Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I rise today to comment on some of those military men and women that President Reagan felt so strongly about. On Saturday, I went to Knoxville, TN, for the casing of the colors of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Four thousand troops, the largest unit in the Tennessee National Guard, are being sent to Mississippi for training, then to California and then, just before Christmas, to Iraq. This was a large number of men and women from across Tennessee, mostly east Tennessee. While their command headquarters are in Knoxville, their squadron headquarters are in Athens, Cookeville, and Kingsport. The whole community had organized a tremendous day of celebration and parade to honor these men and women. Randy Tyree, the former mayor of Knoxville, was the master of ceremonies. Joe Alexander was the parade chairman. The East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association was the event sponsor. It was a bright, sunny day. It came during a week we had filled with honoring the men and women in our military. Earlier in the week was Memorial Day and before that the opening of the World War II memorial. The week ended with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of D-day, honoring those military heroes of the past. But Saturday was not about the past. The men and women we honored in Knoxville, TN, on Saturday live among us. We know them. We see them in those communities every day. They are members of the Knox County Sheriff's Office. They include McMinn County school superintendent John Fogerty. They are Casey Boring, Tony Loveday, Kevin Fuller, Roger Lawson, and Randy Cruz all from Blount County, my home county's sheriff's office. They are our fathers, brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters. They are not all 24 or 26 or 30 years old either. They are in their thirties and their forties. Some are in their fifties. Jim Leinart is an Anderson County deputy who fought in Vietnam and is a grandfather. He is a part of the 278th and is heading to Iraq, a month after he was supposed to have retired from the military. He is a tank mechanic, and he and nearly 4,000 other members of the 278th leave June 14 for Mississippi for training. This is what he had to say about it: Right after I got that alert, I figured out I wasn't going to be able to retire. I kind of dread it in a way and kind of look forward to it in a way. It'll be different; an adventure in another country. The families there, and the men and women in the 278th, all knew the truth. They are not going to Iraq and Afghanistan for support activities. They will be the first National Guard unit from Tennessee in a long time to be on the front lines, to be combat troops. But there was not a word of complaint that day, and the men looked forward to that. This unit has a fantastic history. The 278th traces its roots to the American Revolution in what may have been the first early American war of preemption. A British colonel named Patrick Ferguson on the eastern side of the Great Smokey Mountains sent word across the mountains to Tennessee that the mountaineers should lay down their arms or the British would come across the mountains and arrest them and hang their leaders. This angered the mountaineers so they gathered, in October of 1789 near Watauga, TN, near Sycamore Shoals. They marched across the mountains to find this general who sent this warning, killed him, won that battle, destroyed the left wing of Cornwallis' army and, according to President Theodore Roosevelt, changed the course of the Revolutionary War. These militiamen were the early members of the 278th. At the ceremony on Saturday, MAJ Charles R. Southerland, who is Adjutant of the 278th ACR, gave a beautiful speech, setting out the history of the 278th and its significance. I ask unanimous consent to have the text of Major Southerland's address, as well as a story from the Knoxville News Sentinel of Saturday, June 5, about Anderson County Deputy Jim Leinart to be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The men and women of the 278th are going across the ocean to fight for us so we can live safely at home. They are doing that the same way militiamen in Tennessee did more than 200 years ago, men who went across the mountains to fight for the settlers so they could live safely in the pioneer villages. What I said to them on Saturday in Knoxville I would like to say to them and to their families again today: We are proud of you. We support you. We will pray for your safety, and we are grateful that you are going across the ocean to fight so we can be safe at home.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to honor the extraordinary efforts of one man who exemplifies the spirit which makes Tennessee the volunteer state. That man is Jim Ayers of Parsons, TN. Parsons sits at the intersection of Highway 412 and 69, just west of the banks of the Tennessee River. It is the largest town in rural Decatur County. At 18, Jim left home to attend Memphis State University. Working 30 hours a week, he paid his way through college, graduating with a degree in business administration. Jim was the first in his family to earn a college degree. He went on to success in a number of industries--from banking and real estate to manufacturing and health care. Many American success stories would end right there. For Jim, this was just the beginning. In 1999 Decatur's Riverside High School graduated 129 students and sent 36 on to post-secondary education. That's 27 percent. This month 101 of 111, 90 percent, of students graduating from Riverside, will go on to 2 and 4-year colleges and universities. The difference between 1999 and 2004? Jim Ayers. You see, Jim