses. 
There are shortages almost over the whole country. Part of that, I 
suppose, is the difficulty in training, not so much the capacity of the 
universities and the schools that do it but apparently a difficult time 
in having instructors who are available to do the costs on Medicare. If 
that is the case, in a market system where you have a shortage of 
something that is resulting in less volume, you do something about it. 
You change it so you can create that volume. We need to be doing that.
  Another reason, one of the ladies stood up--she was chairman of the 
hospital board--and said, it isn't so much the training. The job is not 
very attractive because of the hours, because of the time that has to 
be spent, because of the atmosphere, and those kinds of things. Lots of 
nurses who are trained are not doing nursing care, partly because the 
wages are too low. These apparently are some of the problems that exist 
there.
  The same is becoming more true with physicians. At least in some of 
our States, the cost, for instance, for health care liability insurance 
has gotten so expensive that we have people, OBs, who are no longer 
practicing in the area. Many times they were the only OB/GYN in the 
area. But when their costs for liability insurance get up to $55,000, 
$65,000, $75,000, as much as $100,000 a year, they say: I am not going 
to do that anymore. They either don't practice that particular 
procedure or they drop out entirely.
  Of course, in our State the average age of physicians is fairly up 
there, fifties and so on. These folks are going to be retiring. So that 
is one of the problems we have, ways to do that.
  Certainly another that is difficult is the uninsured. We have 
millions of people in this country who are uninsured. Well, they 
probably don't get as much treatment as if they were insured but they 
get treated. They go to emergency rooms. They go to public health 
facilities and they are treated. They are unable to pay the costs or 
are unwilling to pay the costs. So those who have insurance end up 
paying the cost. You also have an insufficient amount of health care 
for people who are uninsured. I suppose young people, all kinds of 
people, simply can't afford it.
  We had a rancher testify that for his family it costs $12,000 a year 
for health insurance. That is tough. In town meetings we had some time 
ago, that is the issue that came up most often--the cost of health 
insurance.
  Obviously, there is a relationship between the cost of health care 
and health insurance. Nevertheless, that is what people see, the health 
insurance costs. That is part of the problem we need to resolve.
  Pharmaceuticals and drugs, of course, have become a very high 
percentage of the increase, and particularly if combined with the new 
equipment, and so on. We are dealing with that now for Medicare. I hope 
we will come up with something for Medicare.
  We also have to deal with the costs for everyone else, whether there 
is overutilization, whether we ought to be using more generics, whether 
there is too much advertising going on, whatever. There is a problem 
there that we need to resolve.
  These are some of the areas with which we have to deal. Certainly, 
again, the Senator from South Dakota saying that that is what he heard 
the most about, I think for most of us, when we go to town meetings, 
that is what we hear the most about. All we hear about are the 
problems. I think it is up to us to work with the professionals, to 
work with others. We have an opportunity to do something about the 
liability costs. I don't know whether we can do it. Some will say that 
isn't going to solve the problem. Certainly it isn't going to solve all 
the problems but it is an opportunity to solve a part of the problem. 
There is

[[Page 20908]]

evidence that it does by those States that have done something about 
limiting the noneconomic damages.
  There is a great challenge here and a great opportunity to do some 
things. Part of it will be right here with this appropriations bill.
  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. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA

  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I returned this past Friday from a 10-day 
trip to southern Africa with Majority Leader Bill Frist as well as 
Senator Warner, Senator Enzi, Senator Coleman, and Senator Alexander. 
We traveled to South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, and Namibia. We 
traveled there to assess each of the HIV/AIDS crises in these 
countries. We wanted to see where things are now and where we need to 
go in the future to help them deal with the terrible crisis they face.
  The fact is we are in a critical stage in this attempt to help them 
and other countries fight this global AIDS battle. We passed the global 
AIDS authorizing legislation a few months ago and shortly we will pass 
the appropriations bill to fund these programs. As we start to plan how 
to spend this significant amount of money, we are now at a critical 
stage. We are at a critical stage because it is so very important that 
this be done right, that it be done correctly, and that it be done 
quickly, because millions of lives are at stake.
