Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, what is the order of business?

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes the motion to proceed to S. 150, the Internet tax access bill, there be 2 hours and 40 minutes for debate remaining with 2 hours under the control of Senator Alexander or his designee, with 20 minutes under the control of the chairman of the committee and 20 minutes under the control of Senator Dorgan; provided further that at the use or yielding back of that time the motion to proceed be agreed to.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Alexander and Mr. Chambliss pertaining to the introduction of S. 2319 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I commend the Senator from Ohio for his comments on the asbestos legislation. This is a time when Americans are concerned about jobs, especially about manufacturing jobs. In the State of Tennessee, as in the State of Ohio, a large number of those jobs are in the automotive industry. About one-third of the manufacturing jobs in Tennessee is in the automotive industry. Making automobiles is a very competitive business. There are companies all over the world making cars. They are putting their assembly plants and their parts suppliers in Ohio and in Tennessee, but they can put them in Germany, South Korea, Mexico, and other places. If costs in manufacturing cars and trucks in America go a little bit higher, then we hear a lot about jobs going overseas. All Senators who are worried about good manufacturing jobs going overseas, jobs in the automotive industry in Ohio and in Tennessee, should be wanting to come to the Senate floor and raise their hand and say, let's get on with this asbestos legislation because it is slowing down our economy, it is going to hurt the companies that produce the jobs and it is keeping the victims from getting a fair recovery. So I congratulate the Senator from Ohio. This helps Americans, and it is a piece of jobs legislation. I hear about it from auto parts suppliers. I hear about it, as I am sure the Senator does, from many manufacturers. I thank him for his leadership. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized as in morning business for the purpose of introducing legislation.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Sharon Segner during consideration of S. 2319.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I rise to speak about an issue that concerns the Senator from North Carolina and her constituents. I know of her love for the Great Smoky Mountains and her concern for the outdoors, and while most of what I am about to say affects eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, anything that affects eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains has something to do with western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains. This is some good news for the outdoors men and women and all of the people who love the mountains, the valleys, and the rivers of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. The legislation I have introduced will save thousands of good-paying jobs at the Aluminum Company of America plants in Blount County, which is my hometown, and at the same time provide recreational opportunities on thousands of acres of ALCOA mountain land for canoeists, hikers, and fisher men and women. Of importance to all of us who enjoy the outdoors in east Tennessee and North Carolina, this agreement should help to create fuller lake reservoirs during the summer recreation season. This bill I have introduced today is necessary because since 1913, a little more than 90 years, the Aluminum Company of America has operated dams high on the Little Tennessee River adjacent to what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. These dams were built before either the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Great Smoky Mountain National Park were created. These four dams provide half of the electric power ALCOA uses to operate its plants in the valley below the mountains in Blount County, TN. ALCOA's license to operate these four dams expires next year. The company has applied to the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission for a 40-year license renewal. ALCOA's license renewal application has created a lot of interest in the Tennessee Valley, and for two reasons. The first reason involves the economic well-being of thousands of current and retired ALCOA workers in the communities in which they live. The second reason is the application has attracted broad attention from conservation organizations because of the opportunity to create recreational opportunity on land ALCOA owns in the Little Tennessee River watershed adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of this ALCOA land is actually within the legislation boundaries of the park. On this chart the darker area is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is a unique park created in the mid-1930s and given by the people of North Carolina and Tennessee to the United States. It is the only national park in our system that was given to the Government and not bought by the Government. It has 500,000 acres, more or less, and it is visited each year by about 10 million Americans. It is by far the most visited national park in America. Yellowstone National Park, as an example, has about 3 million visitors a year. This is the Little Tennessee River. It was the center of the Cherokee civilization when the European pioneers came. This is the river on which Alcoa began to build dams nearly a century ago. Around these four dams on the river is the land we are talking about. This is approximately 10,000 acres that lie between the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and between the Cherokee National Forest and the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness Area. This is Tennessee. This is North Carolina. The Tennessee/North Carolina border runs right across the top of those 6,000-foot mountains. One of the most beautiful areas in America with virgin timber is right here in the Joyce Kilmer- Slickrock Creek Wilderness Area just across the line from Tennessee. So we are talking in my remarks and in this legislation about 10,000 acres that lie between the Great Smokies and the Cherokee National Forest. One may wonder, just listening to this, what does that have to do with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under our rules, Alcoa now has to apply for a 40-year renewal to operate these four dams. The conservation organizations in the area and the neighboring communities began a discussion with Alcoa 7 years ago about what would happen when that application renewal came up. That 7 years of discussion between the Aluminum Company of America, the neighboring regions, and the various conservation organizations have come up with a settlement agreement on which people have worked long and hard. Basically it does this. Alcoa will basically swap or exchange this land here in exchange for community and conservation support for the license renewal. We are going to hold a hearing on this whole subject on April 27 in the Senate Energy Committee. I look forward to working with our chairman, Senator Domenici, and with the chairman of the National Park Subcommittee, Senator Thomas, on that day. We hear a lot about obstinate companies that are not interested in the environment. We hear a lot about conservation organizations that will not be reasonable. Here is a good story. Here is a textbook example of how a major American company can work with communities and conservation organizations to help Americans keep a high standard of living as well as to conserve the environment. Once approved, I expect it to become a model for many other companies, communities, and conservation groups. I see on the floor now the Senator from Georgia, who spent a fair amount of his younger life in Tennessee, probably in these same mountains. He, as I, and the Senator from North Carolina, have