[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9739-9767]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICA COMPETES ACT--Continued


                           Amendment No. 929

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2 
minutes of debate equally divided on amendment No. 929 offered by the 
Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.
  Who yields time?
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I know Senator Baucus intended to be 
here. I don't see him right now. I know the Senator from South Carolina 
wishes to use his 1 minute. I am informed that Senator Baucus will 
support the amendment and is urging other Senators to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I appreciate the support of the majority. 
This is clearly a bipartisan idea. The underlying bill has in it a 
study to look at obstacles to innovation. This simply adds to that with 
a study of our Tax Code to see how it might be obstructing innovation 
and investment in our country.
  It sounds as if we have good support. I encourage all my colleagues, 
Republicans and Democrats, to vote for the amendment.
  I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 929. The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. 
Johnson) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama) are necessarily 
absent.
  Mr. LOTT. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 96, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 137 Leg.]

                                YEAS--96

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Tester
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Johnson
     McCain
     Obama
     Voinovich
  The amendment (No. 929) was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand it, we are operating 
under a time agreement that has been proposed by the Senate leaders.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for such time as he 
wishes to consume.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, first of all, I commend my friend and colleague, 
Senator Bingaman, as well as Senator Alexander and the group that came 
together in support of this idea of competitiveness legislation. I 
think it is one of the most important issues we will consider on the 
floor of the Senate, and it is something that commands the kind of 
broad support that it is getting.
  What underlines this legislation is a recognition that the United 
States is competing in a global economy. If we are going to compete in 
a global economy, we have to make a decision as a nation to the prepare 
each and every individual American to stand with the winds in a global 
economy. This legislation says that we are going to equip

[[Page 9740]]

every man, woman, and child in the United States to be able to deal 
with the challenges of a global economy, and I think that is a very 
important national purpose.
  Throughout history, this country, when it saw that it was challenged, 
turned to education to stay competitive. After the Second World War, we 
needed to build a new, peacetime economy. We passed the G.I. Bill to 
enable those who served in battle to rebuild their lives at home. For 
every dollar we invested, the Greatest Generation returned $7 to our 
economic growth.
  In 1957, we were challenged again. The launch of Sputnik sparked the 
Space Age, and we rose to the challenge by passing the National Defense 
Education Act and inspiring the nation to ensure that the first 
footprint on the moon was left by an American. We doubled the Federal 
investment in education. When individuals have their skills uplifted 
and when they have their skills enhanced, they find out their 
participation in the economy works a great deal better. They are more 
productive, they are more useful, they are more creative and more 
imaginative and able to compete more effectively. This bill is 
enormously important for all Americans and very important for our 
country in terms of the whole challenge of globalization.
  Secondly, it is enormously important in terms of our national 
security. This legislation ensures that we are going to encourage those 
forces that enhance our capability in the areas of math, science and 
research--all of which are enormously important to make sure we are 
going to have the best technology for those who are going to serve in 
the Armed Forces. In the Armed Forces we want the best trained and best 
led men and women, but we also want the best in technology. This is a 
competitiveness bill and a national security bill.
  I believe it is going to be enormously helpful and valuable in terms 
of our democratic institutions, in making sure we are going to have men 
and women in this country who have the ability and commitment to ensure 
that our democratic institutions are going to function, and function 
very well, and that we will be able to maintain our leadership in the 
world.
  I, for one, agree with those who believe in each generation, and in 
each decade, the United States has to fight for its leadership in the 
world. It is not just going to come automatically. We should no longer 
think we are going to coast in terms of national and world leadership. 
We have to win it, and we have to win it every single day. The way to 
win it is with the kinds of investments that are included in this 
legislation. So I commend all those who have been a part of this 
process, and particularly our friends and colleagues, Senator Bingaman 
and Senator Alexander.
  To go through very quickly now, after those general comments about 
why this legislation is so important, if we look at where the United 
States is: America's 15-year-olds scored below the average in math 
compared to the youth of other developed nations on a recent 
international assessment. On the Programme for International Student 
Assessment, you will see that the U.S. ranks 24th.
  This chart indicates that since 1975, the U.S. has dropped from 3rd 
to 15th place in the production of scientists and engineers.
  We are also losing ground in overall high school and college 
graduation rates. The U.S. has dropped below that average graduation 
rate for OECD countries. Out of 24 nations, the U.S. ranks 14th, just 
ahead of Portugal.
  We are going to go to the underlying educational needs when we 
reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act and higher education 
legislation. We are going to deal with middle schools and high schools. 
We are going to try to tie it in and have a seamless web, from the Head 
Start education programs through the K-12 and then universities into 
the academic world or into the business world. We need to be able to 
bring those elements together.
  Having said all of that, this legislation is enormously important in 
terms of making sure we reach that goal.
  This is a chart of research and development investment as a share of 
the U.S. economy. It demonstrates we are stagnant. This has to change. 
We know we need to invest in research and development.
  If you look at some of the countries with which we are going to 
compete, India and China in particular, and look at the number of 
graduates they have in math and science, you will find that China 
awards more than 300,000 bachelor's degrees in engineering and computer 
science. We award a little over 100,000.
  This is about research and development, but the investments in our 
people, investments in our research and development are two sides of 
the same coin. They are both essential. What this demonstrates is we 
have to do better if we expect to compete.
  Fast-growing economies such as China, Ireland, and South Korea are 
realizing the potential for economic growth that comes with investing 
in innovation. China's investment in research and development rose by 
an average of 18 percent from 2000 through 2003. Over the same period, 
the increase in U.S. investment averaged only 2 to 3 percent annually. 
In the last decade, China has nearly doubled the share of their economy 
they spend on research and development, and they have replicated our 
National Science Foundation.
  This bill puts us on a path to double the basic research funding at 
NSF in 5 years, double the basic research funding at the Department of 
Energy over the next 10 years, and double the funding at NIST, the 
National Institute for Standards and Technology. The bill also creates 
a President's Council on Innovation and Competitiveness, to bring 
together the heads of Federal agencies with leaders in business and 
universities to develop a comprehensive agenda to promote innovation.
  If you look at where we are, to give some further illustrations, math 
and science classes in high-poverty schools are much more likely to be 
taught by teachers who do not have a degree in their field. Fifty-six 
percent of science classes in high-poverty schools are taught by 
teachers without a relevant degree, compared to just 22 percent of 
classes in low-poverty schools. More than a third of math classes in 
high-poverty schools are taught by an out-of-field teacher, compared to 
just 18 percent of classes in schools with a low-poverty rate.
  I was interested the other day in the testimony of Mr. Gates, who 
commented on a lot of subjects. He was talking about school dropouts. 
There are some who think that school dropouts are children who are 
unable to comprehend the curriculum. He said, Oh, no, I am worried 
about the dropouts, the minds we are losing--able, gifted minds that 
are unchallenged because they had an inferior teacher, no books, or 
challenging conditions at home, such as missing meals because they are 
poor. We cannot afford to lose any of those.
  What we are looking for is high quality teachers. The bill recognizes 
and responds to the shortage of high quality math, science, technology 
and engineering teachers, particularly in high poverty schools. The 
bill expands scholarships and stipends, and creates a new NSDF teaching 
fellow program to bring high quality math, science, technology, and 
engineering teachers into high-need schools. It also expands the 
Teacher Institutes for the 21st Century Program of the NSF to provide 
cutting-edge professional development programs for teachers who teach 
in high-need schools. These programs are peer reviewed and have 
demonstrated to be successful.
  The bill creates a summer institute at the Department of Energy to 
help math and science teachers, to enable them to go to a number of 
areas that deal with energy because that is an agency so focused in 
terms of these issues in math and science.
  There is a high cost to failing to address our education concerns. 
The nation loses over $3.7 billion a year in the cost of remedial 
education and lost earning potential, because students are not 
adequately prepared to enter college when they leave high school.
  The bill provides grants to states to align elementary and secondary 
school

[[Page 9741]]

standards, curricula, and assessments with the demands of college, the 
21st century workforce and the Armed Forces. The grants support state 
P-16 councils to bring together leaders in the early education, K-12, 
and higher education communities, in the business sector, and in the 
military.
  It is also increasingly important for students to be exposed to and 
immersed in foreign languages and cultures. Only one-third of students 
in grades 7-12 and a mere 5 percent of elementary school students study 
a foreign language.
  If we are going to talk about our ability to be involved in a world 
economy, we are fortunate because we have so many who have come from 
such different cultures and traditions. I was reminded a few days ago 
in our Education Committee, of the number of languages they speak in 
St. Paul, Minnesota. Thirty-seven languages are spoken in Everett, MA. 
If we are going to compete in the world economy, we are going to have 
to do a lot better than we are doing in terms of communication and 
language.
  This is a balanced program. It has been reviewed by the Academy of 
Science, at the Institute of Engineers. It has been recommended by a 
wonderful American patriot, Norm Augustine, one of the great American 
leaders, corporate leaders, but also someone enormously knowledgeable 
on American defense interests and also international competition. This 
legislation has been tailored to try to take the very best ideas out 
there.
  We are going to have to fill in the underlying work that needs to be 
done. This is primarily focused on what we are going to need to be able 
to compete internationally. We have to be sure the schools at every 
level are providing students with a high quality education. We want to 
be sure those graduating from our universities will have the skills and 
talents and education to move them into the American economy and the 
larger economy they will face in the future.
  This bill represents the beginning of a strong commitment that we 
must sustain and build on if America is to remain competitive in the 
years ahead. The legislation has strong support for a renewed 
commitment to help the current generation meet and master the global 
challenges we now face.
  I welcome the opportunity to join with my colleagues and friends, the 
principal cosponsors, to commend this legislation, and hopefully we 
will be able to complete it.
  I know there are other amendments. I have had an opportunity to 
review them briefly. A good many of them deal with other issues we 
ought to be dealing with at another time. I hope the membership will 
recognize this is special legislation. There is a special need. This is 
a result of an extraordinary effort on the part of the principal 
sponsors of this bill. It deserves to pass and get through. I am very 
hopeful it will be done expeditiously.


                           Amendment No. 940

  Mr. President, I send a HELP Committee amendment to the bill which I 
think further strengthens the math and science programs. We have gone 
over this in considerable detail with our colleagues, since they are 
members of the committee. I thank them for their attention. I am 
grateful for their support of these particular provisions. Again, I 
commend them for the legislation. Hopefully this amendment will be 
accepted.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
pending amendment?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Reserving the right to object--I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 940.

  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text 
of Amendments.'')
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes before 
the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy, the chairman 
of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Senator 
Enzi, who was chairman last year, when all this began. I hope our 
colleagues can see that these senior Members of the Senate--in the case 
of Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, they have a large amount of 
jurisdiction over this subject; Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye, who 
spoke yesterday, have a large amount of jurisdiction over this subject; 
Senators Domenici and Bingaman, who introduced legislation last year 
that attracted 70 cosponsors--a number of their ideas are within this 
legislation, but they have also demonstrated something you don't see 
every day with Senators, which is a forbearance.
  In other words, they recognize this is a big, 208-page bill with the 
President's ideas and those of the Council on Competitiveness and the 
Augustine Commission. It is well and carefully crafted, but not every 
single section is exactly the way every single Senator would like it. 
Also, it has permitted us to have a procedure that brings this bill to 
the floor so it has a good chance of being enacted this week. I thank 
Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, who really have the largest amount of 
jurisdiction, for forbearing, being active, leading, and showing a 
sense of urgency about this subject by permitting it to come to the 
floor in the way it has, and then, in addition to the other 
contributions they have made, we have the Kennedy-Enzi HELP Committee 
managers' package which is now before the Senate for its consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. McCaskill). The Senator from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I know my friend from Oklahoma is 
prepared to speak. I ask unanimous consent to continue for 3 or 4 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  IRAQ

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, just a few minutes ago, Vice President 
Cheney attacked the Senate majority leader on Iraq. He accused him of 
making ``uninformed and misleading'' statements, of defeatism, and of 
playing politics with the war.
  Senator Reid's interest is in protecting our troops and our national 
security and bringing the war to an end. He is rightly responding to 
the American people by demanding a change in our failed policy in Iraq. 
He is right to insist that the Iraqis take responsibility for their own 
security and their own future and that our troops need begin to 
withdraw from Iraq.
  It is Vice President Cheney who has been wrong--and deadly wrong--
about Iraq.
  Even more, Vice President Cheney is the last person in the 
administration who should accuse anyone of making uninformed and 
misleading statements.
  The Vice President misled the American people in August 2002, when he 
insisted that we ``know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire 
nuclear weapons'' and that ``many . . . are convinced that Saddam will 
acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.''
  The Vice President misled the American people in March 2003, when he 
said that Saddam Hussein ``has a long-standing relationship with 
various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization.''
  The Vice President misled the American people when he insisted that 
our troops would ``be greeted as liberators.''
  The Vice President misled the American people when he insisted that 
the insurgency is ``in the last throes.''
  He and the entire administration continue to mislead the American 
people when they insist that progress is being made in Iraq.
  The facts speak for themselves. Iraq is sliding deeper and deeper 
into the abyss of civil war.
  Violence and casualties are increasing. Already 3,335 American 
soldiers have been killed, and more than 320 of them have been killed 
since the surge began.
  Civilians continue to flee the violence in Baghdad as the violence 
there continues unabated.

[[Page 9742]]

  Senator Reid is right to insist that we change the mission for our 
troops in Iraq and set a target date to bring them home. The American 
people agree.
  America never should have gone to war when we did, the way we did, 
and for the false reasons we were given. It is the Vice President who 
has been playing politics with the war in Iraq for more than 4 years. 
The American people understand this and will rightly reject the Vice 
President's fingerpointing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized for 1 
hour.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, the bill we have before us today is a 
well-intentioned, thoughtful exercise to try to change the future for 
our country. The Commission this bill is based on, the work and 
experience of those who have helped coauthor the bill, is rightly so in 
their concern for the future of our competitiveness. There is one 
problem, however. The biggest dole on our competitiveness today has to 
be the largesse of the Federal Government. Let me give a few examples.
  Last year, the American people spent $224 billion paying interest on 
the national debt. Last year, the American people, through our actions, 
spent $350 billion more than we had, which further increased that debt. 
In the last 6 years, the individual debt owned by American citizens--
what they are required to pay--has risen from $21,000 to almost 
$30,000. At the same time, the average wage in those same 6 years 
increased by less than $5,000. So when we think about competitiveness, 
we ought to pay close attention to the drags on what will be our 
competitive situation.
  The No. 1 drag today is the Federal Government. That is not to demean 
this bill. I would have loved to have seen a different bill, a bill 
that says: Here is what we are doing right. Here is what we are doing 
wrong. Here are some new ideas on how to fix what we are doing wrong 
and, by the way, here are some things we need to do to keep us 
competitive. We didn't do that.
  The Department of Education right now has 10 percent of its programs 
that are totally ineffective. The Department of Energy, with its $5 
billion budget, has 10 percent of its programs that are highly 
ineffective. In other words, they are not accomplishing anything. None 
of that was looked at, deauthorized, or eliminated in this bill. 
Consequently, according to OMB, we have approximately $80 billion that 
is going to be authorized to be spent--some of that is reauthorization, 
I understand--over the next 4 years that is going to be added to the 
debt.
  People will say: This is an authorization. That doesn't mean we are 
going to spend the money.
  Why are we passing the bill if we don't intend to spend the money? We 
are going to spend the money. The problem with the way we spend money 
is we don't make the same choices the average American makes. We just 
chalk it up to our kids and grandkids. So I don't know where the money 
is going to come from.
  This bill is obviously going to pass. It is going to be conferenced, 
and it is probably going to be signed. But we will have missed a great 
opportunity to fix many major programs that are not working well today. 
This bill creates 20 new Federal programs. It doesn't eliminate one 
Federal program that isn't working well today. It doesn't modify, to a 
significant extent, those programs which are deemed ineffective and not 
working.
  What we have is great intention and great legislation, save for the 
fact that we are not looking at the whole story. We are not looking at 
the whole picture. Should Congress have to do what every family in this 
country does every month--make a choice? Where do we prioritize our 
spending for this month? Where do we spend more? What are the things on 
which we can't afford to spend because we don't have the money? We 
don't do that. We authorize programs. Then we appropriate funds.
  By the way, the discretionary portion of the Federal Government has 
grown about $600 billion in the last 7 years. Senator Carper and myself 
held 48 hearings in the last Congress in the Subcommittee on Federal 
Financial Management of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee. What we found was an astounding $200 billion of waste, 
fraud, abuse, and duplication. There was great opportunity to take that 
information and do something about it. We have not done it.
  The Department of Education is not compliant in terms of improper 
payments. They don't know where they are paying things wrong or paying 
things right. The Department of Energy is noncompliant in terms of 
improper payments. They don't know where they are paying things right 
and paying things wrong. We have at least 20 percent of the Department 
of Energy's budget that is earmarks. They don't get to decide where 
they spend the money; the Members of Congress tell them where they have 
to spend the money. There is not a sense of prioritizing what our 
energy needs are, what our education needs are within the Department of 
Energy. There is no commonsense approach to what we are doing. 
Consequently, the biggest problem we have in terms of competitiveness, 
which this bill won't solve, is more government. It creates more 
government rather than less government or the same amount of government 
that is more efficient and more effective.
  I don't intend to impugn the desires or the sincerity of the Members 
of this body who helped put this bill together. There is no question we 
need to address the issues that are encompassed in the legislation. 
That is not my criticism. My criticism is that when we have an 
opportunity to fix things with a bill such as this which cuts across 
multiple agencies, we don't do it. What we do is set up a system where 
more programs will be created without eliminating the ones that are not 
working.
  As a matter of fact, in this bill, in the National Science 
Foundation, we have a setaside. Where before the National Science 
Foundation did everything on peer review--everything on peer review, 
there was no politics saying what you have to do--we are taking $1 
billion and setting it aside and we are going to tell them what to do. 
We know better than the scientists where we ought to be spending our 
money? I seriously doubt that.
  We claim that what we want to do is reestablish the competitiveness 
of the United States. I have no doubt that certain segments of this 
bill will go a long way in doing that. I am not critical of the intent 
of the bill. But I believe--and I raised this on the last bill we 
considered--we continue to authorize new spending. We continue to put 
at risk, in the name of competitiveness, the future.
  The No. 1 risk for competitiveness is our debt. The fact is, we are 
sucking capital out of the capital markets like crazy, making it very 
difficult for small businesses that compete in the capital markets on 
ideas, innovation, and sole-proprietorships and people who want to take 
a risk on their own.
  The other thing we didn't do is fix IDEA. One of our problems with 
education is, we passed a law that said school districts will do this 
for individuals with disabilities. What we promised when we passed that 
law--much as we will hear in 2 or 3 years as to what we promise with 
this law--was that we would fund 40 percent of the costs in education 
for IDEA. That would be the Federal load. This last year, we funded 18 
percent. So we wonder why the schools can't compete, why they can't put 
the money into math and science, the money into competitiveness, when 
$16 billion a year is being absorbed by the school districts to do 
something we mandated them to do, which means $16 billion isn't 
available for them to teach and mentor math and science, for them to 
create greater opportunities to raise interest in the sciences.
  So I think if our past actions speak at all about what the future 
will bring, you will see we will not keep our word with this bill 
either. We will say things, we will do things, we will put at risk the 
next two generations, and we will have felt good because we did 
something, but we did less than what we could do.
  That is what we are doing with this bill. We are doing less than what 
we could do. We could, in fact, fix what is

[[Page 9743]]

wrong in many of those programs in the Department of Education and in 
the Department of Energy today with this bill. It could have been done. 
It could have been done, but it was not. So, consequently, we are going 
to fund ineffective programs as we authorize and create and fund new 
programs, many of which are designed to do the exact same things, but 
we are not going to eliminate the programs that are not working.
  And lest you think I am an alarmist and known as ``Dr. No,'' think 
about what the obligations are of every child who is born in this 
country today--just today. What is it? April 24, 2007. When that baby 
is delivered and placed in its mother's arms, you are going to see 
smiles of joy and tears--none of them with a realization the child who 
just came into this world is faced with $453,000 in unfunded 
liabilities the moment they take their first breath.
  The contrast should be, we are talking about competitiveness. How do 
we create a future? What kind of future is it when we create a bill but 
do not address the underlying problems that are limiting our 
competitiveness in the first place? No. 2, even if we are trained in 
math and science, we are going to be so debt ridden we won't have the 
money to put into it.
  According to the Government Accounting Office, that 8 percent in 
interest, that $224 billion we spend now, in the year 2025--a mere 18 
years from now--will be 25 percent of the budget and close to $1 
trillion. Now, think about that. Should we do the hard work of 
eliminating the wasteful and duplicative programs before we create 
another?
  It is easy to pass legislation that does something good. It is very 
hard to get rid of programs that are ineffective and highly 
inefficient. The reason is because everybody has an interest group that 
supports that program, and we find ourselves adverse to challenging 
that group.
  But the real choice is between our grandchildren and today's present 
inefficiencies. The real choice is whether we are truly going to be 
competitive and create an opportunity for the next two generations to 
experience the same kind of blessings we have been fortunate enough to 
experience as a nation.
  The real question is, will we leave a heritage that is similar to the 
heritage that was left with us? I tell you, my feelings and my thoughts 
are I do not see movement in this body or in the Congress as a whole to 
start addressing the underlying problems that are facing us. It is not 
a question of partisanship, Democrats or Republicans. It is a question 
of expediency. It is hard to tell people no when something is not 
working well. It is easy to ignore it.


