Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, just very briefly, let me state that this is the revised version of the amendment Senator Domenici and I had 2 days ago that would have eliminated the assets test. This keeps the assets test but reforms it very substantially. I will explain this further when we get an opportunity to actually debate the amendment. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island very much for yielding to me. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and ranking member for agreeing to this very important amendment related to our Nation's community health centers. I also thank Senator Snowe, with whom all who are now cosponsoring this amendment introduced S. 654, the Medicare Safety Net Access Act of 2003. Her leadership on the Nation's community health centers has been unwavering and has made it possible to get to the point where we can adopt this amendment. I also thank Senator Smith, Senator Hollings, Senator Hatch, and Senator Conrad for their longstanding advocacy support for community health centers. Senator Smith and Senator Hollings need to be thanked for their constant advocacy and push to see this amendment pass. In addition, it should be noted that Senators Hatch and Conrad spearheaded a very similar effort to protect community health centers in the Medicaid Program back in 1997. As we proceed with the passage of S. 1, we need to be careful not to create potential unintended consequences as a result of our actions. This amendment corrects an important unintended consequence that this legislation could have had on our Nation's community health centers. Community health centers have broad bipartisan support. The President and the Congress have committed to doubling the funding for community health centers over a 5-year period. The health centers provide care for over 13 million people annually. Nearly one million of those are low-income Medicare beneficiaries. They receive section 330 Federal Public Health Service Act grant funds to support care for the uninsured and for low-income patients. To ensure those grant funds are used entirely for that purpose, Congress has specifically taken action to ensure that both Medicare and Medicaid are fully reimbursing health centers for the costs associated with the care provided for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Simply put, the funding intended for low-income and uninsured people should not be diverted and instead used to subsidize Medicare underpayments. Therefore, health centers are reimbursed by Medicare under a cost-base system. This amendment would simply extend the same requirement to the new Medicare Advantage programs by ensuring that community health centers are provided with a wraparound or supplemental payment equal to the difference between the payments they now receive under Medicare generally and the payment they would receive from Medicare Advantage plans. This is not a new concept. In 1997, Congress allowed States to dramatically increase the number of patients who were enrolled in Medicaid managed care. We recognized the potential adverse impact on community health centers, and to deal with that we required the Medicaid Program to provide a wraparound or supplemental payment for the difference between the managed care organizations payment and a health centers reasonable cost. Again, Senators Hatch and Conrad were instrumental in that effort. With this important amendment we are proposing today we would do the same in the Medicare Program. According to testimony Tom Scully gave at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and testimony that the Congressional Budget Office gave on the 13th of June, their estimates for how many Medicare beneficiaries actually were enrolled in the private health plans ranged all over the board. It went from 9 percent in one estimate, the CBO estimate, to 43 percent, the estimate that Tom Scully's actuaries developed. It was a fivefold difference in those estimates. In the words of Dr. Holtz-Eakin, the head of the CBO, these are honest differences in trying to read a very uncertain future. We do have clearly ahead of us a very uncertain future as to how many people will choose to leave traditional Medicare and move into the private plans. Mr. Scully is correct that health centers will lose their guarantee of cost-base reimbursement to 43 percent of their Medicare patients. Potentially, this could result in centers having to dip into their Federal grant fund money intended to provide care to the uninsured, and they would have to dip into those Federal grant funds in order to make up for losses they were incurring trying to provide services to Medicare patients. Our Nation's safety net is already fragile. We need to take this action to ensure we are not jeopardizing it through the passage of this legislation. Again, both the President and Congress have committed to double the capacity of our Nation's health centers to deal with the growing number of uninsured in this country. In light of this, the amendment we are offering today would protect the vital role that health centers play. It would ensure that health centers are not forced to decide either between subsidizing the Medicare Program with their grant dollars or refusing to provide services to some of the 1 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries that currently depend upon them for services. I thank the chairman and ranking member for agreeing to accept this amendment. I thank all the chief sponsors, Senator Snowe, and all cosponsors for their hard work. I believe it is a very important amendment. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent to revise the list of sponsors of the amendment to read: Senators Snowe, Bingaman, Smith, Hollings, and Hatch.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 972 on Medicare community health center payments.