Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. How much time remains, Mr. President?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, just to summarize the point, I am in favor of the Millennium Challenge Account. I am proposing that we go ahead and provide the full $800 million that the administration asks to be obligated in 2004. That is exactly what the House of Representatives did. That is exactly what we ought to do. My only point is that we should not be giving them $200 million that they themselves--that is, the administration itself--say they cannot spend in 2004. They do not plan to spend it in 2004. That money should be made available to fight AIDS. We can do that. It does not bust the budget. It does not bust the limitations that we have on this spending bill. It is a better use of that money, and I urge my colleagues to support that amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me start by congratulating Senator DeWine, Senator Durbin, and all the others who worked so hard on the earlier amendment we adopted to add some funding. The case was extremely persuasive. By adding those dollars, we will be saving tens or perhaps hundreds of thousand of lives. I agreed with that and was very strongly in support of the amendment. The purpose of this amendment is to make an additional $200 million available for the global AIDS initiative and reduce the amount that is available for the Millennium Challenge Account by $200 million. So this is a transfer of funds from one part of the appropriations bill to another. Let me talk first about the Millennium Challenge Account, with which we are all familiar, to help developing countries. The administration, in their budget request, asked for $800 million in new obligated funds for this Millennium Challenge Account. That was what the Secretary of State testified to in answer to a question from Senator Biden before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Biden asked: What is the estimate of obligations of $800 million in fiscal year 2004 based on? Secretary Powell's answer: This is an estimate of the proportion of the $1.3 billion budget request which we expect would actually be obligated in 2004 based on the careful selection system we have set up. Thus, we do not believe it likely that all MCA money appropriated in 2004 would be obligated in the fiscal year. Let me put up one other chart. This chart depicts graphically that the President's budget request was $1.3 billion in budget authority, but only $800 million in funds to be obligated in 2004. The House, in their appropriations process, took the President at his word and said: OK, you want $800 million for the Millennium Challenge Account; we will give you $800 million. We have gone an extra $200 million, although the administration itself says this extra $200 million they want for 2005 and later. They do not need it for 2004. My amendment simply would use that money in 2004 for this AIDS problem about which we are all so concerned. The amendment is inside the budget. It is inside the appropriations caps that the subcommittee has been given. In my view, this is a much better use of the money than just leaving $200 million in an account somewhere for the next 12 months until we get to 2005. This would be money that would be made available. I do not agree with the notion that we can just postpone and do more good with this money later on. Later on, many of the people we would like to help will be dead. The reality is we need to get this money and assistance to them as quickly as possible and follow through on the promise we have made. So I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, first, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, although I interrupted the clerk before the clerk was able to read the entire amendment, I think probably the best way for me to start my description of the amendment is to go through and read some portions of it so Members know what I am proposing. There are two parts to the amendment. It adds two new sections to the bill in order to provide meaningful new authority and actual resources to protect communities at risk from unnaturally intense catastrophic wildfire. We had a little bit of debate yesterday--and we will again today-- about what exactly has been the problem and what the policy mistakes and failures are here in Washington that have contributed to this problem. I would suggest to you that the major failure which has occurred here in Washington that has contributed to the problem is the one I am trying to address with this amendment; that is, inadequate funding with which to proceed not only to fight fires but to do the necessary thinning and the necessary restoration activities that we are all in agreement need to be made. The first section that this amendment would add reads as follows: I will read through the most significant parts of it. It says: The Secretary of the Treasury shall, upon the request of the Secretary of Agriculture-- And, of course, that is where the Forest Service is located, in the Department of Agriculture-- make available to the Secretary of Agriculture, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums as may be necessary in each fiscal year to carry out fire suppression activities. The Secretary of Agriculture may make such request only if fire suppression costs exceed the amount of funding available to the Forest Service for fire suppression in a fiscal year. What we are saying is we are going to do our best here to appropriate money for fire suppression; that is, firefighting activities. But to the extent that we fall short, the Secretary of Agriculture can go to the Department of the Treasury and get funds with which to do that firefighting. We have a second part of this section. It is an audit provision. It says: Not later than 180 days after the Secretary of Agriculture exercises the authority provided by this section, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall submit to the Secretary and to the Congress an audit of expenditures of funds provided under this section. Upon a determination by the Inspector General that specific amounts of such funds were used for purposes other than fire suppression, or upon a determination that specific expenditures of such funds were both unreasonable and excessive, the Secretary, not later than 30 days after receiving the audit of the Inspector General, shall reimburse the Treasury, out of unobligated balances for the Forest Service for the fiscal year in which the fund were provided. . . . Essentially, we are doing an audit. If there is any misuse of funds, if they are used for anything other than fire suppression, then the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture shall essentially take those funds out of their hide and deal with the situation that way. That is the first part of the amendment. The second part of the amendment that I am offering is entitled, ``Community Protection And Burned Area Restoration.'' It says, in general: During fiscal years 2004 through 2008, the Secretaries [the Secretary of Agriculture who has jurisdiction over the Forest Service and the Secretary of the Interior] shall carry out a joint program to reduce the risk of wildfire to structures and restore burned areas on non-Federal lands, including country-owned lands, tribal lands, nonindustrial private lands, and State lands, using the authorities available pursuant to this section, the National Fire Plan and the Emergency Watershed Protection Program. We are talking about funds to do restoration work on land that the Federal Government doesn't own. The second part of this talks about cost share grants. It says: In implementing this section, the Secretaries may make cost-share grants to Indian tribes, local fire districts, municipalities, homeowner associations, and counties, to remove, transport, and dispose of hazardous fuels around homes and property to-- (1) prevent structural damage as a result of wildfire, or (2) to restore or rehabilitate burned areas on non-Federal lands. This is still on non-Federal lands. It says the non-Federal contribution may be in the form of cash or in-kind contribution, and then it authorizes the appropriation of $100 million in each of those years, 2004 through 2008, to do their work, to make these grants, to help these non-Federal agencies and entities deal with the problems. Much of the fire we have seen on television in recent days is, in fact, not on Federal land. They are desperately in need of assistance from the Federal Government. This is assistance that would be of that type and should be in place every year. I will go through a more complete description of the amendment. The amendment does add two new sections to the bill to provide meaningful new authority and actual resources to protect communities at risk from unnaturally intense catastrophic wildfire. If we are not going to add real resources as part of this bill, we are, in fact, making a false promise to the American people. We can give all the speeches about how we are going to pass the bill, the President is going to sign it, everything is going to be rosy, the clouds are going to clear, and we are going to be in the sunny uplands--the broad sunny uplands, is the way Churchill said it. The reality is, if we do not provide resources to help, it is a false promise. This amendment will try to help provide those resources. The first part of the amendment allows the Forest Service to borrow funds from the Treasury to pay for firefighting during the years in which available funds do not cover costs. Someone might say that is a pretty rare occasion, a year when the funds available do not cover the cost. Let me cite the last 3 years: 2001, 2002, and 2003, Forest Service firefighting funding. We have three columns on my chart: The President's request, what was actually appropriated, and what was actually spent, what we wound up spending out of Federal Government funds to deal with this problem. In 2001, the President requested the Congress appropriate the budget he sent us of $291 million. Fortunately, through the good offices of Senator Cochran and other Members, we did better than that. I very much appreciate that. Senator Byrd deserves credit, as do other Members on the Democratic side. We appropriated $469 million--not quite twice what the President asked for, but it is getting close. The amount that was actually needed was $683 million. So we missed it by a little--we were more than $200 million short of what the Forest Service actually had to spend for firefighting in that year. In 2002, the President asked for more. He said $291 million was not enough, how about $325 million. This is for the whole country. He said, $325 million ought to be plenty for the whole country. In fact, we appropriated a little less than he asked for, $321 million. What was actually needed was $1.28 billion. So we missed it by not quite $1 billion. That is $1 billion that was spent by the Forest Service of funds not appropriated to them for this firefighting activity. In 2003, which we just finished, the President said we need $421 million. The Appropriations Committee said no; let's make it $418 million. We spent over $1 billion--$1.02 billion. There is a shortfall each year. It is a question of whether the shortfall is $1 billion, a couple hundred million, but every year we have done this. At least since this President has been in town, we have seen a significant shortfall. What I am trying to do is begin to address that problem. The real problem that needs to be addressed with respect to the Forest Service situation is the practice of borrowing. Every time we do this, every time we give them much less money that turns out to be needed for firefighting, they have no choice but to take money from other accounts in order to deal with that problem. They do that. Let me point out for the year 2002, the year we had the total amount transferred out of other accounts to fight fires was $1.02 billion. What did that come from? It came from different accounts, but a big chunk of it came out of accounts that are the accounts we are saying in the Senate are our highest priority. We want money for forest restoration, we want money for thinning of forests, for getting the underbrush out of the way so we do not have the fires. In fact, that funding is not available to the Forest Service because they are too busy using it to fight fires rather than to get ahead of the problem and deal with that. There are many examples I will cite of the problem we are dealing with. In my home