Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, could I just ask----

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask to add Senators Johnson, Clinton, and Hollings as cosponsors. I very much appreciate the managers' willingness to agree to this amendment. It is a very good amendment. I know it is supported on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I have no objection.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I would still have the initial minute or so?

Mr. BINGAMAN. May I ask what the unanimous consent request is?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Collins, Senator Kennedy, and Senator Landrieu. The purpose is to extend a critical Federal-State program that assists low- income Medicare beneficiaries to pay their health premium costs. This program that has been on the books, now, since 1997 and that I am trying to extend to the end of this fiscal year, the end of September, is one which allows States to use Medicaid funds to assist these low-income individuals in paying their Medicare premiums. It is for low-income seniors. It was enacted as part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. It was slated for reauthorization at the end of this last year, 2002. Unfortunately, we did not enact any Medicare or Medicaid legislation as part of the 107th Congress, so the program was extended by the last two continuing resolutions. The current continuing resolution under which we are operating the Government right now provides for extension of this until March 12. The amendment I am offering would further extend this through September 30 of 2003. The program to which I am referring is called the QI-1 Program, Qualifying Individual Program, within Medicaid. It is a block grant payment to States to pay the Medicare Part B premium. This Part B premium is $58.70 per month this year. This program only applies to individuals who have monthly incomes between $887 and $997. So if you have an income over $997 per month, you are not qualified to participate in the program I am trying to extend. In the case of a couple, the income of the couple can be anywhere between $1,194 and $1,344. This represents an effort to cover Medicare beneficiaries with incomes between 120 and 135 percent of the Federal poverty level. This amounts to a little over $700 annually for many of these older and disabled Americans who depend upon this payment for a portion of their health care costs. This is for such things as prescription drugs and supplemental coverage. We have over 120,000 people nationwide who currently rely on this QI-1 Program. They will be hard pressed to afford Medicare coverage unless this assistance is continued. In short, to prevent the erosion of existing low-income protections, Congress needs to extend the 5-year Federal allocation for the QI-1 Program this year. We do not know the exact number of people who are eligible for this particular program--that is, the number of Medicare beneficiaries who have incomes between 120 percent and 135 percent of poverty--but the estimate we have is there are about a million of these individuals. We have about 120,000, as I indicated before, who are actually enrolled, although the numbers are likely far higher than that. We have missing data from several States, and it is very difficult to calculate it. In my State of New Mexico, for example, we know there are almost 1,000 New Mexicans who are currently enrolled in the QI-1 Program. This disenrolling of these low-income Medicare beneficiaries, which is what we would do if we did not adopt my amendment--we would disenroll these people from the program--it would cost each and every one of them $700 annually. It could have a significant impact on their health. In a letter from the Medicare Rights Center, they gave an example of the kind of person who is affected by this amendment. The example was a 69-year-old widow with severe arthritis, hypertension, and high cholesterol who lives here in our Nation's Capital. This woman, referred to as Mrs. B, does not qualify for Medicaid, yet she cannot afford premiums for a Medicare HMO or a Medigap plan. The QI-1 Program does cover her Part B premium of over $700 per year. If she loses that assistance, as she will unless the amendment we are offering here is adopted--if she loses that assistance, she does not know how she could make ends meet since she already struggles to buy food, to pay her Medicare copayment, and to purchase prescription drugs. As I indicated before, in order to qualify for this payment which she is now receiving, she cannot have an income of over $997 per month. This is a bipartisan issue. President Bush has included the QI-1 reauthorization in his fiscal year 2003 budget. When we had the confirmation hearing in the Health and Education Committee on the new Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, Mark McClellan, he testified that the administration continues to support the reauthorization of this program. In addition, QI-1 reauthorization was also included in S. 3018, which is the Beneficiary Access to Care and Medicare Equity Act. This was a bill that Senators Grassley and Baucus introduced late last year. During every Senate race around this country last fall, candidates on both sides of the aisle promised our Nation's seniors and disabled Medicare beneficiaries improved health coverage with the addition of a prescription drug benefit. While they are waiting for us to enact that prescription drug benefit, low-income Medicare beneficiaries should not be blindsided by the loss of critically needed premium protection that is provided in the QI-1 Program. I urge the passage of this amendment to extend the program another 6\1/2\ months. I urge my colleagues to join me in addressing the issue on a more permanent basis in the coming months. There are at least 120,000 low-income Medicare beneficiaries who are counting on us. Let me also respond very briefly to some comments my