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from Oregon for his leadership on this important issue. We have all worked on a bipartisan basis with the administration to increase our support for community health centers. We have all begun to recognize the very vital role they play in providing health care to many of our citizens throughout the country. This amendment is absolutely crucial if we are going to ensure that the unintended effect of the legislation before us is not to drain funds away from community health centers as more and more people decide they want to sign up for these preferred provider organizations. This is crucial legislation. It is very important we do this in the case of the Medicare prescription drug area, just as we did in the case of Medicaid. I again compliment my colleague and I am honored to be a cosponsor of this amendment. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the issue to which this study will give the answer is the question of whether disproportionate share hospitals that are the same net hospitals, that serve many of the individuals who would not have any health insurance, should continue to receive the DSH payments we have legislated they are entitled to, even after this prescription drug legislation becomes law. I strongly believe they should. My amendment was intended to ensure they receive those payments. I fear the system we are adopting, which will move people into preferred provider organizations, will in fact reduce the payments to these disproportionate share hospitals, which I don't believe is the purpose or the intention of the Senate. That is the issue. I urge my colleagues to support the study to give an answer as to whether that problem exists.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, when I came to the Senate floor a few minutes ago, we were just informed by the Republican staff that CBO estimates the amendment we were planning to vote on would cost $5 billion. This is all brandnew information. It is erroneous information, but I have no way to contradict what CBO is saying. Therefore, I send an amendment to the desk to modify my amendment to request a study by MedPAC on this issue which would come back to us within a year. At that point, we could make a determination as to whether we want to take the action I had originally been proposing. Let me explain. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to modify my amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment deals with the issue of safety net hospitals. That is a label we have put on what are, in fact, called in the law Medicare disproportionate share hospitals, or DSH. The payments we make for DSH are intended to support these safety net hospitals. By adopting my amendment, we ensure we are not unintentionally reducing the payments to these safety net hospitals. By ``safety net hospitals,'' in general terms, we are talking about hospitals that provide medical services to a great many individuals who do not have health care coverage. That is where the phrase ``disproportionate share'' comes from, saying they have a disproportionate share of the uninsured coming to their hospitals seeking medical treatment. We have set up a system through Medicare and also a separate system through Medicaid to provide additional funds to those safety net hospitals. Since DSH payments are made as add-on adjustments to fee-for-service reimbursements, those payments to hospitals are reduced as Medicare beneficiaries choose to enroll in private health plans and the money is instead logically wrapped into payments by the Federal Government to the private health plans. We had some testimony before the Finance Committee. Tom Skully testified that he estimates enrollment in private health plans will increase from 10 percent, where it is today, up to 43 percent by the year 2008. Tom Skully, of course, is in charge of administering these programs. His opinion is extremely important in this debate. If he is right, that would result in an average reduction in the Medicare DSH payments--that is, the payments to the safety net hospitals--of about 37 percent. Clearly, this is not the intent of Congress in this legislation. We are not setting out in this legislation, which is intended to provide a prescription drug benefit to seniors, to intentionally reduce the payments to safety net hospitals. The bill itself, in fact, increases DSH payments to rural safety net hospitals. That is a provision Chairman Grassley and the ranking member, Senator Baucus, and I very strongly support. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises the Congress on Medicare policy, has said in their report ``plans are overpaid''-- private plans, they are talking about--``to the extent they do not pass on DSH payments to the appropriate hospitals.'' Congress recognized this program in the past and intentionally carved out graduate medical education, or GME, payments from health plans and made provisions so those payments would go directly to the teaching hospitals. That policy is included in S. 1, but unfortunately the disproportionate share payments were not addressed in the underlying bill. Also, in the case of Medicaid, Congress required a carve-out of DSH payments under Medicaid to health plans in 1997 when Congress authorized the substantially greater use of managed care in the Medicaid Program. The intent was clear, that Congress did not want to unintentionally harm the safety net hospitals as they had more people move into Medicaid managed care. We are essentially trying to do the very same thing here. The same recognition and the same policy should apply in the case of Medicare DSH payments that we applied in the case of Medicaid DSH payments. Our Nation's important public hospitals lost an estimated $527 million in treating Medicare patients in the year 2001. That was with 88 percent of those public hospitals reporting losses on Medicare. They cannot afford additional Medicare cuts. That would