                           Amendment No. 917

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment 
be set aside and call up amendment No. 917.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
pending amendment?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, reserving the right to object.
  No objection, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 917.

  Mr. COBURN. Madam 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 express the sense of the Senate that Congress has a moral 
     obligation to offset the cost of new Government programs and 
                              initiatives)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--
       (1) The national debt of the United States of America now 
     exceeds $8,500,000,000,000.
       (2) Each United States citizen's share of this debt exceeds 
     $29,000.
       (3) Every cent that the United States Government borrows 
     and adds to this debt is money stolen from future generations 
     of Americans and from important programs, including Social 
     Security and Medicare on which our senior citizens depend for 
     their retirement security.
       (4) The power of the purse belongs to Congress.
       (5) Congress authorizes and appropriates all Federal 
     discretionary spending and creates new mandatory spending 
     programs.
       (6) For too long, Congress has simply borrowed more and 
     more money to pay for new spending, while Americans want 
     Congress to live within its means, using the same set of 
     common sense rules and restraints Americans face everyday; 
     because in the real world, families cannot follow Congress's 
     example and must make difficult decisions and set priorities 
     on how to spend their limited financial resources.
       (7) Last year, the interest costs of the Federal debt the 
     government must pay to those who buy U.S. Treasury bonds were 
     about 8 percent of the total Federal budget. In total, the 
     Federal government spent $226 billion on interest costs alone 
     last year.
       (8) According to the Government Accountability Office, 
     interest costs will consume 25 percent of the entire Federal 
     budget by 2035. By way of comparison, the Department of 
     Education's share of Federal spending in 2005 was 
     approximately 3 percent of all Federal spending. The 
     Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for 
     approximately 23 percent of all Federal spending. Spending by 
     the Social Security Administration was responsible for about 
     20 percent of all Federal spending. Spending on Medicare was 
     about 12 percent of all Federal spending. Spending in 2005 by 
     the Department of Defense--in the midst of two wars in Iraq 
     and Afghanistan and a global war against terrorism--comprised 
     about 19 percent of all Federal spending. Thus, if we do not 
     change our current spending habits, GAO estimates that as a 
     percentage of Federal spending, interest costs in 2035 will 
     be larger than defense costs today, Social Security costs 
     today, Medicare costs today, and education costs today.
       (9) The Federal debt undermines United States 
     competitiveness by consuming capital that would otherwise be 
     available for private enterprise and innovation.
       (10) It is irresponsible for Congress to create or expand 
     government programs that will result in borrowing from Social 
     Security, Medicare, foreign nations, or future generations of 
     Americans without reductions in spending elsewhere within the 
     Federal budget.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that Congress has a moral obligation to offset the cost of 
     new Government programs and initiatives.

  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, it is a simple amendment. We are going 
to find out what your Senator believes with this amendment. We offered 
this amendment on the last bill. We had some inside baseball excuses 
why they would not vote for it. This is a sense-of-the-Senate 
amendment. It does not carry any force of law or anything. All it says 
is the Senate agrees that before we spend new money, we ought to get 
rid of the wasteful programs, we ought to get rid of the ones that are 
not working well, or we ought to make them better before we spend 
another $60 billion to $80 billion on another set of programs.
  That last amendment got 59 votes against it. Only 38 people in the 
Senate thought we ought to do that. I will tell you, I think the vast 
majority--greater than 95 percent--of the American public thinks we 
ought to do that.
  So this is a simple amendment. The catch with the amendment is, if 
you vote for the amendment and then do not change this bill to do what 
needs to be done to eliminate the other programs, you are going to have 
a tough time explaining that you agreed to this and then did something 
else when you voted for the passage of this bill.
  There is a day coming when we will not have the luxury to wait 
around. The financial markets will tell us what we will do. We will not 
have the freedom within the Senate to make those choices. We will do it 
under the duress of extreme financial conditions that will affect our 
country.
  So this is a simple amendment, very similar to the last one. I took 
the authorizing language out of it that some of the appropriators 
objected to, so it is very simple.
  The final statement in the amendment is:

       Sense Of The Senate.--
       It is the sense of the Senate that Congress has a moral 
     obligation to offset the cost of new Government programs and 
     initiatives.

  Now, with a budget deficit last year that was claimed to be $160 
billion, under Enron accounting--which was truly $350 billion, if you 
looked at what happened to the addition to our debt, what our kids are 
going to pay--it is going to be pretty hard to say we

[[Page 9744]]

should not add more to the debt. We have a lot of people who will say 
the debt does not matter; whatever the debt is, is a percentage of GDP. 
That is fine if the underlying assumption is we have great economics, 
and we are not going to have contractions of the economy, we are always 
going to be able to compete, we are always going to be able to finance 
our debt. The fact is, as the Government Accounting Office says, we 
cannot, and the interest costs associated with that will be massive.
  Why would I come out here and fight friends and foes alike all the 
time to do this? Because I think the one shortfall of our body is that 
overall we are not looking at the big picture and the long run. This 
looks at the long run, but it does not look at the big picture.
  Unless we do that, we are going to find ourselves very apologetic to 
the next two generations because what, in essence, we will have said is 
we cared more about us, we cared more about our comfort, we cared more 
about our next election than we did any of the next two generations.
  So I put it to my colleagues: Vote against this and vote for the bill 
and be honest. But if you think if we create new programs we ought to 
eliminate other programs so we do not continue to expand the Federal 
Government running a deficit, then you ought to vote for this amendment 
and not vote for this bill, until it is made right, until it has 
captured the opportunities that are inherent within it to fix what is 
wrong in the Department of Energy, to fix what is wrong in the 
Department of Education, to fix what is wrong with all these grant 
programs that need to be fixed today.
  Let's hold us accountable. That is what the American people are 
expecting from us. I want to leave the Senate not being known for 
anything other than knowing what I did was to try to create and make 
sure we maintain the heritage this country has given to us.
  With that, Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I 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. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, as I understand what we are doing: We 
have a few amendments pending. We are working to clear those amendments 
so we can come to a vote on Senator Coburn's amendment. In the 
meantime, Senator Sununu has more than one amendment. He has one he 
wants to talk about today. He wants to bring it up as soon as he can 
and schedule it for a vote. It is a meritorious amendment. I hope we 
can do that as soon as possible.
  Senator Coburn has reserved the rest of his time. But as I understand 
the procedure, Senator Sununu could go ahead and speak until the next 
scheduled speaker, who is scheduled to speak at 4 o'clock; is that 
correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no order.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent, with deference 
to the Senator from Tennessee, that prior to the vote on my amendment I 
be given 2 or 3 minutes to speak on it.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. No objection. Could we have 4 minutes equally divided?
  Mr. COBURN. Absolutely.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Any objection? Prior to the vote, if and when the vote 
is set?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SUNUNU. Madam President, I rise to speak on the legislation in 
general terms. As the Senator from Tennessee indicated, I filed three 
different amendments. I certainly wish to call at least one of those 
amendments up at the appropriate time. They address a number of 
concerns I have with the underlying legislation.
  But let me begin by saying I do appreciate the complexity of the 
challenge the Senator from Tennessee has undertaken in trying to 
assemble from different committees of jurisdiction the components of 
this bill. I think, unfortunately, dealing with this legislation has 
laid to bare some of the weaknesses and problems with the way we are 
organized in Congress because it has been, unfortunately, an 
inefficient process in many ways.
  There are five or six different committees that have jurisdiction in 
different areas of this legislation. They all want to try to leave 
their mark on the legislation. As a result, the Senator from Tennessee 
and others have had to deal with duplication and overlap in many cases 
with initiatives begun by different committees that have effectively 
the same goal and the same end. Over the past 12 or 18 months, I think 
they have eliminated a number of these problems from the legislation 
but many remain. I am one of the only, if not the only, engineer in the 
Senate. At least I was an engineer; I worked as an engineer during my 
previous work experience. I would like to think that I am still 
employable as an engineer perhaps someday in the future. I do value 
very much this experience and this background in science and technology 
when we are dealing with problems on the Commerce Committee having to 
do with telecommunications or spectrum allocation or policies on 
environmental issues with particulate matter or pollution standards. I 
like to think it helps to have at least some grounding in a lot of the 
technical matters that underlie the basic legislation.
  I think it is essential, when we are looking at policy to encourage 
and inspire students to pursue science and mathematics and to try to 
improve our competitiveness in fields of science and engineering, that 
we focus on a few core principles. I begin with the basic objective of 
maximizing research in the most basic areas of math and science. In 
this effort we are talking about the funds that go to the National 
Science Foundation and the funds that go to the National Institutes of 
Health. These are investments in basic sciences: in the case of the 
National Science Foundation, in physics, chemistry, physical science, 
and computational mathematics. They are peer-reviewed, which is 
intended to insulate them from political forces, legislative forces, 
and allow those with expertise in these areas to decide what sorts of 
research projects and programs receive funding in any given year.
  It is essential we maintain that independent peer review process at 
the National Science Foundation, just as it is important at the 
National Institutes of Health because if we allow politics to enter 
this process, we are going to do these areas a great injustice.
  Commensurate with that focus on physical sciences and computational 
mathematics as we pursue research in science and engineering, it is 
also important that we avoid policies that try to pick winners or 
losers within our economy. Here I point to various programs that over 
the years have subsidized product development for profitable companies, 
product development for products being introduced into the existing 
marketplace today that effectively picks one firm and one firm's 
products at the expense of others. Some people would say, well, that is 
research. But it certainly isn't the kind of peer-reviewed research 
that does and should take place at the National Science Foundation. It 
is product development work. Any time we start subsidizing product 
development for companies that are competing in the marketplace selling 
goods and services to consumers, we distort the marketplace, we provide 
unnecessary subsidies, and in programs like the advanced technology 
program we have done just that time and time again.
  The companies that have received these subsidies are good firms with 
good employees, but I think putting funds in this area at the expense 
of physics and chemistry and mathematics at the National Science 
Foundation is a grave mistake. We need to

[[Page 9745]]

maximize that research, make sure it is peer-reviewed, don't pick 
winners and losers in private industry, and focus on educational 
programs where it can make the biggest difference in inspiring young 
students in these careers in math and science.
  I look back on my own experience and ask the very basic question: 
What led me to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering when I was an 
undergraduate in college? I didn't make that decision when I was a 
freshman in college. I didn't even make that decision to pursue 
interests in math and science when I was in high school. I would argue 
for most students it happens in sixth and seventh and eighth grade. 
They realize they have an interest in math and science. More often than 
not it is because they have had a strong, credible, inspirational 
teacher in math and science, and my experience is no different. Jane 
Batts and Blake Richards, my math and science teachers in fourth and 
fifth grade, I think set me on that path that ultimately brought me to 
a mechanical engineering degree. So if we are going to look at 
educational programs that are meant to inspire students in math and 
science, they had better be focused on those key years: sixth, seventh, 
and eighth grade.
  Finally--this is a point that Senator Coburn was speaking to--we need 
to look at the programs that are already in place and ask honest 
questions about how effective they are. How many do we have that deal 
with these areas of math and science education? How many do we have 
that deal with the areas of research? And, in particular, I think we 
should look to the work done by the American Competitiveness Council.
  What they found is that in the areas of science, technology, 
education--science, technology, engineering and mathematics--stem 
programs--there are 106 different programs within 8 or 10 different 
agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of 
Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland 
Security, 35 at the National Science Foundation, 12 at the Department 
of Agriculture.
  In this legislation before us we do ourselves a disservice if we 
don't look at these programs and ask the questions: How effective are 
these programs? How can they be improved? How can they become more 
focused or better focused on inspiring those young students? As the 
American Competitiveness Council looked at these programs, they came up 
with a series of recommendations and findings. They made that very 
argument: that there was overlap in these science, technology, 
engineering, and math educational programs; that communication and 
coordination among agencies could be improved; and that current 
programs tended to be focused on short-term support rather than longer 
term impact. Those are the very findings we should be trying to 
implement and execute as part of this legislation, but I don't see it 
in the underlying bill.
  So the amendments I have focused on, first, the overlap and 
duplication and lack of focus within those educational programs, to try 
to strengthen them, measure their effect, and ensure that they have a 
greater impact on those students; and, second, to make sure we are 
appropriately focused on basic, fundamental research within the 
National Science Foundation and that we are maintaining its 
independence and that we ensure the peer review process is what 
determines how and where funds are allocated.
  I know we are working on an agreement on the Senate floor, so I am 
not able to offer my amendment at the moment, but let me speak to what 
it attempts to do. I have an amendment that strikes section 4002 of 
this legislation. Section 4002 does two things within the National 
Science Foundation that I think set the wrong precedent.
  First, it establishes a set-aside, a minimum allocation for 
educational and human resources within the National Science Foundation 
of $1.05 billion. I recognize the educational initiatives within the 
National Science Foundation are important, but I certainly can't say, 
and I don't think any Member of the Senate can say, whether $1.05 
billion is exactly the right number. But more important, we shouldn't 
be mandating in law that the National Science Foundation direct a 
specific amount of money to any area. We should, to the greatest of our 
ability, allow those decisions to be set on a yearly basis by the 
experts and the leadership of the National Science Foundation. If we 
think they are not doing a good job, they should probably be replaced. 
But they are hired specifically because they have the best and most 
advanced understanding of what our needs are, what the most valuable 
areas of research are, and what the best kinds of partnerships might be 
for education related to physics, chemistry, mathematics, and material 
science. So I would strike that set-aside, not because we don't think 
any money should be going to this area--of course, money should be 
going to this area--but because it is a dangerous precedent for 
legislators to start carving up pieces of the National Science 
Foundation for specific initiatives.
  Second, this particular section of the legislation mandates--it 
requires--that there be a specific percentage increase in this one 
particular area each year between now and 2011. While I don't know 
whether that percentage increase will turn out to be the right amount 
or the wrong amount over the next several years, I think it is a bad 
precedent to require as part of the legislation that a designated 
portion of money go to any of the specific areas supported by the 
National Science Foundation. Once we move away from the peer review 
process, once we move away from independence within the National 
Science Foundation to allocate funds as the leadership there sees fit, 
then I think we run the risk of undermining the great strength that the 
National Science Foundation has represented over the past several 
years.
  I began speaking about doubling resources for the National Science 
Foundation 4 or 5 years ago because it has been so successful in 
providing resources for basic research in key areas of physical 
sciences, and I am extremely concerned that if we adopt the provisions 
of section 4002 and start carving out pieces we think are politically 
popular at a particular point in time, we will dramatically undermine 
its effectiveness and have the unintended consequence of weakening the 
organization's ability to inspire the next generation of engineers and 
scientists.
  I look forward to offering these amendments at the appropriate time, 
and I thank you, Madam President, for the time this afternoon.
  I yield the floor.


                          Entitlement Programs

  Mr. GREGG. Madam President, let me step over to the chair from which 
the junior Senator has been speaking.
  I wanted to speak about a couple of issues. The first issue I want to 
talk about is the recent report which came out yesterday from the 
Medicare trustees which said that the Medicare trust fund is in dire 
straits. The Medicare trustees are required under law to report to the 
Senate and to the Congress and to the American people what the economic 
status is of the trust fund as it looks out into the future.
  A lot of us have been talking for a long time about the problems with 
the entitlement programs we have--specifically Medicare, Medicaid, and 
Social Security--and the fact that these three funds are headed toward 
a meltdown, which is going to take with them the economy of this 
country. The practical effect of these three funds in their present 
spend-out situation is that they have approximately $70 trillion of 
unfunded liability--$70 trillion over their actuarial life.
  Now, $1 trillion is a number that a lot of us have a problem 
comprehending. To try to put that number into perspective, if you took 
all the taxes paid in the United States since we became a country, I 
think we have paid about $46 trillion in taxes. If you take the entire 
net worth of America--all our assets, including all our cars, all our 
homes, all our stocks--that, again, is in the $45 trillion to $50 
trillion net worth.
  So what we have on the books as a result of the projected costs of 
the

[[Page 9746]]