  All four countries we visited have, of course, been designated by the 
President and now by Congress to be recipients of our global AIDS 
assistance. So these Members of the Senate wanted to find out how we 
could most effectively and efficiently give this assistance to these 
nations, how we could make sure our money would be well spent. In doing 
so, we wanted to know specifically what these countries' respective 
governments were doing. We wanted to know what the nongovernment 
organizations, the NGOs as they are referred to, are currently doing; 
what the church groups--we refer to them as faith-based groups--are 
doing; and what the businesses, the private sector groups, are doing as 
well.
  We wanted to know what was the state of the health infrastructure, 
the public health sector in each of these countries. We also wanted to 
assess where our own Government was. We wanted to talk to our embassy 
officials and see how their planning was coming along.
  Finally, and certainly most important, we wanted to ask the leaders 
of these countries--we wanted to talk to their health professionals and 
social workers, actually the people out in the field in these nations--
what their needs were, what they thought they needed. We asked them: 
What do you need from us? What can we do to help you do your job to 
help save lives? We went to the very people who every single day watch 
the AIDS victims die--the people who try desperately to treat, to help, 
and to save them, and the people who try to prevent people from coming 
down with AIDS.
  We have some answers.
  The spread of HIV/AIDS in poor countries is, as we know, rampant. It 
is a grave human tragedy. When it comes to the HIV/AIDS crisis, the 
sheer numbers are staggering. We can't let these numbers numb us. We 
have to keep reminding ourselves that these are statistics; that behind 
each one of these statistics are human beings; and that these 
statistics represent real people, real mothers, real fathers, children 
and babies. These are real people and real lives.
  The statistics are unbelievable. In South Africa, 5 million people 
are HIV positive. In Mozambique, 13 percent of the people have HIV or 
AIDS. The disease has created by some estimates 370,000 to 425,000 
orphans, and by the year 2010, it is estimated that in Mozambique the 
life expectancy is estimated to plummet to only 39 years. There are 
only 524 doctors in the whole country, a country of 18.6 million 
people.
  In Botswana, a nation of 1.7 million people, there is a 38.8-percent 
HIV rate among those between the ages of 15 and 49. It is a staggering 
figure. There are 330,000 people, it is estimated, HIV positive, and 18 
percent of the deaths in that country are the result of AIDS. Thirty-
five percent of pregnant women are HIV positive. By the year 2010, it 
is projected that the life expectancy rate will be 31.6 years, if 
nothing is changed, if the situation is not changed, and if there is no 
intervention.
  The next country we visited was Namibia, a nation of 1.8 million 
people. Twenty-two percent of the adult population has AIDS or are HIV 
positive. Twenty-three percent of pregnant mothers are HIV positive. By 
the year 2010, the life expectancy rate is expected to be 39.6 years of 
age.
  We know the statistics. We certainly can learn from them. We can see 
the victims and we can talk to them and talk to those who care for 
them. We can do all of these things and still not comprehend the 
gravity of this human tragedy.
  One of Africa's great leaders is Graca Machel, a woman we met within 
Mozambique. We had a delightful meeting with her for over an hour. She 
is one of the most articulate persons I have ever met with in my life. 
When we met with her in Mozambique, she was talking about a country 
that she loves so well. This is what she said:

       I can know the statistics, but I don't really understand 
     what it means to have 13 percent of my people HIV positive * 
     * *. [Our countries] are facing extinction * * * and we still 
     face the worst.

  The mind cannot comprehend the gravity of this tragedy. This 
certainly was for me, and I am sure for all of my colleagues, a deeply 
troubling, gut-wrenching trip. But it was a very productive trip.
  We were accompanied on the trip by President Bush's AIDS adviser, Dr. 