be exactly what we would be enacting if we passed the underlying bill without including the amendment I provide here. Now is the time to protect and carve out the amendments intended to go to safety net hospitals to ensure they actually do go to the safety net hospitals even once this program is put in place. I hope very much my colleagues will support this amendment. I hope it can be adopted and included in the legislation before it passes the Senate. Amendment No. 972 Mr. President, I have another amendment numbered 972, and I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. BINGAMAN. As we proceed with this consideration of S. 1--and I believe firmly that it will be passed through the Senate this week--we need to be very careful not to create unintended consequences as a result of our legislation. The previous amendment I discussed tries to head off some unintended and certainly undesirable consequences for safety net hospitals. This amendment tries to do the very same thing with regard to community health centers. Let me explain what this amendment does. First, I am concerned about the implications that passing this underlying legislation as it now is pending in the Senate could have on the Nation's community health centers. Community health centers have enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress. They have enjoyed strong support from the President. The President and the Congress have committed to doubling the funding for community health centers over a 5-year period. That is an encouraging development. Health centers provide care to over 13 million people annually, nearly 1 million of whom are low-income Medicare beneficiaries. They receive section 330 Federal Public Health Service Act grant funds to support care for the uninsured and for low-income patients. To ensure that those grant dollars are spent for the purposes intended, Congress has specifically taken action to ensure that both Medicare and Medicaid are fully reimbursing the health centers for the costs associated with the care those health centers provide to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Simply put, funding intended for low-income and uninsured people should not be diverted and used to subsidize Medicare underpayments. Therefore, health centers are reimbursed by Medicare under a cost-based system. The amendment I am offering, amendment No. 972, would simply extend this same requirement to the new Medicare Advantage Programs by ensuring that community health centers are provided with a wraparound, or a supplemental payment equal to the difference between the payments they now receive under Medicare generally and the payments they would receive from Medicare Advantage plans. This concept is not new. In 1997, when Congress allowed States to dramatically increase the number of patients enrolled in Medicaid managed care, we recognized the potential impact on community health centers, and we required the Medicaid Program to provide this wraparound, or supplemental payment, for the difference between the managed care organization's payment and the health center's reasonable cost. We need to do the same thing here, with my amendment, in the Medicare Program. According to testimony, again, from Tom Scully, which I referred to just a minute ago, the hearing we had in the Finance Committee indicated there are widely differing estimates for how many Medicare beneficiaries would actually enroll in private health plans. Those estimates range from 9 percent to 43 percent, a fivefold difference. Dr. Holtz-Eakin's words were that: These are honest differences in trying to read a very uncertain future. All of us want to reduce that uncertainty. If Mr. Scully is correct, then health centers will lose their guarantee of cost-based reimbursement to 43 percent of their Medicare patients, and that potentially will result in centers having to dip into their Federal grant funds, which is money that was intended to provide care to the uninsured to make up for losses to their Medicare patients. The Nation's safety net is already a fragile one. We should take this action. We should adopt this amendment to ensure we are not jeopardizing that safety net even further by passing the underlying legislation without the amendment. Again, this Congress and the President have made a commitment to these community health centers to deal with the growing number of uninsured in the country. In light of this, the amendment is, in my view, vital to the health of these health centers and ensuring the health centers are not forced to decide whether to subsidize the Medicare Program with their grant dollars or refuse to provide services to the 1 million Medicare beneficiaries to whom they currently provide those services. Just as I indicated with the previous amendment, I think this will substantially improve the bill. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I hope, when we come to consideration of it and a vote on it, that the Senate will endorse this amendment. It will avoid a consequence that I know is not intended by any of my colleagues here in the Senate. I ask this amendment I have just been discussing, amendment No. 972, be set aside so I may off another amendment.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Domenici as a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I renew my request that I be allowed to withdraw the amendment that I have related to the assets test at this time and reoffer it tomorrow after I have had a chance to consult with more of my colleagues.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am going to go ahead and vote with the manager of the bill to table my own amendment now in order that we can bring this back here tomorrow. I will plan to reoffer the amendment, and hope that if there are real problems with it, those can be brought to my attention before we reoffer the amendment tomorrow. It is a very important issue. It is one we need to deal with in a responsible way. I urge all colleagues to go ahead and vote to table at this time.