State of New Mexico, we have a publication, a 1-page sheet the Forest Service issued called ``Effects of Transferring Money to Fire Suppression.'' That is what this chart is reflecting. All of the money on the chart was transferred to fire suppression, to firefighting. This was issued in April by the Forest Service with regard to New Mexico. It says the 2002 fire season was intense. The cost of suppressing these fires was nearly $1.3 billion. The Forest Service transferred $1 billion from other discretionary and mandatory accounts to defray fire suppression costs. Over $55 million was borrowed from national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. Some critical projects in New Mexico were postponed for up to 1 year as a result of fire borrowing. These included wildland/urban interface fuels projects, in the Carson National Forest, in the Gila National Forest, in the Lincoln National Forest, in the Santa Fe National Forest; a contract for construction of a fuel break around the community at risk in the Cibola National Forest was postponed for 6 months. What they have to do when they shift the money out of these accounts, they have to put that forest thinning or forest restoration project on hold because they cannot afford it. They are too busy fighting fires. We need the money to fight fires. We have caused them to do that every year. A similar problem exists in many other States. I will indicate a few of those, States that have a great interest in this legislation. I have a document called ``Summary of Effects of Transferring Money to Fire Suppression.'' As a result of recent fire transfers in which money has been transferred from various Forest Service accounts to pay for emergency wildfire suppression, critical Forest Service projects were postponed or canceled throughout the West. There are literally hundreds of examples of unfortunate consequences that resulted, including canceled prescribed burns, thinning projects, timber sales, evasive weed control programs, and emergency burned area rehabilitation projects. The consequences are felt beyond dangerous forest conditions, and they range from the postponement of dam safety inspection to the inability to finalize a tribal energy development agreement. I have already given examples from my State of New Mexico. In Idaho, spring burning projects in the Nez Perce National Forest were postponed. A brush-cutting project in Clearwater National Forest could not be completed. In Montana, a hazardous fuels reduction project in the wildland/urban interface of the Bitter Root National Forest was postponed and slated for possible cancellation. In Oregon, watershed assessments and restoration activities associated with the Biscuit Fire were delayed. Numerous timber sales and wildland/urban interface thinning work was postponed. In Washington, white pine blister rust thinning and pruning projects were deferred. In California, nearly $6 million was transferred out of forest health vegetation management and ecological restoration accounts in 2003, resulting in having to withdraw stewardship contracts for wildland/ urban interface fuels reduction projects and the failure to complete prescribed burns. So this issue of borrowing is serious. It is one that we need to address as part of this bill. I commend Senator Burns and Senator Dorgan, who are the chairman and ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, for their efforts to secure $400 million to repay the accounts from which the agencies have borrowed to fight fires. Now, what happens each year, when we, in fact, give the Forest Service less money for firefighting than they need, we have to come back the next year in supplemental appropriations and ask for funds with which to pay back those accounts so they can hopefully get back to those projects they had to postpone. My understanding is that this amount, this $400 million, was included in the conference report that was agreed upon Monday night. I also appreciate Senator Burns' comments that the $400 million is not the final word. I believe he said this is especially true since the Forest Service alone actually borrowed $695 million from other programs so far in this last year. However, this year-to-year approach to the fire-borrowing problem is not an adequate solution. Even when our Senate appropriations colleagues do everything they can to make sure these accounts are repaid every year, on-the-ground restoration work is delayed--it is substantially delayed--while the Forest Service waits for Congress to pass a supplemental appropriations bill to once again give them the money they had originally been given but could not use for that purpose. They had to use it for firefighting. The events that occurred earlier this year are a devastating example of that. I have sort of gone through that on this chart. The Senate approved $289 million in extra wildfire funding in the fiscal year 2003 supplemental spending bill. However, the House dropped it. On July 28, Senator Burns correctly stated on the floor: . . . without work in the House to help get these funds, we will be facing an even more drastic situation. Nonetheless, the bill that was sent to the President did not contain these urgently needed funds. In my State of New Mexico, some critical Forest Service hazardous fuels reduction projects were postponed for up to a year, last year, as a result of borrowing to fight fires. These include projects in all these national forests I have mentioned. In February 2003, the Missoulian, which I understand is a Montana newspaper--I assume in Missoula--reported that because of fire borrowing, Montana and northern Idaho forests ``lost about $80 million, including $25 million intended for the repair and replanting of forests burned two years earlier on the Bitterroot National Forest.'' Moreover, as evidenced last year by a $200 million shortfall, the supplemental appropriations often are not sufficient to provide full repayment to the programs that have been raided. So what you have, as we spend what we have on fighting fires--and there is no choice about that--the Forest Service gives up funds that were intended for other purposes. In many cases, this restoration work, that we all are now saying is so important--and I certainly agree is so important--then we never get around to giving them the full money. We never get around to replacing all the funds that we have taken. Mr. President, let me talk a little about the second part of my amendment. The second part of the amendment provides $100 million annually to reduce fire risk and restore burned areas on non-Federal lands. The Forest Service's own researchers state that 77 percent of all high-risk areas are on non-Federal lands. In addition, the National Academy of Public Administration, in their 2002 report, found that 47 percent of acres burned each year are on non-Federal lands. They concluded that decreasing the fuel on all owners' lands is needed to address the large scope of the fire hazard problem. So the second part of the amendment I am offering provides real assistance to States and to local partners to conduct projects that will complement the work we are trying to do in national forests and on public lands. If we send a bill to the President which just deals with the issue on Federal lands, and then declare victory, the truth is, we will not have dealt with the biggest part of the problem. Mr. President, 77 percent of all high-risk areas are not on Federal lands; they are on land owned by someone else. This second part of my amendment tries to provide some level of Federal support to those other entities to do the clearing they need to do. Many communities that are adjacent to national forests are doing their part to better protect themselves from the risk of these catastrophic wildfires. For example, last year--this, again, is an example from my home State--the village council in Ruidoso, NM, adopted new laws that set fire-resistant construction and landscaping standards and established forest health and fire danger reduction requirements. However, even with these new requirements, just a few months ago homeowners in Ruidoso received notices from insurance companies warning them to thin the trees on their lots or risk losing their coverage altogether. Clearly, we need to assist these communities and these homeowners to quickly accomplish that needed work. We need to attack the problem in a comprehensive way. If we reduce fuels on public lands, Federal lands, without also treating the adjacent non-Federal lands, we will not adequately protect our communities. I think anyone who has watched television for the last several days has to believe that is the case. Obviously, many of these subdivisions are not on Federal land. They are, in some cases, adjacent to Federal land, but much of the thinning that has to occur, in order to protect communities, is not thinning on Federal lands. A lack of adequate funding for forest health projects continues to constrain our efforts to actively manage the forests to reduce the threat of fire and insects and disease. Three years ago, Congress found that funding was the main obstacle to improving forest health and reducing the threat of unnaturally intense catastrophic fire. Specifically, we created the National Fire Plan. The National Fire Plan talked about $1.6 billion in new funding for programs to improve forest health conditions. At that time, we all agreed on the need to sustain a commitment to the National Fire Plan over a long enough period to make a difference. We were talking about perhaps 15 years. That meant, at a minimum, sustaining the fiscal year 2001 funding levels for all components of the fire plan. Unfortunately, we have not followed through. The administration has systematically and continually proposed major cuts from that level. In some cases, they have proposed zeroing out critical programs within the National Fire Plan, including this burned area, restoration, and rehabilitation, the economic action programs, the community and private fire assistance. The administration proposed these extreme cuts and the elimination of funding, notwithstanding the clearly identified demand for these programs. We hear that demand from communities in all of our States where forest fires have burned in excess in recent years. This provision, this amendment that I am offering, will also provide actual dollars to restore the burned areas on non-Federal lands. After a fire is extinguished, communities often face equally hazardous threats from landslides and flooding. There has been very little attention to that as yet because the fires continue to burn in California. But once those fires are out, we will start hearing about flooding and landslides. There needs to be assistance to deal with that as well. In creating the national parklands 3 years ago, Congress provided $142 million for burned area restoration and rehabilitation. Nonetheless, in its fiscal year 2002 budget request, the administration requested $3 million--not $142 million--for burned area restoration and rehabilitation. In fiscal year 2004, they requested no funds for this account. The amendment I am offering will provide funds for urgent community needs for activities such as soil stabilization after fires occur. The question we are faced with today is: Are we going to legislate solutions that will really make a difference on the ground? I very much appreciate the provision in the Cochran amendment that authorizes $760 million, but as we all know, authorizing a certain level of funding in the Congress is not an adequate solution. In fact, agency officials tell me under current law there is no ceiling on the amount of money that could be appropriated to address this problem. Providing actual dollars, as my amendment does, clearly is part of the solution. I urge my colleagues to support both sections of this amendment. This is an important issue. I believe that if we pass this legislation without dealing with both of these issues--the borrowing problem and the problem of not providing funds for work on non-Federal lands--we will be falling far short of where we should be. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reid of Nevada be added as a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me just say that I think this amendment is anything but a prescription for gridlock. There is the suggestion that all sorts of new program accomplishment reports are going to be required. Those reports are currently produced. And the real issue is, do we get proper accounting in those reports or do we not? The GAO has told us we do not. Each year they give us an accomplishment report, and they list acreage on which they have not completed the forest restoration work. They have done one of the phases of that forest restoration work, and then the next year they take credit for that acreage again by doing another phase. The next year they take credit for that acreage again by doing another phase. All we are saying is that acres should not be identified as having been treated in these annual reports, which are already provided, until they have done all of the different phases--the thinning, slash reduction, and the prescribed burning. We are not requiring additional reports. We are requiring accurate reports. That is not an unreasonable request. I am somewhat disappointed. This is an amendment we delivered to the managers of the bill yesterday, to their staff. We asked them to review it, to give us suggestions. If they had problems with any aspect of it, they did not get back to us, except to say it is unacceptable. That seems to be the position they are taking with regard to any and all suggested amendments to the bill. This is intended as a constructive amendment. I see it as a constructive amendment to deal with a specific problem that the GAO has identified as existing with regard to management of the long-term fuel supply. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment requires the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to establish a collaborative monitoring process in order to assess the environmental and social effects of a representative sampling of projects implemented under this act. There are many forest-dependent communities that support collaborative monitoring of forest projects on public land. This simply means it is collaborative monitoring. That phrase simply means that interested communities and individuals may participate with Federal agencies in monitoring the ecological and social effects of forest health projects. Proponents of the legislation that we are considering today continually state that they want more collaboration at the beginning of the process. However, unless there is collaborative monitoring of the effects of the projects, we will never be able to rebuild trust between rural communities and these agencies. Congress enacted a similar requirement when authorizing the Stewardship Contracting Program. In addition, Senator Craig and I sponsored the community-based Forest and Public Land Restoration Act. That bill, which was passed by the Senate unanimously, also required collaborative monitoring. This is a simple amendment. I believe it is noncontroversial. I hope this is acceptable to the managers of the bill and can be adopted.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment deals with the issue of the treatment of long-term fuel management and treating what is called slash. Many fuel reduction projects require two or more sequential treatments over several years on the same parcel of land--for example, an initial timber harvest, followed by the piling and burning of slash, which is, obviously, the brush and trees that have been cut down. Completing these followup slash treatments in a timely manner is a very important part of forest restoration work. It is important because the slash provides fuel for wildfires, and it provides habitat for beetles and other insects. I think we have some studies that demonstrate the insect disease problem expands where this slash is not properly treated. Everyone agrees it is important to conduct these followup treatments in locations where fuel reduction projects have been completed in order to prevent the area from returning to the condition that puts these locations at high risk of unnaturally intense catastrophic wildfire. There is a recent GAO analysis in my State that found the Forest Service and the BLM completed about only 19 of 39 followup slash treatments in a timely manner. In addition, the GAO found the agencies' reported figures for the acres treated were inflated because they had double-counted acres where the same acreage was treated in multiyear phases. Where you have this kind of a slash treatment necessary, we are getting inaccurate accounting by the Forest Service and by the BLM. This is troubling because it means the Forest Service and the BLM are providing inaccurate data with respect to the number of acres on which this fire threat is actually being addressed. My amendment tries to ensure there is accurate accounting. In my view, it is a simple and straightforward amendment. I do not see why it should be controversial. It is a minor matter in the eyes of some, but the Forest Service's failure to properly manage this slash treatment has worsened the fire risk in some areas. Obviously, the focus of this legislation is to reduce that fire risk. I think it is an appropriate amendment. I hope this is something the managers of the bill could accept. If not, obviously we can have a vote on it. Let me just briefly describe the amendment in a little more detail and essentially read it. It says: In implementing hazardous fuels reduction projects, the Secretaries-- That is the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior-- shall ensure that-- a slash treatment plan is completed; acres are not identified as treated, in annual program accomplishment reports, until all phases of a multi-year project such as thinning, slash reduction, and prescribed burning are completed; and a system to track the budgeting and implementation of follow-up treatments shall be used to account for the long- term maintenance of areas managed to reduce hazardous fuels. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Lieberman, for yielding me time. Mr. President, I have heard three arguments against this legislation since I have been privileged to hear this debate. The first argument is there is no such thing as climate change. Climate change is a reality if we are to believe the scientists we hire or who are willing to advise us. A clear consensus of the scientific community is there is a change going on. The global climate is warming, and that is a fact. The second argument I have heard is, OK, even if there is such a thing as climate change, there is no real proof human activity is the cause of that climate change. Again, I point out the scientific community believes it. The scientific community says human activity over the last 150 years has been a major contributor to the problem. Most of these human activities that contribute to this problem relate to energy production and use. Carbon dioxide emissions account for 84 percent of the annual emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States and 98 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions are associated with energy production or use. The third argument which I have heard this morning is we do not totally understand this issue and, therefore, the Congress should not be legislating. If we use that standard, we will not legislate on virtually any subject in this body. Clearly, we have to take the best information we have, make the best judgments we can, and then if we find we are in error, we can adjust our policies as we move forward. As the ranking member of the Energy Committee, I have argued repeatedly for the last several years that part of our national energy policy and part of the energy legislation we were trying to craft should be a recognition of the importance of climate change, and we should include in a bill some provision for dealing with climate change issues. Unfortunately, I am informed the energy conference that is still in existence, although it does not meet, will not include any language related to climate change, even though the bill the Senate produced does contain some provisions in that regard. This is an issue of global concern. It is sad that the United States is not leading this debate. We should have a leadership role, both because we have the capability to understand the science and to do the science, and the technology. We also have the capability to come up with an appropriate response. It is sad we are not doing that. This administration has totally failed to lead with regard to this issue. The President's plan to deal with the greenhouse gases has been little more than a business-as-usual approach. The President's voluntary target of an 18 percent reduction in greenhouse gas intensity over the next decade sounds impressive until one looks at the data. The approach will allow climate-altering pollution to continue to climb as long as it increases more slowly than our economy grows. The voluntary commitments would meet a goal that are no more aggressive than business as usual. Greenhouse gas pollution intensity in the United States has been declining because the part of our economy that is growing the fastest is the service sector, which produces fewer greenhouse gases than manufacturing for certain. President Bush's voluntary approach will not change the trend in greenhouse gas emissions over what is likely to happen anyway, and it certainly does not put us on a path to reductions in the future. We have been trying a voluntary approach to reducing greenhouse pollution for almost a decade, and greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased 14 percent. Many of the commitments industry is making today are the same or similar to what these companies promised nearly a decade ago. While negotiations on an international framework to address global warming continue for the next several years, our domestic industry will have to make significant investment decisions on new energy infrastructure. We have no domestic framework on greenhouse gas emissions that would guide or even inform these investment decisions. Addressing these issues up front would reduce business costs and risks. Maintaining our present course will increase the probability of future economic losses and waste in the energy sector. This Climate Stewardship Act is a modest first step in trying to deal with this important issue. Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain deserve great credit for forcing this issue to be considered in the Senate today and to be voted on. They have put together an innovative framework that deserves our attention. It is unfortunate, frankly, that this bill was not able to receive the hearings in committee it deserves. The debate should be no longer about whether climate change is a reality, which is what we have been talking about on the Senate floor, but instead on how we can deal with it. Ideally, the debate we would be having on the Senate floor would be to consider amendments, to consider alternatives to this proposal, so we could come to grips with this very difficult issue. I would prefer to be offering amendments on ways in which the framework could be improved, but given the politicizing that has surrounded this scientific and environmental issue, I am left with only one option, and that is to vote for the bill and send a signal that the Senate must show leadership on climate change.