colleague from Pennsylvania made earlier, where he said all of these amendments that are being offered are new money. This is not new money. This is an existing program. It is a program that has been in place for 5 years. There are 120,000 individuals out there who are depending upon us continuing to assist them in making these Medicare premium payments. This is not an example of growing government, as was suggested. This is an example of maintaining a benefit for low-income seniors and disabled individuals in our society. Let me indicate a few of the numbers we are talking about in different States so my colleagues have a sense of what is involved. In the State of Alabama, there are 9,817 individuals currently receiving this benefit; in the State of Arizona, there are 5,620; in the State of Florida, there are 13,769; in the State of Kentucky, 4,329; Louisiana, 5,596; New Jersey, 7,214; North Carolina, 9,059; Ohio, 8,362; and Oklahoma, 3,169. There are many individuals who depend upon this payment. The correct thing to do, and the right thing to do, is for us to adopt this amendment. How much time remains?

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask that that amendment be called up.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, before discussing the Bingaman amendment No. 138, I ask unanimous consent first, with regard to amendment No. 126, that Senator Domenici and Senator Landrieu be added as cosponsors.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I wish to use a few moments of morning business to talk about and describe two amendments I have proposed to the pending legislation. I hope these are amendments that can be unanimously agreed to by all Senators. They seem to me to make eminent sense and, clearly, are in the best interest of our country and the people we represent. The first amendment I wish to speak about is amendment No. 138. This amendment, which Senator Kennedy is cosponsoring with me, would extend a critical Federal-State program that assists low-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay the health premiums under the Medicare Program. It uses the Medicaid Program to do that. It is a program that was enacted in 1997. It was slated to be reauthorized at the end of 2002, but, of course, Congress did not enact either Medicaid or Medicare legislation in the 107th Congress. The program was extended by the continuing resolutions that we have enacted in the last few months. It was extended until March 12 of this year. The amendment I have offered will extend that program through September 30 of this year to give us additional time to do a more complete extension. This program is known as the QI-1 Program. It is the Qualifying Individual Program. It is a program within Medicaid. It is a block grant payment to States to pay the Medicare Part B premium of $58.70 per month, and it is a program that will allow States to pay that premium for individuals who have incomes of somewhere between $887 a month and $997 a month, or couples with an income of $1,194 a month up to $1,344 a month. This covers Medicare beneficiaries whose income is between 120 and 135 percent of the Federal poverty level. This amounts to a benefit of nearly $700 annually that many older and disabled Americans depend upon to pay for a portion of their health care costs and items such as prescription drugs and supplemental coverage. There are well over 120,000 people nationwide who currently rely on the QI-1 Program. These 120,000 people will be hard pressed to afford Medicare coverage without this assistance. In short, to prevent the erosion of existing low-income protections, Congress needs to extend this 5-year Federal allocation for the QI-1 Program through the remainder of this fiscal year. According to the data of the Kaiser Family Foundation, there are over 9 million Medicare beneficiaries with incomes between 100 percent of poverty and 175 percent of poverty. Although we do not know the exact number eligible for this particular program of Medicare beneficiaries who are between 120 and 135 percent of poverty, we can estimate there are at least 1 million who are eligible for the program. As I have indicated, there are 120,000 people currently enrolled. In my home State, for example, we have almost 1,000 New Mexicans enrolled in the QI-1 Program. Disenrolling these low-income Medicare beneficiaries would cost each and every one of them about $700 annually. This could have a significant impact not only on their finances but on their health. In a letter from the Medicare Rights Center, they give an example of a 69-year-old widow with severe arthritis, with hypertension, with high cholesterol, in the Nation's Capital. This woman, I refer to as Mrs. B, does not qualify for Medicaid, yet she cannot afford premiums for a Medicare HMO or Medigap plan. This QI-1 Program, which we are seeking in this amendment to extend, does cover her Part B premium of over $700 per year. If she loses that assistance, she does not know how she can make ends meet. She already struggles to buy food, make the Medicare copayment, and purchase prescription drugs. This is a bipartisan issue. President Bush had included QI-1 reauthorization in his fiscal year 2003 budget. Moreover, in his confirmation testimony to be the Commissioner of the FDA, Mark McClellan testified that the administration continues to support reauthorization of this program. In addition, QI-1 reauthorization was also included as part of S. 3018, the Beneficiary Access to Care and Medicare Equity Act of 2002, which was introduced by my colleagues, Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, late last year. During each and every Senate race this past fall, candidates from both sides of the aisle promised our Nation's seniors and disabled Medicare beneficiaries improved health coverage with the addition of prescription drug coverage. While waiting for that to come about, low- income Medicare beneficiaries