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing comprehensive legislation to expedite forest thinning and improve forest health on our national forests and public lands. I am pleased that Senator Daschle is a cosponsor of this bill. Everyone in the Senate wants to do what we can to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire. We all agree on the need to accelerate fuels reduction activities because the risk of severe fire is so high. Ongoing drought, past fire suppression policies, and overly-excessive harvesting of timber have all contributed to the problem. All of us also agree that it is much better to devote limited resources to proactive efforts to reduce fire risk rather than paying to fight fires once they occur. I have tried for years to improve the Federal agencies' forest thinning program in a variety of ways. I am also a vocal proponent for spending Federal dollars conducting proactive forest restoration. Although some may contend that restoration costs too much money, over the long-term, it is much less expensive than fighting fires. Every year, the Forest Service borrows funds from other accounts to pay for firefighting. It is clear that this practice substantially contributes to project delays and cancellations. For example, in 2002 alone, the Forest Service states that: some critical projects in New Mexico were postponed for up to one year as a result of fire borrowing. These include wildland-urban interface fuels projects on the Carson, Gila, Lincoln, and Santa Fe National Forests. A contract for construction of a fuelbreak around a community at risk on the Cibola National Forest was postponed for six months. The legislation I am introducing today eliminates the current fire borrowing practice by authorizing the Forest Service, during years in which the agencies' firefighting costs exceed its budget, to borrow funds directly from the Treasury. I urge my colleagues to reject any bill purporting to decrease on the ground delays if it does not address this problem. A 2002 report by the National Academy of Public Administration, and a letter to Congress from the Society of American Foresters dated November 2002, confirms that the main obstacle constraining us from increasing our efforts to reduce fire risk is a lack of adequate funding. Clearly, the Forest Service's fire borrowing practice contributes to this lack of funding. Ever since Congress first funded the National Fire Plan more than two years ago, I have continually emphasized the need to sustain a commitment to the FY 2001 funding levels over a long enough period of time to make a difference--at least 15 years. Important programs that are part of the National Fire Plan, including economic action programs, community and private land fire assistance, and burned area restoration and rehabilitation have been drastically cut--and some have been zeroed out--by the Administration over the last three budget cycles. For some accounts included under the National Fire Plan, but not all, Congress has made up the difference. However, it would certainly be much easier to fully fund the National Fire Plan with the Administration's support. Beyond funding constraints, some allege that administrative appeals and lawsuits limit our ability to reduce fire risk across the country. As set forth in my legislation, I am willing to provide new legal authorities and exemptions from administrative appeals to address this concern. Let me briefly describe the expedited procedures provisions of our bill. We propose to exempt from National Environmental Policy Act analysis all forest thinning projects located near communities or in municipal watersheds that remove up to 250,000 board feet of timber or one million board feet of salvage timber. We prohibit administrative appeals on these projects, thereby saving 135 days in the process. In addition, we eliminate judicial review granted under NEPA for thinning projects within one-half mile of at risk communities or within certain municipal watersheds. The combination of these provisions would save between one and one-half to three and one-half years of process. Targeting the expedited procedures to areas near communities and in municipal watersheds is consistent with a 2002 National Academy of Public Administration report recommending that the Federal Government conduct fuels reduction treatments near communities and municipal watersheds before treating more distant areas. We also require that seventy percent of forest thinning funds be spent within these critical areas. We agree with, and included, some provisions similar to ones found in H.R. 1904. For example, our bill covers the same amount of Federal land, namely, up to 20 million acres. H.R. 1904 requires the Secretaries to select projects through a collaborative process and give priority to protecting communities and municipal watersheds. Moreover, H.R. 1904 requires that projects be consistent with applicable forest and resource management plans. I agree with all of these provisions. Both bills establish systematic programs, in cooperation with colleges and universities, to gather information on insect infestations that can be applied to forest management treatments. However, our bill provides actual funds, $25 million annually, to implement the program whereas H.R. 1904 does not. This bill differs from H.R. 1904 in some other important aspects. Our bill comprehensively addresses the issue of on the ground delay by doing away with the Forest Service's fire borrowing practice and exempting the Forest Service from the Competitive Sourcing Initiative. Our legislation provides $100 million annually to reduce fire risk and restore burned areas on non-Federal lands. Forest Service researchers state that seventy-seven percent of all high risk areas are on non-Federal lands. In addition, the