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, even if we were not having the catastrophic fires we are seeing every day in southern California right now, the forest health issue is of vital importance to us in the West, and many of the speeches that have been given here underscore that. I am glad the Senate is considering a forest health bill with the opportunity for us to offer amendments. I will not go through all of my statement because I know we want to get to those amendments. There has been a lot of time used already in discussing the bill in general terms. We need to get down to some of the specific amendments. Let me make a few general statements about the bill because I do think it is good to at least give our perspective on the situation. Some have tried to portray the issue as one of support for the concept of active management of our national forests on the one hand as opposed to simply allowing nature to take its course. Let me be clear that I do not agree with that portrayal of the debate taking place in the Congress. I have always viewed active forest management as not only a desirable policy but one that is absolutely necessary. In my opinion, support for active and responsible forest management does not equate with support necessarily for all the provisions in this substitute amendment that will be coming before us. I want to be sure that whatever legislative language we pass provides meaningful new authority to Federal land managers, that it is focused on the communities that are most threatened by wildfire, and that it does not unduly restrict the public's ability to participate in the oversight of public lands management. In addition, I believe commercial timber operations are an important part of our national forest policy. It is important that legislation dealing with forest health not be a pretext for accomplishing that purpose as well. I wish to discuss some of the concerns with the forest health issue based on the initial reading I have done of the amendment we are going to be debating and amending. Let me begin by stating the obvious. That is, the health of our Nation's forests is absolutely critical at this point due to generations of misguided forest management policies. Many forests are overcrowded with unhealthy buildup of underbrush and tree overcrowding. I think all the experts in this field recognize that. We see evidence of that not only with the California fires, but we see evidence of it throughout the country. The effect of these large wildfires can be catastrophic, as we all can see. We have, as Senator Domenici indicated, seen some of this catastrophe in my home State of New Mexico. He made reference to the Cerro Grande fire at Los Alamos where a substantial number of homes were destroyed and a great amount of the forest was also destroyed. Clearly, we need to take proactive steps to improve forest health. In my view, the proposed forest health amendment does some things right but, in some respects, I think it misses that opportunity. It does not provide any meaningful new authority for funding to help Federal land managers, but it does add new restrictions on the public's ability to participate and restrictions on the Federal courts' ability to review what is done. There is a basic disagreement among some of us in Congress and among those who are most ardently supporting this amendment, and that is a disagreement about what is the most significant public policy issue we are faced with in trying to come to grips with these catastrophic fires. The amendment we are going to be debating seems to be based on the premise that the underlying and essential problem that needs fixing is that we have too much public participation in the decisionmaking process, in management decisions, administrative appeals, and lawsuits. One of the speakers earlier today talked about a litigation paralysis, saying that is the problem, that is why these forests are burning up. That is what we need to change most quickly. I say this because the major new authorities provided in the amendment are ones that limit appeals of agency decisions, limit judicial review, and require courts to follow new standards. I don't really think the facts support this assumption that litigation is the major and most significant problem we face. I recently asked the General Accounting Office to study whether the National Environmental Policy Act compliance requirements, the agency appeals, and the litigation that has occurred were causing significant delays in hazardous fuel reduction projects. The GAO issued a preliminary report in May. They just completed a final report last Friday. The GAO in that report reviewed 818 Forest Service management decisions over a 2-year period, fiscal years 2001 and 2002, and these 818 forest management decisions involving fuel reduction activities on 4.8 million acres of land. These were the first 2 years of the so-called national fire plan which we have all been trying to see implemented. It is worthwhile to take just a minute to summarize what the GAO found. The GAO found that the vast majority of acres treated were categorically excluded by the Forest Service from NEPA review. That is a term of art, ``categorically excluded.'' That means this is authority in the law for the Forest Service to say: We are going to exclude certain areas from NEPA review, and we have the authority to do that. The GAO found the vast majority of acres that were treated were, in fact, categorically excluded. None of these projects were appealed, none were litigated, none were subject to appeal, and none were subject to litigation. Only 25 of the 818 were litigated. That represents about 3 percent of all projects. That involved about 100,000 acres. Again, this is out of the 4.8 million acres that was studied by the GAO for those 2 years. Significantly, the GAO found of those 25 cases that were litigated, 23 involved commercial timber sales. Of the 25 cases that were litigated, the courts found the Forest Service lost on all but one of those cases. So to the extent litigation was involved, the vast majority of the time the Forest Service was found to have been in violation of the law. In my opinion, litigation is not the major problem. I am not saying we cannot do some things to streamline the appeals process and to be sure any frivolous litigation is eliminated, but I do think we need to recognize the GAO made a study that shed some light on what we are doing. The majority of forest-thinning projects were categorically excluded from NEPA. In my State, in region 3 of the Forest Service, which included Arizona and New Mexico, the GAO found 78 percent of the projects were excluded, and that covered 91 percent of the affected acreage. So 91 percent of the affected acreage was never subject to appeal, never subject to litigation. This is a useful report. There is a one-page summary of it. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record after my remarks.

Mr. BINGAMAN. The only other report we have analyzing empirical data of the Forest Service appeals involved a 2003 study by a political science professor at Northern Arizona University. Contrary to the assertions of the Bush administration, the Northern Arizona University study found the number of appeals had been decreasing since 1998. I will speak a little bit about what I do see as a major issue as part of this legislation. Based on our experience with forest health issues in my State, the real issue has not been judicial appeals, judicial review, but instead has been providing adequate funding for forest health projects and stopping the Forest Service's harmful practice of borrowing funds from fire prevention accounts in order to pay for the cost of fighting forest fires. I will offer an amendment on that in a few minutes. I wanted to flag that as an essential problem I think needs to be dealt with. It is not dealt with in the amendment coming to the floor now, but I will give the Senate the opportunity to deal with it. I hope the Senate will agree with me this is something we need to fix. I commend Senator Burns and Senator Dorgan, the chairman and ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, for their efforts to secure $400 million last month to repay the accounts the agencies borrowed in order to fight fires. I also appreciate Senator Burns's comment that the $400 million is not the final word, especially since the estimates those agencies have given is they actually had to borrow over $600 million from other programs so far this year. However, the year-to-year approach we have followed of borrowing funds from other accounts in order to deal with forest fires is just not adequate. Even when our Senate Appropriations colleagues were able to obtain supplemental funding to repay these other Forest Service accounts, every year on-the-ground restoration work is substantially delayed while the Forest Service waits for a supplemental appropriations bill to be enacted into law. In New Mexico, there are some very critical Forest Service fire prevention projects that were postponed for up to a year as a result of borrowing from these accounts. These include wildland/urban interface fuels projects in the Carson National Forest, the Gila National Forest, the Lincoln National Forest, and the Santa Fe National Forest. In addition, a contract for construction of a fuel break around a community at risk in the Cibola National Forest was postponed for 6 months because of the agency borrowing to cover firefighting costs. This is not criticism of the agency. The agency has no alternative but to do this borrowing, the way we have set it up. What happens is very simple. The President asks for too little money for firefighting. He does that every year--at least he has for the last several years. I have some charts I will show in a few minutes on that. The President asks for too little money. We in the Congress agree with the President and appropriate too little money. Then when the fires start happening, of course, the Forest Service has to find ways to fight those fires. The only option they have is to shut down their activities in other areas and use that money instead to fight fires. One of the other areas they shut down activity in is in this forest- thinning work, so that we put it off, say, OK, we cannot get it done this year; we are too busy fighting fires; we will try to get it done next year. Then next year comes and once again they may have to use the money they had hoped to use for the forest-thinning activities and the forest health activities to, in fact, fight fires. That has happened year in and year out. It is a classic case of being so busy killing alligators that there is not time to drain the swamp. That is exactly the position we have put the Forest Service in and we need to try to correct that. I will offer an amendment with the hope the Senate will agree with me and make that correction. The lack of funding for forest health projects continues to constrain our efforts to actively manage our forests to deal with these disease and drought conditions which have been discussed at length. Three years ago, Congress found funding was the main obstacle to improving forest health and reducing a threat of unnaturally intense catastrophic wildfire. Specifically, we have created the National Fire Plan, with $1.6 billion in new funding for existing programs, to improve forest health conditions. At that time, we all agreed on the need to sustain a commitment to the National Fire Plan over a long enough period so we could make a difference. We were talking about 15 years. That meant at a minimum sustaining the fiscal year 2001 funding levels for all components of the National Fire Plan. Unfortunately, as I stated just a few minutes ago, the administration has systematically and continually proposed major cuts and, in some cases, zeroing out critical programs within that National Fire Plan, including the burned area restoration program, rehabilitation projects, economic action programs, community and private land fire assistance. So the proposed cuts we have received in the budgets each year have eliminated funding for these programs, notwithstanding the clearly identified demand for these programs. For example, New Mexico and other States have suffered unnaturally intense, catastrophic fires, and there is a desperate need for funds to restore and rehabilitate the burned areas. Finally, the 2002 report and conclusion by the National Academy of Public Administration confirmed the main obstacle constraining the Forest Service from substantially increasing its proactive efforts to reduce fire risk is the lack of adequate funding. The proposed amendment to H.R. 1904 authorizes $760 million. I appreciate the fact that funding level is in there, but it does not ensure the real funding will be provided. The problem is, when we get into the actual appropriating of funds, we do not get the job done. In earlier debates, I have repeatedly stated the Forest Service needs to focus its hazardous fuels reduction effort more directly on the threats communities face. We will have an amendment to that effect. I know Senator Boxer from California has an amendment to try to do a better job in that regard. I think that will be an important issue for us to try to deal with as well. In sum, Congress required a sufficient proportion of all hazardous fuels reduction funds be spent on projects near communities. Nevertheless, the General Accounting Office recently found that more than two-thirds of the Forest Service decisions involving fuel reduction activities were targeted exclusively at lands outside this wildland/urban interface area. The amendment that has been brought to the floor here goes on to state that this requirement is based on a national average, this 50 percent requirement. They are saying we should have 50 percent going for projects near communities, in this wildland/urban interface. If you have a requirement such as that based on national average, obviously individual forests or even entire regions can significantly ignore