realized the opportunities he had because his parents had motivated him to further his education. To perpetuate this encouragement, Jim created the Ayers Foundation Scholars Program. The program supplies counselors to assist every student with college counseling and planning and grants renewable scholarships of up to $4,000 to any Decatur County student who wants to go on to college. This year Jim's foundation disbursed $578,000 to more than 300 young men and women attending 13 different schools. To meet any remaining tuition bills, counselors found an additional $800,000 in Federal and State grants and other scholarships. Since its inception, the foundation has also spent in excess of $175,000 to help 68 teachers from Decatur and Henderson counties to obtain masters degrees or plus 30 certification. Last week at a dinner in honor of this first class of Ayers' foundation graduates, Jim announced the foundation will begin funding scholarships for students at Henderson County's Scotts Hill High School. In addition, Jim committed to extend funding for advanced degrees for teachers in Perry County. Decatur's favorite son came home to make this a place where the American dream thrives. Mr. President, I have spent a lot of time thinking about leadership, character, and education. Men like Jim serve as examples to us all of the opportunity education provides and the difference one man can make in the fabric of the American character. Thank you for allowing me to honor my friend Jim Ayers.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I recently received an invitation to an annual reunion of Tennessee veterans who served together in the 236th Combat Engineers Battalion in Burma, India and China during World War II. Veterans of the 236th have been getting together every year for nearly 50 years, and the story of the reunions of the 236th is almost as interesting as those of the action they saw in northern Burma fighting the Japanese. What began as a picnic at Memphis City Park in 1956 has evolved into an annual reunion of surviving members of the 236th, and their families, on the second Sunday in July in Nashville. Veterans from the 236th, who spent one of the most significant periods in history together, now sit around and reminisce about the experience that made them men, rekindle old friendships, and honor the memories of their fallen comrades. Meanwhile, their families swim, shop, and attend events together. In recent years however, only a handful of veterans of the 236th are still able to attend, so the group has elected their children to take over responsibility for holding the reunions, even after the last member of the 236th has passed on. The 236th was created during World War II, an offspring of the 44th Engineer Combat Regiment at Camp McCoy, WI. After practicing maneuvers in Tennessee in 1943, the 236th was deployed to the China-Burma-India Theater, where they started work on the Ledo Road, a necessary allied supply route through harsh jungle terrain at the base of the Himalayan Mountains, and on the edge of Japanese-occupied territory. Work on the Ledo Road was halted by a Japanese garrison, dug in, in the town of Myitkyina, along the path of the road. General Stillwell, Chief Commander of the China-Burma-India Theater, had tried to dislodge the Japanese from Myitkyina in mid May, 1944, and had succeeded in taking a nearby airstrip, but was repelled from the town by unexpectedly strong Japanese defenses. With these defenses and a front line force already weakened from fatigue, disease and wounds, Stillwell called up the 236th to the front lines. Men who had been used to driving trucks and operating heavy equipment were suddenly picking up a rifle and heading into battle. The Japanese had managed to assemble nearly 2,500 soldiers in Myitkyina in the final days of May to engage the 236th and another battalion of combat engineers, the 209th. The battle for Myitkyina raged for 2 months and the engineers, fighting alongside poorly trained Chinese soldiers, bore the brunt of the Japanese forces, defending against infantry attacks as well as artillery and mortar fire. The battle resulted in victory for the allies, but at a heavy price: 56 killed in action and another 142 wounded from the 236th alone. One of these casualties was SGT Fred Coleman, who threw himself on a grenade in order to save the lives of his comrades. The members of the 236th distinguished themselves in the battle for Myitkyina and earned the praise of their commanders. Stillwell himself was impressed with the performance of the 236th, many of whom had not picked up a rifle since basic training: ``hats off to the engineers!'' And both battalions of combat engineers received the Presidential Unit Citation for their valiant efforts in battle. Tennessee is the Volunteer State and the spirit of Tennessee is embodied in the 236th. From the battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War, through the Mexican War, the Civil War, and our great World Wars, Tennesseans have answered the call. We have honored those volunteers, and we have honored them as veterans. We should especially honor our Tennessee sons and daughters today because so many--thousands--are serving in the war against terrorism-- men and women in active duty, the National Guard, and the reserves. This summer, as we celebrate Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, the dedication of the new World War II Memorial and the 60th anniversary of D-Day, we should not only remember the actions and sacrifices of the great men and women who have come before us, such as those of the 236th, but what their sacrifices have ensured for us: our freedom. The best thing we can do this summer as we pay tribute to our veterans and soldiers is this: to try to show as much respect and honor to these great volunteers as they have always shown our country.