visited and hiked in and enjoyed these mountains as thousands do. Let me say first a word about the jobs involved and then a word about the recreational opportunities. On the jobs, looking back those 90 years, this is the story. In 1913 a group of men from Pittsburgh came quietly to Maryville, TN, to meet with the mayor. The businessmen were looking for a location for an aluminum smelter. They came to Maryville because alumina is extracted from bauxite ore in an electrolysis process requiring huge amounts of electricity, and the opportunity for producing huge amounts of electricity existed better in the Tennessee Valley than in almost any other part of the United States. The Great Smoky Mountains rise to more than 6,600 feet above the valley in which Maryville is situated, and the rainfall in those mountains is more than 80 inches a year, one of the highest in America. So that combination, heavy rainfall and fast-running water, created a formula for making cheap hydroelectric power, so Alcoa built four dams along the Little Tennessee River: Calderwood, Cheoah, Chilhowee, and Fontana. Half of the electricity for the Alcoa operations in east Tennessee comes from those four dams. The rest of Alcoa's power is purchased from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Here is what happened to the far-sighted mayor who visited with those Alcoa executives in 1913 and approved the location of that aluminum smelter in the Tennessee Valley. He was literally tarred and feathered and run out of town because the mountain people did not want to be disturbed by what they were afraid was about to come and disturb their lifestyle. What came was the largest aluminum smelter in the world, which, when combined with a fabricating plant and a rolling mill, employed as many as 14,000 during World War II. The Alcoa plants made the metal that helped win the war. Meanwhile, the Alcoa jobs, those 14,000 jobs since 1913 until today, transformed one of the poorer parts of America. When Alcoa came to Appalachia, family incomes of these families of east Tennessee were about one-third of the national average. I know about this. Our family has been in that part of Tennessee for seven generations. But the Aluminum Company of America began to pay steelworker wages to these 14,000 families and those wages were national wages. So suddenly men and women from all over east Tennessee, and I imagine some from North Carolina, were driving dozens of miles to get one of those Alcoa jobs that brought with it good income, good health care, and a retirement income. Some of those who went to work there included many African Americans who had been brought to Tennessee from Alabama to help build the plants. The changes that those Alcoa jobs brought to Blount County and to the surrounding counties is proof positive of what three generations of good jobs can do: good housing, low crime, strong families, some of the best public schools anywhere in America, almost nobody rich but almost everybody with a good job. Today, there are 2,000 Alcoa jobs in east Tennessee. That means $140 million in salaries and benefits. It means $\1/2\ million a year in Alcoa Foundation education scholarships to children of those employees. It means $230 million each year in purchased goods and services; $7 million in State and local taxes--a total of $377 million a year just to Tennessee. I must confess a personal interest in this story. I grew up hearing about Charles Martin Hall and the discovery of Aluminum. My father went to work for Alcoa in 1941, the year after I was born. The job the plant manager, Mr. Granville Swaney, offered to him as a safety engineer paid twice what my father was being paid as principal at West Side Elementary School, and one of those Alcoa Foundation scholarships went to me in 1958, making it possible for me to attend Vanderbilt University, something I never could have afforded to do otherwise. So you can see why I believe, as well as I am sure almost all Tennesseans believe, it is critically important to renew this hydroelectric license for another 40 years and keep these good jobs in the Tennessee Valley. Without these four dams providing low-cost reliable power, these jobs would be gone overnight, probably to Alcoa plants in Quebec or Iceland where the hydroelectric power is plentiful and cheap. The second reason and the final reason this settlement agreement has attracted such widespread interest is because of the recreation opportunities it will provide. Tapoco is the name of the Alcoa subsidiary that owns the four dams I described along this Little Tennessee River. The acres contained within the Tapoco project are sandwiched between nearly 10,000 acres of nonproject lands owned by Alcoa. These nonproject lands are the 10,000 acres in green here. This is in the area I mentioned of the Great Smokies, the Cherokee National Forest, the Nantahala National Forest, the Citico Creek, and Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness Areas. A critical requirement in obtaining this 40-year license renewal is this settlement agreement negotiated by and with a large group of interested relicensing stakeholders. These stakeholders include the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the eastern band of Cherokees, State agencies representing Tennessee and North Carolina, numerous nongovernmental organizations, local government, homeowners associations, and individual citizens. They began to discuss all of this 7 years ago. It has taken all of that time to work this out. In order to make this effective, however, Congress must authorize the land exchanges in the settlement agreement. The terms and conditions under the settlement agreement will then become terms and conditions under Alcoa's hydroelectric license. In order for the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission to have legal authority to put the settlement agreement terms and conditions in the license, legislation from Congress is required prior to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission making a relicensing decision in August of 2004. Much of the settlement agreement is focused on the transfer of land interests between the Great Smoky Mountains, the U.S. Forest Service, and Alcoa. Let me see if I can describe it simply. The first part of the land swap is between the Great Smokies National Park and Alcoa. The Great Smokies will transfer 100 acres of flood areas of land in exchange for 186 acres of biologically sensitive acreage that Alcoa owns. All of us growing up always heard about people from Florida coming up and wanting to buy land and we would sell them land that was flooded, or they would sell us land that was flooded. But basically, flooded land--100 acres--is being swapped for 186 acres of land that is a biologically diverse area, and this will go into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. In fact, it was already within the legislative boundaries. But I suppose the park ran out of money back in the 1930s and couldn't buy it. The second component is a big tract of land--6,000 acres between the Smokies and the Cherokee National Forest. After a complicated set of arrangements, what can happen is this: It involves the Nature Conservancy, but this legislation authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to purchase this land at a reasonable value from the Nature Conservancy after Alcoa gives it to the Nature Conservancy. The long and short of it will be that after 3 years, hopefully the Great Smokies will be 6,000 acres larger and immediately people who live in this region will be able to enjoy this 6,000 acres. There is one other part to this. There is a 4,000-acre tract over here. The Nature Conservancy will own this under the agreement, but it will also be open to outdoor recreation, to hunters, and to fishermen. All of this is part of Alcoa's relicensing agreement. The people who work here get the jobs. Everybody who lives here gets to enjoy a national park with 6,000 more acres and an