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security system is a cost that exceeds 
all the taxes paid in the history of this country and exceeds the net 
worth of this country.
  Why is that? Why are we confronting this problem? Well, it is 
basically a function of demographics. The postwar baby boomer 
generation, of which I am a member, the largest generation in American 
history, is beginning to retire.
  By the year 2020, 2025, the number of retired citizens in this 
country will double from the present number who are retired today. It 
will go from about 35 million retired citizens up to about 70 million 
retired citizens. The number of people working to support those retired 
citizens will drop commensurately. So both Social Security and 
Medicare, and to some extent Medicaid, were programs designed with the 
concept that there would be a lot of people working for every person 
retired. They were essentially pyramids.
  In fact, in 1950, there were about 12.5 people working for every 
person retired. So 12 people were paying into Social Security for every 
1 person taking out. Today, there are about 3.5 people paying into 
Social Security and Medicare for every one person taking out. Social 
Security is running into surplus. But as this baby boom generation 
retires, that number changes radically. We go from those large numbers 
paying in and a small number taking out to a large number taking out 
and a small number paying in. There will be about two paying in for 
every one person taking out by about 2025. We go from a pyramid to a 
rectangle and the system cannot support itself.
  This chart reflects the severity of the problem. These three 
programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--as a percentage of 
spending of the GDP, by the year 2025, or 2028, will absorb almost 20 
percent of GDP. Why is that a problem? Today, and historically, the 
Federal Government has only spent 20 percent of gross national product. 
So the practical implications are that by 2025, or 2028, the total 
spending of these three programs alone will absorb all of the money 
that has historically been spent by the Federal Government, which means 
that nothing else could be spent--no other money--on things such as 
national defense, the environment, and education. It would all be going 
to these three programs, assuming you maintain the Federal share of the 
GDP at its present level.
  Things get worse, unfortunately, as the baby boom generation 
accelerates into the 2030 period, when paying for those programs alone 
reaches 27, 28 percent of GDP by about 2040. Obviously, it is not a 
sustainable situation. Obviously, it is a situation where if we 
continue on this path, we would essentially be saying to our children 
that we are going to subject you to a cost that far exceeds anything 
you could afford and basically hit you with a tax burden that would 
essentially mean that you--our children and grandchildren--in order to 
support this retired generation, would be unable to send your children 
to college, buy your home, purchase your cars, live your lifestyle in 
the manner our generation has been able to live. The money is going to 
have to be spent by taking taxes out of your pocket.
  A lot of us have been talking about and some people have even tried 
to address this issue--specifically, the administration. The biggest 
part of this problem is not Social Security, ironically; it is 
Medicare. Now, the Medicare trustees yesterday made the point once 
again that if we don't do something and start to do it fairly soon in 
addressing the Medicare problem, we will bankrupt our children and our 
children's children's future with the cost of this program. This was 
their obligation as trustees. They are supposed to look at it 
objectively, and they have. They said this program is headed toward 
about $35 trillion of unfunded liability, that that is a huge number 
and we need to correct that. Ironically, and fortunately, a couple of 
years ago we put into place a law that requires that when the Medicare 
Program starts to go in the direction of insolvency at a rate that 
means it is going to take a significant amount of money from the 
general taxpayers' pockets versus money from the wage earner, as they 
pay their hospital insurance, that at that point the Federal Government 
is supposed to act.
  The way it works is this: If more than 45 percent of the Medicare 
trust fund is being supported by general fund dollars, what does that 
mean? Well, the Medicare trust fund theoretically was supposed to be 
the Parts A and B, the hospital and doctor part; that was supposed to 
be supported primarily by insurance premiums being paid on your 
hospital insurance tax taken out of your salary every week. But, of 
course, under the Part B program, we have never done that. We have 
ended up subsidizing that program with general funds instead of having 
it come out of the payroll tax. What this law says is when those 
general fund subsidies exceed 45 percent of the total cost of the 
Medicare system, it is an excessively dangerous situation and it has to 
be addressed. If this happens 2 years in a row, where the cost of 
Medicare is exceeding 45 percent of the general funds coming from the 
Federal Treasury, that means people's income taxes, the taxes people 
pay every day--then at that point the administration is supposed to 
send up--whatever administration is in power--a proposal to correct the 
problem.
  That is what the Medicare trustees concluded. Last year, they 
concluded the trust funds were in severe strain and we are going to hit 
the 45-percent level. This year, they have concluded the trust funds 
are under severe strain, and it is going to hit the 45-percent level. 
The practical effect of that is now the administration is required, 
prior to the next budget, to send up a proposal to correct the problem. 
Unfortunately, under the law, even though the administration is 
required to send up such a proposal, the Congress is not required to 
act on it.
  Ironically, the administration, in an act of true fiscal 
responsibility to our children and our children's children, this year 
sent up a proposal to try to correct this problem, or at least begin to 
correct the problem, although not fully. They suggested this year that 
there should be two adjustments in the Medicare trust fund, neither of 
which would have a significant impact on beneficiaries. In fact, for 
the most part, it would have absolutely no impact on the beneficiaries, 
and unless you were a beneficiary in a very high-income situation, with 
more than $85,000 of personal income, or if you are married and have 
more than $160,000 of joint income, it would not affect you at all. 
There are two proposals that insulate beneficiaries. The first proposal 
was that we do an accurate reimbursement to providers. Under the 
present law, the health care professionals have estimated that provider 
groups are getting about a 1.2 percent extra payment over what they 
should be getting as a result of the fact that there have been new 
efficiencies introduced into the provider repayment systems, through 
technology primarily, that have reduced costs, but that reduction in 
cost has not been reflected in the reimbursement. So we are actually 
paying more than we should be paying in these accounts.
  The administration didn't suggest that they capture all that money. 
They suggested let's take half of that--leave the provider groups with 
half of that money--I don't want to use the word windfall, but as a 
bonus to them. Let's take the other half and use it to try to bring the 
Medicare trust fund into some sort of solvency. That was the first 
proposal of the administration. It was a reasoned proposal in light of 
the fact that all of the professional groups have concluded that this 
overpayment is occurring.
  The second proposal they made was that people getting Part D, the 
drug benefit--if they are very high-income individuals--should pay part 
of the premium for that drug benefit. Under the Part D premium, there 
was no contribution required, unlike Part B, which has a means test--
very limited, but it has one. Part D did not. The administration said, 
listen, if you are a retired Senator, you should not be subsidized by 
somebody who is working in a restaurant, or in a gas station, or on a 
manufacturing line, which is what

[[Page 9747]]

happens today. The way the law works today, a person who is out there 
working for a living, maybe trying to raise their children, is actually 
having to pay to subsidize retired Senators who are getting Medicare 
or, for that matter--I don't want to pick on Bill Gates' father as an 
example, but Bill Gates' father, or Warren Buffet--millionaires and 
billionaires--are being subsidized by people who are making an everyday 
wage and trying to make ends meet for their families. So the 
administration suggested if you have more than $80,000 of personal 
income as an individual, or $160,000 of joint income as a family, then 
you should be required to pay a portion--just a portion--of your Part D 
premium. That is a very reasonable approach.
  Those two proposals together would have reduced the outyear 
insolvency of the Medicare trust fund by almost a third. It would have 
taken tremendous pressure off of the trust funds, especially the 
Medicare trust fund. They were both rejected out of hand by the other 
side of the aisle. They were demagoged. People came to the floor and 
said this would savage Medicare, would destroy Medicare, that it was 
going to undermine the rights of senior citizens to get Medicare. 
Outrageous statements were made on the other side of the aisle, and 
they continue to be made relative to these proposals that were 
reasonably benign, that didn't affect beneficiaries, and would have 
actually put Medicare on a solvency footing instead of insolvency, 
which is where it is headed now.
  Now the trustees have done their job and said, the administration is 
absolutely right. If we don't correct this problem, we are going to 
have a Medicare system that cannot be afforded by our children and 
grandchildren. As a result, we will have a major contraction in the 
system. Yet even though the Medicare trustees have said that--and they 
are a pretty objective group and they are required under the law to be 
so--we have the leading Senator on the other side, Senator Schumer, 
taking the position that that is just politics, that Medicare is fine, 
and instead of peddling an ill-conceived Social Security privatization 
plan that has already been overwhelmingly rejected by the American 
people, the administration should turn its attention to strengthening 
Medicare.
  Where was Senator Schumer when this amendment was offered on the 
floor? He voted against it. When the administration suggested something 
that was responsible, such as making high-income individuals pay a part 
of their premium on Part D, Senator Schumer rejected it. When this 
administration came forward and suggested we should reimburse providers 
honestly and directly and fairly but not overly reimburse them--not too 
much overly reimburse them--and take the savings and use it to make the 
Medicare system more solvent, where were Senator Schumer and his 
colleagues? They rejected that.
  Now they have the audacity to come forward and attack the Medicare 
trustees, whose job it is to present the facts as they are, and the 
facts are the Medicare system is going into bankruptcy, and him saying 
that is politics and trying to hyperbolize it into privatization, which 
has nothing to do with Medicare--how outrageous and irresponsible for 
one generation not to face up to the problems it is giving the other 
generation. Senator Schumer is a baby boomer, as I am. It is our 
problem we are passing on to our kids. We are the problem. We exist and 
we are going to retire in massive numbers, and then we are going to 
turn the bill over to our children. We have a responsibility as a 
generation but, more importantly, we have a responsibility as 
policymakers in the Senate to act, especially when the Medicare 
trustees have told us the problem is there, it is legitimate, and it is 
pretty obvious to anybody because we are all alive.
  We have a bill, a law on the books, that says specifically this 
problem must be addressed when the Medicare trustees, 2 years in a row, 
have determined there is a problem, that 45 percent of the General 
Treasury or more is being used to support Medicare, and we need to 
adjust the system to effectively address that issue and to make the 
system solvent and affordable for our children. And especially we 
should act when reasonable proposals are brought to the floor, 
proposals that have no maliciousness to them, have no political agenda 
to them, have no purpose other than putting in place policies which are 
going to make the system more solvent and more affordable. Yet they are 
rejected--rejected with partisan rhetoric of the worst order because it 
has nothing to do with the Medicare plan; privatization is thrown at 
the suggestion that we correct the Medicare system by making rich 
people pay more of their costs by getting the reimbursement formula 
correct. That is subject to pejorative privatization by the Senator 
from New York, with no proposals at all--none--from the other side of 
the aisle to correct this problem which is looming. Other than fighting 
terrorism and the threat of an Islamic fundamentalist detonating a 
weapon of mass destruction in one of our cities or somewhere in 
America, there is probably no problem which is more significant to the 
future of this Nation than the pending fiscal meltdown which we are 
going to confront as a result of the cost of these programs which we 
put on the books and which, in their present process, cannot be 
afforded.
  If we just wait until we arrive at the cliff--and we will be going 
pretty fast when we reach that cliff; we are not going to be able to 
stop--and only try to deal with it then, what will be our options? They 
will be so few and they will be so painful that they will have a 
dramatic and dislocating effect not only on the generation that has to 
pay the costs but on the generation that receives these benefits.
  We can, today, put in place changes which are gradual, which are 
reasoned, and which will accomplish the type of adjustments that are 
necessary to make this program work--work well for the beneficiaries so 
we have a strong, solvent Medicare system and work well for those who 
pay the taxes to support them. But if every time the issue is raised 
that there has to be legitimate action in this area, especially when it 
is being raised by the Medicare trustees, who do not have a political 
agenda but are simply reporting a factual assessment of an actuarially 
existing fact pattern--which is there are so many people alive today 
who are baby boomers that when they retire, they are just going to 
basically overwhelm the system--if every time those red flags are 
raised, they are going to be responded to by the leadership on the 
other side with pejoratives and partisanship and the use of phrases 
such as ``privatization,'' then we are not going to accomplish anything 
around here. All we are going to see is that we can deal with the next 
election but we can't deal with the next generation. You might win the 
next election, which I guess is the purpose of Senator Schumer, but it 
is going to leave our kids one heck of a mess, and seniors who retire 
in the 2020 period are going to also be in a pretty horrific way. Total 
irresponsibility in the remarks of the Senator from New York in 
response to the very responsible warnings brought forth by the Medicare 
trustees.
  On a second issue to which I wish to speak briefly--actually, not so 
briefly--which is the issue before us, the competitiveness bill, this 
competitiveness bill is well-intentioned. We all know that we as a 
nation are confronting some very severe issues relative to our capacity 
as a culture to compete in this world and be successful. We also know 
that the essence of our capacity to compete is tied directly to our 
capacity to produce an intelligent, thoughtful, knowledge-based 
society. We are, without question, a country where success in the 
global competition is not going to be built off of excessive manpower 
or a dramatic amount of resources. It is going to be built off of 
having brighter and smarter people who add value to products and 
produce items that people around the world need and want, and they are 
inventive and creative. The great genius of America is our creativeness 
and our inventiveness. So the goal of this proposal is appropriate, 
genuine, and well-intentioned, but the question becomes whether the 
execution of that goal, on balance, accomplishes its purpose.

[[Page 9748]]

  The Congress has this tendency--and I have seen it innumerable 
times--when it sees a problem, to create a plethora of different little 
programs, most of them not too big, all across the spectrum, which are 
basically the ideas of a bunch of different people who came to the 
table, but because there wasn't one cohesive idea that was dominant, 
everybody's idea got into play. I guess that is the problem when you 
have the committee designing the horse. That famous story--if a 
committee designs a horse, you end up with something that doesn't look 
like a horse. That is what happens when you have a proposal which puts 
a large chunk of money on the table and then says: Here, let's spend 
it. That, unfortunately, is where this proposal ends up to a large 
degree.
  Ironically, this proposal has a lot of specific initiatives in it 
which we already tried before or which are duplicative programs we have 
tried before, the irony being pretty apparent in items such as the 
Manufacturing Extension Program, which, during the first few years of 
this administration, it sent up proposals to basically zero it out. 
That is a program the purpose of which was to create these 
manufacturing extension centers around the country, which we did--they 
are called the Hollings centers--but we also understood they would be 
self-sustaining centers once the Federal Government got them up and 
running. We now find they are not, so this bill essentially continues 
them. Also, it basically restarts something called the ATP program. It 
gives it a new name and title. It creates a brandnew series of 
education initiatives in the Department of Energy which are pretty much 
duplicative of initiatives in the Department of Education, and some 
education initiatives in the National Science Foundation. It creates 
new directives to the NOAA which are almost identical to what NOAA 
already does but in addition are completely duplicative of what the 
Oceans Commission concluded should be done and which was put into 
action about 2 or 3 years ago as a result of the Oceans Commission.
  As well-intentioned as this bill may be, in the end what it does is 
it increases spending by $16 billion. That is the proposal: $16 billion 
over 4 years. What it buys is a whole lot of little initiatives all 
over the country which are the interests of this Senator or that 
Senator but which in their totality have very little cohesion to them, 
direction to them, or purpose to them and, as a practical matter, are 
not paid for.
  Here is the situation we confront. It is not as acute as the issue I 
was talking about before in the Social Security entitlement accounts, 
but the situation is this: We are spending a lot of money we don't 
have. In the nondefense discretionary accounts, we have been fairly 
disciplined over the last few years, but we are still spending a lot of 
money we don't have.
  What this proposal says is, even though we are spending a lot of 
money we don't have, we are going to spend more money we don't have 
because these are feel-good initiatives, and if we just sprinkle a 
little crumbs all over the place, we can put out good press releases 
and feel content that we have addressed the competitiveness question in 
this country.
  The competitiveness question in this country is not going to be 
dramatically improved by spending $16 billion we don't have and then 
sending the bill to our kids. If we want to improve competitiveness in 
this country, we should be doing fairly substantive things that will 
impact a lot of different areas and won't necessarily cost us too much 
money.
  We might start, for example, with tort reform, where we see a massive 
amount of money spent inefficiently in this culture because we have to 
fear lawsuits that are, quite honestly, in many instances frivolous and 
that end up causing people to do defensive activities. Correct the tort 
system, and that would create a fair amount of efficiency and 
productivity in this economy.
  Correct the regulatory morass we have. The fact is that to can get an 
efficient powerplant on line--which we need a lot of in this country if 
we are going to have an efficient economy--it literally takes years and 
years of regulatory hoops to jump through, many of which are 
duplicative, before you can get a decent powerplant up and running. 
When was the last time a nuclear powerplant was brought on line in this 
country? Well, I think it was 1988. Nuclear power is by far the most 
efficient way and the most environmentally sound way to bring large 
amounts of power online. Yet we can't license nuclear powerplants. 
Senator Domenici, in a recent bill he produced in this Senate, which 
didn't pass the Congress, has tried to streamline the effort. 
Hopefully, it will result in more powerplants coming on line.
  The simple fact is that we regulate ourselves into 
noncompetitiveness. So if we want to correct the issue of 
competitiveness, let's address some of these regulatory issues. They 
don't have to be broad. It doesn't have to be a broad exercise. It can 
be reasonably narrow.
  In the area of immigration policy, we know there are very bright, 
capable people around this world who want to come to America and be 
productive. As Bill Gates described them in testimony before the HELP 
Committee, he looks at them as job-setters. When he brings one of these 
really bright people from someplace else in the world and puts them to 
work at Microsoft, the way he sees that is that person is generating 
jobs. It is the opposite of outsourcing; it is insourcing. If you bring 
somebody in with special talents and abilities, especially in the 
science and mathematics areas, that person becomes a job center around 
which other jobs are created because of their creativity and their 
abilities.
  And what do we do to those folks? We tell them they can't come to the 
United States even though they want to, even though they have jobs 
here. We say: I am sorry, we can only have 65,000 people with that 
talent in this country. That is it--even though there may be 150,000 or 
200,000 who would like to come to this country and all of whom could 
come into this country from the standpoint of being safe, sound, good 
contributing citizens and all of whom, if they were here, would 
probably be giving us economic added ability which would create jobs. 
It doesn't cost us any money to bring these people in. In fact, it 
gives us more economic activity, which gives us more jobs, probably 
more tax dollars from these people, generating more taxes to the 
Federal Treasury. That is something we can address if you want to 
improve the productivity of this Nation.
  The idea that the Federal Government is going to sprinkle $16 billion 
around to various programs--and it is sprinkled all over, a lot of 
programs here, many of which either existed before or are being 
recreated--and it is going to result in significantly more 
competitiveness--well, it might work, but the only way you could 
justify it is if you paid for it by reducing $16 billion somewhere else 
in inefficiencies before you move down this road. The irony of this is 
we have done it so many times before, and it hasn't worked because the 
Federal Government can't command and control the economy. That is why 
it doesn't work.
  I was Governor when President Bush 1, who was very concerned about 
education and wanted to be known as the education President, called a 
conference of Governors together--the first time it happened since 
Lincoln--I believe in Charlottesville, VA. The purpose of the 
conference was to figure out how we as a nation were going to capture 
and reform the education agenda. This was in 1989. I was Governor at 
the time. Do you know what the first conclusion of that Governors 
conference was? I think we came up with 10 directives. The first 
conclusion was that we would lead the world in math-science education 
in the elementary and secondary school systems by the year 2000 because 
at that time we were 14 out of 16 countries of the industrialized 
world.
  I heard Senator Kennedy a while ago doing his presentation on this 
issue on the Senate floor, and he put up a chart. I think he said we 
were 24th out of 24 industrialized countries. We actually lost ground 
if that is true. I don't know what the number is, but we are certainly 
not at the top. Yet throughout

[[Page 9749]]

this period we have created program after program after program.
  There is an initiative in here for the National Science Foundation to 
reenergize its directorate on education. I was here the last time we 
did that. I was in the House. It is a good idea, especially if you have 
the funds to pay for it. But the fact is, it is a sprinkling effort. 
The marketplace, in creating an atmosphere where there is competition, 
is the way you make yourself more competitive. Spreading money over a 
whole plethora of new programs might produce some results, but unless 
you pay for it, in the end it is going to end up costing us 
significantly. It is going to end up costing the next generation 
significantly. So as well-intentioned as this proposal may be, I have 
serious reservations about its effectiveness.
  I would probably be willing to support it if it were paid for, but it 
isn't paid for, and it is just going to add $16 billion to the debt. 
Now, we will hear from others that this is just an authorized number, 
but I can assure everyone that all we will hear about once this 
authorized number is passed is that we need to appropriate the money to 
meet those needs. So that is a straw dog argument. If you put on the 
table that you are going to spend $16 billion more, that you don't 
have, the odds are the Congress is going to spend $16 billion once it 
gets authorized to do so.
  At this time I understand we are not taking amendments, but if we 
were in the process of taking amendments, I would offer an amendment to 
do something substantive in the area of competition and making our 
country more viable, and that would be to lift the cap on the H1B visa 
program from 65,000 to 150,000. A very simple action. It would bring in 
a large group of people who would be constructive citizens with science 
and technology backgrounds that we need.
  We would not be replacing people who are in jobs, but we would 
actually be creating more jobs--probably a lot more jobs in the arenas 
in which they work--and that would actually have an immediate impact on 
competitiveness in this country. We wouldn't have to wait another 10 
years to have another conference by another Presidency or another 
Congress that says we are not caught up in the competitiveness area and 
therefore we have to address math and science education. We would 
actually have the people here next year who would have the math and 
science skills and who would be able to contribute constructively.
  So that would be the amendment I would offer, and I certainly hope to 
have the opportunity to offer that amendment before this bill leaves 
the floor.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand my junior colleague has a 
request before I proceed.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Domenici be recognized for up to 15 minutes, that Senator Sanders would 
follow him for up to 20 minutes, and that Senator Ensign would follow 
him for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? The Chair hears 
none, and it is so ordered.
  Senator Domenici.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank Senator Bingaman.
  Mr. President, I am not sure I will take the whole 15, although I 
have been speaking on this issue for a long enough time that one would 
think I might have spoken out, but I haven't. I am very excited about 
the bill, and so I am afraid I will use every 1 of the 15 minutes 
because there is a lot I want to say.
  First of all, let me say that I have the greatest respect for those 
who oppose this bill, such as the distinguished Senator from New 
Hampshire, chairman of the Budget Committee in the past, who has spoken 
eloquently about the problems of Social Security and spoken his piece 
today about this bill.
  On the other hand, for myself, I want to say that the time has come 
for a new bill to get passed, and I want it to be bipartisan and I want 
Republicans to join Democrats on the bill that I believe we will look 
back on and say it was the biggest, most significant, most important 
piece of legislation that we have ever passed, that added to the brain 
power of the American people, and particularly added to the brain power 
of the young people coming along who are going to try to keep us the 
most productive Nation on Earth by getting educated properly.
  We are trying to pass this bill after having been told by the best of 
Americans who took a look at our country, who looked at our laws, and 
then recommended that we do 20 things. They were all recommendations 
aimed at the proposal that we were going backward; that we were in 
reverse gear as far as giving our young people the education they 
deserve in the areas of math, science, physics, engineering, and the 
like.
  We were advised by the very best Americans. They did this as a 
gratuity. They weren't paid. They used their time to tell us what was 
going wrong and what could be fixed in terms of brain power development 
among our people. They said, essentially, our biggest problem is, after 
grade 4 and through grade 12 our young people are not getting educated 
in math, science, physics, and the like by teachers who are educators 
in those subjects; that huge percentages of the teachers don't even 
know the subject matter. Yet they are required to teach because they do 
not have anybody else. So they teach math even if they haven't studied 
math. They told us we should fix that. This bill will fix that, we 
hope.
  They told us a number of other things. They said put them into law 
and try to get these things passed, and over the next 5 to 10 years you 
will see a big difference. The National Science Foundation should 
receive much more money for the hard science research projects; that 
the budget of the Department of Energy, which has a science fund, 
should get more money for the science that it does in the great 
laboratories of the United States; and to help bring up the education 
for those youngsters we are talking about by giving them exciting 
opportunities in the summer months and elsewise, and give the teachers 
those times to get educated so they can pass on much more brain power 
and excitement about these subjects to our young people.
  Now, there is no doubt what is in this bill could be done better if 
one person, or two, who were knowledgeable and fair were doing it and 
following the recommendations of those who told us to do so. But we 
can't do that here. We have to go to committees eventually and ask 
Senators who have vested interests. So we don't have a perfectly drawn 
bill in comparison to the 20 ideas propounded by the National Academy 
and the special bill that was produced by the ex-president of Lockheed 
Martin, Norm Augustine. Now, that part is so. It is true it is a good 
bill in that regard. So we have to argue about some other points that 
come in, such as we should not pass any new legislation so long as we 
have a deficit.
  One Senator, a Senator from Oklahoma, has an amendment. I have great 
respect for him. He says it is the sense of the Senate that the 
Congress has a moral obligation to offset the cost of new government 
programs and initiatives. First of all, let me suggest to the 
distinguished Senator that this bill does not spend money. If it spent 
money, it would be subject to a point of order under the budget and 
would fall because it is new spending. Nobody has raised that. Even the 
great, distinguished, former chairman of the Budget Committee has not 
done that. He did not stand up and say this bill falls under the Budget 
Act because it spends money. Why didn't he? Because it doesn't spend 
money.
  There still has to be another act before this spends money. It has to 
be appropriated. And any authorization bill is the same way. It does 
not spend money. It does not need approval of the Budget Committee 
because it doesn't spend money. However, when we try to spend the 
money, then we better have it in the budget or it will fall under a 
point of order. That is the truth, and there is nothing moral or 
immoral about it.
  The truth is, when the Senator says we have to offset the cost of 
government programs and initiatives, and that we have an obligation to 
our citizens to do so, certainly he ought to recognize we shouldn't 
have to do it when