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. This article goes into some detail about the Pell grants for kids proposal. I look forward over the next several weeks to working with my colleagues, accepting their ideas and suggestions about how we improve our schools. In June sometime I hope to introduce a piece of legislation, hopefully with a bipartisan group of Senators. In July, Senator Gregg and I have already discussed a hearing which we will have in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And then perhaps next year, the President of the United States might want to make this a part of his budget. I believe it is time in this country to recognize we need to give poor and middle-income parents more of the same choices of educational opportunities wealthier families have, that we may be able to do this without harming our public schools. We have had, since World War II, scholarships that have followed students to the educational institutions of their choice, and they have done nothing but help to create opportunity and create the best system of colleges and universities in the world. I think we ought to use the same idea to try to create the best schools in the world. Exhibit 1 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am today introducing a bill to make basic educational opportunity grants available to needy elementary and secondary school students. This complements the tuition tax credit bill that we recently introduced and in no way substitutes for it. Just as I believe that both need-based grant aid and tuition tax credits should be available to assist with the costs of college education, so also should the two alternatives be available for needy students with tuition costs at the elementary and secondary level. As amended by the Middle Income Student Assistance Act of 1978, the basic grants program covers students from families with income up to $25,000; the grants range from $200, for students near the upper end of that scale, to $1,800 for students from very low-income families. Many students are not eligible for grant aid, and for them we have proposed tax credits. Some students would be eligible for grant aid, and they will presumably choose the one that suits them best. This will not necessarily be the form that produces the most assistance; for some, the simplicity of the tax credit may make it more attractive than the complex forms required to apply for a basic grant, particularly where the respective amounts of aid are not much different. Others, particularly the neediest, will plainly fare better under the grant program. But there is no redundancy or overlap between the two forms of aid: The tax credit would be available only for tuition which the student or his family actually pays; insofar as a basic grant (or other aid) covers tuition expenses, those expenses would not be eligible for a tax credit. Precisely the same reasoning ought apply to elementary and secondary schooling--if, that is, we are serious about educational pluralism and about providing educational choices to low- and middle-income families that are similar to those routinely available to upper income families. This was the impulse behind the basic educational opportunity grants program as enacted by Congress in 1972. It was the impulse behind the Presidential message to Congress that I drafted in 1970 which proposed such a program. It is the impulse to provide equality of educational opportunity to every American, and it is as legitimate and important an impulse at the primary and secondary school level as it is at the college level. The basic grants program, and the other major student aid programs authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act, will expire during the 96th Congress, and one of our important responsibilities in the next 18 months is to reform and extend them. I shall have more to say on that subject on other occasions. But it is none too early to introduce the idea that one reform that must be seriously considered is the inclusion of needy elementary and secondary school students. It will doubtless be argued by some that this legislation is unconstitutional, inasmuch as many students with tuition costs at the elementary and secondary level are enrolled in church-related schools. I see no distinction of constitutional significance between the aid we already provide to students in church-related colleges and that which I propose to provide at the primary and secondary level, but I do not assert that the Supreme Court will necessarily agree with me. As with tuition tax credits, however, this question can only be resolved by the Supreme Court, and that can only happen if the authorizing legislation is passed by the Congress.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, a half century after Brown v. Board of Education, education on equal terms still eludes too many African- American schoolchildren. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has called America's persistent racial achievement gap ``the civil rights issue of our time.'' By the 12th grade, only one in six Black students and one in five Hispanic students are reading at their grade level. Math scores are equally as disturbing. Only 3 percent of Blacks and 4 percent of Hispanics test at proficient levels by their senior year. By another standard, about 60 percent of African-American children read at or below basic level at the end of the fourth grade while 75 percent of White students read at basic or above at the end of the fourth grade. There is still a huge achievement gap among African-American children and White children. The No Child Left Behind Act's system of standards and accountability is creating a foundation for closing the gap. But funding disparities between rich and poor--too often minority children attend poorer schools--school districts remain a stubborn contributor to inequality. Between 1996 and 2000, poor students fell further behind their wealthier peers in seven out of nine key indicators, including reading, math, and science. These outcomes cry out for a different model, one that helps address funding and equality without raising property taxes; that introduces entrepreneurship and choice into a system of monopolies; and that offers school districts more Federal dollars to implement the requirements of No Child Left Behind with fewer strings--in other words, more Federal dollars, fewer Federal strings, and more parental say over how the Federal dollars are spent. Does this sound too good to be true? I would suggest it is not. Look no further than our Nation's best-in-the-world higher educational system. There we find the Pell Grant Program, which has diversified and strengthened America's colleges and universities by applying the principles of autonomy and competition. This year, $13 billion in Pell grants and work study and $42 billion in student loans will follow America's students to the colleges of their choice. This is in sharp contrast to the local monopolies we have created in kindergarten through the 12th grade education, where dollars flow directly to schools with little or no say from parents. That is why I have proposed Pell Grants for Kids, an annual $500 scholarship that would follow every middle- and low-income child to the school or other accredited academic program of his or her parent's choosing. These are new Federal dollars, so no district would see a cut in its share of Washington's $35 billion annual appropriations for K through 12, and increases in funding for students with disabilities would continue. Armed with new purchasing power, parents could directly support their school's priorities, or they could pay for tutoring, for lessons and other services on the private market. Parents in affluent school districts do this all the time. Pell Grants for Kids would give less wealthy families the same opportunities--an example of such a family are the Holidays in Nashville, TN. Raymon Holiday is a sixth grader who recently won the American Lung Association of Tennessee's clean air poster contest. I was there when he won the 10-speed bicycle you get for winning this poster competition. I met his father, an art major, and his grandfather, a retired art teacher. They told me his great-grandfather was a musician. So you can see where Raymon Holiday gets his instincts. His grandfather, the retired art teacher, lamented to me that art classes are usually the first to go when school budgets are cut. With Pell Grants for Kids, a typical middle school of 600 students where Raymon might be 1 of 500 middle- or low-income students who qualify to receive a $500 Pell Grant. His middle school would see a $250,000 increase in funding. Raymon would be assured of art lessons. The Pell grant model also encourages great American entrepreneurship. Enterprising principals, like Raymon's principal, might design programs to attract parental investment: advanced math classes, writing workshops, afterschool programs, English lessons--whatever is lacking due to funding constraints. Surveys continue to show that while Americans are concerned with the state of public education, most support their own child's public school. Herman Smith, superintendent of schools in Bryan, TX, would welcome the $6 million that would accompany 13,500 eligible Bryan students--90 percent of his district. Bryan is right next door to College Station, home of Texas A&M where, according to Smith, their budget cuts are larger than Bryan dreams of spending for new programs and personnel. Property values there are double those in Bryan, as is the per-pupil expenditure. Not surprisingly, Bryan's population is almost half African American or Latino, while College Station is three-quarters white. With 30 million American schoolchildren eligible for Pell Grants for Kids, my fellow fiscal conservatives are probably raising an eyebrow. But please listen. Every year, Congress appropriates increases in funding for kindergarten through the 12th grade. What I am offering here is a plan to earmark most of these new dollars--aside from increases for spending for children with disabilities--for parents to spend on educational programs of their choice. Otherwise, we will continue to invest in the same bureaucracies that have disappointed poor and minority families for too long. Pell Grants for Kids could be implemented gradually, starting with kindergarten and first grade at an initial cost of $2.5 billion. If the program had been in place during President Bush's first 2 years in office, the extra $4.5 billion spent on K- through-12 education--again, not counting another $3 billion for children with disabilities--would have created $500 scholarships for all 9 million middle- and low-income students through the third grade. We have had 50 years to deliver an American education on equal terms to all students. But a baffling commitment to the status quo has prevented us from living up to Brown's noble legacy. This anniversary presents the perfect opportunity to inaugurate a new era, one that uses the strategy that helped to create the best colleges to help create the best schools. Let us start with Pell Grants for Kids and move on from there ``with all deliberate speed.'' I would like to make two or three additional remarks about Pell Grants for Kids. As I mentioned, the idea is a pretty simple one--significantly new Federal dollars, fewer Federal