this direction we were giving them. In addition, the provisions of the amendment only apply to funds allocated for projects pursuant to title I of H.R. 1904 rather than to the entire hazardous fuels reduction program. There are many questions about the specific language of the amendment at which we need to look. Let me talk for just a minute about the new administrative appeals process. Apart from what the amendment does not do, I am very concerned with some of the things the new authority does try to do. The provision that seems the least developed in the amendment, the one that causes me significant concern, is section 105. This section directs the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a predecisional administrative review process that will serve as the: sole means by which a person can seek administrative review of a hazardous fuel reduction project. . . . This predecisional process is described as covering the period following the completion of the appropriate NEPA document up to the date a final agency decision is issued. I understand the desire to ensure that interested members of the public are involved during the development of the proposed agency project, and to avoid lawsuits by those who have not been involved in the process, and I certainly agree with that. However, I think the language is somewhat troubling. As I understand it, the language would limit the right to administratively appeal an agency decision, as well as the ability to challenge it in Federal court, to those who have exhausted the predecisional review process. So we are going to significantly limit the right to appeal or challenge a decision based on a process that has not been established yet and that we are not really clear on what it will permit. There are other questions about that. As I understand it, there will likely be an amendment offered on that issue as well. Let me say a word about the Federal courts because many of the others who have spoken have done that. The amendment that has been offered here limits the court's ability to issue a preliminary injunction to no more than 60 days, although a court can renew an injunction indefinitely. In order to issue a preliminary injunction, a court needs to find several things: No. 1, that the plaintiff is likely to prevail on the merits. That is the first thing the court needs to find. No. 2, that there will be irreparable harm if the injunction is not issued. No. 3, the harm to the plaintiff in not issuing the injunction is not outweighed by the harm to the defendant of issuing the injunction. And, No. 4, that issuing the injunction is in the public interest. So a Federal court has to find quite a few things to issue a preliminary injunction. Having made this determination, I wonder why we then are saying to the court, unless you come back and renew that injunction every 60 days, we in Congress are going to assume the agency was right and you were wrong. The court has already determined that most likely the agency is in error. So I have concerns about that. I understand there is a great desire here to limit the Federal court's ability to issue injunctions, preliminary injunctions. My understanding is, also, that this not only limits preliminary injunctions, it limits the Federal court's rights to issue permanent injunctions in some questionable ways. Let me say just briefly, I do think we need to be sure the bill has adequate protections for national monuments and for roadless areas. There are provisions to exclude designated wilderness and wilderness study areas from the bill. I think we should have that same provision apply to national monuments. I hope we can persuade our colleagues that that makes good sense. I have been told by some that is certainly their intent. Turning to my home State, 3 years ago we created the Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico. I think it would be good to know how the provisions in this amendment would be used there, in that type of arrangement. Perhaps we can clarify that. I hope we can. There are several other questions about how this relates to other forest initiatives: How does it interact with recent legislative and administrative actions regarding forest health? There is a stewardship contracting program that includes exemptions from the National Forest Management Act and provides new authority for the Forest Service and for the BLM to trade the value of big trees removed by a contractor for restoration services completed by that same contractor. We need to see how this new legislation would impact upon that. In addition, the administration has taken several regulatory actions recently under its Healthy Forests initiative. It has promulgated new rules establishing a categorical exclusion from NEPA, which would apply to projects, including timber sales, that cover up to 1,000 acres each. The administration has published new rules overhauling the Forest Service appeals process. Those new rules exempt all ``categorically excluded projects from appeal.'' In other words, the administration has taken significant action to deal with several of these issues. We need to know how this legislation affects the actions that have already been taken. Slash treatments is another issue that I think deserves some attention. We have a serious issue here in that in my home State they go through, they cut down the diseased small trees, they put them into piles, and then they have to come back and do a sequential treatment, come back and remove that slash and be sure it does not become bug infested and become an even greater problem. The GAO analysis found that in my State the Forest Service and BLM completed only 19 of the 34 followup slash treatments that they had committed to do in a timely manner. Again, it is probably a lack of funding that has caused that shortfall. I have some additional concerns and questions about the provisions in the amendment. I will raise those at the appropriate time as we get into the amendments. In closing, let me reiterate I am very glad we are proceeding to consideration of the bill. Since some of us were not involved in the negotiations, I do think it is appropriate we offer some amendments. Especially it is important for Senators from States that are directly affected by this threat to have that opportunity. I commend the people who did work hard in getting this legislation to this point. I do think there has been a genuine effort to find some compromise and to make some improvements. Clearly, this bill as it stands is substantially better than what the House has sent us. But it can be substantially improved from where it is. I hope the amendment we offer can be seriously considered, and hopefully adopted, and we make those improvements. With that, I yield the floor. Exhibit 1 United States General Accounting Office--Report to Congressional Requesters forest service--information on appeals and litigation involving fuels reduction activities Why GAO did this study The federal fire community's decades old policy of suppressing wildland fires as soon as possible has caused a dangerous increase in vegetation density in our nation's forests. This density increase combined with severe drought over much of the United States has created a significant threat of catastrophic wildfires. In response to this threat, the Forest Service performs activities to reduce the buildup of brush, small trees, and other vegetation on national forest land. With the increased threat of catastrophic wildland fires, there have been concerns about delays in implementing activities to reduce these ``forest fuels.'' Essentially, these concerns focus on the extent to which public appeals and litigation of Forest Service decisions to implement forest fuels reduction activities unnecessarily delay efforts to reduce fuels. The Forest Service does not keep a national database on the number of forest fuels reduction activities that are appealed or litigated. Accordingly, GAO was asked to develop this information for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. Among other things, GAO was asked to determine (1) the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and the number of acres affected, (2) the number of decisions that were appealed and/or litigated and the number of acres affected, (3) the outcomes of appealed and/or litigated decisions, and (4) the number of appeals that were processed within prescribed time frames. What GAO found In a GAO survey of all national forests, forest managers reported the following: In fiscal years 2001 and 2002, 818 decisions involved fuels reduction activities covering 4.8 million acres. Of the 818 decisions involving fuels reduction activities, about 24 percent were appealed--affecting 954,000 acres. However, of the 818 decisions, more than half, 486 decisions, could not be appealed because they involved activities with little or no environmental impact. Of the 332 appealable decisions, 194 (about 58 percent) were appealed. There can multiple appeals per decision. In addition, 25 decisions (3 percent) affecting about 111,000 acres were litigated. For 73 percent of the appealed decisions, the Forest Service allowed the fuels reduction activities to be implemented without changes; 8 percent required some changes before being implemented; and about 19 percent could not be implemented. Of the 25 litigated decisions, 19 have been resolved. About 79 percent of appeals were processed within the prescribed 90-day time frame. Of the remaining 21 percent, the processing times ranged from 91 days to 240 days. The Forest Service, in commenting on a draft of this report, generally agreed with the report's contents. Their specific comments and our evaluation of them are provided in the report.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the College Quality, Affordability and Diversity Improvement Act of 2003, or QUAD, introduced by Senator Kennedy and cosponsored by Senators Dodd, Murray, Reed, Clinton, and myself. Since 1998, when Congress last reauthorized the Higher Education Act, enrollment in institutions of higher education has risen to an all-time high, growing by nearly one million students. Half of these new enrollments are minority students, nearly 200,000 of which are of Hispanic origin. Projections show that enrollment in higher education will only continue to grow in the coming years. The increased demand for a college degree is due much in part to the changing economy. Those with a bachelor's degree now make 75 percent more than those without, and jobs requiring some post-secondary education are expected to account for over 40 percent of total job growth this decade. While the demand for a college degree has increased, so too has the cost of college, and rather drastically. These increases severely limit access for many qualified students. For the 2002-2003 school year, four-year public universities reported an average tuition increase of over 14 percent. This comes on top of an almost ten percent increase in average tuition last year. Just three years ago the average increase was just four percent. For families in the lowest income quartile, average public university costs now consume 62 percent of their income. In the early 1970's it was only 42 percent. What's more, the purchasing power of the Pell grant has declined. Today, Pell Grants cover only 40 percent of average fixed costs at four-year public colleges. Twenty years ago, they covered 80 percent of costs. Every American should have the opportunity to realize his or her full potential, regardless of the depth of their pocketbook or the size of their parents' wallet. It is time for Congress to step up and meet the challenge: we must do more to help qualified students attend and finish college. Currently, 40 percent of all whites ages 18-24 are pursuing post- secondary education, compared with only 30 percent of African-Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics of the same age. Those disadvantaged students who do start college often do not finish: low-income students are half as likely as upper income students to complete a bachelor's degree in four years; four in ten Hispanic students enrolled in four- year institutions drop out within three years of initial enrollment. The College Quality, Affordability, and Diversity Improvement Act will help low-income and minority students get into college. QUAD increases funding to critical programs including GEAR Up, TRIO and LEAP. It improves access for low-income students through the creation of a new grant program for proven-effective test prep