[[Page 9750]]

there is no money being spent because if that is the case, then we are 
just talking about words. They have no effect. We are talking about 
words. These words are talking about programs that don't spend money, 
and the Senator is trying to suggest that since they might spend the 
money, we ought to do something about it in advance. We would never 
pass anything around here if we added another requirement to 
legislation that before it is ever a spending bill it once again clear 
some new hurdle.
  If the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma would like to do that, he 
ought to go after the Budget Act of the United States and provide that 
there is a way to raise a point of order against authorizing 
legislation. We already have enough, but if he wants to do more, more 
budget points of order, he could put that in there and have a nice 
debate and see what the Senate thinks of adding that provision to the 
Budget Act on an authorization.
  My good friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, talked about a lot of 
things that we could be doing that would help our country become a more 
competitive country, which is what this is all about: putting more 
brain power in our young people, helping them get more excited about 
the good things that prepare them innovatively in order to create great 
things. He spoke of a number of things he would do and could do outside 
this bill. I agree with him. In fact, I could rewrite a bill we just 
finished on energy. And if everybody were with me, I could add five or 
six things to it--even though it is only a year and a half old--that 
would help with our energy independence. But we have to do things we 
are asked to do around here, and we have to do them the best we can.
  This bill will cost $60 billion, if we decide to spend it, over the 
next 4 years--if we decide to spend it. Of that, $16 billion represents 
new programs that are not currently in existence. Now, if anybody can 
truly, with a really straight face, tell the American people that is 
what is going to break America--this $16 billion that isn't even spent, 
that we might spend--it is really going to harm America's economic 
future, then I don't know what to tell them about what is happening to 
our budget naturally, about how much is spent for Social Security and 
other things that just come as a natural matter because of the way the 
laws are written and that they spend freely on their own.
  I want to close by saying to those who oppose the bill, I believe the 
time has come to pass this bill. It is new, to some extent, and the 
newness is what is good about it. I believe the time has come to take a 
chance on some new ways to educate our young people and see if we can't 
get more brain power developing in the young people of our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I thank the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.


                           Amendment No. 936

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to discuss an amendment, amendment 
No. 936, which I have filed to this bill.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add the following Senators 
as cosponsors of this amendment: Senator Baucus, Senator Leahy, and 
Senator Lincoln.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by commending the 
distinguished majority leader, Senator Reid, for introducing S. 761, 
the America COMPETES Act, and bringing it to the floor, along with the 
minority leader, Senator McConnell, Senator Bingaman, Senator Domenici, 
and a number of other Senators in a true spirit of bipartisanship.
  There is no question the Congress has to do a better job in making 
sure the United States is able to compete in the global economy. The 
America COMPETES Act will begin to accomplish this important 
undertaking by doubling the investment in basic research at the 
National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science in the 
next 5 to 10 years.
  I am also pleased this bill will improve teacher training in math and 
science and help low-income students succeed in college preparatory 
courses. I applaud these provisions and thank my colleagues for working 
on this important piece of legislation.
  But in my opinion, if we truly want to provide the tools necessary 
for American workers to compete in the global economy, much more needs 
to be done. That is why I will be offering this amendment, which I hope 
will attract bipartisan support.
  This amendment is simple and it is straightforward. At a time when 
the United States has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, at a time 
when we are on the cusp of losing millions more of high-paying 
information technology jobs, this amendment would begin to reverse that 
trend by providing employees with the resources they need to own their 
own businesses through employee stock ownership plans and eligible 
worker-owned cooperatives.
  Specifically, this amendment would authorize $100 million to create a 
U.S. employee ownership competitiveness fund within the Department of 
Commerce to provide loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance, and 
grants to expand employee ownership throughout this country.
  Why is it so important for the Senate to provide incentives to expand 
employee ownership in this country? The answer is pretty simple: 
Employee ownership is one of the keys to creating a sustainable economy 
with jobs that pay a living wage. This amendment has the strong support 
of the ESOP Association, a nonprofit organization serving approximately 
2,500 employee stock ownership plans throughout the country. Let me 
quote from a letter they recently sent to my office:

       Your amendment is a modest first step in awakening our 
     government to the fact that in the 21st Century the inclusion 
     of employees as owners of the companies where they work in a 
     meaningful manner should be a key component of any national 
     competitiveness program. If the Senate adopts your amendment 
     and it eventually becomes law, we assure you that the ESOP 
     community will work constructively to ensure that the loan 
     and grant program you propose works effectively to benefit 
     the employee owners, the employee-owned companies, and our 
     American economy.

  The concept of an ESOP or a worker-owned company is not a radical 
idea. Not only are there some 11,000 ESOPs in our country, but there 
are some major corporations that everybody is very familiar with, 
including Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch, that are also ESOPs.
  Interestingly, the Tribune Company, one of the major publishers in 
America, is in the process of becoming a 60-percent employee-owned 
company.
  Every day we read in the papers about plants that are being moved to 
China, Mexico, and a number of other low-wage countries. Since a number 
of these factories were making profits, they were doing well in the 
United States. Shutting them down was unnecessary and could have been 
avoided if these plants were sold to their employees through ESOPs, or 
worker-owned cooperatives. In other words, in my State, the State of 
Vermont, and throughout this country, there are companies, large and 
small, that are making a profit where owners--who may be retiring, who 
started a company and now they are retiring--want to be able to leave 
their companies to their employees if these workers had the resources, 
if they had the technical assistance and legal advice to know how to 
put together that transaction--which in many cases is pretty 
complicated.
  Further, study after study has shown when employees own their own 
companies, when they work for themselves, when they are involved in the 
decisionmaking that impacts their jobs, workers become more motivated, 
absenteeism goes down, worker productivity goes up, and people stay on 
the job for a longer period of time because they are proud of and 
involved with what they are doing.
  Most important to the communities throughout this country is when 
workers own the place in which they work, shock of all shocks, they are 
not going to shut it down and move the plant to China.

[[Page 9751]]

  Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 3.2 million good-
paying manufacturing jobs. Put another way, since President Bush was 
elected President, this country has seen one out of every six factory 
jobs disappear--one out of every six.
  In addition, the Associated Press recently reported a study by 
Moody's which found: ``16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan 
areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in 
manufacturing.''
  I suspect this problem is even worse in rural areas in my own small 
State of Vermont. We have lost about 20 percent of our manufacturing 
jobs in the last 5 years. Let me give an example of some of the jobs we 
have been losing as a country and why, in fact, we need to be 
competitive and why, in fact, we need to encourage ESOPs and worker-
owned industry. From 2001 to 2006, the United States of America has 
experienced a loss of 42 percent of our communication equipment jobs, 
37 percent of our jobs have been lost in the manufacture of 
semiconductors and electronic components, 43 percent of our textile 
jobs have disappeared, and about half of our apparel jobs have 
vanished.
  Not only are we losing good-paying manufacturing jobs, we are also 
losing high-paying information technology jobs.
  While the loss of manufacturing jobs has been well documented, it may 
come as a surprise to some that from January of 2001 to January of 
2006, the information sector of the American economy lost over 640,000 
jobs, or more than 17 percent of its workforce.
  The trends there are pretty ominous. Alan Blinder, the former Vice 
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has recently concluded that between 30 
million to 40 million jobs in the United States are vulnerable to 
overseas outsourcing over the next 10 to 20 years. While, of course, we 
have to invest in math and science, of course, we have to educate our 
students as best we can, we cannot ignore the significant impact 
globalization is having on our blue-collar factory jobs and on our 
white-collar information technology jobs.
  Today there are some 11,000 employee stock ownership plans, hundreds 
of worker-owned cooperatives, and thousands of other companies with 
some form of employee ownership. Many of them are thriving. In fact, 
employee ownership has been proven to increase employment, increase 
productivity, increase sales, and increase wages in the United States. 
Yet despite the important role that worker ownership can play in 
revitalizing our economy, the Federal Government has failed to commit 
the resources needed to allow employee ownership to realize its true 
potential, and that is why this amendment is so important.
  While this issue may be new to this bill, I have actually been 
working on it for several years. In the House, when I was the ranking 
member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, 
I was able to hold a hearing on this issue nearly 4 years ago and we 
had some wonderful testimony.
  I fear in the next 10 to 20 years, if we do not change course, there 
will not be a major automobile industry in this country. We must not 
allow that to happen. We must protect good-paying jobs in this country. 
I believe employee ownership may be one of the ways we can keep good-
paying jobs in America.
  Let me conclude by saying in my opinion it would be much more 
important to provide this assistance to employees who could be creating 
and retaining jobs right here in the United States by the expansion of 
employee ownership. This is a very important issue. There is a lot of 
excitement all over the country about it. Let us protect American jobs. 
Let us give working people in this country the opportunity to own the 
places in which they are working. Let us make this country more 
economically competitive. I very much hope my colleagues will be 
supporting this amendment when it is offered.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico.


                           Amendment No. 928

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask for regular order with respect to 
the DeMint amendment No. 928.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment is now pending.


                 Amendment No. 947 to Amendment No. 928

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask to call up the Dodd-Shelby 
amendment No. 947. It is a second-degree amendment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman], for Mr. Dodd, 
     for himself and Mr. Shelby, proposes an amendment numbered 
     947 to amendment No. 928.

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

  (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate with respect to small 
                  business growth and capital markets)

       In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted, insert the 
     following:

     SEC. ___. SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH 
                   AND CAPITAL MARKETS.

       (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that--
       (1) the United States has the most fair, most transparent, 
     and most efficient capital markets in the world, in part due 
     to its strong securities statutory and regulatory scheme;
       (2) it is of paramount importance for the continued growth 
     of our Nation's economy, that our capital markets retain 
     their leading position in the world;
       (3) small businesses are vital participants in United 
     States capital markets, and play a critical role in future 
     economic growth and high-wage job creation;
       (4) section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, has 
     greatly enhanced the quality of corporate governance and 
     financial reporting for public companies and increased 
     investor confidence;
       (5) the Securities and Exchange Commission (in this section 
     referred to as the ``Commission'') and the Public Company 
     Accounting Oversight Board (in this section referred to as 
     the ``PCAOB'') have both determined that the current auditing 
     standard implementing section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 
     of 2002 has imposed unnecessary and unintended cost burdens 
     on small and mid-sized public companies;
       (6) the Commission and PCAOB are now near completion of a 
     2-year process intended to revise the standard in order to 
     provide more efficient and effective regulation; and
       (7) the chairman of the Commission recently has said, with 
     respect to section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 
     that, ``We don't need to change the law, we need to change 
     the way the law is implemented. It is the implementation of 
     the law that has caused the excessive burden, not the law 
     itself. That's an important distinction. I don't believe 
     these important investor protections, which are even now only 
     a few years old, should be opened up for amendment, or that 
     they need to be.''.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that the Commission and the PCAOB should complete 
     promulgation of the final rules implementing section 404 of 
     the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7262).

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request here 
which I will propound at this point, that sets out a procedure for us 
to follow this evening.
  I ask unanimous consent that at 5:10 p.m. the Senate resume debate 
with respect to the Dodd-Shelby amendment, No. 947, and the DeMint 
amendment No. 928, with the time divided 5 minutes each for Senators 
Dodd and Shelby, and 10 minutes under the control of Senator DeMint, to 
be debated concurrently; that no amendments be in order to either 
amendment and that the Dodd amendment be modified to be a first-degree 
amendment; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate 
proceed to vote in relation to the Dodd-Shelby amendment, as modified; 
that there be 2 minutes between the votes equally divided and 
controlled between Senators Dodd and DeMint or their designees, to be 
followed by a vote in relation to the DeMint amendment; that upon the 
use of that time, the Senate, without further intervening action or 
debate, vote in relation to the DeMint amendment; that upon disposition 
of the DeMint amendment, the Senate resume the Coburn amendment No. 
917, and that the previous order with respect to the debate time prior 
to the vote be in order, with the time equally divided and controlled 
between Senators Bingaman and Coburn or their designees; and without 
further debate the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Coburn 
amendment No. 917; that no amendment be in

[[Page 9752]]

order to the Coburn amendment; that upon disposition of these 
amendments it be in order to call up the Sununu amendment No. 938 and 
the Sanders amendment No. 936, and the Senate then return to the 
regular order of amendments.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. No objection.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the 
America COMPETES Act.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I did not realize that the time was 
reserved between now and 5:10. Is it reserved? My impression was that 
the floor was open for Senators to speak or offer amendments.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Senator Ensign was supposed to 
speak after Senator Sanders.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Senator Ensign will not be here. Senator Hutchison and 
then Senator Cornyn would like to take that time. I ask unanimous 
consent that Senator Hutchison and Senator Cornyn be allowed to take 
the time between now and 5:10 when the vote begins.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, could we clarify what the request is? I 
am sorry. I was not able to pay full attention.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I asked that Senator Hutchison have 10 minutes, 
followed by Senator Cornyn for 10 minutes.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Could we modify that request to provide that Senator 
Cornyn's intention is to offer and then withdraw an amendment?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, that is my intention.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Could we ask the intention of the senior Senator from 
Texas?
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I intend to speak on the bill.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I have no objection to the Senator from 
Texas being allotted 10 minutes and then the other Senator from Texas, 
Mr. Cornyn, going ahead with his comments and the offering and 
withdrawal of an amendment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the America COMPETES Act. 
I thank the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, Senator Domenici, 
Senator Bingaman, and Senator Cornyn. I have worked with all of them to 
try to focus first on what the problems are with regard to higher 
education and then to look at K-12 education. Certainly, the Senator 
from Tennessee, having been the Secretary of Education and the Governor 
of Tennessee, has dealt with education issues and has taken a major 
lead on trying to reform our education system so that it does meet the 
needs of the future generation.
  Having the National Academy do a study, resulting in the report 
called ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' was exactly the right 
thing to do. I would never have thought we could have such a clear 
message from the National Academy about what we do right, what we do 
wrong, what is missing, and what we have to improve.
  Norm Augustine, former chairman of the board of Lockheed Corporation, 
was chairman of the committee. It was a distinguished group, including 
the former president of Texas A&M who is now Secretary of Defense. 
There were others. I was so pleased to see that they saw the problem.
  The problem is that fewer than 30 percent of U.S. fourth- and eighth-
grade students performed at a proficient level or higher in 
mathematics. The United States placed near the bottom 20 percent of 
nations in advanced mathematics and physics in testing. The United 
States is 20th among nations in the proportion of its 24-year-olds with 
degrees in science or engineering. The United States graduates about 
70,000 engineers every year. India is matriculating about 250,000, and 
in China the number is even greater. Within a few years, approximately 
90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will live in 
Asia. If we have fewer innovators, we are going to have fewer 
innovations.
  America has staked its economy on being the creators for the world. 
We have had the innovators. We have had the engineers, the scientists, 
the researchers. Yet we are now falling back in K-12, and our 
institutions of higher education are not getting students with the 
proper prerequisites to go into those course studies. We have to start 
from the beginning. The bill before us takes those steps. I am proud to 
be a cosponsor.
  There are three areas: research, education, and innovation.
  First, research. The bill increases the research investment by 
doubling the authorized funding levels for the National Science 
Foundation. It also substantially increases funding in the Department 
of Energy's Office of Science, and it brings NASA into the equation, 
one of our premier research institutions. We are going to increase the 
emphasis on science in NASA because we already have the infrastructure. 
We have paid for the infrastructure, but we are shortchanging the 
science. So that is a part of this bill as well.
  The second focus is education, specifically in the fields of science, 
technology, engineering, math, and critical foreign languages. We offer 
competitive grants to States to promote better coordination of 
elementary and secondary education. We want to strengthen the skill of 
teachers by giving them incentives to major in their course curriculum 
and then get education certifications in the same college degree but as 
a secondary part of their degree rather than the primary focus of their 
degree, because if we have math majors teaching math instead of 
education majors teaching math, we know the student is going to have a 
better opportunity to excel. We want to give the people who have 
already chosen teaching the opportunity to get a higher degree in their 
course curriculum, go back and get a master's degree and help them with 
grants to do that, because if they will commit to continuing to teach, 
then we will have better qualified teachers.
  Innovation is the third focus of our bill. Since the beginning of the 
industrial revolution, America has been the innovator in the world. 
Economic studies have shown that as much as 85 percent of the measured 
growth in per capita income has been due to technological change. But 
these technologies did not appear out of thin air; they were designed 
and developed by scientists and engineers at innovative companies such 
as EDS, Dell, Apple, Microsoft, and through Government investment in 
NASA and the National Science Foundation.
  With that in mind, our bill ensures that both NASA and the National 
Science Foundation are able to expand their strong traditional roles in 
fostering technological and scientific excellence. We have increased 
NASA funding to support basic research and foster new innovation, but 
the NASA budget is being starved with infrastructure requirements. They 
are not able to do the science that would make the investment in the 
infrastructure pay off. We have to bring NASA back to its original 
scientific purpose. We have the Innovative Partnerships Program. We 
have the NASA Education Program. We are beginning to focus on exactly 
what we need to do.
  This is a bipartisan effort sorely needed in Congress today, 
something on which we can all agree. America is falling behind. We are 
falling behind in education. We are falling behind in innovation. We 
are importing technological jobs that we ought to be creating ourselves 
with our own American

[[Page 9753]]

students, but we don't have enough qualified students graduating from 
our colleges to fill these technical jobs. We need to upgrade our 
education system. That is exactly what this bill today is trying to do. 
We are attempting--both sides of the aisle--to make America better, to 
reclaim our prowess in education, K-12 as well as higher education, and 
to make sure we continue to be the innovators of the future as we have 
been in the past.
  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. Let's work on 
amendments. Let's get them through, but let's come to a conclusion. I 
know the President would like to sign a bill that moves our country 
forward in something as important as education.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The junior Senator from Texas.