Joseph O'Neal. His experience and his expertise proved invaluable to us 
on our trip. Our ability to talk with him, share ideas, go back and 
forth and compare notes of what we had seen was very valuable.
  Each one of us on the trip, I am sure, has come back with different 
impressions but with a lot of the same impressions. This afternoon I 
would like to take a few minutes to share with my colleagues some of my 
thoughts. They are, of course, my thoughts and my thoughts alone. I 
would guess that there will be a lot of similarities between my 
thoughts and other colleagues'. But these are mine. These are my 
impressions and my thoughts from this trip to Africa.
  First, time is clearly not on our side. It is not on the side of 
victims in Africa nor on the side of victims of these four countries. 
We don't have time. We don't have much time. We don't have time to 
wait. Facing this global AIDS crisis cannot be business as usual. It 
cannot be bureaucracy as usual. We cannot treat this crisis the same 
way we have done with others. We don't have the luxury of time. For 
each moment that we delay, obviously people die. People are dying as we 
speak today. They die every moment.
  We saw groups in each country, and organizations and individuals, 
that are ready now to receive our money and our assistance and our help 
and who are ready to go into action to deal with the problem. We need 
to get them the money and allow them to get about the business of 
saving lives. That is good news. And it was heartwarming to talk to 
them, to see them.
  These are groups that have a proven track record. These are groups 
that are already doing good work. We just need to give them more 
resources so they can expand what they are already doing.
  Mr. President, Members of the Senate, as we do this, we cannot be 
timid. Quite frankly, we need to take chances. We need to be willing to 
say that once in a while we will fail with some of these groups, so we 
need to say to our own bureaucracy: Do not be afraid of failure. There 
will be some failures. There will be some foul-ups. But we need to move 
forward. Lives are at stake. And we will hold you--those of

[[Page 20909]]

us in the Congress--accountable for being timid. Do not be timid. Move 
forward.
  We need to find these groups that can move forward. We saw many of 
them on our trip. We need to find these groups, these individuals. We 
need to fund them, and we need to move on.
  For example, Dr. Donny McGrath, who is with the Africa Centre, is 
ready to go. He has a plan for a 5-year program to establish a model 
HIV/AIDS treatment prevention program in a rural part of South Africa. 
He has the structural support necessary to pull off this program that 
could deliver and will deliver care and treatment to this remote area. 
We met with him. I think everyone was impressed. And he has the 
structure of the Africa Centre behind him.
  Dr. Tammy Meyers, we met with her. She would like to begin providing 
treatment for children with AIDS out of South Africa's biggest hospital 
in Johannesburg. We were told actually it is the biggest hospital in 
the world. The tragedy is, today they are not--with the exception of a 
handful of kids--giving kids treatment because they do not have the 
resources to do it. We are told that in the area of Johannesburg, South 
Africa, there are 6,000 or 7,000 children who right today are dying, 
children who should be on treatment for HIV, children who have AIDS, 
who could be receiving treatment but yet cannot get these drugs. Dr. 
Tammy Meyers would like to move forward. We need to get her that help. 
We need to give that hospital that help.
  The Salvation Army is also doing great work in many of these 
countries. We were so impressed when we went into a Salvation Army 
orphanage that was providing drug treatment for children they had under 
their charge in that orphanage. As an organization, the Salvation Army 
has a proven track record. As I said, they are involved in many of the 
countries in the world where HIV is a problem, where AIDS is running 
rampant. We need to say to groups such as the Salvation Army, who have 
a proven track record: Tell us what you need. What are the resources 
you need? Tell us what you can do. Let's work together. Let's save 
lives.
  So there are many things we can do, and we can do quickly, and we 
need to do it. We need to save lives.
  Second, in all four nations we visited, when we asked what the No. 1 
need was, almost invariably, no matter who we asked, the answer we got 
back was: We need training. From the doctors to the nurses, when we 
talked to people who were delivering services right down at the 
grassroots level, people pled with us: Give us more training. Train our 
doctors. Train our nurses. Help us.