should not be blindsided by the loss of critically needed premium protection that the QI-1 Program provides. I urge passage of this amendment, when we get to it, for another 6\1/ 2\ months. I implore my colleagues to address the issue and to permanently extend the program once that issue becomes appropriate to consider. Mr. President, another amendment I have filed, amendment No. 126, is an amendment to provide permanent authority to operate the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the major tool the United States has to deal with the impact of a significant disruption in oil supplies. Releasing oil from the SPR, as it is referred to, in coordination with stock drawdowns with other consuming nations pursuant to the international energy agreement, can add more supply to a tight market, can reduce the possibility of price spikes, and reduce the possibility of economic havoc as the United States experienced during the Arab oil embargo. We are currently experiencing a disruption in oil supplies from Venezuela. We face the possibility of an additional disruption if we wind up going to war with Iraq and during the aftermath of any conflict in Iraq. In this context, it should be of concern to all Senators that the current authority to draw down oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and to participate in the international energy agreement will expire on September 30 of this year. My amendment incorporates the exact language we agreed to last fall between House and Senate conferees on H.R. 4, the comprehensive energy bill. The amendment permanently authorizes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It also requires filling the Reserve to 700 million or its current capacity. While I prefer to move this legislation through the Energy Committee, I cannot guarantee we would complete our work and get this legislation to the President before September 30. Therefore, I believe the prudent thing for the Senate to do is to add this language to the omnibus appropriations bill and deal with this matter now. Again, I see this as a bipartisan issue, one that the administration supports, one that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle support. I hope very much this amendment, as well, can be added to the bill without objection by any Senator. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with Senators Enzi, Lincoln, Baucus, Smith, Harkin, Domenici, Johnson, Nelson of Nebraska, and Dayton entitled the ``Medicaid Safety Net Improvement Act of 2003.'' This legislation is important to the continued survival of many of our Nation's safety net hospitals that provide critical health care access to our Nation's 41.2 million uninsured citizens, including 373,000 in New Mexico, through the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital, or DSH, program. In recognition of the burden certain hospitals bear in providing a large share of health services to the low-income patients, including Medicaid and the uninsured, the Congress established the Medicaid DSH program in the mid-1980's to give additional funding to support such ``disproportionate share'' hospitals. By providing financial relief to these hospitals, the Medicaid DSH program maintains hospital access for the poor. As the National Governors' Association has said, ``Medicaid DSH's funds are an important part of statewide systems of health care access for the uninsured.'' Recent reports by the Institute of Medicine entitled ``America's Health Care Safety Net: Infact But Endangered,'' the National Association of Public Hospitals entitled ``The Dependence of Safety Net Hospitals'' and the Commonwealth Fund entitled ``A Shared Responsibility: Academic Health Centers and the Provision of Care to the Poor and Uninsured'' have all highlighted the importance of the Medicaid DSH program to our health care safety net. Unfortunately, as the Commonwealth Fund report notes, ``. . . there are large inequities in how these funds are distributed among states.'' In fact, for a number of states, including New Mexico, our federal DSH allotments are not allowed to exceed 1 percent of our state's Medicaid program costs. In comparison, the average state spends around 9 percent of its Medicaid funding on DSH. This disparity and lack of Medicaid DSH in ``extremely low-DSH states'' threatens the viability of our safety net providers. In New Mexico, these funds are critical but inadequate to hospitals all across our state, including University Hospital, Eastern New Mexico Regional Hospital, Lea Regional Hospital, Plains Regional Medical Center, Memorial Medical Center, and others. In an analysis of the Medicaid DSH program by the Urban Institute, the total amount of federal Medicaid DSH payments in six States was less than $1 per Medicaid and uninsured individual compared to five States than had DSH spending in excess of $500 per Medicaid and uninsured individual. That figure was just $14.91 per Medicaid and uninsured person in New Mexico. Compared to the average expenditure of $218.96 across the country, such disparities cannot be sustained. As a result, this bipartisan legislation increases the allowed Federal Medicaid DSH allotment in the ``extremely low-DSH states'' from 1 percent to 3 percent of Medicaid program costs, which remains far less, or just about one-third, of the national average. The 18 States that would benefit from this legislation include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. I would add that the legislation does not impact the Federal DSH allotments in other States but only seeks greater equity by raising the share of Federal funds to ``extremely low-DSH States.'' Once again, the Commonwealth Fund recommends such action. As the report finds, ``States with small DSH programs are not permitted to increase the relative size of their DSH programs . . . [C]urrent policy simply rewards the programs that acted quickly and more aggressively, without regard to a State's real need