strings, and more say by parents about how the money is spent. To give you an idea of how much money that would be, I have taken a quick look in my home State of Tennessee. Tennessee has 938,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade. Pell Grants for Kids would be eligible to all those students who are from families below the state median income. The state median income for a family of four in Tennessee is about $56,000. So for families who have an income of $56,000 or below, each of their children would have a $500 scholarship that would follow that child to the school or other approved academic program of their parents' choice. We estimate about 60 percent of all of Tennessee students would be eligible for a $500 Pell grant. In some of the rural counties where there are a great many poor children, it might be 90 percent of the students. In other counties--Davidson, Maryville, Oak Ridge--it might be a smaller percentage. But all in all, there should be about 562,000 students in Tennessee who would be eligible. This would bring an additional $281 million to Tennessee for K-12 education, and parents would have a say over how that money is spent. Often when this issue comes up and we talk about spending more Federal dollars for local schools, the Senators on my side of the aisle get a little hot under the collar. We do not want to spend any more Federal money for local schools. On the other hand, when we say let's give the parents more say on how the money is spent, the collars get a little hot on the other side of the aisle because they are reluctant to give parents more choice. This is a conflict of principles. It is the principle of equal opportunity--giving parents more choices. But there is another valid principle on the other side. It is called E pluris unum. We have public schools, common schools, to teach our common culture, and we do not want to harm them. It is a proper debate in this body to say let's ask questions if we are giving parents more say, more choices. Will that harm our common schools? And there is a proper way to ask in this Senate: Can we wisely spend that much more money? This is quite a bit more money. Fully funded Pell grants for kids programs would cost 15 billion in new Federal dollars a year. It would add about $500 to the $600 we now spend on each of the children in America today from the Federal Government. Only about 7 or 8 percent of the dollars we spend on children comes from the Federal Government. So it would be about a 70-percent increase in Federal funding for every middle- or low-income child fully funded. We are proposing to do this over a long period of time. Basically, to add to the new money that we would appropriate every year for K-12, and give most of that to Pell grants for kids. This would create more equality in funding for poor districts. It would especially help African-American and minority kids. It would provide extra dollars to implement the standards of No Child Left Behind, and it would introduce for the first time into our K-12 system the principle that has created the best colleges in the world, the idea of letting money follow students to the institution of their choice. Over the next several weeks, I will be discussing this with individual Senators. I have not prepared a piece of legislation yet because I don't want to stand up and say: Here it is, take it or leave it. Let's say one team says no choice and one team says no money, then we are back where we were. I am looking for ways to advance the debate. I don't believe we are going to be spending much more money through the Federal Government in the same way we are doing it today. A lot of Senators, and I am one of them, do not want to spend more Federal dollars through programs that have lots of Federal controls. We have seen the limit of command and control from Washington, DC, with No Child Left Behind. That program will work. But I don't believe we can expect to give many more orders from Washington to make schools in Schenectady, Nashville, and Anniston, AL, and Sacramento, better. That has to happen in local communities. The right strategy is significantly new Federal dollars with fewer Federal strings and more parental say about how those dollars are spent. This does not have to be a Republican versus Democrat idea. I am not the author of this idea. In 1947, the GI bill for veterans was enacted. Since that time, Federal dollars have followed students to the colleges of their choice. Today, 60 percent of America's college students have a Federal grant or loan that follows them to the college of their choice. When I was president of the University of Tennessee, it never occurred to me to say to the Congress: I hope you do not appropriate any money for children to go to Howard University or Notre Dame or Brigham Young or Vanderbilt or Morehouse or the University of Alabama. We give people choices. Or put it another way, in my neck of the woods we told everyone where they had to go to college. We said, Senator Sessions, you have to go to the University of Tennessee. We said to young Lamar Alexander: You have to go to University of Alabama. Civil wars have been fought over such things. That is exactly what we do in K-12. We give people choice and have created the best colleges in the world. We give them no choices and we have schools that we wish were better. So the idea would be to try what worked for colleges here in K-12. I said I was not the only one to think of this. There was the GI bill for veterans--that was bipartisan--after World War II, maybe the best piece of social legislation we ever passed in the history of our country. In 1968, Ted Sizer, perhaps the most renowned educator in America today, proposed a poor children's bill of