                           Amendment No. 902

       (Purpose: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to 
     increase competitiveness in the United States)

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk. I ask 
unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment, call up amendment 
902, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cornyn] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 902.

  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text 
of Amendments.'')
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as I told the distinguished Senator from 
New Mexico and the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, it is my 
intention to withdraw this amendment following my remarks. But I 
believe it is important, when we are talking about America's 
competitiveness, to talk about people with some of the very most 
desirable skills and education and how it is that we might attract them 
to live and work and create jobs here in America.
  First, I express my gratitude to both Senator Bingaman and Senator 
Alexander for their leadership on this issue. It is not often enough 
that we have an opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis on something 
that is so right and so good and so meritorious as this. It feels good. 
I think we ought to do it more often.
  I do wish to talk about this amendment which is called the Securing 
Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership Act amendment, otherwise known as 
the SKIL bill. This was a component of the comprehensive immigration 
reform bill that passed the Senate last year. Of course, that did not 
go anywhere. We are back again. I assure my colleagues that we will be 
coming back time and time again until we get this matter voted on.
  In the past 2 years, there has been much focus by Congress and the 
administration on restoring America's competitive edge. While some have 
viewed the SKIL bill, as it is called, as an immigration issue, I 
believe it should be considered as a competitiveness issue, not just an 
immigration one. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences included 
similar recommendations in its study ``Rising Above the Gathering 
Storm.'' This very report was the original, the genesis of America 
COMPETES and several other bills introduced in the 109th Congress. That 
report recommended to Congress that it should ``continue to improve 
visa processing for international students and scholars to provide less 
complex procedures and continue to make improvements on such issues as 
visa categories and duration, travel for scientific meetings, the 
technology-alert list, reciprocity agreements, and changes in status.'' 
The report also recommended that Congress should ``institute a new 
skills-based, preferential immigration option. Doctoral-level education 
in science and engineering skills would substantially raise an 
applicant's chances and priority in obtaining U.S. citizenship'' under 
this particular legislation.
  The United States has always been blessed by recruiting the best and 
the brightest from all around the world, whether they be scholars, 
scientists, or researchers. As we all know, the United States is now 
engaged, though, in a global competition for these very same 
scientists, scholars, and researchers.
  In this global economy, there are only three ways for us to retain 
the most brilliant workforce in the world: No. 1, we can grow our own 
talent, which is the intent of the bill we are debating right now; No. 
2, we can continue to recruit the top students from around the world 
from other nations; or, No. 3, we can watch our companies move their 
workforce and jobs to other countries in order to find that talented 
workforce and to remain competitive. I don't know if there are any 
other choices than those--grow our own talent, import the best talent, 
or see our jobs go overseas. Those are the choices we have. The 
countries that can attract and retain the best and the brightest will 
obviously have an advantage over other countries in this global 
competition.
  As we have heard, the United States does not produce enough 
engineers. Over half of master's and Ph.D. degrees in the United States 
go to foreign students each year, foreign students who study in the 
United States. China graduates four times as many engineers as we do, 
and within a few years approximately 90 percent of all scientists and 
engineers in the world will be in Asia.
  Foreign students help us fill the gap right now--a gap we are going 
to try to make up through growing more of our own talent right here 
through the great provisions of this legislation--but then our 
immigration policy, as currently constituted, forces these best and 
brightest students, these foreign students, to return home because 
there are no high-tech visas.
  Our immigration policy has not adapted to the changing international 
environment or this global competition. Only 65,000 visas are issued 
each year to this category of the best and the brightest. For the past 
few years, the cap has been reached before the fiscal year even begins. 
But this year, on April 1, 2007, there was a loud outcry for immediate 
relief in our highly skilled immigration policies because that was the 
day the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced the 2008 cap 
for H-1B visas was met. That is right, because the United States has 
already met the cap for H-1B visas, foreign students graduating from 
our universities this spring are virtually shut out of the U.S. job 
market. We hit that cap on the very day the opportunity for filing for 
those types of visas was presented.
  This situation is unprecedented. What it means is employers cannot 
hire highly educated workers for up to 1 year, until the next allotment 
of visas becomes available. With global competition, of course, these 
workers have a lot of other options as to where to go. They can go to 
England. They can go to France. They can go to India. They can go to 
China. In short, they can go to our global competitors and work there 
and take the jobs that could be created here in America with them.
  This SKIL bill has important protections for American workers, and I 
hope my colleagues will listen to this because there is, frankly, a lot 
of misconception about foreign students and foreign workers coming here 
and taking American jobs at a lower wage. In fact, high-tech visas 
generate fees to pay for U.S. worker training programs. Every time an 
employer sponsors a foreign worker, that employer must contribute to a 
fund to train U.S. workers. Of course, under our law, they cannot be 
hired to come in and work at a lower wage than would have to be paid to 
a comparable U.S. worker. Immigrant professionals actually create jobs 
here in the United States. The founder of Intel is a prime example. He 
was an immigrant from Hungary and has created hundreds of thousands of 
jobs at his company here in America.
  So sound policy will start by retaining foreign students who are 
educated here in the United States, particularly

[[Page 9754]]

in the most sought after areas of math, science, and engineering.
  We should exempt from the annual visa limit any foreign student who 
graduates from a U.S. university with a master's degree or a Ph.D. 
degree in these essential fields. It is simply a matter of economic 
survival and competition for the United States. Also, insourcing 
talented workers, as I pointed out, is preferable to outsourcing those 
jobs and the associated economic activity that goes with it to other 
countries. We should make it easier for those who do comply with our 
immigration laws to travel in and out of our country as well. We must 
also attract the best and brightest who are working in other countries 
to come here and do their work in the United States so those jobs can 
stay here.
  In the long run, we have to improve our schools and encourage more 
U.S. students to study engineering and mathematics, and the America 
COMPETES Act, as it is currently written, does just that. But in the 
short term, we have to adapt our immigration policy so when those U.S. 
students are educated in engineering fields, there will be jobs right 
here in the United States for them to perform. Then we can reap the 
benefits of the most outstanding college and university education in 
the world, which students travel from all around the world in order to 
be able to obtain, and then that they not have to go home after they 
graduate from college if they are in the essential fields of math, 
science, and engineering.
  If we do not act, America's technology industry, its health care 
industry, higher education, research institutions, financial services 
industries will be harmed and our economy will suffer. The intersection 
of our immigration policy and our country's ability to compete for 
global talent is critical, and we cannot wait years to address this 
issue. It is imperative we address it as soon as possible.


                      Amendment No. 902, withdrawn

  My only regret is we are unable to do so on this bill because it 
belongs on this bill. But I understand the practical ramifications of 
continuing to insist upon a vote on this particular amendment at this 
time. So it is with some regret that I ask unanimous consent to 
withdraw my amendment but urge my colleagues to continue to work to 
support H-1B visa reform and see that the SKIL bill, as currently 
presented as an amendment to this bill, is ultimately enacted into law 
because, frankly, it is in the best interest of the United States and 
American jobs right here at home.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). Without objection, the amendment 
from the Senator from Texas is withdrawn.
  Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor.
  Yhe PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, within 3 or 4 minutes, we will be 
moving to amendments as described by the Senator from New Mexico. But 
before he speaks, let me thank the Senator from Texas both for his 
leadership on the amendment and for his spirit of cooperation and 
willingness to withdraw the amendment.
  It is my hope that this is not the end of that discussion. I strongly 
agree with him. Our immigration laws are archaic in this regard. We 
have 650,000 legal new citizens every year, and we should, in our own 
interests, allow highly skilled men and women--the brightest people in 
the world who come here to study, earn these degrees in science, 
technology, math--to stay here and create jobs instead of going home 
and creating jobs. We should do that. So he has highlighted that. The 
Senate adopted that last year. I hope we will have a chance to adopt it 
again before Memorial Day. I salute the Senator for that, and I hope 
this is just the beginning of his insistence on this and other types of 
legislation that would reform our immigration policy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me also commend the Senator from 
Texas and thank him for his support for the underlying legislation. I 
do think the substance of what he is trying to get accomplished with 
regard to the immigration laws of the country--I very much support 
trying to facilitate allowing people who get an education here to stay 
here and use those talents and skills and knowledge they have acquired 
to benefit our country. So we need to work on that. I think the 
appropriate place to do that is as part of the debate we will do on 
immigration, which is coming up. The majority leader has indicated he 
plans to get to that issue in May, so I think, clearly, that is coming 
up very soon. But I commend the Senator from Texas for his willingness 
to withdraw his amendment at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am not going to take any time. In 
fact, I just want to do something I very rarely do, but it seems 
appropriate based on the arguments I have made this day. So I am going 
to ask for a parliamentary inquiry of the Chair. My parliamentary 
inquiry is, would this bill, with any of the amendments that have been 
adopted so far, be subject to a point of order under the Budget Act of 
the United States?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair is not aware of any such points of 
order against this bill.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I 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. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Amendment No. 908, as Modified

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send a modification to amendment No. 
908 to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is so 
modified.
  The amendment, as modified, is as follows:

       On page 55, lines 21 and 22, strike ``engineering)'' and 
     insert ``engineering and technology)''.
       On page 56, line 8, after ``engineering'' insert ``and 
     technology''.
       On page 56, line 24, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, engineering, and technology''.
       On page 59, line 6, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, and, to the extent applicable, 
     technology and engineering''.
       On page 59, line 15, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and engineering''.
       On page 60, line 6, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and engineering''.
       On page 60, line 10, before ``that'' insert ``in 
     mathematics, science, and to the extent applicable, 
     technology and engineering''.
       On page 60, line 24, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, and to the extent applicable, 
     technology and engineering''.
       On page 61, lines 8 and 9, strike ``mathematics and 
     science'' and insert ``mathematics, science, and, to the 
     extent applicable, technology and engineering''.
       On page 62, line 14, strike ``mathematics or science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, or engineering''.
       On page 65, lines 16 and 17, strike ``MATHEMATICS AND 
     SCIENCE'' and insert ``MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND 
     ENGINEERING''.
       On page 65, line 19, strike ``MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE'' and 
     insert ``MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ENGINEERING''.
       On page 66, lines 8 and 9, strike ``Mathematics and 
     Science'' and insert ``Mathematics, Science, Technology, and 
     Engineering''.
       On page 67, line 9, strike ``Mathematics and Science'' and 
     insert ``Mathematics, Science, Technology, and Engineering''.
       On page 67, lines 16 and 17, strike ``math and science'' 
     and insert ``mathematics, science, and technology''.
       On page 68, lines 21 and 22, strike ``mathematics or 
     science (including engineering)'' and insert ``mathematics, 
     science, or engineering''.
       On page 69, lines 4 and 5, strike ``mathematics or 
     science'' and insert ``mathematics, science, or technology''.
       Beginning on page 69, line 25 through page 70, line 1, 
     strike ``mathematics and science'' and insert ``mathematics, 
     science, technology, and engineering''.
       On page 70, lines 10 and 11, strike ``mathematics and 
     science'' and insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and 
     engineering''.
       On page 71, line 7, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and engineering''.

[[Page 9755]]

       On page 71, line 10, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and engineering''.
       On page 71, line 18, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, and, to the extent applicable, 
     technology and engineering''.
       On page 72, line 23, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and engineering''.
       On page 73, line 14, strike ``mathematics and science'' and 
     insert ``mathematics, science, and to the extent applicable, 
     technology and engineering''.
       On page 73, lines 18 and 19, strike ``mathematics and 
     science'' and insert ``mathematics, science, and to the 
     extent applicable, technology and engineering''.
       On page 73, lines 23 and 24, strike ``mathematics and 
     science'' and insert ``mathematics, science, technology, and 
     engineering''.

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask that we proceed to act on this 
modified amendment at this point. This is the managers' package from 
the Energy Committee, and it clarifies several points that are of a 
technical nature. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment, as 
modified, be agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the managers' amendment, as 
modified, is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 908), as modified, was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 940

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I also call up amendment No. 940.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is pending.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, again, this is a managers' package from 
the HELP Committee. Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi are cosponsoring 
this. I would urge that the Senate agree to this amendment at this 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 940) was agreed to.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I know Senator Dodd 
and Senator Shelby are here ready to speak, and Senator DeMint as well, 
with regard to their respective amendments.


                      Amendments Nos. 947 and 928

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, amendment No. 947 is 
modified to be a first-degree amendment.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I believe Senator Dodd has 5 minutes, 
Senator Shelby has 5 minutes, and Senator DeMint has 10 minutes under 
the order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me briefly first thank my colleague from 
Alabama, Senator Shelby, the former chairman of the Banking Committee, 
who will also be offering this amendment for the consideration of our 
colleagues.
  Our markets, I think all of us know, are the most fair and efficient 
in the world due to many reasons, but in large part to our strong 
statutory and regulatory schemes in the country. The amendment we are 
offering recognizes the very significant role of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 
of improving and maintaining the integrity of the capital markets of 
this country, as well as the important role of small businesses in 
economic growth and job creation. We all remember and understand very 
well the debate that went on a number of years ago as a result of some 
of the disasters that occurred in Enron and WorldCom to make sure our 
public companies would be more accountable and more responsive to the 
concerns of the shareholders.
  The SEC and the PCAOB have determined that the existing 
implementation of section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation has not 
fully achieved the intent of the statute. Last December, they proposed 
management guidance and revised auditing standards to more 
appropriately implement the statute, without having an unintended or 
inappropriate impact on small businesses.
  The amendment I offer with my colleague from Alabama expresses the 
sense of the Senate that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the 
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board continue their rulemaking and 
finalize their ongoing rulemaking process. These two agencies are 
currently considering about 200 comments and letters from the public 
commenting on their proposed regulations dealing with section 404. The 
letters come from a wide variety of interested parties, offering views 
on the strengths of the proposals and suggestions for those 
improvements. The capital markets and all businesses, including small 
businesses, will be better served by a deliberative process of 
rulemaking conducted by these agencies.
  I commend Chris Cox for the fine job he is doing at the SEC. They 
have responded very well to the concerns about the section 404 
requirements, particularly the smaller public companies.
  SEC Chairman Cox has recently said:

       We don't need to change the law.

  I am quoting him now, Mr. President.

       We need to change the way the law is implemented. It is the 
     implementation of the law that has caused the excessive 
     burden, not the law itself. That is an important distinction.

  He goes on to say.

       I don't believe these important investor protections, which 
     are even now only a few years old, should be opened up to an 
     amendment, or that they need to be.

  I agree with Chris Cox, President Bush's appointee to head up the 
SEC. They are doing a very fine job. I think it would be irresponsible 
for us at this juncture to jump in and basically reduce by 80 percent 
the number of companies that would have to comply with section 404. Let 
the SEC do their job. That is what we have asked them to do. They are 
responsible. They are a responsible agency in charge of looking at 
this. If and when they come back, and there are those of us here who 
feel they haven't gone far enough, that those burdens still exist, then 
I would welcome an opportunity to address that. But it is very 
premature to jump in at this juncture while the SEC is doing the job we 
asked them to do, acting responsibly, and performing their public 
functions under good leadership. It seems to me this is not a moment 
for us to jump into the middle of this and by a vote of small margins 
decide we are going to tell these agencies what to do with the 
professional staffs they have and the commentary process where the 
public has an opportunity to address and comment on the suggested rule 
changes that Christopher Cox and his staff at the SEC and the other 
commissioners are considering at this moment.
  So for all of those reasons, we are offering this amendment which 
offers us an opportunity to express our concerns about where this is 
headed. Let's send a message that we are watching very carefully, we 
care about this, but avoid the situation of this body engaging in a 
regulatory process, which is properly left to the agencies charged with 
that responsibility. For those reasons I urge the adoption of the Dodd-
Shelby amendment.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Reed of Rhode 
Island, the chairman of the subcommittee, as a cosponsor of the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that we are 
familiar with has provided real benefits to the capital markets. On the 
other hand, there is no question that its implementation has been too 
costly, particularly for small public companies. We know this. This is 
a given.
  That is why I am encouraged that the securities regulators charged 
with implementing this legislation at the Securities and Exchange 
Commission and the PCAOB are near the end of a 2-year process to make 
significant changes that are likely to reduce the unacceptable costs 
and burdens of section 404 compliance which Senator Dodd alluded to.
  This body, I believe, ought to give the regulators, the Securities 
and Exchange Commission, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight 
Board a chance to fix this problem, because

[[Page 9756]]

they have been involved in this for over a year now. It is very 
complex. Both the SEC and the PCAOB acted last December, just a few 
months ago, to propose initiatives aimed at reducing the costs 
associated with section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. These actions are the 
most significant to date and should lower costs on investments while at 
the same time preserving the benefits of effective internal controls.
  In testimony before the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship 
Committee last week, Chairman Cox of the Securities and Exchange 
Commission stated:

       Focusing on the implementation of 404, rather than changing 
     the law, is consistent with the SEC's view that the problems 
     we have seen with 404 to date can be remedied without 
     amending the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

  I am willing to give the SEC a limited opportunity to deliver. 
Chairman Cox said the Commission's 404 proposal would permit companies 
to:

       Scale and tailor their evaluation procedures to fit their 
     facts and circumstances, and investors will benefit from the 
     use-compliance costs.

  The SEC is expected to adopt the measure in the next few weeks.
  The PCAOB, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's, proposals 
to repeal auditing standard No. 2 and replace it with a new standard on 
auditing internal control over financial reporting would provide, 
according to PCAOB Chairman Mark Olson:

       Additional flexibility to promote scalability, avoid 
     unintended consequences, and address other valid concerns.

  The PCAOB is currently reviewing the comments submitted in response 
to its proposal and is expected, along with the SEC, to submit the 
standard for SEC review and approval next month. Chairman Cox of the 
SEC, whom we have worked with on the Banking Committee a lot, said the 
two regulators have worked together to ensure that the new rules are:

       Mutually reinforceable and should significantly improve the 
     implementation of section 404, making it more efficient and 
     effective for small and medium-sized businesses.