of such funds.'' Therefore, the report concludes, ``. . . greater equity in the use of Federal funds should be established among States.'' Again, this is achieved in our legislation by raising the limits for ``extremely low-DSH States'' from 1 percent to 3 percent and not by redistributing or taking money away from other States. Failure to support these critical hospitals could have a devastating impact not only on the low-income and vulnerable populations who depend on them for care but also on other providers throughout the communities that rely on the safety net to care for patients whom they are unable or unwilling to serve. As the Institute of Medicine's report entitled ``America's Health Care Safety Net: Intact But Endangered'' states, ``Until the nation addresses the underlying problems that make the health care safety net system necessary, it is essential that national, State, and local policy makers protect and perhaps enhance the ability of these institutions and providers to carry out their missions.'' I would like to thank Senators Baucus and Grassley, the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, for their recognition of this problem and inclusion of this language in several bills they introduced in the last Congress, S. 3018, ``Beneficiary Access to Care and Medicare Equity Act of 2002'' and S. 2873, ``Improving Our Well-Being Act of 2002.'' Our Nation's governors remain very concerned as well. In a letter written to Senators Baucus and Grassley on October 23, 2002, the governors of the States of Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Wisconsin, and Minnesota wrote, ``Our 15, which is now 18, States are in distress and cannot wait another year for some measure of relief. We strongly urge you to use any vehicle available to include the low-DSH issue. The States are seeking to raise the cap implemented two years ago from 1 percent to 3 percent to provide them some flexibility in addressing the increasing strain facing our safety net hospitals.'' The governors add, ``The survival of many community hospitals, the lifeline for many rural community's health care and economy in our States, are being threatened. Current disparities in DSH funding severely harm our States' most vulnerable safety net hospitals.'' At a time of growing numbers of uninsured and increased financial strain on our Nation's safety net, we need to increase the ability of ``extremely low-DSH States'' to address the problems facing their safety net and to reduce the current inequity in funding among the States. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with Senators Enzi, Lincoln, Baucus, Smith, Harkin, Domenici, Johnson, Nelson of Nebraska, and Dayton entitled the ``Medicaid Safety Net Improvement Act of 2003.'' This legislation is important to the continued survival of many of our Nation's safety net hospitals that provide critical health care access to our Nation's 41.2 million uninsured citizens, including 373,000 in New Mexico, through the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital, or DSH, program. In recognition of the burden certain hospitals bear in providing a large share of health services to the low-income patients, including Medicaid and the uninsured, the Congress established the Medicaid DSH program in the mid-1980's to give additional funding to support such ``disproportionate share'' hospitals. By providing financial relief to these hospitals, the Medicaid DSH program maintains hospital access for the poor. As the National Governors' Association has said, ``Medicaid DSH's funds are an important part of statewide systems of health care access for the uninsured.'' Recent reports by the Institute of Medicine entitled ``America's Health Care Safety Net: Infact But Endangered,'' the National Association of Public Hospitals entitled ``The Dependence of Safety Net Hospitals'' and the Commonwealth Fund entitled ``A Shared Responsibility: Academic Health Centers and the Provision of Care to the Poor and Uninsured'' have all highlighted the importance of the Medicaid DSH program to our health care safety net. Unfortunately, as the Commonwealth Fund report notes, ``. . . there are large inequities in how these funds are distributed among states.'' In fact, for a number of states, including New Mexico, our federal DSH allotments are not allowed to exceed 1 percent of our state's Medicaid program costs. In comparison, the average state spends around 9 percent of its Medicaid funding on DSH. This disparity and lack of Medicaid DSH in ``extremely low-DSH states'' threatens the viability of our safety net providers. In New Mexico, these funds are critical but inadequate to hospitals all across our state, including University Hospital, Eastern New Mexico Regional Hospital, Lea Regional Hospital, Plains Regional Medical Center, Memorial Medical Center, and others. In an analysis of the Medicaid DSH program by the Urban Institute, the total amount of federal Medicaid DSH payments in six States was less than $1 per Medicaid and uninsured individual compared to five States than had DSH spending in excess of $500 per Medicaid and uninsured individual. That figure was just $14.91 per Medicaid and uninsured person in New Mexico. Compared to the average expenditure of $218.96 across the country, such disparities cannot be sustained. As a result, this bipartisan legislation increases the allowed Federal Medicaid DSH allotment in the ``extremely low-DSH states'' from 1 percent to 3 percent of Medicaid program costs, which remains far less, or just about one-third, of the national average. The 18 States that would benefit from this legislation include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. I would add that the legislation does not impact the Federal DSH allotments in other States but only seeks greater equity by raising the share of Federal funds to ``extremely low-DSH States.'' Once again, the Commonwealth Fund recommends such action. As the report