  The fact is, AIDS treatment and prevention is a specialized field of 
medical care. We need to put more and more specialists in place, 
doctors who can train other doctors to fight this disease and provide 
treatment.
  Now, I do not have all the answers as to how to do this, but we need 
to think about it. And as we do the things we can do quickly and 
relatively easy--as I said before, plug into the existing groups, the 
existing organizations that are ready to go right now--at the same 
time, we have to look at what we do in the long run over the next year, 
2 years, 3 years, 4 years to deal with this crisis, to answer the call 
of these countries when people say: We need doctors, specialists. We 
need the training.
  So we need to develop a cadre of doctors. Do we use our Peace Corps? 
Maybe we use our Peace Corps to do this. Maybe we use the U.S. Public 
Health Service Corps, revamp it in some way to do this. Maybe what we 
do is take residents, when they finish their residency in this country, 
and work out some way so that it is advantageous to them to interrupt 
their career, in a sense--or really maybe a better way of looking at it 
is enhancing their career--and give them the opportunity to go and 
spend a few years working in these African countries, specializing in 
this area, taking that specialization then and training doctors in 
these countries--the multiplier effect--so that these countries will 
then have trained specialists of their own who will stay in their 
countries and we will help save lives.
  That is the type of multiplication and training of doctors we are 
going to have to think through and figure out over the long run as to 
how we are going to help them answer that call that we heard time and 
time again: How are we going to get the training? That is the long run.
  No. 3, clean water. On our trip it became very clear just how 
essential clean water is to fighting AIDS, and also it is essential 
just to save lives. It is essential to keeping young children alive 
worldwide. Some 60 percent of all infant mortality worldwide is linked 
to infectious and parasitic diseases, most of them water related. 
Furthermore, diseases from dirty water are killing more than 5 million 
people each year--that is one figure, and I think other estimates, 
frankly, are much higher than that--while an additional several billion 
people get sick from unclean water each year.
  In just one country, Mozambique, for example, diarrheal diseases are 
the third largest cause of death in children under 5 years of age. That 
is the equivalent of 55 deaths per day. Potable water is accessible to 
only 26 percent of the rural population in Mozambique. Imagine that. 
Get outside the city, and only one in four of the population has good 
water, and only 40 percent of the urban population in Mozambique.
  The reality is that we cannot effectively treat and fight AIDS 
without clean water supplies. In impoverished nations, up to 90 percent 
of AIDS patients suffer from chronic diarrheal diseases, which 
contribute to an increase in these deaths. One of the complications of 
AIDS is the development of thrush, which can be alleviated by drinking 
sufficient quantities of water. Caregivers need to be able to wash 
their hands before and after caring for an infected person. Mothers 
infected with HIV/AIDS may choose to use formula to feed their infant 
children and would need clean water to mix formula.
  Providing access to clean water is about the most cost-effective use 
of our AIDS money because it would provide a double benefit. Digging 
wells in a village provides the whole village with clean water, not 
just those stricken with HIV or AIDS.
  Providing clean water is a cheap thing to do, and good groups are 
already doing it. We saw some of those groups during our trip. For 
example, Lifewater International, a group that we saw, is a partnership 
of U.S.-based organizations working globally to improve drinking water 
supplies, hygiene, and sanitation in Third World nations. They are 
making a difference, and they can do more if we just give them the 
resources they need. This is a simple and cost-effective strategy, and 
it is the right thing to do. There are groups such as this all over the 
world. All we need to do is to take some of these resources, plug into 
these groups, let them multiply already what they are doing, and we 
will save hundreds of thousands of lives.
  No. 4 of the thoughts I have: Care for the dying. As we focus on 
saving and prolonging lives, we must not forget the millions who, 
despite our best efforts, will surely die. Precious little is being 
done to help them die with dignity. We talked with people who deal with 
these individuals. We talked with people who see them die. We talked 
with people who watch them die every day. Those people whose job it is 
to deal with the dying looked us in the eye and pled with us; they 
said: Give us the tools, the drugs to allow these people who are dying 
not to suffer so much and to die with dignity.