  That is what we all want. We all agree that unnecessary costs imposed 
by regulations are a real problem for both large and small companies. 
The regulators have acknowledged this fact and are attempting to 
address it. On the Banking Committee that Chairman Dodd now chairs and 
which I chaired, we have oversight of that, and we have worked with 
them and have had hearings to give some relief to small businesses 
here, and they are in the process of doing it. I am willing to give the 
SEC and the PCAOB some additional time, but I am not willing to give 
them unlimited time. We shouldn't do that. Chairman Dodd and I intend 
to monitor closely their progress and hold them accountable should 
there be any unnecessary delays.
  I urge my colleagues this afternoon to support the Dodd-Shelby 
amendment with the understanding that we intend to follow closely in 
oversight, working with the regulators, their progress and will take 
whatever action is necessary to ensure the vitality of our small 
business community, which is vital and important to America. I urge 
support of the Dodd-Shelby amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, in a few moments the Senate will vote on 
two amendments related to Sarbanes-Oxley. The first is the Dodd-Shelby 
amendment, which is a nonbinding resolution that suggests the SEC and 
the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board move ahead with changing 
the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. My amendment, which will come after 
that, actually changes the law in one small section of Sarbanes-Oxley, 
which would facilitate that happening.
  Despite what has been reported today, my conversation with some of 
the regulators and some of the observers of the SEC is there is not 
real clarity as to how far the SEC can go in changing this one section 
that is problematic in Sarbanes-Oxley. We know from our work with 
Federal agencies that as long as there is doubt, there is no action. 
While there has been good intent from the SEC for many years, this bill 
has been destroying our capital formation in this country for nearly 5 
years. Admittedly, Sarbanes-Oxley has done some good things, but I 
think it is beyond question particularly for small companies, small 
public companies, that section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley is doing untold 
harm in this country today. So the difference here is a nonbinding 
resolution which encourages the SEC to act and an amendment that 
actually makes that happen.
  I am going to support the Dodd-Shelby amendment. While I have some 
problems with the specific findings, the intent is right. The 
regulators have a responsibility to continue to look at their 
regulations to make sure they encourage competition and good enterprise 
in our country. So I am going to support the amendment. But Congress 
also has a responsibility to make sure that the laws we pass work, and 
if they are not interpreted properly by our regulatory agencies, that 
we go back and make those changes to make it work.
  So the ``sense of the Senate'' maintains the status quo for 
regulatory agencies to determine how we deal with Sarbanes-Oxley. While 
I know the chairman and ranking member remain hopeful that something 
will happen, the same thing was said to me well over a year ago when I 
talked to Chairman Cox and others that the changes were eminent, but 
since then in this country we have lost our status as the No. 1 market 
exchange. Instead of 9 out of every 10 IPOs being formed in this 
country with foreign capital, it is completely reversed, where 9 out of 
10 are out of this country. Our trade competitors have Sarbanes-Oxley 
free zones that encourage capital to come that way instead of toward 
us. We cannot leave the responsibility for this law on the regulatory 
agencies.
  I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for both amendments.
  I thank Senator Martinez, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Ensign for 
supporting and cosponsoring my amendment. I also thank Democratic 
Congressman Gregory Meeks from New York for having the courage to 
introduce this measure in the House.
  I also want to inform my colleagues that my amendment today is 
supported by the Independent Community Bankers of America. It is also 
being key voted by the Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth, 
the Americans for Prosperity, and many other people who look at our 
economy across the country and realize it is time for Congress to act. 
We have waited for the SEC for 5 years and have seen capital chased 
from this country. It is time for Congress to take the responsibility 
for what we did in the first place, and I urge my colleagues to support 
both amendments.
  I yield to my colleague, the Senator from Florida, to speak on behalf 
of my amendment.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I add a word of encouragement to our 
colleagues to support both of these good amendments. I agree 
wholeheartedly with my colleague from South Carolina that it is time we 
take action. It is time we act.
  I have heard untold stories for years now as a candidate for the 
Senate and as a Senator of the problems that small companies of America 
are facing over the burdens imposed upon them by section 404, unfair 
burdens that disproportionately fall on small businesses than they do 
on large. A recent GAO study requested by our colleague Senator Snowe 
found the cost of compliance for small public companies to comply with 
Sarbanes-Oxley has been disproportionately higher for small businesses 
than it was for larger companies.
  Small businesses are vital to the growth of business in America. They 
are where most of our jobs are created in this day and time. The fact 
is for us to idly sit by and hope the regulators will do the right 
thing, hope they go far enough, isn't good enough for me. I want to act 
now. I want to make sure we support the amendment by Senators Dodd and 
Shelby, but I also want to encourage support for our amendment, because 
ours will take action and will do it now.
  What it does is it exempts smaller companies with market 
capitalization of less than $700 million, with revenues

[[Page 9757]]

of less than $125 million, and with fewer than 1,500 shareholders from 
the onerous burdens of section 404.
  There are a number of ways to maintain investor protections while 
lowering the cost of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, but we should start by 
exempting small companies from having to comply with section 404 of 
Sarbanes-Oxley, the section that requires the double audit.
  Oftentimes small business cannot even find an accounting firm willing 
to perform the audit, let alone afford to take a significant percentage 
of revenue to conduct a duplicate audit. The fact is this is strangling 
America's business. It is, as Senator DeMint pointed out, not allowing 
us to play the role we have traditionally played in the capital market.
  Mayor Bloomberg conducted a study in New York about why we were 
losing our competitive edge vis-a-vis other foreign markets. One of the 
reasons that was found for that, among several others--but it is a 
significant reason--was Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
  It is time we act. We passed the law and it was a good thing to do; 
it has done a lot of good. But aspects of it are now hurting American 
business and we need to pull those back. That is what the DeMint 
amendment does. I encourage my colleagues to do that as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, how much time remains on my side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes 6 seconds.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: These bills are 
side-by-sides, correct? This is not a second-degree amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Both amendments are first-degree amendments.
  Mr. DeMINT. My colleagues can vote for both of these amendments. I 
encourage Members of the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, to 
vote for both of them because both are needed. We need the SEC to take 
its responsibility. But since there is some concern as to how far the 
SEC can go to correct this problem, my amendment simply changes one 
aspect of Sarbanes-Oxley that allows small companies--companies with 
$125 million in revenue or less, or less than 1,500 shareholders--to 
voluntarily opt out of the external audit, with notification to their 
shareholders.
  These are certainly not huge corporations. This certainly doesn't gut 
Sarbanes-Oxley. It does what so many economic experts have encouraged 
us to do for years, and that is to fix the one small part of Sarbanes-
Oxley that costs small businesses in a disproportionate way.
  I thank the managers and those who offered the side-by-side, and I 
encourage my colleagues to vote for both of them.
  I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, is all time yielded back?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut has 38 seconds.
  Mr. DODD. Again, Chris Cox, Chairman of the SEC, pointed out he 
doesn't want the law changed. He wants to be able to work with the 
Commission and the staff to deal with these issues. The Chairman of the 
SEC has wide latitude within which to operate here. The statute gives 
broad discretion. Senator Shelby and I believe this matter ought to be 
left at this juncture. The Commission is relegated to do their job. Let 
them complete their work and make their recommendations. If we are 
dissatisfied, we can respond.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, do I have any time left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 34 seconds.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I have been informed by my staff that the 
staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission, headed by Christopher 
Cox, a former Congressman, has reiterated a few minutes ago to our 
Banking Committee staff that they will be done with this work in a few 
weeks. This is premature, the amendment offered by the Senator from 
South Carolina. As I said earlier, I believe we need to let the SEC and 
PCAOB do their work. I agree with Chairman Dodd.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Dodd-
Shelby-Reed amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. 
Johnson) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are necessarily 
absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. LOTT. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Menendez). Are there any other Senators 
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 97, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 138 Leg.]

                                YEAS--97

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Kennedy
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Tester
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Johnson
     Kerry
     McCain
  The amendment (No. 947), as modified, was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 928

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 2 
minutes of debate equally divided on amendment No. 928 offered by the 
Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint.
  Who yields time? The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, at an appropriate moment, along with my 
colleague from Alabama, I will offer a motion to table the DeMint 
amendment. I do so respectfully of my colleague. We are just about 2 or 
3 weeks away from the SEC issuing regulations regarding Sarbanes-Oxley 
on this 404 issue. It would be inappropriate for us to jump in and draw 
a conclusion as to what the SEC ought to be doing.
  Chris Cox is doing a very good job at the SEC. Staff and 
Commissioners are doing the job we asked them to do.
  To conclude the point here, this is a matter that is being well 
addressed by the SEC under Chris Cox. They have asked to have the 
appropriate time, the remaining 2 or 3 weeks, to finish their 
recommendations. They may very well come to the recommendation that has 
been offered by our colleague from South Carolina, but we ought to 
allow them to do their job. That is what they have been asked to do.
  We are not a regulatory body. We don't have to agree with them, but 
we should allow them to complete their work. That is why we are 
offering this amendment. It is premature for us to jump in before they 
have completed their task.
  Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from Alabama.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 30 seconds 
for my colleague from Alabama.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I agree with Senator Dodd. We work on the

[[Page 9758]]

Banking Committee with this. The SEC has asked us to hold off. We all 
want to give relief under Sarbanes-Oxley for small businesses. The SEC, 
PCAOB are in the process of doing this, and this is probably going to 
happen in the next couple of weeks.
  I don't disagree with what Senator DeMint is trying to do, but I 
think it is premature. The timing is not good. But the timing is always 
good if we work with the SEC on something they know a heck of a lot 
about. This is a very complex issue.
  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)
 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the United States has the fairest, 
most transparent and most efficient financial markets in the world. Our 
Nation achieved this status by developing a regulatory approach that 
insures investors around the world have confidence in our markets. We 
cannot go back to the days of Enron accounting for small businesses.
  As chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship, I oppose the amendment by Senator DeMint to provide 
an exemption from Sarbanes-Oxley regulations for small public companies 
because I believe it is premature, would endanger small business 
investors and limit access to capital for small public companies in the 
United States.
  Last week, I held a hearing in the committee on the upcoming changes 
to the Sarbanes-Oxley law and how they will affect small business. In 
that hearing, no Senator or witness expressed any support for providing 
a permanent exemption from Sarbanes-Oxley regulations for small public 
companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher 
Cox has said that he strongly opposes any type of permanent exemption 
for small public companies from Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.
  Here is why. It wasn't too long ago, between the years 1998-2000, 
that public companies were issuing financial restatements at a rate 
that was higher than the previous 10 years combined. Too often, public 
companies were overstating their income to attract investors. As a 
result, the trust and confidence of the American people in their 
financial markets was dangerously eroded by the actions of WorldCom, 
Inc., Enron, Arthur Andersen and others. The shocking malfeasance by 
these businesses and accounting firms put a strain on the growth of our 
economy, cost investors billions in assets and hurt the integrity of 
our financial markets around the world.
  By all accounts, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has brought back 
accountability to corporate governance, auditing, and financial 
reporting for public companies. The audit of internal controls over 
financial reporting has produced significant benefits and public 
company financial reporting has improved. As a result, investor 
confidence in our capital markets has been restored and our Nation's 
economic growth continues. Recent published reports show that 
accounting restatements on large companies' financial reports declined 
by 20 percent last year. This is important evidence that Sarbanes-Oxley 
is working.
  These improvements, however, have not come without some drawbacks. 
Too many small public companies who played by the rules are now 
expected to deal with the time and financial burden required to comply 
with the Sarbanes-Oxley law. Last year, small businesses with less than 
$75 million in assets saw the number of financial restatements increase 
by 46 percent. This shows that small businesses getting ready to comply 
with Sarbanes-Oxley are having trouble. But I believe we will all 
benefit when small businesses eventually comply with Sarbanes Oxley. 
According to a recent United States Government Accounting Office--GAO--
study requested by Senator Snowe, the cost of compliance and the time 
needed for small public companies to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley 
regulations has been disproportionately higher than for large public 
companies. Firms with assets of $1 billion or more spend just thirteen 
cents per $100 in revenue for audit fees, while small businesses are 
forced to spend more than a dollar per $100 in revenue to comply with 
the same rules.
  The response to these problems is not to give a permanent blanket 
exemption from these regulations to small public companies, instead we 
need to assist them in making the transition to comply with the Law. 
That is why the SEC and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board--
PCAOB--are currently considering final rules and guidance on the 
implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley that will make it easier for small 
businesses to comply with the law.
  In his testimony to the Small Business Committee, Chairman Cox said 
three quarters of the comment letters regarding the proposed Sarbanes-
Oxley rule changes from small business interests supported the efforts 
to make it easier for small businesses to comply with the law. 
Specifically, these small businesses believed that the proposed rules 
would allow managements to tailor their audits and evaluations to the 
facts and circumstances of their particular companies and focus on 
their areas that are most important to reliable financial reporting.
  Chairman Olson testified at the same hearing that while the PCAOB is 
committed to making the process cost-effective for small businesses, 
the oversight program it has in place is reducing the risk of financial 
reporting failures and renewing confidence in U.S. security markets. We 
also heard from Joseph Piche, whose private company Eikos, Inc. 
operates out of Franklin, MA. Mr. Piche's testimony reflected the 
sentiments of so many small business owners--that while the burdens of 
cost make it difficult under the current regulatory structure, 
entrepreneurs rely on capital markets, and capital markets rely on 
trust. The Sarbanes-Oxley law has helped to restore this trust.
  So the upcoming changes to Sarbanes-Oxley will save small public 
companies time and money. Unfortunately, before these changes are even 
finalized, the DeMint amendment would provide a permanent exemption to 
more than 6,000 small public companies from ever having to comply with 
Sarbanes-Oxley.
  As Mr. Piche and other industry witnesses told the Small Business 
Committee, small businesses aren't resistant to fair and open financial 
reporting, because they know that it leads the way to access to 
capital. Today, small public companies are vital participants in U.S. 
capital markets and play a critical role in future economic growth and 
high-wage job creation. Once provided with the necessary regulatory 
flexibility, I have no doubt that our small public companies will be 
able to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley law, just as big businesses are 
doing today. All small public companies know it is in their best 
interest to have regulations in place that provide transparency and 
accountability. These are the qualities that encourage investor 
confidence in U.S. markets. It gives them access to more investors and 
increases the pool of available capital while keeping their competitors 
from manipulating the marketplace through faulty accounting.
  As we move forward, there are additional steps that can be taken to 
assist small business. First, I recently wrote to the SEC and PCAOB 
with Senator Snowe, urging the regulators to give small businesses up 
to an additional year to comply with the pending changes to the 
Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. I believe this added time will help small 
businesses adapt to the changing regulatory structure and make it 
easier for those who lack the expertise or financial resources to 
comply with the law. The SEC has previously supported providing small 
public companies with additional time to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and 
I hope they will do so again.
  The DeMint amendment is an overreaching, premature policy reversal 
that preempts years of thoughtful regulatory consideration on the part 
of the SEC and the PCAOB. It represents a blanket exemption that has 
the potential to take U.S. capital markets a large step backwards to 
the days of Enron. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and 
allow the regulators to finish their jobs.

[[Page 9759]]

  As chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I 
will continue to closely follow the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on small 
firms and look forward to working with Senator Snowe and my colleagues 
on the committee to determine what necessary steps Congress can take to 
help small public companies abide by the law while simultaneously 
allowing them to focus on what they do best--creating jobs and growing 
our economy by participating in our capital markets. This will help 
small businesses achieve the American dream of becoming innovative 
public companies.
  We can help our small public companies and encourage additional small 
businesses to become public companies--while ensuring transparency and 
honest accounting. This will help ensure that the United States 
continues to have the fairest, most transparent and most efficient 
financial markets in the world.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I am obviously disappointed the chairman 
will move to table. We have had a good debate on it. The debate on 
Sarbanes-Oxley has been going on for almost 5 years, since it was 
passed. Every time someone expresses a problem, they go right to 
section 404, and just to small businesses that are being hurt most by 
this.
  I talked with the SEC well over a year ago. I heard exactly the same 
thing I am hearing today: We are on it. It is going to happen very 
soon.
  Let me suggest this to my colleagues. Let us pass this bill today and 
send it to conference. That will be a few weeks of work. If the SEC 
responds, then take it out in conference. The Democrats are in control 
of the conference. There is no harm done. But let us not continue to 
allow investment capital to be shipped out of this country without 
doing anything about it.
  The only reason the SEC is even talking about it now is that we 
introduced this bill with Democrats and Republicans in the House. It is 
time to act now. Please vote for this bill. Let us move it to 
conference and shake up the SEC.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to table the DeMint amendment, and I 
ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. 
Johnson) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are necessarily 
absent.
  I further announce that if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. LOTT. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 62, nays 35, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 139 Leg.]

                                YEAS--62

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Crapo
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Tester
     Thomas
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--35

     Alexander
     Allard
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Craig
     DeMint
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McConnell
     Roberts
     Smith
     Specter
     Sununu
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Johnson
     Kerry
     McCain
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to 
lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 917

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 4 
minutes of debate on amendment No. 917, offered by the Senator from 
Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn.
  Who yields time? The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, regarding the amendment we are about to 
vote on, we voted on essentially the same amendment last Wednesday as 
an amendment to the Court Security Improvement Act. The amendment 
provides that any new program or initiative that is contained in 
legislation be offset. The point that defeated the amendment last week 
is still valid; that is, we should not be required to offset 
authorizing legislation. This is authorizing legislation. There is no 
spending in this bill. This does not appropriate funds.
  Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my colleague, Senator 
Domenici, I will be moving to table the amendment after he completes 
his statement.
  I yield the remainder of my time to Senator Domenici.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, might I say to the Senator from 
Oklahoma, I have watched you in your concern for spending, and I 
appreciate what you are trying to do to cut spending in the Senate.
  But let me say to the Senate, this afternoon I asked the Chair for a 
point of order. I asked whether this bill would violate the Budget Act. 
After looking at the bill and coming back, I was advised it does not 
violate the Budget Act. The reason it does not is because there is no 
spending in it. If it were spending money, it would be violating the 
budget because it is not in the budget, and we passed a budget.
  Having said that, if we are not spending money, then why should we 
chastise ourselves about spending money and suggesting that we have to 
offset something when, as a matter of fact, there is nothing to offset 
because there is no spending? If we get into this game that authorizing 
is spending, then we will have a fourth tier of Government. Instead of 
a budget appropriations and direct spending, we will have people 
bringing up a new way to attack it on every kind of authorizing bill. I 
don't think we need that. We need to get on with business every now and 
then. This is one time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the reason you ought to vote for this 
sense of the Senate--it doesn't say anything about authorizing. What it 
says is, and the American people expect, if we are going to create new 
programs, we ought to get rid of the programs that are not working. We 
spend $84,000 a second. We spent $350 billion we didn't have last year, 
and we charged it to the next generation. We have 10 percent of the 
Department of Energy that is ineffective, we have 10 percent of the 
Department of Education that is ineffective, and you offset none of the 
programs as you reauthorize this bill. We doubled up. This says, sense 
of the Senate, if we are going to spend more money and create new 
programs, we ought to go after the ones that do not work.
  Vote against it at your own peril.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is the last vote this evening. I am 
glad to see the managers are moving this bill along. We are probably 
going to have a vote in the morning, around 11 o'clock. That will be 
the first vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I move to table the Coburn amendment and 
ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.

[[Page 9760]]

  The question is on agreeing to the motion. The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. 
Johnson) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are necessarily 
absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. LOTT. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 140 Leg.]

                                YEAS--54

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Tester
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--43

     Allard
     Bayh
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dole
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Martinez
     McConnell
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Sununu
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Johnson
     Kerry
     McCain
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend from New Mexico, who 
is doing such a wonderful job on the legislation that is in front of 
us. I wish to compliment everyone who is involved with this legislation 
for working so hard, including Senator Alexander and Senator Bingaman. 
This is a wonderful bill. So we congratulate them for that.