finds, ``States with small DSH programs are not permitted to increase the relative size of their DSH programs . . . [C]urrent policy simply rewards the programs that acted quickly and more aggressively, without regard to a State's real need of such funds.'' Therefore, the report concludes, ``. . . greater equity in the use of Federal funds should be established among States.'' Again, this is achieved in our legislation by raising the limits for ``extremely low-DSH States'' from 1 percent to 3 percent and not by redistributing or taking money away from other States. Failure to support these critical hospitals could have a devastating impact not only on the low-income and vulnerable populations who depend on them for care but also on other providers throughout the communities that rely on the safety net to care for patients whom they are unable or unwilling to serve. As the Institute of Medicine's report entitled ``America's Health Care Safety Net: Intact But Endangered'' states, ``Until the nation addresses the underlying problems that make the health care safety net system necessary, it is essential that national, State, and local policy makers protect and perhaps enhance the ability of these institutions and providers to carry out their missions.'' I would like to thank Senators Baucus and Grassley, the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, for their recognition of this problem and inclusion of this language in several bills they introduced in the last Congress, S. 3018, ``Beneficiary Access to Care and Medicare Equity Act of 2002'' and S. 2873, ``Improving Our Well-Being Act of 2002.'' Our Nation's governors remain very concerned as well. In a letter written to Senators Baucus and Grassley on October 23, 2002, the governors of the States of Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Wisconsin, and Minnesota wrote, ``Our 15, which is now 18, States are in distress and cannot wait another year for some measure of relief. We strongly urge you to use any vehicle available to include the low-DSH issue. The States are seeking to raise the cap implemented two years ago from 1 percent to 3 percent to provide them some flexibility in addressing the increasing strain facing our safety net hospitals.'' The governors add, ``The survival of many community hospitals, the lifeline for many rural community's health care and economy in our States, are being threatened. Current disparities in DSH funding severely harm our States' most vulnerable safety net hospitals.'' At a time of growing numbers of uninsured and increased financial strain on our Nation's safety net, we need to increase the ability of ``extremely low-DSH States'' to address the problems facing their safety net and to reduce the current inequity in funding among the States. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes in morning business to speak about my priorities this year in Federal transportation funding. I think all Senators are probably aware that Congress must reauthorize the 6-year surface transportation bill in 2003. As I travel around my State, I continue to hear frequently from citizens about the need to improve our basic transportation infrastructure, including highways and transit. Access to a high- quality transportation system is an essential element in economic development, and I believe the Federal Government has an important role to play in helping communities build and maintain the basic transportation infrastructure that businesses need. Thus, the reauthorization this year of Federal transportation funding will be essential if New Mexico is to have the high-quality transportation system it needs to attract new jobs and businesses to our State. Safe and efficient highways and public transit are especially important for economic developments in the rural parts of my State. Basic transportation infrastructure is also vital to our communities, schools, and families, and helps support everyday life. The most recent 6-year transportation act, known as TEA-21, was enacted in 1998. TEA-21 has been a good piece of legislation for my State, and I was pleased to support the bill. One of the key improvements Congress made in 1998 was to establish a firewall that, for the first time, ensured all tax receipts deposited in the Highway trust fund were fully used each year for transportation projects. Under TEA-21, New Mexico has made substantial progress in upgrading key highways and transit programs in both urban and rural areas all across the State. As a result of the higher Federal highway funding provided under the act, in the past 6 years New Mexico has been able to complete a number of much-needed transportation projects. For example, Highway 285 was upgraded to four lanes between Carlsbad and Interstate 40; US 550 is now four lanes all the way from Bernalillo to Bloomfield; the Big I in Albuquerque was completely rebuilt; US 54 is now four-lanes between El Paso and Tularosa; and the Santa Fe bypass was opened. In addition, US 70 will soon be upgraded to four lanes from Las Cruces to Texico, and work is now underway to upgrade US 84/285 between Santa Fe and Poloaque. I do believe each of these projects will contribute significantly to improving highway safety and efficiency in my State. TEA-21 has also helped New Mexico improve transit services both in our cities and in rural areas. A number of communities have been able to obtain new transit vehicles and equipment with grants from the Federal Transit Administration. For example, the Alvarado transit center was opened in Albuquerque and Federal funds have been used to purchase new transit equipment and facilities in communities including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, Farmington, Taos, Angel Fire, Carlsbad, Clovis, and Los Lunas. In addition, Albuquerque initiated a study of a new high-capacity transportation system, and steps are being taken to preserve the Santa-Fe-to-El-Dorado rail line for future