  The global AIDS bill we passed this May allows us to do this. There 
are groups out there ready to help, groups capable of helping. We 
should give them the ability to help the suffering and to help the 
dying.
  No. 5, let me just talk for a moment about government attitude and 
political leadership in regard to the issue of AIDS. We visited four 
countries. The governments of Namibia, Mozambique, and Botswana are all 
fully engaged in this struggle against AIDS. That political leadership 
is essential in the battle against AIDS. We can only hope the recent 
public statement by the fourth country, South Africa, in favor of the

[[Page 20910]]

use of antiretroviral drugs will be followed by an aggressive 
government attack on the problem.
  For those who have not followed this, this is a change in policy. The 
government in the past had not embraced the use of antiretroviral drugs 
to treat the AIDS problem. So this has been a change. We can only hope 
this is a profound change. We can only hope the Government of South 
Africa will now become much more aggressive in this endeavor.
  Some local units of government from South Africa have been 
aggressive, but unfortunately the tragedy is the central government has 
not been as aggressive. And while we talked to many people in South 
Africa who are doing wonderful things, unfortunately there are some 
people in the South African Government who still would appear to be in 
a form of denial about this problem. It would appear that progress is 
being made. We would hope progress will continue to be made.
  The sixth point I would like to make is the killing power of stigma. 
We cannot underestimate the killing power of stigma, people's feelings 
of shame and disgrace with this disease. Stigma kills. Stigma prevents 
pregnant women from getting tested for HIV/AIDS. Stigma prevents people 
from getting treatment. Stigma prevents us from dealing with this 
crisis head on. There is tremendous denial. People hide the fact they 
are sick, even if that means risking their lives or even if it means 
risking the lives of their unborn children.
  On our trip we heard doctors speak of women with AIDS who were told 
they could take drugs that might prevent their child who was about to 
be born from testing HIV-positive, drugs that could reduce the odds of 
the children being born with AIDS by 50 percent. Yet despite hearing 
this news, we heard about some women who left the clinic never to 
return because of the stigma attached to having AIDS, never to return 
because of the ridicule their husbands, their family might inflict upon 
them. That is a horrible tragedy--a stigma so powerful, so powerful 
these women would risk the lives of their unborn children, something it 
is hard for us to understand.
  I heard a story that was also hard to understand. I talked to a 
doctor in South Africa who was intimately involved in drug treatment, 
who had set up a program of drug treatment. He told me a story about a 
woman who worked in his house. She had worked there for some time. One 
day she left, disappeared. He couldn't figure out where she had gone. 
The days went on. Then the weeks went on. After about 7 weeks, he 
decided he was going to go look for her. So he got in his car and drove 
to her village. It turned out it was a drive of 7 hours. He drove and 
drove and got to her village. When he got there and started asking 
about her, he found that she had died the day before. This is a woman 
who died from AIDS, a woman who died rather than acknowledge she had 
AIDS, who worked for a doctor who was treating people with AIDS. As the 
doctor said to me: I would have paid for her drugs. I would have taken 
care of her. I would have done anything. But she wouldn't tell him.
  That is the power of the stigma that is attached to this. It kills 
people. She preferred to die alone, hiding her disease.
  What is the solution? I don't know that we have a solution, but there 
are some things we know. First, in these nations, wherever it occurs, 
we need to educate people, whether it is in this country or any other 
country. We need to educate people about AIDS. Second, political 
leaders need to talk openly about the disease. Leaders in Botswana and 
Namibia and Mozambique have been forthright and up front and open to 
public discussions about the disease.
  Third, we need to have treatment available so people have hope. No 
one is going to get tested for HIV/AIDS if there is no treatment and 
you are told to just go home and die. As Graca Machel said: There is 
``no effective prevention without treatment.''