rights, $5,000 for every poor child to go to any school of their choice, an LBJ power-of-the-people, liberal, Democratic idea at the time. In 1970, President Nixon proposed, basically, giving grants to poor children to choose among all schools. The man who wrote that speech for President Nixon was a man named Pat Moynihan. He was a U.S. Senator. In 1979, he and Senator Ribicoff, two Democrats, introduced essentially exactly the idea I am proposing today. In fact, in 1979 Senator Ribicoff and Senator Moynihan proposed amending the Federal Pell Grant Act and simply applying it to elementary and secondary students. At that time, when the Pell grant was $200 to $1,800, a third grader could get a Pell grant, or if you were a high school student and you were poor, you could get a Pell grant. Senator Moynihan said to this body in 1979: Precisely the same reason ought to apply to elementary and secondary schooling--if, that is, we are serious about education and pluralism and providing educational choice to low- and middle-income families similar to those routinely available to upper income families. This was the impulse behind the basic educational opportunity grants program as enacted by Congress in 1972. He was talking about Pell grants. It was the impulse by the Presidential message to Congress which I drafted in 1970 which proposed such a program. It is the impulse to provide equality of educational opportunity to every American, and it is as legitimate and important an impulse at the primary and secondary school level as it is at the college level. I am going to strongly urge my colleagues not to make a reflexive reaction to this idea because, on the one hand, it has too much money, or on the other hand, it has some choice. Think back over our history and think of our future and realize we have the best colleges and we do not have the best schools. Why don't we use the formula that created the best colleges to help create the best schools? I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks Senator Moynihan's statement in the Senate in 1980, and following Senator Moynihan's remarks, an article which I wrote for the publication Education Next, which is being published this week, entitled ``Putting Parents in Charge.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Chistine Dodd, my staff member, be allowed the privilege of the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Economic Committee be authorized to conduct a hearing in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Thursday, May 13, 2004, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 13, 2003 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Challenges and Accomplishments as the European Union and the United States Promote Trade and Tourism in a Terrorism Environment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to conduct a hearing during the session the Senate on Thursday, May 13, 2004. The purpose of this hearing will be to conduct a review of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulatory issues. Dr. James E. Newsome, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will testify before the committee.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 13, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the contingency reserve fund request for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 13, 2004 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on Combating Corruption in the Multilateral Development Banks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, May 13, 2004, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Building Room 226. Agenda I. Nominations Henry W. Saad to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit. II. Legislation S. 1735, Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act of 2003 (Hatch, Feinstein, Grassley, Graham, Chambliss, Cornyn, Schumer). S. 1933, Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement (ENFORCE) Act of 2003 (Hatch, Feinstein, Cornyn). S. 1635, A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to ensure the integrity of the L-1 visa for intracompany transferees (Chambliss). S. 1609, Parental Responsibility Obligations Met through Immigration System Enforcement (PROMISE) Act (Hatch, Cornyn). S. 1129, Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2003 (Feinstein, DeWine, Feingold, Kennedy, Leahy, Specter, Edwards, Durbin, Kohl, Schumer). S. 2013, Satellite Home Viewer Extension Act of 2004 (Hatch, Leahy, DeWine, Kohl). S. Res. 331, A resolution designating June 2004 as ``National Safety Month''. (Fitzgerald, Feinstein, DeWine).

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 13, 2004 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Children and Families, be authorized to meet for a hearing on Parents Raising Children: Premature Babies during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 13, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, May 13, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Building, Room 226. Agenda Bill S.J. Res. 23, A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing for the event that one- fourth of the Members of either the House of Representatives or the Senate are killed or incapacitated. [Cornyn/Chambliss].