use. Throughout its history, New Mexico has played a key role in the transportation system of this country. The original Spanish settlers established the Camino Real between Santa Fe and Mexico City. In the last century, our Nation's first transcontinental highway, Route 66, passed through New Mexico. Today, New Mexico continues to provide a critical link in our Nation's interstate and international transportation network, including trade with Mexico. However, we are a State with limited financial resources to deal with the transportation needs of what is essentially our portion of a vast national system. Mr. President, in total land area New Mexico is the fifth largest state in the Union, but we have only 0.6 percent of the national population. At the same time, New Mexico has over 2 percent of the interstate highway system miles and slightly less than 2 percent of the total miles on the national highway system. Moreover, because of our vast land area and predominantly rural character, New Mexicans average more miles of driving per capita than the residents of every other State but one. Clearly, in light of its size and vast network of roads, the transportation needs of my State far outstrip the ability of New Mexico's sparse population to provide the funds needed to maintain and improve the State's critical piece of the national transportation system. Consequently, my top priority in the reauthorization of the highway bill will be to ensure that New Mexico receives its fair share of Federal transportation dollars for both highways and transit programs. The majority of the funding in the transportation bill is distributed directly to States and local governments under congressionally set formulas. I will be working to make sure the new formulae fully reflect New Mexico's transportation needs, including our extensive miles of important national roads and highways. Mr. President, another of my top priorities in the reauthorization will be to continue a number of the critical programs in TEA-21 that greatly benefit New Mexico. Two of these important programs are the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, known as CMAQ, and the Enhancements program, both of which help manage some of the negative impacts of transportation on our communities. At the same time, I will oppose efforts to weaken rules that protect the environment. I will also oppose attempts to limit the ability of local communities to participate in the planning and development of transportation projects that affect them. In addition, I fully support reauthorizing the Scenic Byways program that helps communities in New Mexico enhance facilities for visitors traveling our rural highways. New Mexico now has 27 scenic byways, including six that have achieved the designation of National Scenic Byways. I also believe we should continue to make progress in improving the safety of our highways as well as in reducing the staggering number of traffic fatalities and injures caused by drunk drivers. I will be looking for ways to strengthen both of these important Federal programs when Congress debates the bill this year. In addition to supporting the continuation of a number of important programs already in TEA-21, I will be authoring a series of bills that I hope the Senate will include in the final reauthorization bill. First, I will reintroduce my bill to authorize a new Federal program to upgrade rural two-lane roads on the national highway system to four- lane highways. This $1.8 million, 6-year national program targets funds to four-lane roads in New Mexico such as US 64/87 between Clayton and Raton, US 54 from Tularosa to Nara Visa, US 62/180 south of Carlsbad, and US 666 south of Shiprock. Second, I will introduce legislation to extend and expand the Indian Reservation Roads Program, which is so important to Indian communities in New Mexico. This program provides direct funding to tribes in 33 states to improve transportation. My bill increase the annual funding for tribal roads from $275 million to $500 million, reestablishes a separate $15 million per-year program to repair bridges on tribal lands, and dedicates $20 million per year in new Federal funding for tribal transit projects. Third, I will introduce legislation to establish a new University Technology Center at New Mexico State University in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. The focus of the new center is on nondestructive methods to measure the wear and tear on highway bridges. Fourth, I will reintroduce a bill to designate US Highway 54 between El Paso, Texas, and Wichita, Kansas, as the SPIRIT High Priority Corridor on the national highway system. In New Mexico, the route runs for about 350 miles from the southern border with Texas, through Alamogordo, Carrizozo, Vaughn, Santa Rosa, and Tucumcari, to Nara Visa. This designation will help focus attention on the need to upgrade this heavily traveled highway to four lanes. The bill was cosponsored last year by Senators Roberts, Inhofe, Hutchison, and Domenici. Fifth, I will introduce legislation to reauthorize the special funding that goes directly to San Juan and McKinley Counties in New Mexico, as well as neighboring counties in Arizona and Utah, to help maintain roads used by school buses on the Navajo Reservation. In TEA- 21, Congress provided $1.5 million per year for 6 years to counties in the three States to help ensure that buses carrying children to school have passable roads. It is not acceptable when Indian children can't attend school simply because their school buses couldn't get through on the many poor quality roads in the region. Sixth, I will reintroduce my bill to authorize Los Alamos National Laboratory to continue its advanced computer-modeling project to develop the National Transportation Modeling and Analysis Program, or NATMAP. The program will provide a valuable tool for analyzing the national transportation system, including cars, trucks, railroads, barges