                           Iraq Supplemental

  I wish to speak this evening about the supplemental appropriations 
bill the Senate will vote on later this week. I also wish to rise with 
great concern and, frankly--I am not sure what the word is; 
``disappointment'' is not strong enough for how I feel about what the 
Vice President has said today about our leader, our great leader in the 
Senate, who has spoken so passionately and cares so deeply about the 
troops who are serving us overseas, their families who are here at 
home, who wants to make sure the strategy is right for them.
  We all know--and our military experts have told us time and again--
that a military victory is not going to happen, that it has to be a 
political victory, a political strategy of the Iraqis stepping up and 
taking control and making the tough decisions they need to make to take 
control of their own security. We have heard that from many experts 
within the military and without. Yet today the Vice President was here, 
not far from this Chamber, unleashing his wrath, as only he seems to be 
able to, about our leader, calling him names and mischaracterizing his 
positions. That is extremely unfortunate because while the men and 
women are serving us right now in Iraq, over there doing their best to 
focus on the mission, they expect us to be at home focusing on the 
strategy, the resources, and the equipment they need.
  I had an opportunity to talk to a young man not long ago who had come 
home from Iraq. I asked him how he felt about the debate going on about 
the strategy, the debate we were having in the Senate and the House. He 
said, frankly, he would expect us to be doing that because that is our 
job. That is our job. They are doing their job. As my husband, who was 
in the Air Force and Air National Guard, reminds me continually, their 
job is to implement the mission. They are doing it. Our job is to get 
it right, to have the right strategy, and to back them up and give them 
the resources they need.
  The name calling coming from the Vice President is not going to get 
the job done. What is going to get the job done is our ability to work 
together and look at the facts, not some stubborn sense of 
unwillingness to change or to do more of the same which, unfortunately, 
is what is happening now with this surge. It is more of the same. 
Instead of doing that, we need to be joining together to say: Let's 
look at the reality of what is going on on the ground. More and more 
Americans and Iraqis are being killed every day. Let's look at the 
reality of what we need to do to be successful, to bring our troops 
home safely, to address the success we all would like to see happen in 
terms of a democracy that works, the Iraqi Government being able to 
step up and to govern their country, which is an incredibly difficult 
and complicated thing to do, obviously.
  I find it very disappointing. I work with our leader, as we all do 
every day. There is no one who has spent more time thinking and 
focusing and discussing and listening on these issues around the war 
than he has--no one who is more thoughtful or more caring, no one who 
is more concerned about our veterans coming home.
  We welcome, certainly, the Vice President coming and meeting with us 
and joining in the discussion. But I certainly hope we are not going to 
see more of what we saw today. It was an effort to attack a great 
leader and, essentially, instead of moving the ball forward, make it 
more difficult for us to do what we need to do to come together.
  On this particular bill, the supplemental appropriations bill, I 
certainly hope the President will sign this legislation, will 
reconsider the position that has been taken and sign this legislation. 
We are going to be sending a bill to the President that will fund the 
troops--in fact, it adds dollars to do that--as well as veterans, as 
well as addressing a number of other critical issues. The question 
before the President will be, Will he sign this bill? We are not trying 
to play games. We are sending him an emergency supplemental for the war 
and for other critical American needs--our communities, our families' 
needs, just as we do every year in an appropriations bill, in a 
supplemental. The question is whether the President will step up and do 
his duty and sign this bill so that those dollars can get to the 
troops.
  This legislation represents the best opportunity for us to change the 
course in Iraq as well as protect our troops and our veterans and to 
give them what they need now. Unfortunately, the President has put our 
troops in the middle of an endless Iraqi civil war. We know this to be 
true. People in my great State know this is true.
  Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where our troops are 
in an endless civil war. The American people are paying a huge price 
for this war, most importantly, in lives, not only family members lost 
but people coming home with permanent disabilities, with head injuries, 
with mental health problems. There is a huge price being paid by 
Americans for what is occurring and has been occurring.
  We are also paying a huge price in dollars, $10 billion a month, and 
then we look at the fact that we could fund a program to cover every 
child with health care in America for $10 billion a year. We know while 
lives are the most important issue, resources for Americans to address 
our needs at home is also a critical issue.
  We also know we are paying a huge price as it relates to our own 
security interests. The majority of Americans, a bipartisan majority in 
Congress, military experts, and the Iraq Study Group believe this war 
cannot be won militarily and that the current path is not sustainable. 
The supplemental appropriations bill recognizes it is long past time to 
change course. The American people know that. That is really what last 
November was about. People want

[[Page 9761]]

a change. They know this isn't working. It is not sustainable. They 
expect us to step up together and make that change.
  This bill fully funds our troops. We are passing a bill agreed to by 
the House and Senate that fully funds our troops and provides a plan to 
responsibly end the war and bring them home safely. I don't know what 
more we could ask of the proposal. We are providing the resources and 
also putting in place a responsible way to provide benchmarks and 
measurements and bring a responsible end to the war.
  Our bill holds the Iraqis accountable for securing their own Nation 
and forging political reconciliation. We know more of the same--more 
surges, more efforts that have been tried and tried time after time--is 
not working. I don't believe they can work. But what can work is 
holding the Iraqis accountable for securing their own nation and making 
the tough decisions that one has to make when they want to have a 
democracy. It is not easy. We know that. They are in a very difficult 
situation. But it is their country, and they need to step up and make 
those decisions and bring all parties together and find some way to 
live together.
  Our bill ensures our troops are combat ready before being deployed to 
Iraq. I can't imagine that there is one individual in the armed 
services or one mom or dad or brother or sister or son or daughter of a 
combat troop that would not want us, and doesn't expect us already, to 
be making sure that our troops are combat ready before being deployed.
  It provides them with all the resources needed on the battlefield and 
when they return. We are very committed and, in fact, I am very proud 
of the fact that in our budget resolution passed a few weeks ago, for 
the first time we meet the dollars needed for veterans health care and 
other critical veterans services identified by the veterans 
organizations themselves. For the first time ever, we put forth the 
dollars that are needed when our troops are coming home. A Presidential 
veto will deny our troops the resources and the strategy they need and 
send exactly the wrong message to the Iraqi political leaders. We hope 
the President will join us in giving our troops the resources and 
strategy they need and deserve. That is what this bill is about.
  After more than 4 years of a failed policy, it is time for this 
Nation to change course and Iraq to take responsibility for its own 
future.
  This is a good bill we will have before us. Overall, it provides more 
than $100 billion for the Department of Defense, primarily for 
continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes a $1 
billion increase for the National Guard and Reserves for equipment 
desperately needed and $1.1 billion for military housing. It provides 
$3 billion for the purchase of mine-resistant, ambush-protected 
vehicles, vehicles designed to withstand roadside bombs. Every day we 
pick up the paper and see where more lives have been lost, injuries 
have been sustained as a result of roadside bombs. It contains more 
than $5 billion to ensure that returning troops and veterans receive 
the health care they have earned with their service so that we don't 
ever have to have another Walter Reed incident.
  It has $6.9 billion for the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as 
well. We know when we are doing an emergency supplemental, just as in 
every other year when our colleagues were in the majority, as well as 
when we are in the majority, there are a number of emergency needs for 
the country.
  One thing in the supplemental has been funding the troops. We have 
added funding for our veterans and also understand there are some 
critical needs at home, critical needs that Americans have. Certainly, 
we all know the resources and the focus on those families who were hit 
by the hurricanes have been shamefully slow in going to that region to 
rebuild American communities, American homes, to support American 
families. Our bill does that.
  It provides emergency funding also for the Children's Health 
Insurance Program because we have a number of places in the country 
where the resources are running out, and we want to make sure children 
can continue to get health care. That is an emergency at home.
  Ask any family who is worried about whether their children are going 
to get sick tonight, say a little prayer: Please God, don't let the 
kids get sick because what are we going to do. Our bill addresses 
children's health care emergency funding.
  It also includes homeland security investments totaling $2.25 billion 
for port security and mass transit security, for explosives detection 
equipment at airports, and for several initiatives in the 9/11 bill 
that recently passed the Senate. I am very proud of the fact that our 
new majority placed a priority on passing the 9/11 Commission 
recommendations. It was long overdue, but it was a priority for us in 
the first few weeks of our new majority, and we did it. Now we have the 
resources that go with that. It is not enough to pass the 
recommendations. We have to make sure the resources are there to keep 
us safe at home.
  So, yes, this is a supplemental bill to support our troops abroad, to 
support their efforts while they are in theater in combat, but we also 
know we have folks on the front lines at home, our police officers and 
firefighters and others, and security needs here. We address that.
  We also know there have been a group of folks waiting for way too 
long for some disaster assistance related to agriculture, including my 
home State of Michigan where apple and cherry growers have been 
waiting. In this legislation, $3.5 billion is provided to help relieve 
the enormous pressure on farmers and ranchers as a result of severe 
drought and agricultural disasters. Again, this is about helping people 
at home, putting Americans first when we know there is a disaster. 
Whether it is Hurricane Katrina or whether it is cherry growers in 
northern Michigan, our job is to also focus on our people here and 
their emergency needs.
  The conference agreement also includes emergency funding for forest 
firefighting, low-income home energy assistance, and pandemic flu 
preparations, which we should all be concerned about--again, critical 
needs for Americans, American families.
  Finally, there are other items in this bill that are good for workers 
and small business. The bill has an increase in the minimum wage to 
$7.25 an hour, giving hard-working Americans a much deserved raise 
after 10 years--10 years. It provides almost $5 billion in tax cuts for 
small businesses as well. We know the majority of jobs come from small 
business. This supports their efforts as well.
  So I would say to President Bush: Sign this bill. Sign this bill. 
This is a bill which funds our troops, which keeps our commitments to 
our veterans, and which addresses other American priorities for our 
communities and our families.
  Mr. President, if you do, we will change course in Iraq, give our 
troops the equipment they need, the health care they deserve, and 
provide much needed investments here at home in America.
  President Bush, if you veto this bill, you are denying funds to the 
troops in the field and going against the wishes of the majority of the 
American people.
  It is time for the administration to stop saying no to troops and no 
to the American people. We need the President to say yes to working 
with us, to support our troops and what they need, which this 
legislation does, to support the American people, American families, 
and critical emergency needs here at home, and to put in place a 
strategy for success--a real strategy for success--by focusing on 
efforts that empower and send a message to the Iraqi Government to step 
up. While we are willing to support them, we will not continue to send 
our brave men and women into the middle of a civil war day after day 
after day and continually say it is OK, everything is going great. It 
is not going great.
  It is time for a new strategy. We have put forward a strategy in a 
very responsible way in this legislation, along

[[Page 9762]]

with meeting our obligations and responsibilities to our troops, our 
veterans, their families, and to America as a whole.
  I hope when President Bush reads this bill--and I hope he will--I 
hope he will look at what is in here with an open mind, and agree with 
us that this is a bill which makes sense for America at home and 
abroad.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.


                  Amendments Nos. 938 and 936 En Bloc

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, under the previous order, I call up 
amendments Nos. 938 and 936.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Bingaman] proposes en bloc 
     amendments numbered 938 and 936.

  The amendments are as follows:

    (Purpose: To strike the provisions regarding strengthening the 
   education and human resources directorate of the National Science 
                              Foundation)

       Strike section 4002.
                                  ____


 (Purpose: To increase the competitiveness of American workers through 
      the expansion of employee ownership, and for other purposes)

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP EXPANSION.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) Between 2000 and 2006, the United States lost more than 
     3,000,000 manufacturing jobs.
       (2) In 2006, the international trade deficit of the United 
     States was more than $763,000,000,000, $232,000,000,000 of 
     which was due to the Nation's trade imbalance with China.
       (3) Preserving and increasing jobs in the United States 
     that pay a living wage should be a top priority of Congress.
       (4) Providing loan guarantees, direct loans, grants, and 
     technical assistance to employees to buy their own companies 
     will increase the competitiveness of the United States.
       (b) United States Employee Ownership Competitiveness 
     Fund.--
       (1) Establishment.--Not later than 30 days after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Commerce 
     (referred to in this section as the ``Secretary'') shall 
     establish the United States Employee Ownership 
     Competitiveness Fund (referred to in this section as the 
     ``Fund'') to foster increased employee ownership of companies 
     and greater employee participation in company decision-making 
     throughout the United States.
       (2) Organization.--
       (A) Management.--The Fund shall be managed by a Director, 
     who shall be appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the 
     Secretary.
       (B) Staff.--The Director may select, appoint, employ, and 
     fix the compensation of such employees as shall be necessary 
     to carry out the functions of the Fund.
       (3) Functions.--Amounts in the Fund established under 
     paragraph (1) may be used to provide--
       (A) loans subordinated to the interests of all other 
     creditors, loan guarantees, and technical assistance, on such 
     terms and subject to such conditions as the Secretary 
     determines to be appropriate, to employees to purchase a 
     business through an employee stock ownership plan or eligible 
     worker-owned cooperative that are at least 51 percent 
     employee owned; and
       (B) grants to States and nonprofit and cooperative 
     organizations with experience in developing employee-owned 
     businesses and worker-owned cooperatives to--
       (i) provide education and outreach to inform people about 
     the possibilities and benefits of employee ownership of 
     companies, gain sharing, and participation in company 
     decision-making, including some financial education;
       (ii) provide technical assistance to assist employee 
     efforts to become business owners;
       (iii) provide participation training to teach employees and 
     employers methods of employee participation in company 
     decision-making; and
       (iv) conduct objective third party prefeasibility and 
     feasibility studies to determine if employees desiring to 
     start employee stock ownership plans or worker cooperatives 
     could make a profit.
       (4) Preconditions.--Before the Director makes any 
     subordinated loan or loan guarantee from the Fund under 
     paragraph (3)(A), the recipient employees shall submit to the 
     Fund--
       (A) a business plan showing that--
       (i) at least 51 percent of all interests in the employee 
     stock ownership plan or eligible worker-owned cooperative is 
     owned or controlled by employees;
       (ii) the Board of Directors of the employee stock ownership 
     plan or eligible worker-owned cooperative is elected by all 
     of the employees; and
       (iii) all employees receive basic information about company 
     progress and have the opportunity to participate in day-to-
     day operations; and
       (B) a feasibility study from an objective third party with 
     a positive determination that the employee stock ownership 
     plan or eligible worker-owned cooperative will be profitable 
     enough to pay any loan, subordinated loan, or loan guarantee 
     that was made possible through the Fund.
       (5) Insurance of subordinated loans and loan guarantees.--
       (A) In general.--The Director shall use amounts in the Fund 
     to insure any subordinated loan or loan guarantee provided 
     under this section against the nonrepayment of the 
     outstanding balance of the loan.
       (B) Annual premiums.--The annual premium for the insurance 
     of each subordinated loan or loan guarantee under this 
     subsection shall be paid by the borrower in such manner and 
     in such amount as the Secretary determines to be appropriate.
       (C) Premiums and guarantee fees available to cover 
     losses.--The premiums paid to the Fund from insurance issued 
     under this paragraph and the fees paid to the Fund for loan 
     guarantees issued under paragraph (2)(A) shall be deposited 
     in an account managed by the Secretary of Commerce and may be 
     used to reimburse the Fund for any losses incurred by the 
     Fund in connection with any such loan or loan guarantee.
       (6) Technical assistance in the discretion of the 
     secretary.--If a grant is made under paragraph (3)(B)(ii), 
     the Secretary may require the Director to--
       (A) provide for the targeting of key groups such as 
     retiring business owners, unions, managers, trade 
     associations, and community organizations;
       (B) encourage cooperation in organizing workshops and 
     conferences; and
       (C) provide for the preparation and distribution of 
     materials concerning employee ownership and participation.
       (7) Participation training in the discretion of the 
     secretary.--If a grant is made under paragraph (3)(B)(iii), 
     the Secretary may require the Director to provide for--
       (A) courses on employee participation; and
       (B) the development and fostering of networks of employee-
     owned companies to spread the use of successful participation 
     techniques.
       (c) Rulemaking.--Not later than 30 days after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Commerce shall 
     promulgate regulations that ensure--
       (1) the safety and soundness of the Fund; and
       (2) that the Fund does not compete with commercial 
     financial institutions.
       (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized 
     to be appropriated to carry out this section--
       (1) $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2008; and
       (2) such sums as may be necessary for subsequent fiscal 
     years.

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I also wish to propound a unanimous 
consent request. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes 
consideration of S. 761 on Wednesday, there be 30 minutes of debate 
with respect to the Sununu amendment No. 938, with the time equally 
divided and controlled between Senators Sununu and Kennedy or their 
designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate 
proceed to vote in relation to the amendment, with no amendment in 
order to the amendment prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator 
from Tennessee wants to make a comment. If the Senator from Ohio would 
permit me, I have a very short statement to make concerning an 
amendment. It will not take more than 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN. Sure.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma and 
the Senator from Ohio for their courtesy.
  I simply want to acknowledge the comments of Senator Bingaman from 
New Mexico and say I think our day has been productive and to say our 
colleagues have been very helpful in bringing their amendments to the 
floor.
  I ask the Senator what he envisions for tomorrow beyond what he 
already announced.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his question 
and his great work on this legislation.
  The plan for tomorrow, as I understand it, is we will go ahead with 
this

[[Page 9763]]

Sununu amendment at around 10:45 and hopefully vote shortly after 11 
o'clock on that amendment. We have talked to Senator Coburn from 
Oklahoma about considering three amendments he still has that he is 
committed to offering at some time in the 2 o'clock period.
  We urge other Senators who have amendments they wish to have votes on 
to bring those to the floor for consideration after disposing of 
Senator Sununu's amendment shortly after 11 o'clock. Now, obviously, 
the Senator's amendment is still pending, as we have indicated, and we 
still have to get agreement as to how to proceed on that. We are 
working on that at the present time.
  But I agree, we have made good progress today. I hope we can complete 
the remaining amendments tomorrow and proceed to final action on the 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico. 
The majority leader and the Republican leader would both like us to 
finish tomorrow, if we can. I think we have a good chance of doing 
that. Senator Inhofe is staying tonight to talk about an amendment he 
hopes to bring up tomorrow. I talked with Senator Grassley. The number 
of amendments that seem to need to be offered seems to be narrowing 
down. I would say to my colleagues, with the briefing that is scheduled 
for tomorrow afternoon at 4 o'clock, we are going to do our best to get 
as many of those as possible in before 4 o'clock so we can finish the 
bill tomorrow, if possible.
  I am going to defer any other remarks I have until after the Senator 
from Oklahoma and the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from New York 
have had a chance to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, what the Senator from New Mexico is 
suggesting is exactly what I have in mind. I have an amendment I will 
be calling up at an appropriate time that is mutually agreeable. It 
does affect the taxation end. I have talked to Senator Baucus and 
Senator Grassley. I believe they are going to be favorable toward it.
  There are not many one-sentence amendments. That is what this one is. 
Let me read it to you and tell you why I am offering it. Then I will 
wait until tomorrow and hopefully get in the mix.

       Notwithstanding any other provision of the law; no federal 
     funds shall be provided to any organization or entity that 
     advocates against tax competition or United States tax 
     competitiveness.

  Let me just give you an example. After World War II, there was an 
effort to implement the Marshall Plan. When that was done, in 1961, an 
organization was formed that was called the Organization for Economic 
Cooperation and Development. This is an international organization 
which advocates tax increases for the United States specifically to 
make us less competitive. They have stated explicitly that low-tax 
policies ``unfairly erode the tax bases of other countries and distort 
the location of capital and services.''
  What we have here is a Paris-based bunch of bureaucrats seeking to 
protect high-tax welfare states from the free market. That is why the 
OECD goes on to say that free market tax competition ``may hamper the 
application of progressive tax rates and the achievement of 
redistributive goals.'' Clearly, free market tax competition makes it 
harder to implement socialistic welfare states. The free market, 
evidently, has not been fair to socialistic welfare states. Well, it is 
a good thing they have the OECD and nearly $100 million in U.S. 
taxpayer money to aid them.
  Noted economist Walter Williams clearly sees the direction in which 
this is headed when he says that ``the bottom line agenda for the OECD 
is to establish a tax cartel where nations get together and collude on 
taxes.''
  Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill seconded that when he said that he 
was ``troubled by the underlying premise that low tax rates are somehow 
suspect and by the notion that any country . . . should interfere in 
any other country's'' tax policy.
  So the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has 
issued a report entitled ``Harmful Tax Competition: An Emerging Global 
Issue,'' which establishes a new international body, the Forum on 
Harmful Tax Practices, to implement the measures outlined in the 
report. The OECD has endorsed and encouraged higher taxes, new taxes, 
and global taxes no fewer than 24 times. They have advocated a value-
added tax, a 40-cent increase in the gas tax, a carbon tax, a 
fertilizer tax, ending the deductibility of State and local taxes from 
Federal taxes, and new taxes at the State level.
  So I believe this is something we will have a chance to debate, and I 
would think it actually would be accepted. Again, all it is going to be 
is just one sentence. It reads:

       Notwithstanding any other provision of the law; no federal 
     funds shall be provided to any organization or entity that 
     advocates against tax competition or United States tax 
     competitiveness.