  People must be able to see that they are getting something 
themselves. By treating people, it offers hope, and it offers incentive 
for more and more people to get tested. That, by itself, will save 
lives. That is the reality, Mr. President.
  My seventh thought has to do with children. In the four nations we 
visited, really we are just barely getting started in providing 
treatment for children who are HIV positive or who already have AIDS. 
There are--and it is a good news story--some mothers-to-children 
transmission preventive programs in the early stages. We have heard 
from people who are very thankful to the United States, people who are 
thankful to President Bush, thankful to us and our country, about these 
programs. Some of these programs are programs we put in place.
  We heard some very good success stories about many of these programs. 
They show very promising results. With these programs and the drugs 
they provide, we are seeing HIV/AIDS transmission rates from a mother 
who has AIDS to a child about to be born, and then born, drop from 30 
percent to 5 to 10 percent. What do we mean by that? Well, the doctors 
tell us that if a mother is HIV positive and she is not treated, the 
odds are approximately 30 percent that she is going to give birth to a 
child who will be HIV positive. In these developing countries, with 
treatment--and usually a fairly simple treatment and it costs about 
$3--we can reduce those numbers to about 5 to 10 percent. That is a 
dramatic drop in the number of children who would be born HIV positive. 
If given the proper medication, the odds go dramatically down.
  The challenge, of course, is getting these mother-to-child 
transmission programs going and then getting the pregnant women into 
the program.
  We also have to face the challenge of treating children who do 
develop AIDS. That is a different ball game, a different problem. 
Treatment for these kids is, as I said when I referenced South Africa--
and it is true of all the other three countries--is virtually 
nonexistent, just like the treatment for adults.
  In Johannesburg, to take one example--and you can replicate these 
numbers or use similar numbers across all of Africa, or at least all 
the countries where HIV is prevalent--there are 6,000 to 7,000 kids in 
need of antiretroviral treatment, yet fewer than 100 kids are getting 
any treatment at all. The good news is that there are good people in 
the hospitals who are ready now to treat these kids. Dr. Tammy Meyers 
is ready now to start a program to provide drug treatment for these 
children.
  In conclusion, on this trip we saw the human face of Africa. We saw 
the human face of AIDS. I have seen this face before in Haiti and 
Guyana. That human face will remain with all of us who went on this 
trip after all the specific statistics have faded.
  I will always remember Graca Machel telling us about her going out in 
the rural area visiting a grandfather and his two wives. He is 83 and 
his wives are 73 and 76. They lost their eight children. They saw them 
die one by one, each one claimed by AIDS. Now these elderly people are 
caring for their 30 grandchildren after having lost each 1 of these 8 
children. I will remember that.
  I will remember watching a young teenager as he described losing his 
parents to AIDS and then having to go from home to home to home, 
relative to relative, to see others of his relatives die of AIDS, being 
handed from one family to another.
  I will remember an HIV-positive mother describe giving birth to a 
child who developed AIDS, a little baby, who died shortly after birth. 
I will remember watching her describe that child as that child died.
  I will also remember an HIV-positive mother who described getting the 
help she needed, having someone reach out to her, getting the drug 
treatment she needed before giving birth to her child, and described 
the joy she felt to know her child was not HIV positive, that her child 
was a healthy child. We listened to her joyfully describe that child 
and the future that child now has. Her baby was born HIV free. Her 
story doesn't need to be the exception.
  With our HIV/AIDS money, more and more babies can be born free of 
AIDS. We need to move quickly. Time is not

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on our side. We need to move now. We need to invest in the people who 
are ready to go and in the programs that already work. We need to do 
all we can to address the human tragedy of global AIDS. We have the 
ability to ease this suffering, and it is our moral obligation to lead 
this fight. We are at a critical time in world history. I believe 
history will judge us well by what we are doing today. It is our 
obligation at this critical time to make sure that we not only begin 
this fight--and we have--but that we carry it out, that we stay with 
it, that we do it effectively, that we do it correctly, and that we 
stay with it day after day after day.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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