and airplanes, as a single integrated system. The program will also be valuable in assessing the impacts of disruptions to any portion of the transportation network. I hope each of these bills will gain bipartisan support and will be included in the comprehensive 6-year reauthorization bill. I will have more to say about each of these six initiatives over the next few weeks as the bills are introduced. Finally, one of the other important parts of the transportation bill is the authorization of funding for individual high-priority highway and transit projects around the State. In 1998, I helped secure funding for a number of highway projects throughout New Mexico, including upgrades of highways 84/285 and 70, Unser Boulevard, Paseo del Norte, and the uptown and northwest areas of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. This year, some of the projects for which I intend to pursue funding include reconstruction of the access road from Interstate 40 to the Double Eagle II airport in anticipation of the relocation of Eclipse Aviation; construction of a new Paseo del Volcan on the northwest side of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho; reconstruction of the I-40 and Coors Boulevard interchange; construction of a new interchange on Interstate 25 to serve Mesa del Sol; and expansion of the I-25 interchange in Belen. In the rural areas of New Mexico, I will be seeking Federal funding to complete four-lane upgrades of the Ports-to-Plains corridor along US 64/87 between Clayton and Raton, US 54 from Tularosa to Nara Visa, US 62/180 south of Carlsbad, and US 666 south of Shiprock. For transit projects, one of my priorities will be an authorization for the design and construction of a high-capacity transit corridor in Albuquerque. This effort was first initiated in 1998. The project has now been through the required preliminary studies and is ready to move forward with preliminary design for either a light-rail system or a system with dedicated bus lanes. In addition, I will be seeking an authorization to continue efforts to preserve the Santa Fe El Dorado rail line as a possible commuter route. In addition to funding for my priority highway and transit projects, a large number of additional projects will be funded directly by the State and local governments with formula grants funds provided under the 6-year transportation bill. I know reauthorizing the transportation bill is a massive effort. A number of committees here in the Senate will be involved, including the Finance Committee where I am a member. I look forward to working this year with the Environment and Public Works Committee, including Chairman Inhofe and Senator Jeffords, on the highway programs in the bill, and with the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, including Chairman Shelby and Senator Sarbanes, on the transit portion of this important legislation. I do believe that reauthorization of the transportation bill is critical to the citizens of New Mexico and to the Nation. I hope we can complete a bipartisan bill this year in a timely manner.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I also want to speak in favor of the amendment my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, has offered. I commend him and Senator Harkin, in particular, for the leadership they have shown in trying to maintain an adequate level of funding for education. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment and the amendment Senator Harkin will offer later today. The pending omnibus appropriations bill we are debating on the floor is woefully inadequate when it comes to funding education. Senator Kennedy and Senator Dodd have just pointed out that last year, with great acclaim, we passed the No Child Left Behind Act, and I supported that. I believe there are accountability provisions in that act that will move us in the way of implementing major changes in our educational system and will bring us a long way toward ensuring equal educational opportunity for all children in this country. What we were starting to do with that act, as I understood it, was to work in partnership with States and local governments to see this improvement occur, and part of that partnership was that we would help provide resources to the schools and the teachers so that those children could succeed. The President's budget abandoned that effort. This bill that we have on the floor today--although it is slightly better than the President's budget--also abandons the promise to leave no child behind. Like the President's budget, the pending bill underfunds the No Child Left Behind Act by several billion dollars. I do think the context is important here. The context is the one to which Senator Kennedy referred. We are being urged as a Congress and a nation to embrace some $660 billion or $670 billion worth of new tax cuts. At the same time, we are being told now there is not enough money to adequately fund the No Child Left Behind Act: We cannot make good on the promise that we made when we passed that act because we cannot afford it, but, by the way, why don't you speed up and pass this $660 billion tax bill, which is really focused on assisting those who are the best off in our society. So you have an interesting juxtaposition, where tax cuts are targeted at the wealthiest versus having adequate funding for programs to benefit our most disadvantaged children. That is the choice we are going to have to make in the Senate this afternoon. Unlike the President's budget, this bill has a small increase for programs authorized in the No Child Left Behind Act--an increase of $400 million. But that funding level will mean a significant cut in services because of expected inflation. Inflation is not going to be much; it is expected to be 1.8 percent. But even with that, we are not providing the funds to make up for it. The only significant increases for education in the bill are a billion dollars for title I