programs to provide free tutoring for college entrance exams to low-income students. It improves access and awareness for low-income students by creating a partnership among the federal government, the states, colleges, philanthropies, and corporations to provide low-income students with early information and an early assurance of financial access to college. But Mr. President, we cannot simply help a student get into and pay for college, we must help them stay in college and earn their degree. Of the 16 percent of 18-24 year old Hispanics enrolling in college, a mere 40 percent actually complete their degree. Similarly, only 38 percent of African-American students that enroll in college complete their degree. QUAD will help low-income and minority students complete their education through the creation of two new retention programs. The first program provides grants to colleges and universities, which serve high-proportions of low-income students to implement innovative programs to provide students with the support they need to persist and graduate. The second program requires schools with large discrepancies in disaggregated graduation rates to increase their investment in support services to improve retention. QUAD also increases funding for minority serving institutions, and creates new grant programs to encourage minority students to pursue graduate education at minority serving institutions. Minorities make up an increasing proportion of the United States population, but they continue to severely lag behind white students in completing both undergraduate and particularly graduate degrees. Minority Serving Institutions are serving an increasing proportion of minorities, and can help decrease this disparity. Among Hispanics who received master's degrees in 1999-2000, 25 percent attained them at Hispanic Serving Institutions and in the past ten years, the number of Hispanic students receiving master's degrees at HSIs grew by 136 percent, the number receiving doctoral degrees grew by 85 percent, and the number earning first time professional degrees grew by 47 percent. This past May, I proposed the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act, S. 1190. Under this act, the burdensome regulatory barriers for the 18 Hispanic Serving Institutions in New Mexico and more than 190 HSIs nationally would be removed and opportunities for students at HSIs would be greatly expanded. QUAD takes up this effort, increasing funding for current grants to HSIs and creating a new grant program for graduate programs at HSIs. The grant program would authorize a total of $300 million in fiscal year 2005 and such sums as may be necessary in future years. Grants under this program would help schools improve instructional facilities, purchase instruction and telecommunications materials, give support to needy post baccalaureate students, improve distance learning and other telecommunications capabilities, collaborate with other institutions of higher education to expand programs, and support faculty and curriculum development. QUAD will also help to attract and retain high quality teachers at tribal universities. This past February, Senator Daschle and I introduced legislation that would create a loan forgiveness program for individuals who choose to teach at tribal colleges and universities. QUAD includes this legislation, S. 378. Another component of QUAD that I am proud to have worked on is the teacher quality provisions of Title II. Since my involvement in the accountability sections of Title II during the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, we have worked to increase the bar for teacher quality. QUAD will greatly improve the training and recruitment of teachers by expanding and strengthening teacher-training programs to help teacher preparation institutions feed more qualified teachers into the classrooms. These improvements will help States and school districts meet the goal outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act of ensuring a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. QUAD will help colleges and school districts recruit and train more teachers with higher quality programs, and provide better training for in-service principals and superintendents. QUAD strengths provisions of HEA to focus on improving the quality of programs and services to teachers by ensuring that teacher preparation courses provide teachers with the specific skills and supports they need to succeed in the classroom, such as training necessary to help all students achieve high standards, including children with disabilities and limited English proficient students, and the integration of state standards and accountability in the classroom. QUAD supports innovation by establishing new financial incentive programs to professionalize the field of teaching, and attract and retain more individuals in the classroom. QUAD will also help to attract teachers to where they are needed most by increasing the amount of student loan forgiveness for teachers working in high-need, high-demand areas. And QUAD helps to better prepare teachers to use technology in the classroom by increasing funding for the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology program. It is time for Congress to step up and meet the challenge: We must do more to help qualified students attend and finish college. I know that my colleagues will take this proposal under serious consideration and I look forward to working with them on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act this coming year.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the College Quality, Affordability and Diversity Improvement Act of 2003, or QUAD, introduced by Senator Kennedy and cosponsored by Senators Dodd, Murray, Reed, Clinton, and myself. Since 1998, when Congress last reauthorized the Higher Education Act, enrollment in institutions of higher education has risen to an all-time high, growing by nearly one million students. Half of these new enrollments are minority students, nearly 200,000 of which are of Hispanic origin. Projections show that enrollment in higher education will only continue to grow in the coming years. The increased demand for a college degree is due much in part to the changing economy. Those with a bachelor's degree now make 75 percent more than those without, and jobs requiring some post-secondary education are expected to account for over 40 percent of total job growth this decade. While the demand for a college degree has increased, so too has the cost of college, and rather drastically. These increases severely limit access for many qualified students. For the 2002-2003 school year, four-year public universities reported an average tuition increase of over 14 percent. This comes on top of an almost ten percent increase in average tuition last year. Just three years ago the average increase was just four percent. For families in the lowest income quartile, average public university costs now consume 62 percent of their income. In the early 1970's it was only 42 percent. What's more, the purchasing power of the Pell grant has declined. Today, Pell Grants cover only 40 percent of average fixed costs at four-year public colleges. Twenty years ago, they covered 80 percent of costs. Every American should have the opportunity to realize his or her full potential, regardless of the depth of their pocketbook or the size of their parents' wallet. It is time for Congress to step up and meet the challenge: we must do more to help qualified students attend and finish college. Currently, 40 percent of all whites ages 18-24 are pursuing post- secondary education, compared with only 30 percent of African-Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics of the same age. Those disadvantaged students who do start college often do not finish: low-income students are half as likely as upper income students to complete a bachelor's degree in four years; four in ten Hispanic students enrolled in four- year institutions drop out within three years of initial enrollment. The College Quality, Affordability, and Diversity Improvement Act will help low-income and minority students get into college. QUAD increases funding to critical programs including GEAR Up, TRIO and LEAP. It improves access for low-income students through the creation of a new grant program for proven-effective test prep programs to provide free tutoring for college entrance exams to low-income students. It improves access and awareness for low-income students by creating a partnership among the federal government, the states, colleges, philanthropies, and corporations to provide low-income students with early information and an early assurance of financial access to college. But Mr. President, we cannot simply help a student get into and pay for college, we must help them stay in college and earn their degree. Of the 16 percent of 18-24 year old Hispanics enrolling in college, a mere 40 percent actually complete their degree. Similarly, only 38 percent of African-American students that enroll in college complete their degree. QUAD will help low-income and minority students complete their education through the creation of two new retention programs. The first program provides grants to colleges and universities, which serve high-proportions of low-income students to implement innovative programs to provide students with the support they need to persist and graduate. The second program requires schools with large discrepancies in disaggregated graduation rates to increase their investment in support services to improve retention. QUAD also increases funding for minority serving institutions, and creates new grant programs to encourage minority students to pursue graduate education at minority serving institutions. Minorities make up an increasing proportion of the United States population, but they continue to severely lag behind white students in completing both undergraduate and particularly graduate degrees. Minority Serving Institutions are serving an increasing proportion of minorities, and can help decrease this disparity. Among Hispanics who received master's degrees in 1999-2000, 25 percent attained them at Hispanic Serving Institutions and in the past ten years, the number of Hispanic students receiving master's degrees at HSIs grew by 136 percent, the number receiving doctoral degrees grew by 85 percent, and the number earning first time professional degrees grew by 47 percent. This past May, I proposed the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act, S. 1190. Under this act, the burdensome regulatory barriers for the 18 Hispanic Serving Institutions in New Mexico and more than 190 HSIs nationally would be removed and opportunities for students at HSIs would be greatly expanded. QUAD takes up this effort, increasing funding for current grants to HSIs and creating a new grant program for graduate programs at HSIs. The grant program would authorize a total of $300 million in fiscal year 2005 and such sums as may be necessary in future years. Grants under this program would help schools improve instructional facilities, purchase instruction and telecommunications materials, give support to needy post baccalaureate students, improve distance learning and other telecommunications capabilities, collaborate with other institutions of higher education to expand programs, and support faculty and curriculum development. QUAD will also help to attract and retain high quality teachers at tribal universities. This past February, Senator Daschle and I introduced legislation that would create a loan forgiveness program for individuals who choose to teach at tribal colleges and universities. QUAD includes this legislation, S. 378. Another component of QUAD that I am proud to have worked on is the teacher quality provisions of Title II. Since my involvement in the accountability sections of Title II during the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, we have worked to increase the bar for teacher quality. QUAD will greatly improve the training and recruitment of teachers by expanding and strengthening teacher-training programs to help teacher preparation institutions feed more qualified teachers into the classrooms. These improvements will help States and school districts meet the goal outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act of ensuring a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. QUAD will help colleges and school districts recruit and train more teachers with higher quality programs, and provide better training for in-service principals and superintendents. QUAD strengths provisions of HEA to focus on improving the quality of programs and services to teachers by ensuring that teacher preparation courses provide teachers with the specific skills and supports they need to succeed in the classroom, such as training necessary to help all students achieve high standards, including children with disabilities and limited English proficient students, and the integration of state standards and accountability in the classroom. QUAD supports innovation by establishing new financial incentive programs to professionalize the field of teaching, and attract and retain more individuals in the classroom. QUAD will also help to attract teachers to where they are needed most by increasing the amount of student loan forgiveness for teachers working in high-need, high-demand areas. And QUAD helps to better prepare teachers to use technology in the classroom by increasing funding for the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology program. It is time for Congress to step up and meet the challenge: We must do more to help qualified students attend and finish college. I know that my colleagues will take this proposal under serious consideration and I look forward to working with them on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act this coming year.