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 13, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on acquisition policy issues in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space be authorized to meet on Thursday, May 13, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. on Social Science Data on the Impact of Marriage and Divorce on Children.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, yesterday Secretary Abraham of the Department of Energy announced that Oak Ridge National Laboratory in my home State of Tennessee was selected the winner of the Department of Energy's competition to develop a leadership class computational facility. To put that in plain English, that means the Oak Ridge Laboratory, being one of the most famous names in science in the world, will lead an effort that includes many of the brightest minds in our country to try to regain leadership in high-speed and advanced computing for the United States of America. Oak Ridge, because of this competition, will receive $25 million in funding from the Department of Energy this year for developing this leadership class facility, and the Department has requested an additional $25 million for this activity for next year. Secretary Abraham's decision will put the United States back in the leadership position in high-performance computing by supporting the development of a 50-teraflop high-end computing facility capable of performing 50 trillion calculations per second. Why is that important to us? It will permit us in this country to address many scientific problems. For example, we have great debates in this Chamber about global warming and climate change. We base a lot of important policy decisions about clean air regulations--decisions that cost us money--on what is happening in the Earth's climate. This high- end, advanced computing will help us simulate the Earth's climate and have better science upon which to make our policy decisions about global warming. High-performance computing is also required to model and simulate the plasma phenomena to examine whether fusion power can become a reality. We have enormous debates, and we have not resolved the energy picture. If fusion were an option, we would have a completely different energy picture in the world today because it would offer the promise of virtually no-cost or low-cost energy for people all around the world. Nanoscience has the possibility of revolutionizing chemistry and materials sciences. Yet the full benefit of nanoscience may not be achieved without detailed simulation of quantum interactions. Advanced manufacturing: We have great debates in this Chamber about how to keep our manufacturing jobs from moving overseas. One way to do that is to lower manufacturing costs and advance our technology, and we should be able to do that. Having advanced computing would help us do it. I was in Japan about a month ago. One of my purposes for going there was to get a briefing on what Japan calls the Earth Simulator. The Earth Simulator is Japan's high-speed, advanced computing technology. It is currently 2.5 times more powerful than anything else in the world. It has held this distinction for 2 years. The United States is not No. 1 in advanced computing; Japan is. Two years is a very long time to hold the top spot in the computing field. We are very fortunate Japan is one of the strongest allies we have on this Earth. With our scientists working with Japan's scientists, we will have an opportunity to learn more about climate together and more about manufacturing together. But the United States needs to be first in high-speed advanced computing. It is one of the critical science fields in which we need to be the world's leader. This is because high-performance computing produces scientific discoveries which were once thought only possible through experimentation. In other words, instead of actually doing the scientific experiments, we simulate those experiments with high-speed, advanced computers and are able to do calculations scientists once thought never would be possible. The $25 million in funding that was announced yesterday will put the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and all of its associates at laboratories and universities around America working together on a path to deliver a supercomputer with a sustained performance of 50 trillion calculations per second. With the Secretary's announcement, the Cray computer will be expanded to exceed sustained performance of the Earth Simulator. In other words, what is happening in Oak Ridge, if we stay on this path, will put us ahead of Japan's Earth Simulator, and the performance of this Cray architecture at Oak Ridge will be evaluated by the Oak Ridge scientists on a host of problems, including climate science, materials science, chemistry, astrophysics, and fusion. The decision by the Secretary is very timely. Recently, on May 3, the New York Times published a front-page article stating the United States is losing its dominance in the sciences. This article basically points out the foreign advances in basic science rival or exceed those of U.S. scientists. Japan's Earth Simulator was one of the best examples of our loss of scientific leadership. The article stated impacts of the advances in other countries can be seen by the increases in U.S. patents that are held by foreign companies, and the dominance of foreign scientists in publishing articles in the physical sciences and the reduction in the number of U.S. recipients of Nobel Prizes. These changes need to be understood. Since World War II, at least half our jobs in the United States of America have come because of advances in science and technology. We are entering an even more competitive era. We are entering it at a time--I was thinking about this while I was in Japan--when our country and Japan, those two countries, have 43 to 45 percent of all the gross domestic product in the world. We are 5 percent of the people in the world, and we have a third of the dollars. Add Japan to that, and we are 43 to 45 percent; those two countries have 43 to 45 percent of the dollars. We are not going to keep our standard of living even in a world that grows greatly in wealth unless we have some secret weapon. That secret