area that includes 4,000 more acres. That is the legislation I have introduced today. The legislation will allow the settlement agreement worked on for 7 years to be implemented and for Alcoa's relicensing process at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to proceed. Alcoa, American Rivers, Blount County, city of Alcoa, city of Maryville, eastern band of Cherokee Indians, Great Smoky Mountains National Park--I say particularly the Nature Conservancy and the National Parks Conservation Association--thank you for your hard work. Also, North Carolina Department of Environment and Conservation, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Tennessee Clean Water Network, and various other organizations I want to mention have also been a part of this effort. It gives me a great deal of personal pleasure to be able to come to the floor and compliment the hard work of others over the last 7 years. The hard work of the Aluminum Company of America, the creativeness and reasonableness of the conservation organizations and communities will result in 2,000 good jobs being saved and all of us being able to enjoy up to 10,000 more acres adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I rise to speak about an issue that concerns the Senator from North Carolina and her constituents. I know of her love for the Great Smoky Mountains and her concern for the outdoors, and while most of what I am about to say affects eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, anything that affects eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains has something to do with western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains. This is some good news for the outdoors men and women and all of the people who love the mountains, the valleys, and the rivers of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. The legislation I have introduced will save thousands of good-paying jobs at the Aluminum Company of America plants in Blount County, which is my hometown, and at the same time provide recreational opportunities on thousands of acres of ALCOA mountain land for canoeists, hikers, and fisher men and women. Of importance to all of us who enjoy the outdoors in east Tennessee and North Carolina, this agreement should help to create fuller lake reservoirs during the summer recreation season. This bill I have introduced today is necessary because since 1913, a little more than 90 years, the Aluminum Company of America has operated dams high on the Little Tennessee River adjacent to what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. These dams were built before either the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Great Smoky Mountain National Park were created. These four dams provide half of the electric power ALCOA uses to operate its plants in the valley below the mountains in Blount County, TN. ALCOA's license to operate these four dams expires next year. The company has applied to the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission for a 40-year license renewal. ALCOA's license renewal application has created a lot of interest in the Tennessee Valley, and for two reasons. The first reason involves the economic well-being of thousands of current and retired ALCOA workers in the communities in which they live. The second reason is the application has attracted broad attention from conservation organizations because of the opportunity to create recreational opportunity on land ALCOA owns in the Little Tennessee River watershed adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of this ALCOA land is actually within the legislation boundaries of the park. On this chart the darker area is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is a unique park created in the mid-1930s and given by the people of North Carolina and Tennessee to the United States. It is the only national park in our system that was given to the Government and not bought by the Government. It has 500,000 acres, more or less, and it is visited each year by about 10 million Americans. It is by far the most visited national park in America. Yellowstone National Park, as an example, has about 3 million visitors a year. This is the Little Tennessee River. It was the center of the Cherokee civilization when the European pioneers came. This is the river on which Alcoa began to build dams nearly a century ago. Around these four dams on the river is the land we are talking about. This is approximately 10,000 acres that lie between the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and between the Cherokee National Forest and the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness Area. This is Tennessee. This is North Carolina. The Tennessee/North Carolina border runs right across the top of those 6,000-foot mountains. One of the most beautiful areas in America with virgin timber is right here in the Joyce Kilmer- Slickrock Creek Wilderness Area just across the line from Tennessee. So we are talking in my remarks and in this legislation about 10,000 acres that lie between the Great Smokies and the Cherokee National Forest. One may wonder, just listening to this, what does that have to do with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under our rules, Alcoa now has to apply for a 40-year renewal to operate these four dams. The conservation organizations in the area and the neighboring communities began a discussion with Alcoa 7 years ago about what would happen when that application renewal came up. That 7 years of discussion between the Aluminum Company of America, the neighboring regions, and the various conservation organizations have come up with a settlement agreement on which people have worked long and hard. Basically it does this. Alcoa will basically swap or exchange this land here in exchange for community and conservation support for the license renewal. We are going to hold a hearing on this whole subject on April 27 in the Senate Energy Committee. I look forward to working with our chairman, Senator Domenici, and with the chairman of the National Park Subcommittee, Senator Thomas, on that day. We hear a lot about obstinate companies that are not interested in the environment. We hear a lot about conservation organizations that will not be reasonable. Here is a good story. Here is a textbook example of how a major American company can work with communities and conservation organizations to help Americans keep a high standard of living as well as to conserve the environment. Once approved, I expect it to become a model for many other companies, communities, and conservation groups. I see on the floor now the Senator from Georgia, who spent a fair amount of his younger life in Tennessee, probably in these same mountains. He, as I, and the Senator from North Carolina, have visited and hiked in and enjoyed these mountains as thousands do. Let me say first a word about the jobs involved and then a word about the recreational opportunities. On the jobs, looking back those 90 years, this is the story. In 1913 a group of men from Pittsburgh came quietly to Maryville, TN, to meet with the mayor. The businessmen were looking for a location for an aluminum smelter. They came to Maryville because alumina is extracted from bauxite ore in an electrolysis process requiring huge amounts of electricity, and the opportunity for producing huge amounts of electricity existed better in the Tennessee Valley than in almost any other part of the United States. The Great Smoky Mountains rise to more than 6,600 feet above the valley in which Maryville is situated, and the rainfall in those mountains is more than 80 inches a year, one of the highest in America. So that combination, heavy rainfall and fast-running water, created a formula for making cheap hydroelectric power, so Alcoa built four dams along the Little Tennessee River: Calderwood, Cheoah, Chilhowee, and Fontana. Half of the electricity for the Alcoa operations in east Tennessee comes from those four dams. The