National Academy of Public Administration's 2002 report notes that forty-seven percent of acres burned each year are non-Federal lands and stated that decreasing fuels on all owners' lands is needed to address the large scope of the fire hazard problem. Moreover, given that the Administration has zeroed out funding for burned area restoration and rehabilitation, the secure funding provided by our bill is desperately needed to protect communities from landslides and other adverse effects of catastrophic wildfire. The bill I am introducing today recognizes the role that forest dependent communities play in restoring our lands by requiring that at least thirty percent of hazardous fuels reduction funds be spent on projects that benefit small businesses that use hazardous fuels and are located in small, economically disadvantaged communities. In order to provide robust monitoring of new authorities, we require that an independent commission report to Congress on the results of the program and that the agencies establish a multiparty monitoring program. H.R. 1904 does not contain similar provisions. Most fuel reduction projects will take several years to implement. It is critical that the agencies have reliable funding to complete the projects they start. If funding is obtained to thin trees the first year, but not to complete the slash disposal and reintroduce fire through prescribed burning the following years, short-term fire risk will be increased. Moreover, slash that is left on the ground increases the likelihood of beetle infestations. The bill I am introducing today ensures that agencies address long-term fuels management whereas H.R. 1904 does not contain any similar provision. At this point in time, I do not believe we need to expedite judicial review beyond what we offer in this bill. The judicial review limitations in H.R. 1904 are excessive. In May 2003, GAO completed an analysis of Forest Service decisions involving fuel reduction activities. In the first two years of activity under the National Fire Plan, GAO found that only three percent of all of the decisions were litigated covering 100,000 acres. Decisions affecting the remaining 4.6 million acres treated in those two years proceeded without any litigation. H.R. 1904 provides new legal authorities and judicial review limitations without regard to many independent analyses that have discovered numerous flaws with the agencies' existing implementation of the National Fire Plan. In November 2001, the Inspector General for the Department of Agriculture found that the Forest Service was inappropriately spending its burned area restoration funds to prepare commercial timber sales. Similarly, it was recently discovered that the Forest Service ``misplaced'' $215 million intended for wildland fire management due to an accounting error. Finally, another GAO report concluded that, because the Forest Service relies on the timber program for funding many of its other activities, including reducing fuels, it has often used the timber program to address the wildfire problem. GAO states, ``The difficulty with such an approach, however, is that the lands with commercially valuable timber are often not those with the greatest wildfire hazards. Additionally, there are problems with the incentives in the fuel reduction program. Currently, managers are rewarded for the number of acres on which they reduce fuels, not for reducing fuels on the lands with the highest fire hazards. Because reducing fuels in areas with greater hazards is often more expensive--meaning that fewer acres can be completed with the same funding level--managers have an incentive not to undertake efforts on such lands.'' GAO/RCED-99-65. The parameters set forth in our bill will ensure that the agencies conduct forest thinning in a way that truly reduces the threat of fire and improves forest health. For example, we require the agencies to focus on thinning projects that remove small diameter trees. Too often, the Forest Service has cut large trees because of their commercial value instead of removing small-diameter trees that tend to spread fire. A group of respected forest fire scientists recently wrote President Bush a letter stating that, ``thinning of overstory trees, like building new roads, can often exacerbate the situation and damage forest health.'' Our bill prohibits new road construction in roadless areas whereas H.R. 1904 contains no similar provision. The National Forests already contain 380,000 miles of road, as a comparison, the National Highway System contains 160,000 miles of roads, and the deferred maintenance needs on these existing roads totals more than $1 billion. Forest Service analysis reveals that roads increase the probability of accidental and intentional human-caused ignitions. Returning receipts to the Treasury is consistent with a provision in Senator Wyden and Senator Craig's county payments legislation enacted two years ago and avoids existing perverse incentives. Numerous GAO reports reveal that existing agency trust funds provide incentives for the agency to cut large trees because it gets to keep the revenue. Cutting large trees will not reduce fire risk, therefore, we should direct receipts back to the Treasury. Jeremy Fried, a Forest Service Research specialist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station, states, ``If you take just big trees, you don't reduce fire danger.'' The provision in our bill stating that seventy percent of hazardous fuels reduction funds be spent within one-half mile of at risk communities or within municipal watersheds is necessary because GAO recently found that more than two-thirds of the Forest Service's decisions involving fuels reduction activities were targeted exclusively at lands outside of the wildland/urban interface. H.R. 1904 contains no similar provision. In conclusion, our bill represents a comprehensive and balanced approach to expedite forest thinning and improve forest health. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing comprehensive legislation to expedite forest thinning and improve forest health on our national forests and public lands. I am pleased that Senator Daschle is a cosponsor of this bill. Everyone in the Senate wants to do what we can to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire. We all agree on the need to accelerate fuels reduction activities because the risk of severe fire is so high. Ongoing drought, past fire suppression policies, and overly-excessive harvesting of timber have all contributed to the problem. All of us also agree that it is much better to devote limited resources to proactive efforts to reduce fire risk rather than paying to fight fires once they occur. I have tried for years to improve the Federal agencies' forest thinning program in a variety of ways. I am also a vocal proponent for spending Federal dollars conducting proactive forest restoration. Although some may contend that restoration costs too much money, over the long-term, it is much less expensive than fighting fires. Every year, the Forest Service borrows funds from other accounts to pay for firefighting. It is clear that this practice substantially contributes to project delays and cancellations. For example, in 2002 alone, the Forest Service states that: some critical projects in New Mexico were postponed for up to one year as a result of fire borrowing. These include wildland-urban interface fuels projects on the Carson, Gila, Lincoln, and Santa Fe National Forests. A contract for construction of a fuelbreak around a community at risk on the Cibola National Forest was postponed for six months. The legislation I am introducing today eliminates the current fire borrowing practice by authorizing the Forest Service, during years in which the agencies' firefighting costs exceed its budget, to borrow funds directly from the Treasury. I urge my colleagues to reject any bill purporting to decrease on the ground delays if it does not address this problem. A 2002 report by the National Academy of Public Administration, and a letter to Congress from the Society of American Foresters dated November 2002, confirms that the main obstacle constraining us from increasing our efforts to reduce fire risk is a lack of adequate funding. Clearly, the Forest Service's fire borrowing practice contributes to this lack of funding. Ever since Congress first funded the National Fire Plan more than two years ago, I have continually emphasized the need to sustain a commitment to the FY 2001 funding levels over a long enough period of time to make a difference--at least 15 years. Important programs that are part of the National Fire Plan, including economic action programs, community and private land fire assistance, and burned area restoration and rehabilitation have been drastically cut--and some have been zeroed out--by the Administration over the last three budget cycles. For some accounts included under the National Fire Plan, but not all, Congress has made up the difference. However, it would certainly be much easier to fully fund the National Fire Plan with the Administration's support. Beyond funding constraints, some allege that administrative appeals and lawsuits limit our ability to reduce fire risk across the country. As set forth in my legislation, I am willing to provide new legal authorities and exemptions from administrative appeals to address this concern. Let me briefly describe the expedited procedures provisions of our bill. We propose to exempt from National Environmental Policy Act analysis all forest thinning projects located near communities or in municipal watersheds that remove up to 250,000 board feet of timber or one million board feet of salvage timber. We prohibit administrative appeals on these projects, thereby saving 135 days in the process. In addition, we eliminate judicial review granted under NEPA for thinning projects within one-half mile of at risk communities or within certain municipal watersheds. The combination of these provisions would save between one and one-half to three and one-half years of process. Targeting the expedited procedures to areas near communities and in municipal watersheds is consistent with a 2002 National Academy of Public Administration report recommending that the Federal Government conduct fuels reduction treatments near communities and municipal watersheds before treating more distant areas. We also require that seventy percent of forest thinning funds be spent within these critical areas. We agree with, and included, some provisions similar to ones found in H.R. 1904. For example, our bill covers the same amount of Federal land, namely, up to 20 million acres. H.R. 1904 requires the Secretaries to select projects through a collaborative process and give priority to protecting communities and municipal watersheds. Moreover, H.R. 1904 requires that projects be consistent with applicable forest and resource management plans. I agree with all of these provisions. Both bills establish systematic programs, in cooperation with colleges and universities, to gather information on insect infestations that can be applied to forest management treatments. However, our bill provides actual funds, $25 million annually, to implement the program whereas H.R. 1904 does not. This bill differs from H.R. 1904 in some other important aspects. Our bill comprehensively addresses the issue of on the ground delay by doing away with the Forest Service's fire borrowing practice and exempting the Forest Service from the Competitive Sourcing Initiative. Our legislation provides $100 million annually to reduce fire risk and restore burned areas on non-Federal lands. Forest Service researchers state that seventy-seven percent of all high risk areas are on non-Federal lands. In addition, the National Academy of Public Administration's 2002 report notes that forty-seven