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me take 2 minutes. Amendment No. 1939 Mr. President, I have an amendment that I filed, No. 1939, which I understand is going to be acceptable to both the managers of the bill and will be included with other amendments that are approved in a few minutes. I particularly compliment Senator Snowe as the cosponsor of this legislation. She has been a long-time champion of commercial air service in rural areas, and I appreciate her leadership on the amendment. The amendment is very simple. In fact, both the House and the Senate have passed the substance of this amendment previously in connection with the FAA reauthorization legislation. The amendment that we are offering, that we appreciate people supporting, will preserve the Essential Air Service Program by preventing the Department of Transportation from implementing a new program that would require communities to pay in order to retain their commercial air service. I hope the Senate will again support it. Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before airline deregulation could continue to receive scheduled service. Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all. All across America, small communities face ever-increasing hurdles to promoting their economic growth and development. Today, many rural areas lack access to interstate or even four-lane highways, railroads or broadband telecommunications. Business development in rural areas frequently hinges on the availability of scheduled air service. For small communities, commercial air service provides a critical link to the national and international transportation system. The Essential Air Service Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 34 States. EAS supports an additional 33 communities in Alaska. Because of increasing costs and the current financial turndown in the aviation industry, particularly among commuter airlines, about 28 additional communities have been forced into the EAS program since the terrorist attacks in 2001. In my State of New Mexico, five cities currently rely on EAS for their commercial air service. The communities are Clovis, Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and my hometown of Silver City. In each case commercial service is provided to Albuquerque, the State's largest city and business center. Back in June, during consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Inhofe and I, with 13 bipartisan cosponsors, offered an amendment that struck out a provision in that bill that would for the first time require some communities to pay to retain their commercial air service. I believed that arbitrary proposal would have eliminated scheduled air service for many rural communities that participate in the Essential Air Service Program. I was pleased the full Senate listened and adopted our amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill. In parallel, the full House of Representatives also voted to eliminate mandatory cost sharing language from the FAA reauthorization bill. Most students of Government would tell you that when a majority of both Houses of Congress have voted against a particular measure, the conferees couldn't arbitrarily put it back in. Well they did. In another example of secret House-Senate back-room dealing, the Republican conferees excluded the minority members, flagrantly ignored the will of the majority in the House and the Senate, and restored the very cost-sharing language both Houses one month before had voted to reject. I believe adding this extraneous and objectionable provision is an egregious violation of the conference process. A conference report on H.R. 2115 was filed 3 months ago and there has been no further action in either House of Congress. Clearly, this was flawed process and the result is an FAA conference report that can't pass either the House or the Senate. It is not clear how the leaders will resolve the problems with the FAA conference report. Last month, 16 bipartisan Senators wrote to the House and Senate conferees opposing the mandatory cost sharing for EAS communities. Thirty-five bipartisan House Members signed a similar letter to conferees. I ask unanimous consent that both letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment introduced by Senators Dorgan and Craig that will suspend enforcement of the travel ban on Cuba. As many of my colleagues know, in March of this year the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Department of Treasury published new regulations that would severely restrict licensed travel by United States citizens to Cuba for educational activities. I think I would not be incorrect to call this regulatory change another backward step in a Cuba policy that has proven to be wrongheaded and counterproductive. We have in place at this time a trade, investment, and travel ban with Cuba that has been in place since the early 1960s that has had no tangible effect on the policies that have been implemented in that country. We now have proposed by the Department of Treasury a further tightening of these restrictions with no logical policy justification of which I am aware. We are talking about continuing the exact same policy with Cuba that has been in place for over 40 years and then wondering why we have the exact same results--year after year after year. I am afraid it makes no sense to me. As a response, Senators Baucus and Enzi introduced legislation--of which I was an original cosponsor, S. 950--that was specifically designed to reverse this travel ban. The Dorgan-Craig amendment is a shortened version of this legislation. Having recently passed in the House, I believe it reflects a visible trend on both sides of the aisle in both the Senate and the House toward a very simply proposition: the ongoing embargo with Cuba represents a significant foreign policy failure on the part of the U.S. Government in that it has only solidified the position of Castro and perpetuated the power of his brutal regime. What we have seen is a vicious circle where our unwillingness to engage Cuba has led to an inability on our part to influence the direction and speed of that country's political and economic development. Given the prominent issues in the country and the potential trajectories a post-Castro Cuba might take, this is not an exercise in theory. There are very real costs for the United States, in both the region and the world, if we do not work constructively and purposively toward a transition to a peaceful, democratic society and a free market economy in Cuba. No one in Congress approves of the policies or the politics used by Castro. I personally deplore the regime's repressive tactics and support the movement in the country that has attempted to increase political participation. As it stands now, the lack of freedom and opportunity in Cuba stands in direct contrast to the rest of Latin America, and is a very real reflection of the inability of Castro to be in touch with the needs and desires of his people. Cuba now stands practically alone in Latin America in its ability to nurture the growth of democracy, establish the protection of individual human rights, and create a semblance of economic security. But this is a question of how best to achieve the goals we all want. I am of the view that more, not less engagement will get us where we want to go. I am of the view that our strongest lever and possibility for change comes from intensive and ongoing interaction with the Cuban people. This amendment is a small but important step in that direction. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Yes. I thank the Senator.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, in response to the comments the Senator from Idaho made earlier this morning on the Healthy Forests legislation, the history of that legislation is that the bill did get referred to the Agriculture Committee. I thought that was a mistake, since the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has always had primary jurisdiction over most of the issues dealt with in that bill. But a bill was reported out of that committee. Following that, a group of Senators--the Senator from Idaho included--got together on a bipartisan basis to develop their own alternative, or their own proposal. That is what is intended to be brought to the Senate floor. My staff, the staff of the Democratic side of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was not included in those negotiations. I complained about that. They were told they could observe but not participate in a meaningful way. They did that to some extent. I believe it is important that we have a full opportunity for amendment to this bill. I do not object to the bill coming up. I do not object to us proceeding with an agreement to limit what we do to the amendments related to that bill. I think that would be an appropriate way to proceed. It is an important issue. We ought to deal with it before Congress adjourns this fall. I will have several amendments. I think there are problems with the bill as I understand it. I also have a great many questions I would like to have answers to about the meaning of some of the language in the bill. Those are legitimate issues. I believe we can have a full and fair debate and a full and fair opportunity for Senators to offer amendments. I know the assistant Democratic leader, Senator Reid, did suggest we proceed to bring the bill up. There would be no objection to that. Certainly, I think that would be an appropriate way to proceed. With that, I appreciate the chance to explain my own point of view and position. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am introducing today the Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act of 2003 with Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton, Johnson, Cantwell, and Stabenow. This legislation would take a number of steps to improve the delivery of health care to Native Amerians through Medicare and the Indian Health Service, IHS, system. First and foremost, Indian Health Service and tribal hospitals and clinics, which provide health care to American Indians on or near reservations and to Alaska Natives, are currently unable to bill for all Medicare Part B services. In effect, the Indian Health Service is subsidizing the Medicare program because those services, which would otherwise be paid for by Medicare, are instead paid for by IHS, which is horribly underfunded. In 2000, IHS hospitals and clinics were made eligible to bill Medicare for certain Part B services for the first time, including services delivered by physicians and certain other practitioners, but those services were limited and denied payment for Part B items and services, such as the following: Durable medical equipment--this includes such items as wheelchairs, as well as blood testing strips and blood monitors for diabetes patients, which is a severe problem among Native Americans; home and some institutional dialysis supplies and equipment--since the prevalence of diabetes in American Indians--Alaska Natives is three times the rate in the general U.S. population, Indian people experience a high rate of renal disease, including end state renal disease; cancer screening; pap smears; glaucoma screening; clinic or hospital-based ambulance services; prosthetic devices; covered vaccines, including hepatitis B, pneumococcal and influenza chemotherapy drugs; and clinical laboratory services. This legislation would simply make these Indian health facilities and providers eligible for payment for all Part B Medicare-covered items and services to the same extent that any other provider would be eligible for payment. Furthermore, the bill assures that Native Americans should have the same access to Medicare services as any other American. If IHS providers are unable to bill for such Medicare services, IHS budget shortfalls may result in rationing and delays in treatment. For some, it means going out of the IHS system to get prompt service, as other providers are able to bill the Medicare program. Native Americans and IHS providers should not be subject to such barriers to care and payment. Nor should they be subject to such complexity, as they are only prohibited from billing and receiving payment for certain Part B services. There is absolutely no policy rationale for limiting the payment to IHS, tribal hospitals and clinics to only certain Medicare Part B services. I urge the Senate to end this unfortunate disparity. Fortunately, identical language has been included in S. 1, the Medicare prescription drug bull that passed the Senate earlier this month. I offered an amendment with Senator Daschle, amendment No. 973, on the Senate floor and was pleased that it was accepted by Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Baucus accepted it as part of the manager's amendment prior to final passage of the bill. In addition to that important provision, the ``Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act'' includes another provision that was adopted as part of S. 1 as a Bingaman amendment during the Finance Committee mark-up. This provision requires Medicare providers to charge no more than Medicare rates for inpatient hospital services provided to Indians who are eligible for contract health services from the Indian Health Service, tribally operated health programs, and urban Indian organizations. This allows IHS to maximize its purchase of contract health services, just as is done by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. Since the contract health services, CHS, account is chronically underfunded, IHS and the tribes seriously ration and often exhaust those funds before the end of the fiscal year. In fiscal year 2001 alone, the Indian Health Service had insufficient funding to provide services for over 100,000 cases that met its medical priority criteria and denied 22,000 other cases of medically necessary care which did not meet IHS medical priorities. Therefore, this section of the bill would enable IHS and tribes to achieve greater economy for the provision of contract health services. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General's Cost-Saver Handbook has annually made this recommendation. As per its 2003 Red Book or cost-saver handbook reads: As a federal purchaser of inpatient health care from the private sector, IHS should receive rates commensurate with those received by other federal agencies that engage in similar purchases [such as the VA and DOD]. The Inspector General adds: If the favorable Medicare rates were legislatively required, the dollars saved could be applied to the backlog of patient services that cannot be accommodated in the Contract Health Services program. And last, the legislation includes a section intended to bring a measure of consistency, rationality and efficiency to the Medicare payment rate for all clinics in the Indian Health Service-supported health care system. This language creates a uniform payment methodology that would be available to all IHS and tribal clinics and corrects the current situation where payment rates differ widely--based not on the nature of the services a clinic provides, but on whether the facility is operated by the IHS or operated by a tribe, and whether the clinic is considered provider-based or free-standing. Since all clinics provide primary patient care and arrange for secondary, tertiary and specialty care on a referral basis, there is no rational reason for the wide disparity in the Medicare payment methodologies for these facilities. The legislation would give all Indian clinics the ability to collect reimbursement from the same IHS-CMS all-inclusive rate. Application of the same all-inclusive rate to all clinics would have the added value of being efficient and economical to use at the clinic level and would apply the same payment method in Medicare, by which IHS-funded clinics are reimbursed, as they receive in Medicaid. This section of the bill was the only one not included in S. 1, but the rationale for it makes it an important component of this bill and something we hope to see passed into law as well. Although these provisions address a diversity of problems IHS providers and clinics have with respect to the Medicare program, they are critical and we should pass all of these provisions either as part of a conference agreement on S. 1, as part of the ``Indian Health Care Improvement Act,'' or on their merits through passage of this freestanding bill. I would like to thank Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton, Johnson, Cantwell, and Stabenow for being original cosponsors of this important legislation. I ask for unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am introducing today the Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act of 2003 with Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton, Johnson, Cantwell, and Stabenow. This legislation would take a number of steps to improve the delivery of health care to Native Amerians through Medicare and the Indian Health Service, IHS, system. First and foremost, Indian Health Service and tribal hospitals and clinics, which provide health care to American Indians on or near reservations and to Alaska Natives, are currently unable to bill for all Medicare Part B services. In effect, the Indian Health Service is subsidizing the Medicare program because those services, which would otherwise be paid for by Medicare, are instead paid for by IHS, which is horribly underfunded. In 2000, IHS hospitals and clinics were made eligible to bill Medicare for certain Part B services for the first time, including services delivered by physicians and certain other practitioners, but those services were limited and denied payment for Part B items and services, such as the following: Durable medical equipment--this includes such items as wheelchairs, as well as blood testing strips and blood monitors for diabetes patients, which is a severe problem among Native Americans; home and some institutional dialysis supplies and equipment--since the prevalence of diabetes in American Indians--Alaska Natives is three times the rate in the general U.S. population, Indian people experience a high rate of renal disease, including end state renal disease; cancer screening; pap smears; glaucoma screening; clinic or hospital-based ambulance services; prosthetic devices; covered vaccines, including hepatitis B, pneumococcal and influenza chemotherapy drugs; and clinical laboratory services. This legislation would simply make these Indian health facilities and providers eligible for payment for all Part B Medicare-covered items and services to the same extent that any other provider would be eligible for payment. Furthermore, the bill assures that Native Americans should have the same access to Medicare services as any other American. If IHS providers are unable to bill for such Medicare services, IHS budget shortfalls may result in rationing and delays in treatment. For some, it means going out of the IHS system to get prompt service, as other providers are able to bill the Medicare program. Native Americans and IHS providers should not be subject to such barriers to care and payment. Nor should they be subject to such complexity, as they are only prohibited from billing and receiving payment for certain Part B services. There is absolutely no policy rationale for limiting the payment to IHS, tribal hospitals and clinics to only certain Medicare Part B services. I urge the Senate to end this unfortunate disparity. Fortunately, identical language has been included in S. 1, the Medicare prescription drug bull that passed the Senate earlier this month. I offered an amendment with Senator Daschle, amendment No. 973, on the Senate floor and was pleased that it was accepted by Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Baucus accepted it as part of the manager's amendment prior to final passage of the bill. In addition to that important provision, the ``Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act'' includes another provision that was adopted as part of S. 1 as a Bingaman amendment during the Finance Committee mark-up. This provision requires Medicare providers to charge no more than Medicare rates for inpatient hospital services provided to Indians who are eligible for contract health services from the Indian Health Service, tribally operated health programs, and urban Indian organizations. This allows IHS to maximize its purchase of contract health services, just as is done by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. Since the contract health services, CHS, account is chronically underfunded, IHS and the tribes seriously ration and often exhaust those funds before the end of the fiscal year. In fiscal year 2001 alone, the Indian Health Service had insufficient funding to provide services for over 100,000 cases that met its medical priority criteria and denied 22,000 other cases of medically necessary care which did not meet IHS medical priorities. Therefore, this section of the bill would enable IHS and tribes to achieve greater economy for the provision of contract health services. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General's Cost-Saver Handbook has annually made this recommendation. As per its 2003 Red Book or cost-saver handbook reads: As a federal purchaser of inpatient health care from the private sector, IHS should receive rates commensurate with those received by other federal agencies that engage in similar purchases [such as the VA and DOD]. The Inspector General adds: If the favorable Medicare rates were legislatively required, the dollars saved could be applied to the backlog of patient services that cannot be accommodated in the Contract Health Services program. And last, the legislation includes a section intended to bring a measure of consistency, rationality and efficiency to the Medicare payment rate for all clinics in the Indian Health Service-supported health care system. This language creates a uniform payment methodology that would be available to all IHS and tribal clinics and corrects the current situation where payment rates differ widely--based not on the nature of the services a clinic provides, but on whether the facility is operated by the IHS or operated by a tribe, and whether the clinic is considered provider-based or free-standing. Since all clinics provide primary patient care and arrange for secondary, tertiary and specialty care on a referral basis, there is no rational reason for the wide disparity in the Medicare payment methodologies for these facilities. The legislation would give all Indian clinics the ability to collect reimbursement from the same IHS-CMS all-inclusive rate. Application of the same all-inclusive rate to all clinics would have the added value of being efficient and economical to use at the clinic level and would apply the same payment method in Medicare, by which IHS-funded clinics are reimbursed, as they receive in Medicaid. This section of the bill was the only one not included in S. 1, but the rationale for it makes it an important component of this bill and something we hope to see passed into law as well. Although these provisions address a diversity of problems IHS providers and clinics have with respect to the Medicare program, they are critical and we should pass all of these provisions either as part of a conference agreement on S. 1, as part of the ``Indian Health Care Improvement Act,'' or on their merits through passage of this freestanding bill. I would like to thank Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton, Johnson, Cantwell, and Stabenow for being original cosponsors of this important legislation. I ask for unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.