rest of Alcoa's power is purchased from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Here is what happened to the far-sighted mayor who visited with those Alcoa executives in 1913 and approved the location of that aluminum smelter in the Tennessee Valley. He was literally tarred and feathered and run out of town because the mountain people did not want to be disturbed by what they were afraid was about to come and disturb their lifestyle. What came was the largest aluminum smelter in the world, which, when combined with a fabricating plant and a rolling mill, employed as many as 14,000 during World War II. The Alcoa plants made the metal that helped win the war. Meanwhile, the Alcoa jobs, those 14,000 jobs since 1913 until today, transformed one of the poorer parts of America. When Alcoa came to Appalachia, family incomes of these families of east Tennessee were about one-third of the national average. I know about this. Our family has been in that part of Tennessee for seven generations. But the Aluminum Company of America began to pay steelworker wages to these 14,000 families and those wages were national wages. So suddenly men and women from all over east Tennessee, and I imagine some from North Carolina, were driving dozens of miles to get one of those Alcoa jobs that brought with it good income, good health care, and a retirement income. Some of those who went to work there included many African Americans who had been brought to Tennessee from Alabama to help build the plants. The changes that those Alcoa jobs brought to Blount County and to the surrounding counties is proof positive of what three generations of good jobs can do: good housing, low crime, strong families, some of the best public schools anywhere in America, almost nobody rich but almost everybody with a good job. Today, there are 2,000 Alcoa jobs in east Tennessee. That means $140 million in salaries and benefits. It means $\1/2\ million a year in Alcoa Foundation education scholarships to children of those employees. It means $230 million each year in purchased goods and services; $7 million in State and local taxes--a total of $377 million a year just to Tennessee. I must confess a personal interest in this story. I grew up hearing about Charles Martin Hall and the discovery of Aluminum. My father went to work for Alcoa in 1941, the year after I was born. The job the plant manager, Mr. Granville Swaney, offered to him as a safety engineer paid twice what my father was being paid as principal at West Side Elementary School, and one of those Alcoa Foundation scholarships went to me in 1958, making it possible for me to attend Vanderbilt University, something I never could have afforded to do otherwise. So you can see why I believe, as well as I am sure almost all Tennesseans believe, it is critically important to renew this hydroelectric license for another 40 years and keep these good jobs in the Tennessee Valley. Without these four dams providing low-cost reliable power, these jobs would be gone overnight, probably to Alcoa plants in Quebec or Iceland where the hydroelectric power is plentiful and cheap. The second reason and the final reason this settlement agreement has attracted such widespread interest is because of the recreation opportunities it will provide. Tapoco is the name of the Alcoa subsidiary that owns the four dams I described along this Little Tennessee River. The acres contained within the Tapoco project are sandwiched between nearly 10,000 acres of nonproject lands owned by Alcoa. These nonproject lands are the 10,000 acres in green here. This is in the area I mentioned of the Great Smokies, the Cherokee National Forest, the Nantahala National Forest, the Citico Creek, and Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness Areas. A critical requirement in obtaining this 40-year license renewal is this settlement agreement negotiated by and with a large group of interested relicensing stakeholders. These stakeholders include the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the eastern band of Cherokees, State agencies representing Tennessee and North Carolina, numerous nongovernmental organizations, local government, homeowners associations, and individual citizens. They began to discuss all of this 7 years ago. It has taken all of that time to work this out. In order to make this effective, however, Congress must authorize the land exchanges in the settlement agreement. The terms and conditions under the settlement agreement will then become terms and conditions under Alcoa's hydroelectric license. In order for the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission to have legal authority to put the settlement agreement terms and conditions in the license, legislation from Congress is required prior to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission making a relicensing decision in August of 2004. Much of the settlement agreement is focused on the transfer of land interests between the Great Smoky Mountains, the U.S. Forest Service, and Alcoa. Let me see if I can describe it simply. The first part of the land swap is between the Great Smokies National Park and Alcoa. The Great Smokies will transfer 100 acres of flood areas of land in exchange for 186 acres of biologically sensitive acreage that Alcoa owns. All of us growing up always heard about people from Florida coming up and wanting to buy land and we would sell them land that was flooded, or they would sell us land that was flooded. But basically, flooded land--100 acres--is being swapped for 186 acres of land that is a biologically diverse area, and this will go into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. In fact, it was already within the legislative boundaries. But I suppose the park ran out of money back in the 1930s and couldn't buy it. The second component is a big tract of land--6,000 acres between the Smokies and the Cherokee National Forest. After a complicated set of arrangements, what can happen is this: It involves the Nature Conservancy, but this legislation authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to purchase this land at a reasonable value from the Nature Conservancy after Alcoa gives it to the Nature Conservancy. The long and short of it will be that after 3 years, hopefully the Great Smokies will be 6,000 acres larger and immediately people who live in this region will be able to enjoy this 6,000 acres. There is one other part to this. There is a 4,000-acre tract over here. The Nature Conservancy will own this under the agreement, but it will also be open to outdoor recreation, to hunters, and to fishermen. All of this is part of Alcoa's relicensing agreement. The people who work here get the jobs. Everybody who lives here gets to enjoy a national park with 6,000 more acres and an area that includes 4,000 more acres. That is the legislation I have introduced today. The legislation will allow the settlement agreement worked on for 7 years to be implemented and for Alcoa's relicensing process at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to proceed. Alcoa, American Rivers, Blount County, city of Alcoa, city of Maryville, eastern band of Cherokee Indians, Great Smoky Mountains National Park--I say particularly the Nature Conservancy and the National Parks Conservation Association--thank you for your hard work. Also, North Carolina Department of Environment and Conservation, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Tennessee Clean Water Network, and various other organizations I want to mention have also been a part of this effort. It gives me a great deal of personal pleasure to be able to come to the floor and compliment the hard work of others over the last 7 years. The hard work of the Aluminum Company of America, the creativeness and reasonableness of the conservation organizations and communities will result in 2,000 good jobs being saved and all of us being able to enjoy up to 10,000 more acres adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise today to tell my colleagues about a generous person, who I am proud to call my friend and a Tennessean. His name is John ``Thunder'' Thornton. You may have read about his generosity last week in USA Today. In 1998, John went to the Final Four in San Antonio. While there, he had a frightening experience--he has a heart attack in the back of a taxi cab. His cab driver, Ceasar Hernandez, quickly drove him to the hospital and then made sure his teenage children, Dori and Johnny, got back to the hotel where family friends could take care of them. In the USA Today article, John said, ``Caesar saved my life, and he comforted my kids at a time when they needed that. I wanted to do something for him.'' So to show his appreciation 6 years ago, John bought the stranger who saved his life a 1998 Cadillac sedan. The new car allowed Mr. Hernandez to start a cab company in his hometown of Victoria, TX instead of commuting to San Antonio to drive a taxi. John's gratefulness and graciousness doesn't end there. He returned to San Antonio last Friday for the Final Four. While there, he took Mr. Hernandez to the games and dinner and also had a surprise in store. Anyone who knows John knows he's an avid fan of the University of Tennessee. Ten years ago, he bought an orange and white stretch limo that he's driven to UT games across the country. Now Mr. Hernandez's taxi cab fleet includes that limousine. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Most people in Tennessee know about John's gift to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to establish the Thornton Athletic Student Life Center. But most people don't know that 10 years ago, when John sold his business in Georgia, he paid off the mortgages of every employee that worked for him. As I said earlier, I am proud to call him my friend, and I am proud to call him a Tennessean. His father, Lloyd, and my father carpooled to work at the Aluminum Company of America in Alcoa when John and I were growing up in Maryville. The Lloyd L. Thornton stadium at Maryville College is named in honor of him--a tribute by his son. On a personal note, I was proud to introduce John's daughter Dori, our Tennessee Cherry Blossom princess, at an event last week. She is a young Washington professional doing a fantastic job in political event planning and fundraising for Hammond and Associates. Like he father, Dori has an incredible energy and commitment to service. She serves as a patient care volunteer at the Children's National Medical Center and the Gilda's Club of Greater Washington and is a Junior Achievement kindergarten teacher at Douglas MacArthur Elementary School. She is a lovely young woman and a true Tennessee volunteer. Mr. President, thank you for allowing me to tell you and our Senate colleagues about a man who has found success and has set an example for all of us in what he does for others with that success.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I simply want to congratulate the majority leader on a speech filled with a lot of common sense. I would like to hear more of that these days and will just take 3 or 4 minutes to go back over what I heard and emphasize it. On the first point, all the talk about jobs comes down to jobs training. We know in this country, and we have known it for years, that our economy is characterized by losing jobs and gaining jobs. I remember 25 years ago during my first year as Governor; I went down to Memphis to try to persuade the International Harvester plant not to close. I got my picture in the paper and pats on my back. I went back to Nashville. The next day they closed. I realized if all I was doing was going around having my picture made in front of plants that closed I wouldn't be much of a Governor. The more I study, I realize we literally will lose 6 or 7 percent of our jobs every year in Tennessee and in this country. The key to success is whether we replace them with better jobs. The key to that is whether we educate American men and women who are in one job to get a better job. That is painful. That is hard. That is not easy. But that is the truth. The President's proposal about community colleges and the workforce bill, which is being held up, are good antidotes to that. Second, on the majority leader's comments on insourcing, he is exactly right about that. We don't want to say: Nissan, go home from Smyrna, TN; Toyota, don't build that plant in San Antonio; Honda, go home from Ohio. In our State alone, as was pointed out, over the last 20 years the coming of the auto industry to Tennessee has raised our family income from 80 percent of the national average to 100 percent of the national average. It has been led by foreign companies. If they can't come here, we can't go there. This is a two-way world. The last thing the majority leader said is exactly right. We should learn our lesson in the way we are insourcing. If you go to Europe, you hear a lot of people talking about outsourcing there. They are outsourcing brains to the United States because they are coming to our universities. We have created an environment in which we can grow the best universities in the world, and we have done it. We can create the same environment in the United States for the best jobs in the world. We can do that by passing a lot of legislation that is being held up here by the other side: legislation to reduce the cost of energy, the Energy bill; legislation that would lower the corporate tax on manufacturing--that is the JOBS bill being held up; legislation that would reduce runaway lawsuits and reduce costs on business. The majority leader brought that up several times. Legislation that would solve the asbestos problem would reduce costs on business. By reducing costs and encouraging education, we can create the same sort of environment that will insource new good jobs into America just as we have created the best universities in the world and insourcing the best brains in the world that are coming to the U.S. because they are attracted here. I hope I hear more of that kind of commonsense language, not just from the majority leader but from more and more Senators on both sides of the aisle. I wanted to compliment him and congratulate him for his remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to respond to the majority leader's comments, if I may. I, as a great many Americans, am going to be watching the Connecticut-Tennessee basketball game tonight at 8:30 eastern time. Connecticut has a wonderful tradition, a terrific coach, and great players. They have won the last couple of years. But the Naismith Coach of the Year this year is Pat Summitt. For those of us in Tennessee, she is the coach of the year every year. Senator Frist has mentioned her achievements as a coach, which I think we must take for granted in Tennessee. We expect Pat Summitt to be in the Final Four. We expect her team to be in the finals. We expect her often to win, and we sometimes forget how hard that is. Twenty-five years ago, it might have been easy when women's basketball was starting. Today, there is a lot of parity. There are a good many great coaches. There are many teams inspired by Pat Summitt. It is an enormous accomplishment for Coach Summitt to have this team in the finals once again. One day, when she is finished--and I hope that is no time soon--I will look back and say how could that have happened, and how much could one woman build this game and make such a difference? She does one other thing that I think is important to hear. This is a time when we hear about athletes, which we wish we hadn't heard, young men and women suddenly exposed to fame, money, and television with bad results. You do not hear about many of Pat Summit's young women. It was true a few years ago when I was president of the University of Tennessee that every single young woman who completed her eligibility at Tennessee on a Pat Summitt team has received her degree or is in the process of completing her degree requirements--every