  I cannot think of any more appropriate bill to have this on than this 
bill we have before us currently.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. I thank the Senator from 
Ohio, who has stepped aside for me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I also thank the Senator from Ohio for 
letting me make some brief remarks, and then I will yield the floor to 
him.
  First, I wish to praise my colleagues from New Mexico and Tennessee, 
who have done an excellent job on this legislation. I applaud the 
bipartisan group that put together this extraordinary bill we are 
considering, the America COMPETES Act, because this legislation will 
provide invaluable resources to help slingshot our economy forward and 
ensure that our great country does not lose step with our global 
competitors.
  I am particularly proud of one provision I authored and has been 
included in the managers' amendment that was adopted earlier today. 
That is what I want to speak about.
  The program is called the National Science Foundation Teaching 
Fellowship, and it will go a long way toward ensuring that our high 
school students are taught math and science by the best and the 
brightest.
  I wish to express my deep gratitude to Senators Kennedy, Bingaman, 
Enzi, and Alexander for including this important provision in the bill. 
I would also like to thank my friend and colleague, Senator Clinton, 
for her valuable support as a committee member in this process.
  The NSF Teaching Fellowship is modeled after a highly successful 
program in New York City called Math for America. The program recruits 
top math and science graduates to become teachers and retains them as 
teachers by offering financial incentives. The program will ensure that 
leaders in math and science train future generations of innovators--
instead of leaving the classroom for research or other opportunities.
  It is working in New York City, and it is crucial to expand this 
model to the rest of the country. Let me share with you some statistics 
that will explain why.
  Our students are not currently prepared to compete in a technological 
economy. In the 2003 PISA math assessment that compared 15-year-old 
students across the world, American students ranked 24th out of the 29 
participating countries--here in America, in math, 24th out of 29. How 
are we going to stay the greatest country in the world when that has 
happened?
  Students currently studying math and science will be the fuel that 
powers our economy for the next century, and there is no question we 
are not giving them the tools they need to compete.
  One reason why our students are not doing well is because only one-
third of math teachers and less than two-thirds of science teachers 
majored or minored in the subject they teach. It is not hard to 
understand why. Starting salaries for math and science majors can be as 
much as $20,000 higher in the private sector than they are for public 
school teachers. But by allowing this disincentive to teach to 
continue, we are ignoring our responsibility to have our students 
taught by teachers who know math and science backward and forward. The 
bottom line is the American

[[Page 9764]]

economic engine may stall if we don't have a highly skilled workforce 
to keep it going. Unfortunately, this is where we are faltering.
  So today the Senate has adopted the NSF Teaching Fellowship program, 
along with other excellent provisions in the America COMPETES Act, to 
fill in the gap. Here is how the program will work. NSF teaching 
fellows will have to take a test to prove their strengths in math or 
science. Then they enroll in a 1-year master's degree program in 
teaching that will give them teaching certification, and it is all paid 
for. They will agree to teach for at least 4 years, and for those 4 
years, they will receive bonuses on top of their salaries. These 
individuals will infuse our schools with a deep passion for and an 
understanding of math and science and will share their knowledge with 
other teachers in their school.
  To retain our current teachers who are outstanding at what they do 
and can provide expertise in the classroom that our teaching fellows 
won't yet have, there is another category called NSF Master Teaching 
Fellows. Master fellows are existing teachers who already have a 
master's degree in math or science education. They will also take a 
test demonstrating they have a high level understanding of their 
subject area. For the next 5 years they will serve as leaders in their 
school, providing mentorship for other teachers in their department as 
well as assisting with curriculum development and professional 
development. For these 5 years they also will receive bonuses on top of 
their salaries.
  Last year I introduced the Math and Science Teaching Corps Act with 
my friend Congressman Jim Saxton in the House. Today that bill has 
evolved into a program that has been included in the America COMPETES 
Act.
  The question is: Will this generation have the skill sets necessary 
to take full advantage of this new economy? Right now our children are 
lagging behind and we must act quickly before businesses need to look 
elsewhere. Math and science skills are the key to maintaining this 
country's competitiveness in the global economy, and this legislation 
will help ensure that.
  I believe the NSF Teaching Fellowship, as well as the rest of the 
America COMPETES Act, will put us back on track. I am proud to have 
been included in the process and I look forward to working with my 
colleagues to complete work on this important bill.


                                Medicare

  Mr. President, I want also to take 1 more minute to address the 
comments this afternoon of my friend and colleague Senator Gregg. He 
and I often agree, and I believe we do on this particular issue as 
well, about the need to shore up Medicare. I think he misunderstood my 
comments from yesterday and I want to take a moment to discuss them.
  Yesterday the Social Security and Medicare trustees released their 
annual report showing that Social Security does not face an impending 
funding crisis, but Medicare funds are less secure. The report 
indicates that the Social Security trust fund would be solvent 1 year 
longer than was predicted in last year's report, that is until 2041, 
but Medicare would be exhausted as soon as 2019 in terms of the 
Medicare trust fund.
  The Senator should know I did not and would not attack the 
independent trustees of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. 
My statement responded to two things: first, the administration's 
misguided mission to use any and all news with regard to Social 
Security as an opportunity to push for privatizing Social Security; 
second, the administration's unwillingness to do something to fix 
underlying problems in our health care system and reduce budget 
deficits to shore up Medicare before it is too late.
  My colleague from New Hampshire pointed out that most of us on this 
side of the aisle voted against some of his amendments. That doesn't 
mean we don't want to fix Medicare; it means we don't agree with the 
way he is proposing. In fact, we have to get a handle on the whole 
health care system to fix Medicare, not chop away and slash away at 
Medicare itself. So I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire, we 
can't leave these problems to future generations. I look forward to 
working with him on that important issue.
  I once again thank my good colleague from Ohio for his generosity of 
both time and spirit.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, before the Senator from Ohio goes 
forward, I simply say to the Senator from New York I applaud his work 
on the math program. I remember last year when we talked about it, and 
I met with his constituents who have done so much good work with that 
model.
  Among the other things which are important about the program is that 
it defines a fair way of identifying a high-need set of teachers--in 
this case math and science--and when they go into teaching, to pay them 
more for being good teachers. That is a tough thing to do. It is tough 
to do that in a fair way, but the Senator has found one way to do it. 
We have a variety of other ways to do it. Senator Durbin and I have 
supported an amendment, the teacher incentive fund, which encourages 
that sort of experimentation, a not-made-in-Washington formula.
  But if we are to have areas of high need such as math and science and 
low-income children who can't achieve, we are going to have to find 
some fair ways for outstanding school teaching and leadership. The 
Senator from New York has taken an important step in that direction as 
part of what he has done today, and I congratulate him for that.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague.


                            vote explanation

  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, during rollcall vote No. 137 today, I was 
at a speaking engagement in another part of the city and was unable to 
return in time for the vote. Had I been able to vote, I would have 
voted for the amendment offered by Senator DeMint.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of Majority 
Leader Reid's legislation S. 761, the America Creating Opportunities to 
Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science--
COMPETES--Act of 2007 to help maintain our Nation's competitive edge in 
the critical areas of math, science, engineering and technology.
  I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this important bill with 57 of my 
colleagues.
  This bill will strengthen educational opportunities in math, science, 
engineering, and technology from elementary through graduate school, 
increase the Federal investment in basic research, and develop an 
innovation infrastructure--all which is greatly needed in an 
increasingly competitive global economy.
  This bipartisan bill reflects recommendations by the National 
Academies' report ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' and the Council 
on Competitiveness' ``Innovate America'' report.
  Both of these reports conclude that action is needed now in order to 
secure our country's economic and technological leadership in the 
future.
  For example, indicators of the need for action are the following: 
More than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher 
education in China in 2004. In India, the figure was 350,000. In the 
U.S., it was only about 70,000. Science and engineering jobs are 
expected to grow by 21 percent from 2004 to 2014, compared to a growth 
of 13 percent in all other fields, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics 
reports.
  Nationwide, about 68 percent of middle school math students were 
taught by teachers who did not have a major or certification in the 
subject. For science middle school students, 57 percent were taught by 
teachers who did not have a major or certification in the subject--
based on the 2004 report by the National Center for Education 
Statistics.
  In California, the State also faces a critical shortage of math and 
science teachers. The State will need to produce more than 16,000 new 
math and science teachers within 5 years and more than 33,000 over the 
next decade due to attrition and retirement. This is from the March 
2007 report by the California Council on Science and Technology.

[[Page 9765]]

  This report also concludes that strengthening the teaching of math 
and science is crucial if California is to maintain its competitive 
edge and economic growth.
  That is why it is imperative that we take steps to ensure that our 
children, as our future leaders, are fully prepared with the skills to 
take on the demands of the country's changing economy and workplace.
  Specifically, this bill would increase authorized funding for the 
National Science Foundation from $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2008 to 
$11.2 billion in fiscal year 2011. California receives about 20 percent 
of total funding from NSF grants; increase authorized funding for the 
U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science from $4.6 billion in 
fiscal year 2008 to over $5.2 billion in fiscal year 2011. California 
receives over 20 percent of total Federal funding; direct NASA to 
transfer $160 million from its accounts for the funding of basic 
science and research for fiscal year 2008 and fully participate in 
interagency activities to foster innovation; authorize $290 million 
over 4 years to establish a Distinguished Scientists Program under the 
U.S. Department of Energy which would be a joint program between 
universities and National Laboratories to support up to 100 
distinguished scientist positions; authorize $210 million for fiscal 
year 2008, and such sums as necessary for each of the following three 
years, for new grants under the U.S. Department of Education to develop 
university degree programs for students to pursue bachelor's degrees in 
math, science, engineering, and critical foreign languages with 
concurrent teaching credentials.
  Also, grants would be used for master's degree programs in these 
fields for current teachers to improve their skills.
  This model is similar to the University of California's California 
Teach Program which aims to put a thousand new math and science 
teachers annually into the State's classrooms.
  It will authorize $190 million over 4 years to create a new grant 
program to improve the skills of K-12 math and science teachers, under 
the U.S. Department of Energy, for summer institutes at each of the 
National Laboratories; authorizes $146.7 million for fiscal year 2008 
and such sums as necessary for the following 3 years to provide ``Math 
Now'' grants, under the U.S. Department of Education, to improve math 
instruction for struggling elementary and middle school students; 
authorize $140 million over 4 years for a new competitive grant program 
under the U.S. Department of Energy to assist States in establishing or 
expanding statewide math and science specialty schools and provide 
expert assistance in teaching from the National Laboratories' at these 
schools; establishes a President's Council on Innovation and 
Competitiveness and requires the National Academy of Sciences to 
conduct a study to identify barriers to innovation 1 year after 
enactment.
  America's economy is fueled by innovation, and innovation is enabled 
by a strong foundation in math and science. Our country's math and 
science foundation is eroding, and our innovative strength is similarly 
weakening.
  The U.S. trade balance in high-technology products has shifted from a 
$54 billion surplus in 1990 to a $50 billion deficit in 2001.
  This legislation can help reverse this trend. It will help maintain 
our Nation's global competitiveness and continue to attract the best 
and brightest minds across the country to pursue careers as engineers, 
scientists, technicians, and very importantly, as math and science 
teachers.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 761, 
the America COMPETES Act of 2007. If we consider the people who have 
given us the light bulb, the blood bank, the artificial heart, the 
microchip processor, and Microsoft, we must acknowledge that access to 
quality education and openness to innovation in America have nurtured 
many of the most influential inventors and the best trained workforce 
in modern history.
  But while technological progress has revolutionized the workplace, 
our education system has failed to keep pace; now, many of our Nation's 
schools are unable to provide their students with the scientific, 
technological, engineering, and mathematical knowledge and skills the 
21st century economy demands. Without sufficient numbers of well-
trained people and the scientific and technical innovations they 
produce, the United States is in jeopardy of losing its place as the 
center for the high-quality jobs and innovative enterprise that have 
been part of our national heritage.
  I applaud Senators Bingaman and Alexander and the other leading 
sponsors of the bill for taking action to ensure that this Nation 
remains a leader for innovation, and I am proud to join them as a 
cosponsor of this bill. I am grateful to the academic and business 
leaders, including Nancy Grasmick, the Maryland State superintendent of 
schools, and Dr. C.D. Mote, Jr., president of the University of 
Maryland, who produced both the National Academies' ``Rising Above the 
Gathering Storm'' and the Council on Competitiveness' ``Innovative 
America'' reports and recommendations that serve as the foundation for 
this legislation. I am proud of the legislation the Senate is 
considering: it takes significant steps to stimulate and support 
innovation in our Nation.
  When I ask young scientists and engineers what triggered their 
interest, they cite--almost without exception--a teacher, mentor, or 
internship as the inspiration for their love of science, math, and 
innovation. I am pleased, therefore, that this bill includes several 
measures to improve teacher recruitment and training, develop 
partnerships between schools and laboratories, and encourage internship 
programs. All of these provisions will increase students' exposure to 
inspirational teaching, talented scientists, and real-world experience.
  Education research and the anecdotal evidence I mentioned above 
indicate that teacher quality is the most important factor influencing 
student achievement. Yet our best teachers are not evenly distributed 
among our Nations communities. Far too many of our highest need school 
districts are struggling to recruit and retain experienced teachers. To 
address this inequity, S. 761 includes important measures to recruit 
and train high-quality math and science teachers for high-need school 
districts. The legislation also creates mentorship and apprenticeship 
programs for women, who are underrepresented in science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics careers.
  The growing gap between what is taught in elementary and secondary 
schools and the skills necessary to succeed in college, graduate 
school, and today's workforce threatens the implicit promise we have 
each made to our own children and those whom we represent: get good 
grades in school and you will succeed in life. S. 761 contains 
competitive grants to States that will encourage better alignment of 
elementary and secondary curricula with the knowledge and skills 
required by colleges and universities, 21st century employers, and the 
Armed Forces, so that high school graduates will be prepared to succeed 
in the world.
  Those students who choose to pursue high-tech careers require Federal 
funding to conduct research. Many scientists and mathematicians make 
their greatest discoveries early in their careers, before they have 
developed the track records and reputations often required to secure 
research grants. The leaders of Johns Hopkins and other great Maryland 
research institutions have told me that it is difficult for their young 
and most daring researchers to secure necessary research funding.
  S. 761 would significantly increase America's investment in research, 
doubling funding for the National Science Foundation and the Department 
of Energy's Office of Science over the next 4 years and authorizing a 
significant increase in funding for the National Institute of Standards 
and Technology. But the legislation goes further by also targeting more 
funds to young researchers and high-risk frontier research. S. 761 
would increase the number of research fellowships and

[[Page 9766]]

traineeships that provide critical support for science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics graduate students and would require NIST 
to set aside at least 8 percent of its annual funding for high-risk, 
high-reward innovation acceleration research.
  Today, we face enormous technological challenges, which include 
halting global climate change, achieving energy independence, and 
finding cures for AIDS, malaria, diabetes, and other devastating 
diseases. We must equip ourselves with skills and resources to tackle 
these problems so that our children and grandchildren may inherit a 
world rich with economic opportunities. Therefore, I am urging my 
colleagues to join me in support of this critical legislation.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President. I rise today in support of S. 761, the 
America COMPETES Act. This sweeping legislation takes bold steps to 
recapture America's prowess in the global economy.
  The demand for talented persons in the areas of science, technology, 
engineering, mathematics, and critical foreign language far exceeds the 
supply in the United States. The likelihood of finding a job in these 
high-need areas after college is almost guaranteed, yet we find 
ourselves still lagging behind other countries in producing these 
graduates. America ranks No. 24 out of industrialized nations in 
mathematical literacy for children entering high school. Right now, 
China is graduating four times the number of engineers as the United 
States, with India not far behind.
  I am deeply concerned with these trends. It is vital to have a 
superior science and mathematics education system and workforce. In 
1997, I formed an Advisory Committee on Science, Technology, and the 
Future in my home State of Kansas. This committee helps me find ways to 
align Federal and State initiatives to enhance science and technology 
in the State. The advisory committee has been instrumental in 
identifying high-need high-tech jobs in the State while focusing on 
ways to educate, train, and attract talented persons into these fields.
  Kansas continues to be a State rich with high-tech industry. Wichita 
is the aviation capital of the United States, producing approximately 
50 percent of all U.S. general aviation. This industry needs aviation 
researchers, engineers, and skilled technicians. My home State is 
rapidly growing in the areas of bioscience, including drug discovery, 
new treatments for disease, food safety, animal health, and renewable 
energy. The Roberts Advisory Committee has recognized that while these 
industries are growing, they have a limited pool of talented employees 
to choose from.
  Like many States, Kansas is facing a shortage of math and science 
teacher applicants. I agree with my advisory committee that global 
competitiveness lies with our younger generation. It is imperative that 
we provide them with an education from science and math teachers 
possessing a solid knowledge base and effective teaching skills. We 
also need to find ways to spark students' interests in math, science, 
and technology while they are in the early years of education. The 
America COMPETES Act addresses these needs by strengthening the skills 
of math and science teachers, creating partnerships between National 
Laboratories and high-need high schools, facilitating the expansion of 
advanced placement programs, and increasing the number of students who 
study foreign languages.
  Additionally, the bill provides an increase in research investment by 
doubling the funding for the National Science Foundation, NSF. The 
grants distributed to States from the NSF are being used to conduct 
extraordinary research in every corner of the world.
  My advisory committee supports the America COMPETES Act, and so do I. 
It is only through our commitment to the underlying goals of this bill 
that we will see success in building our competitive workforce.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleagues 
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Senator Pete Domenici, Senator Lamar Alexander, 
and Majority Leader Harry Reid for their efforts to move this issue. I 
am so proud of this great bipartisan team of 54 Senators working to 
pass this bill. I can't say enough about the appreciation that many of 
us in the Senate feel about my colleagues' initiation of the report, 
``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' which is the basis for this 
legislation, the America COMPETES Act.
  America must remain an innovation economy. This legislation creates 
the building blocks that we need for a smarter America. Our Nation is 
in an amazing race--the race for discovery and new knowledge, the race 
to remain competitive and to foster an innovation society, to create 
new ideas that lead to new breakthroughs, new products, and new jobs, 
the innovations that have the power to save lives, create prosperity 
and protect the homeland, the innovation to make America safer, 
stronger, and smarter.
  This legislation is called the America COMPETES Act or America 
Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in 
Technology, Education and Science. It is divided into three sections: 
research, education and innovation. It calls for getting new ideas by 
doubling Federal funding for research at the National Science 
Foundation and establishing the Innovation Acceleration Research 
Program to fund frontier research like testing new theories and using 
new research methods; getting the best minds with scholarships for 
future math and science teachers, including $10,000 scholarships from 
the National Science Foundation for undergraduate students majoring in 
math or science along with teacher certification; and establishing a 
President's Council on Innovation and Competitiveness to develop a 
comprehensive agenda to promote innovation and competitiveness in the 
public and private sectors.
  Why is this so important? Because a country that doesn't innovate, 
stagnates. The whole foundation of American culture and economy is 
based on the concept of discovery and innovation. That is part of our 
culture. When you look at what has made America a superpower, it is our 
innovation and our technology. We have to look at where the new ideas 
are going to come from that are going to generate the new products and 
workforce for the 21st century.
  I want America to win the Nobel Prizes and the markets. This 
legislation will help to set the framework. It will make sure that 
we're helping our young people with scholarships and helping our 
science teachers and those working in science with funding and research 
opportunities. We also are forming partnerships with the private sector 
and building an innovation-friendly Government.
  The very essence of our culture is innovation and discovery. Remember 
we got here because someone wanted to discover. When Lewis and Clark 
set out on their expedition, it wasn't the National Geographic Society, 
to find a trail to the Pacific--it was called the Corps of Discovery. 
That is who we are. That is what our culture is, and that is what we 
need to maintain.
  We are a nation of explorers and pioneers always searching for new 
frontiers. The next generation of pioneers, engineers, and scientists 
is out there. They will help us create jobs and win the markets. Most 
importantly, they will help us win the amazing race. I will use my 
position as chair of the subcommittee that funds science to make sure 
that there is money in the Federal checkbook to support these 
proposals, and I hope my colleagues will do the same.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have an amendment to S. 761, the America 
COMPETES Act. My amendment would allow competency-based institutions of 
higher learning to access grant programs which will help them train 
math, science, and critical foreign language teachers.
  I applaud the goals of increasing the numbers of math, science, and 
critical foreign language teachers in our schools, including high-need 
schools. Our ability to compete as a nation is directly tied to our 
ability to educate our young people and retrain those who are in 
industries that are no longer viable.
  We now have the finest system of higher education in the world. There 
is

[[Page 9767]]

no doubt that if we provide the proper incentives, many brilliant 
innovators and educators will take up the clarion call.
  I come before this body today to introduce my amendment because many 
of today's teachers are teaching an older generation of students. The 
U.S. economy is in a state of continual change, and with that change 
comes displacement of workers and a need to retrain and retool. These 
nontraditional students often receive their training from accredited 
schools who assess student development based on a student's ability to 
demonstrate competency in the material being taught. Under the bill as 
drafted, these competency-based universities would not be able to 
access the grant money for teacher development. My amendment would 
remove this bias and allow competency-based universities access to the 
teacher development grant money. This in turn will increase the 
teaching quality in math, science, and critical foreign language, 
thereby providing the students attending these universities with a 
better education.
  Current bill language would prevent participation by well-respected 
and widely recognized institutions, such as Western Governors 
University, WGU. WGU was set up by over 19 Governors to provide 
innovation in higher education and is now training over 1,000 math and 
science teachers, the majority of whom are women and minorities. WGU's 
innovative approach to teacher education has proven very successful.
  As we set about to ensure that our Nation has the needed highly 
qualified teachers in critical subject areas, we must make certain that 
these institutions are included in this legislation. Therefore, I ask 
my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment.

                          ____________________