weapon has to be brainpower, computer power, and scientific power. Our secret weapons are our national laboratories and our great research universities. That has been true before and it is true for the future. Some have suggested the current administration, the Bush administration, has neglected basic research. I think we need to put this in context. The Bush administration and this Congress have followed through with the effort to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health. The NIH budget increased nearly 44 percent from 2000 to 2003. Furthermore, since coming into office, President Bush has significantly increased funding for the National Science Foundation. That science budget increased by a factor of nearly 27 percent in the last 3 years. But despite these accomplishments by the Bush administration and by this Congress and the previous Congress, the physical sciences and engineering fields historically have been neglected. This systemic neglect has occurred for more than a decade. The Department of Energy's Office of Sciences is the largest supporter of basic research in physical sciences and engineering. While this office and its predecessor are responsible for many of our scientific advances, including significant contributions to mapping the human genome, the office has largely been neglected over the last 10 years. In fact, when adjusting for inflation, the Office of Science received more funding in 1992 than it has in any other year over the past 12 years. The most significant decline in funding for the Office of Science occurred during the Clinton administration. So let's spread the blame all around, and let's spread the credit, too. We have done a good job in funding the health sciences. We have done a good job at the National Science Foundation. We have done a poor job on the physical sciences. Our future depends on the physical sciences just as much, maybe more, than it does on the other sciences. Our great research universities, our national laboratories, and our industry leaders have urged the funding for the physical sciences and that engineering be brought to parity with that of the life and medical sciences. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology made the same recommendation last year. Some argue we cannot expect to be the leader in every field. That is correct, but we need to be among the world leaders in most fields and need to lead in some fields. One of those critical fields is high- performance computers. Computing is seen by many as the third pillar of science--right after theory and experimentation. Secretary Abraham's announcement is the first step in developing and sustaining our Nation's leadership in high-performance computers. I have sponsored the High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004 along with Senator Bingaman. This would authorize the Secretary to carry out research and development to keep our Nation on the forefront of high-performance computing. The act authorizes the Energy Secretary to establish scientific computing facilities and would authorize a minimum of $100 million per year for 5 years to establish these facilities. It would authorize the Secretary to establish a high-end software development center and would authorize a minimum of $10 million a year for 5 years for this activity. If we want to regain the lead in high-speed computing, high-performance computing, this is what we must do. We know exactly how to do it. We have the laboratories to do it. We have the research universities to do it. Oak Ridge has now been selected as the coordinator of that effort. If we fund it, we will regain it. It is up to us to do it. I have also sponsored the Energy and Scientific Research Investment Act of 2003 with Senators Levin, Warner, and Bingaman. This would essentially double funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science to keep our Nation among the leaders of science. The authorizations for this bill became part of the Energy bill. We must act to put our Nation back at the forefront of science. We have a lot of discussions in the Senate. Most of them have to do with our high standard of living. They take for granted the fact that we live in an increasingly well-educated world and that most of our ability to maintain that standard of living has to do with whether we have good schools, whether we have great universities, and whether we have great energy laboratories. We talk about outsourcing. In Europe, the outsourcing they talk about is the outsourcing of brains being attracted by our universities and our national laboratories. Mr. Schroeder in Germany and Mr. Blair in Great Britain are challenging their higher education system because they are falling behind our higher education system. Our research universities and our national laboratories are our secret weapons for our national defense, for our standard of living, and for our improved health care. They have been for 50 years, and they will be in the future. I am delighted to see the Secretary of Energy has made his decision to center an attempt to regain the lead for the United States in advanced computing facilities by focusing that effort at Oak Ridge. However, I hope this Congress on both sides of the aisle will now begin to pay attention to proper funding of the physical science over the next 5 years. We should double it, as we have doubled funding for the health sciences. If we do so, it is the surest path to maintaining our standard of living, our national defense and our health care. I ask unanimous consent the article from the New York Times to which I refer from Monday, May 3, be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tim Valentine of my staff be allowed on the floor during these remarks.