single one. That was true 10 years ago. I suspect it is still true today. If you watch those young women when they are interviewed, before, after the game, or any other time, they look like future coaches. They speak well. They conduct themselves well. They are graceful toward their opponents. They make us proud to be Tennesseans when we see them. So this team not only wins, its coach and players conduct themselves brilliantly as scholars and as competitors, and they bring out the best in our country. Pat Summitt, I suppose, is not for every young woman who wants to play college basketball. She is a tough competitor. I think that is one reason why she is such a good coach and why she gets many of the greatest players. She and her staff bring out the best in players, and they want to play for Pat Summitt. There are little girls around this country who play basketball in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade who dream of growing up to play for Pat Summitt. One other thing I would add. Pat Summitt has kept her coaching team together for a long time. Mickie DeMoss, her assistant, left for the University of Kentucky to take a well-deserved head coaching position there. Mickie DeMoss is a great recruiter and will be a great head coach, I believe. Many people thought when Mickey went to Kentucky, Pat would not be able to recruit as well. I am sure the competitive urge in Pat Summitt caused her to go out and recruit what is already being called the ``Fabulous 6,'' the All America player of the year for the last 2 years and five other young women who are coming to the University of Tennessee next year on scholarships. Many basketball analysts say it is the best women's recruiting class ever. Senator Frist and I salute Coach Pat Summitt, not just for being Coach of the Year this year, but, in our book, for being coach every year and for effort in the incredible graduation rate of the young women who have played for her and helping them grow into womanhood and to represent our State and our country in that sport very well. Mr. President, if I may speak on another subject, I come to the floor today to express my concern, once again, with the rising cost of medical liability insurance and what this means for patient access to medical care in Tennessee. This is a subject we have talked about many times on this floor, and it is a subject I hear about often when I am in Tennessee. Last February, we debated this issue right here and, unfortunately, we were not even able to get to a vote on it. We were not able to invoke cloture, we were not able to vote on the issue of medical liability insurance. Today we are limiting our debate to just this issue: the care for mothers and babies and for anyone with an emergency medical condition. That is all we are talking about in this legislation--mothers and babies and anyone of any age with an emergency medical condition. These are the individuals who have the highest need for medical care in our country, and the lack of access to that care can prove deadly. The increasing cost of medical liability insurance is creating a patient access crisis because doctors are leaving the practice of medicine rather than pay the high cost of medical malpractice insurance. For example, in the Hardin County General Hospital in Savannah, in west Tennessee, the only OB/GYN doctor left the hospital to practice in another State because Tennessee's insurance premiums were too high. High medical liability insurance is one more reason it is difficult to recruit specialists to rural areas. We need to make certain we ensure access to good care in emergency rooms for all Americans, all Tennesseans. Yet neurosurgeon Rick Boop of Memphis, TN, wrote me to say: I have seen three children die recently of shunt malfunctions in emergency rooms which did not have a neurosurgeon who could perform procedures on children. All neurosurgeons can provide a simple shunt revision, but many are being forced to stop caring for children in order to retain or reduce their liability premiums. All three of these children died awaiting helicopter transport to a children's hospital-- Where there was a specialist who could perform that type of procedure. More and more Americans are seeking emergency room care. In Tennessee, for example, the number of emergency room visits increased by almost one-third, 31 percent, over a 3-year period. The largest increase in usage was among individuals in our TennCare program, our Medicaid program. These are the people who need the most help, our poorest people in Tennessee. We need to make sure specialists are available in the emergency rooms of this country and Tennessee to care for these patients. In 2002, the average net medical liability premium for an OB/GYN in Tennessee was $33,600. In 2003, the premium was up to $41,980. In 2004, it increased again to $49,408. This is a 47-percent increase in medical malpractice insurance premiums over the past 3 years. This is not sustainable over time if we expect to have doctors, specialists in the hospitals, in the emergency rooms, to care for mothers and babies and the most vulnerable in our society. Two years ago, I met a young woman who had just graduated from the University of Tennessee Medical School. She was looking forward to going into her OB/GYN practice in a rural area of Tennessee. She told me her medical malpractice insurance premium 2 years ago was $70,000 a year and she had never delivered a baby in her practice. I believe S. 2207, the Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act, will help protect access to care for mothers and babies and Tennesseans in emergency medical conditions. This bill will still allow unlimited economic damages, but it places a sensible cap on non- economic damages. I hope we can agree to have a vote to reach cloture on this important legislation. I often express my concern for federalism, for the importance of allowing States and local governments to exercise their rights and responsibilities and not be overridden by the Federal Government except when it is absolutely necessary. In this case, this legislation allows States to set their own caps if they prefer a lower cap or if they prefer a higher cap. In this case, we ought to act because Americans should have an equal opportunity to health care, particularly if they are mothers, children and the most vulnerable and poor in our society. I ask that the full Senate agree that we vote--be it up, or down, and I will vote yes--on this important legislation to help those who need help the most. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the Presiding Officer and I are new Members of the Senate, but we learn our lessons pretty quickly. One of the things you learn here is if you want to have an impact in the Senate, you have to put a focus on something you care about and then keep after it. The Senator from Louisiana has done that. In her first term here she focused on the great American outdoors. Working with others, she came pretty close to passing an important piece of legislation 3 years ago. There were some problems in it for Members of the Senate. It is my goal, working with her this year, and we hope with many others of our colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and others of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to solve those problems and come up with legislation that represents the conservation majority, the huge conservation majority that exists in the United States of America. The conservation majority of this country does not have a line down the middle with chairs on each side. It exists on both sides of every aisle and has broad support. We are good legislators, and if we are as good as we hope we are, we will be able to work and represent what our constituents would like us to do. So it is a privilege for me to work with Senator Landrieu. We both serve on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We are fortunate under Chairman Pete Domenici and ranking member