percent of acres burned each year are non-Federal lands and stated that decreasing fuels on all owners' lands is needed to address the large scope of the fire hazard problem. Moreover, given that the Administration has zeroed out funding for burned area restoration and rehabilitation, the secure funding provided by our bill is desperately needed to protect communities from landslides and other adverse effects of catastrophic wildfire. The bill I am introducing today recognizes the role that forest dependent communities play in restoring our lands by requiring that at least thirty percent of hazardous fuels reduction funds be spent on projects that benefit small businesses that use hazardous fuels and are located in small, economically disadvantaged communities. In order to provide robust monitoring of new authorities, we require that an independent commission report to Congress on the results of the program and that the agencies establish a multiparty monitoring program. H.R. 1904 does not contain similar provisions. Most fuel reduction projects will take several years to implement. It is critical that the agencies have reliable funding to complete the projects they start. If funding is obtained to thin trees the first year, but not to complete the slash disposal and reintroduce fire through prescribed burning the following years, short-term fire risk will be increased. Moreover, slash that is left on the ground increases the likelihood of beetle infestations. The bill I am introducing today ensures that agencies address long-term fuels management whereas H.R. 1904 does not contain any similar provision. At this point in time, I do not believe we need to expedite judicial review beyond what we offer in this bill. The judicial review limitations in H.R. 1904 are excessive. In May 2003, GAO completed an analysis of Forest Service decisions involving fuel reduction activities. In the first two years of activity under the National Fire Plan, GAO found that only three percent of all of the decisions were litigated covering 100,000 acres. Decisions affecting the remaining 4.6 million acres treated in those two years proceeded without any litigation. H.R. 1904 provides new legal authorities and judicial review limitations without regard to many independent analyses that have discovered numerous flaws with the agencies' existing implementation of the National Fire Plan. In November 2001, the Inspector General for the Department of Agriculture found that the Forest Service was inappropriately spending its burned area restoration funds to prepare commercial timber sales. Similarly, it was recently discovered that the Forest Service ``misplaced'' $215 million intended for wildland fire management due to an accounting error. Finally, another GAO report concluded that, because the Forest Service relies on the timber program for funding many of its other activities, including reducing fuels, it has often used the timber program to address the wildfire problem. GAO states, ``The difficulty with such an approach, however, is that the lands with commercially valuable timber are often not those with the greatest wildfire hazards. Additionally, there are problems with the incentives in the fuel reduction program. Currently, managers are rewarded for the number of acres on which they reduce fuels, not for reducing fuels on the lands with the highest fire hazards. Because reducing fuels in areas with greater hazards is often more expensive--meaning that fewer acres can be completed with the same funding level--managers have an incentive not to undertake efforts on such lands.'' GAO/RCED-99-65. The parameters set forth in our bill will ensure that the agencies conduct forest thinning in a way that truly reduces the threat of fire and improves forest health. For example, we require the agencies to focus on thinning projects that remove small diameter trees. Too often, the Forest Service has cut large trees because of their commercial value instead of removing small-diameter trees that tend to spread fire. A group of respected forest fire scientists recently wrote President Bush a letter stating that, ``thinning of overstory trees, like building new roads, can often exacerbate the situation and damage forest health.'' Our bill prohibits new road construction in roadless areas whereas H.R. 1904 contains no similar provision. The National Forests already contain 380,000 miles of road, as a comparison, the National Highway System contains 160,000 miles of roads, and the deferred maintenance needs on these existing roads totals more than $1 billion. Forest Service analysis reveals that roads increase the probability of accidental and intentional human-caused ignitions. Returning receipts to the Treasury is consistent with a provision in Senator Wyden and Senator Craig's county payments legislation enacted two years ago and avoids existing perverse incentives. Numerous GAO reports reveal that existing agency trust funds provide incentives for the agency to cut large trees because it gets to keep the revenue. Cutting large trees will not reduce fire risk, therefore, we should direct receipts back to the Treasury. Jeremy Fried, a Forest Service Research specialist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station, states, ``If you take just big trees, you don't reduce fire danger.'' The provision in our bill stating that seventy percent of hazardous fuels reduction funds be spent within one-half mile of at risk communities or within municipal watersheds is necessary because GAO recently found that more than two-thirds of the Forest Service's decisions involving fuels reduction activities were targeted exclusively at lands outside of the wildland/urban interface. H.R. 1904 contains no similar provision. In conclusion, our bill represents a comprehensive and balanced approach to expedite forest thinning and improve forest health. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.