Jeff Bingaman that we, most of the time, are able to work in a bipartisan way. So we are off to a good start in terms of fashioning a piece of legislation that will gain the support of our colleagues. We are deliberately today not offering legislation. We want to discuss it first with members of our committee. We want to discuss it next with others, such as the Presiding Officer of the Senate, who has a long interest in conservation matters. We want her ideas and those of others. Then, perhaps in 3 weeks, after the recess, we will be able to come forward with a piece of legislation that has broad bipartisan support. As the Senator from Louisiana said, this morning Congressman Young of Alaska and George Miller of California introduced the GO Act, the Get Outdoors Act of 2004. I believe they used it to emphasize we might do some work on this obesity problem that is really worrying us, in terms of health, if more of us spend a little more time walking outdoors, playing outdoors, and taking advantage of our country. As the Senator from Louisiana said, the bill therefore will provide, I believe, about $3 billion in guaranteed annual funding for outdoor recreation purposes. It would be paid for, as she described, by what I think of as a conservation royalty. This is the way I think of it. It is a royalty on the revenues from oil and gas drilling on offshore Federal lands. After the royalties are paid to the landowner and after the royalties are paid to the State, this conservation royalty would be paid to a trust fund which would then spend the money for the benefit of conservation. Then, after that, the rest of the Federal revenues would go into the regular Federal appropriations process. That is the way I like to think about it and I hope that is the way a majority of the Members of the Senate will want to think about it as well. As the Senator said, we will be discussing these concepts that she so well outlined with our colleagues. And we hope they will join us as cosponsors. As she said, our bill will be similar to that which was introduced this morning in the House of Representatives, but it will not be the same. In addition, it will be similar to the so-called CARA legislation that Senator Landrieu and many others worked hard on 3 years ago, but it will not be the same. There are some lessons that we need to learn from what happened 3 years ago. For example, the cost of the Senate legislation may not be as much as the cost of the legislation offered in the House. That is yet to be determined. In addition, as the Senator said, we intend to discuss with our colleagues whether States should have the option, for example, of spending the Federal share of the Land and Water Conservation Fund for maintenance of Federal lands rather than for acquisition. I have learned over the years that there is a big difference of opinion between Senators from the West and Senators from the East about the acquisition of Federal lands. In North Carolina and Tennessee, we don't have much Federal land. So a lot of us--even many of us conservative Republicans--would be glad to have a little more. Out West there are a lot of people who think the Federal Government not only has enough but it has too much, and they don't want to see legislation that would acquire more. We need to take that into account as we develop a piece of legislation that will represent the conservation majority but do it with respect for those States that are already largely owned by the Federal Government. Our legislation, like that proposed in the House, will ensure that State and Federal parts of the Land and Water Conservation Fund will fulfill the intention that Congress originally envisioned. It will provide for wildlife conservation. That will benefit hunters and fishermen. There are more hunters and fish people with hunting and fishing licenses in Tennessee than there are people who vote. I am not sure that is a statistic to admire, but it is a fact, and it is one to which I pay attention. Bird watchers and all Americans who enjoy outdoor recreation will benefit from this legislation. It will provide funds to establish city parks so the children in and around our metropolitan areas can have decent, clean places to play; so families can have decent places to go; and so senior Americans can have decent, safe places to walk. Someone once said Italy has its art, England has its history, and the United States has the Great American Outdoors. Walt Whitman wrote, ``If you would understand me, go to the heights or watershores.'' Our magnificent land, as much as our love for liberty, is at the core of the American character. It has inspired our pioneer spirit, our resourcefulness, and our generosity. Its greatness has fueled our individualism and optimism and has made us believe that anything is possible. It has influenced our music, literature, science, and language. It has served as the training ground of athletes and philosophers, of poets and defenders of American ideals. That is why there is a conservation majority--a large conservation majority--in the United States of America. That is why so many of us, as the Senator from Louisiana said, feel a responsibility in our generation to ensure to the next generation the inspiration of the dignity of the outdoors, its power, its elemental freedom; the opportunity to participate in the challenges of its discovery and personal involvement; and the fulfillment that is to be found in the endless opportunities for physical release and spiritual release. Some of the words I just used came from the preamble of President Ronald Reagan's Commission on American Outdoors, which I chaired in 1985 and 1986. In 1985, President Reagan asked a group of us--I was then the Governor of Tennessee--to look ahead for a generation and see what needed to be done for Americans to have appropriate places to go and what they wanted to do outdoors. Our report, issued in 1987--very nearly a generation ago--recommended that we light a prairie fire of action to protect what was important to us in the American outdoors and to build for the future. We focused on the importance of a higher outdoors ethic, suggested an ``outdoor corps'' to improve recreational facilities. We examined the role of voluntarism. We pointed out that the park most people like is the park closest to where they live and how important it is, therefore, to have urban parks as well as great national parks. We warned of how the liability crisis and runaway lawsuits threatened our outdoor activities and called for a new institution or set of institutions to train leadership for outdoor recreation. We formed State commissions, such as Tennesseans Outdoors, which went to work with the same objectives in our own State that we had in our national Commission. We envisioned a network of greenways, scenic byways, and shorelines. Most of the action we suggested was not from Washington, DC, but was community by community by community. But we also acknowledged the important role the Federal Government has to play in providing outdoor recreation opportunities. Of course, we must have clean air and clean water, and we must protect and enhance recreation opportunities on Federal lands and waters. Almost all of us on the Commission called for the creation of a $1 billion fund to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund--both the State share and the Federal share. This is a way of balancing our need for more oil and gas with our need for recreational opportunities in the outdoors. As I mentioned earlier, I think of these annual payments from the revenues derived from offshore drilling for oil and gas on Federal land as a royalty payment. Pay the owner a royalty, pay the State its royalty, then pay a conservation royalty for the use of that resource. Then the rest of those revenues go into the Federal Treasury to be appropriated. Pay a $3 billion annual conservation royalty--that is the number that the House bill uses--before it ever gets to the Federal appropriations process. Then appropriate the rest. I believe this legislation will have broad bipartisan support in the Senate. I look forward to working with Senator Landrieu, Chairman Domenici, with our colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and with all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fashion legislation that is good legislation, that represents the overwhelming conservation majority in the United States of America, and which can pass the Senate and the House of Representatives this year. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Louisiana. Her comments make me think of this report. Let me hold this up. So staff will not worry, I will not ask to put this in the Congressional Record. There is a summary I will bring to the Senate when we introduce the bill. This is the report of President Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors, published in 1987. It is a very good resource and backup for many of the ideas we envision being part of this legislation. I learned very quickly as Chairman of this Commission that most of the decisions we have to deal with in environmental and conservation matters involve balance. Senator Landrieu and I know, because of our service on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as we work hard to try to develop a national energy policy, that we are having a difficult time as a country compromising, creating balance between our need to produce and our need to conserve. I certainly do not want to draw into this discussion all of those arguments. I will say very little more about it except it would be nice to find in this contentious Presidential year, in this time when we have so much disagreement about energy production and conservation, one area where we could show we are skilled enough as legislators to properly represent the huge conservation majority in the United States. Most Americans, as President Reagan's Commission thought and almost all Members thought, of course, we have to drill for oil and gas; otherwise our natural gas prices are going through the roof; our jobs will be in Mexico; our lights will be out. Of course we have to do that. Is that an insult to the environment? Yes, it is. What do we do about it? Shut down the wells? No, one thing we can do is take some of that money--actually a lot of this money--and pay a conservation royalty, compensate for that by creating a conservation benefit on the other side. This idea of the land and water conservation fund has been endorsed by politicians of both parties for a long time. What we are trying to do today is assure a steady stream of revenue to the State and Federal side of the conservation fund, plus a number of other conservation areas, in a way that respects each of our States. We can do it. There is enough of a majority; we can do that. President Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors from 1985, 1986, and 1987, and the work that Senator Landrieu and the majority in both Houses did, form a wonderful beginning. We will see in the next few weeks if we are wise enough to take that to a successful conclusion. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Sharon Segner of my staff for the next hour during consideration of the Get Outdoors Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise today to salute my senior colleague, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. Today, the Senator passed a milestone that has never been passed before, and may never be passed again: he cast his 17,000th vote on the Senate floor. It's an amazing achievement. No other sitting Senator has cast more than 15,000 votes. Senator Thurmond, who is no longer with us, cast the next highest total of 16,348 votes. Mr. President, Senator Byrd has had a long and distinguished career in the United States Senate. He was first elected to this body in 1958. Only Senator Thurmond served longer, but Senator Byrd may soon pass that record, too--he's only got two more years to go. He became the Democratic Leader in 1977, holding that position for six consecutive 2- year terms, three terms as majority leader, and three as minority leader. He also served as President pro tempore--third in line in the order of succession to the Presidency, after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House--from 1989 to 1995 and 2001 to 2003. The Senator from West Virginia is also a master historian. His four- volume, 3,000 page history of the U.S. Senate has been called ``the most ambitious study of the U.S. Senate in all of our history.'' He is a passionate advocate for understanding our history, not only among Senators, but for the entire country. In 2000, the Senator's efforts led to the creation of the Teaching American History Grant Program-- commonly referred to as the Byrd grants--to encourage better teaching of American history in our schools. I was fortunate to follow his lead with a bill I introduced last year, the American History and Civics Education Act, which Senator Byrd co-sponsored. The Senate passed it unanimously last year, 91 to 0. I hope the House will act on it soon. I'm sure one reason the Senate was prepared to support such a bill is that we have all learned the value of our history from one of history's great teachers: Senator Robert C. Byrd. I salute my colleague, the senior Senator from West Virginia, and wish him well as he sets a new record with each succeeding vote.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I simply wanted to congratulate the Senator from Nebraska on his comments. He and I served as Governors, as he said. We may not have gotten over that entirely as we look at legislation. We strongly support the revolutionary change in American life the welfare reform bill has brought since 1996. Half of those on the welfare rolls are off. The hardest cases remain. What we are attempting to do with this amendment is to suggest that we want to try, with up to 10 States, to give the Secretary some flexibility in finding the best way to help people get from dependence to independence. If State plans using a combination of work and removal of barriers to work and a variety of other factors can do that according to measurable results, then that will give us some successes now and information we can use when we consider this bill in the future. I congratulate the Senator from Nebraska on his leadership and look forward to working with him on the amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. On behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 31. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business until 10 a.m. with the first half of that time under the control of the majority leader or his designee and the final time under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee. I further ask consent that at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, the Chair lay before the Senate a message from the House to accompany S. Con. Res. 95, the budget resolution. I further ask consent that Senator Conrad be in control of 60 minutes, and Chairman Nickles be in control of 30 minutes of debate only; provided further that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate disagree to the amendment of the House, agree to a request for a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate with a ratio of 4-3, with no intervening objection or debate. Finally I ask consent that following the appointment of conferees, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 4.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I further ask that the Senate insist upon its amendments, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees at a ratio of 5-4 on the Commerce Committee and 1-1 on the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2443 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the McCain amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read for a third time and passed, the title amendment be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.