and a billion dollars for IDEA. This bill--like the President's budget--makes those increases at the expense of other very crucial programs. In addition, even with the increase for title I--the program targeted on districts and schools with large numbers of our most disadvantaged students--in this bill, the program is $4.6 billion short of the levels agreed to on a bipartisan basis when we passed the No Child Left Behind Act. The proposed funding level will not be sufficient to keep pace with the growth in child poverty. It will mean that over 6 million poor children will in fact be left behind. If we truly intend to leave no child behind, then education funding, particularly targeted at this group of disadvantaged children, needs to be our top priority. The increase for IDEA is also insufficient. I am sure people will come to the floor today and say, no, we are increasing IDEA. At the rate of increase provided for in the underlying bill today, it will only take us 33 more years to get to the level we promised the Federal Government achieve when we enacted that program. That is covering 40 percent of the cost of that program. So the funding level in this year's bill is a mere 17 percent of those costs. The pending amendment would go a long way toward ensuring that no child, in fact, will be left behind. If Senator Kennedy's amendment prevails--which I hope it will--we will have over 2 million more needy children who will be fully served by the title I program. It will provide sufficient funding to hire 50,000 fully qualified new teachers. It will provide afterschool opportunities for a million more children. Every one of the 10,000 schools currently identified as not meeting the standards provided in the No Child Left Behind Act will be able to implement research-based school reform models. There are 200,000 college students nationally who will be able to receive a Pell grant to defray the cost of college. So this amendment can make a great difference. Let me give a few statistics about my home State of New Mexico, and then I will yield to my colleagues who also wish to speak on this important amendment. This amendment will provide the Albuquerque Public Schools $9.8 million in increased funding. In my home State, we will receive approximately $54 million under this amendment; 1,400 more college students will be eligible for a Pell grant in New Mexico and over 42,000 grant recipients will receive a substantial increase. This is an important amendment for my State, and it is an important amendment for all the schoolchildren in the country. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator DeWine, to introduce legislation which will help maintain our leadership in a field Thomas Edison invented over 100 years ago, lighting. The title of this bill is the Next Generation Lighting Initiative, or NGLI. The NGLI's purpose is to develop a partnership between our government, industry, and the research community, to enable the U.S. lighting to illuminate our surroundings using energy efficient semiconductors. This bill is structured along the lines of the well known government--industry semiconductor partnership called SEMATECH which the Congress authorized in the 1988 National Defense Authorization Act. Lighting currently accounts for roughly 19 percent of the energy use in the United States. Lighting is a $40 billion dollar global industry. The United States occupies roughly one-third of that market. Today's lighting market primarily consists of two technologies. The first technology is incandescent lighting, that's the one Thomas Edison invented over 100 years ago. Incandescent lighting relies on running a current through a wire to heat it up and illuminate your surroundings, but only 5 percent of the electricity in a conventional bulb is converted into visible light. The second type of lighting is fluorescent lights, which use a combination of chemical vapors, mainly mercury, to discharge light when current is passed through it. Fluorescent lights are six times more efficient than a light bulb. In 1998, electricity from lighting cost about 47 billion dollars, which accounted for about 100 million tons of carbon equivalent from fossil energy plants. Today, this paradign is changing, because some scientists recently made a leap ahead in lighting research. Technology leaps displace, very quickly, traditional markets. We know the stories all too well, the horse courier, the telegraph, the telephone and finally the Internet. That's why we are proposing this legislation, because some advances have been made in the areas of solid state lighting that require a national investment that no one lighting industry can match. This emerging technology has the capability to disrupt our existing lighting markets. So quickly in fact, that other countries have formed consortia between their governments, industries, laboratories and universities. Solid state lighting is being taken very seriously around the world. Let me describe solid state lighting. The best examples are red light emitting diodes, or ``LED's'', found in digital clocks. LED's produce only one color but they do not burn up a wire like a bulb and are seven times more efficient. Until recently LED's were limited to yellow or red. That all changed in 1995. In 1995, some Japanese researchers developed a blue LED. Soon other bright colors started to emerge, such as green. That is when things started to change. Because, white light is a combination of red, blue, the recent Japanese breakthrough, and green or yellow. The recent Japanese breakthrough of that simple blue LED has now made it possible to produce white light from LED's ten times more efficient than a light bulb. If it's successful, white light LED's will revolutionize lighting technology and will disrupt the existing industries. It's imperative that we move quickly on these advances. We need a consortia between our government, industry, research labs and academia to develop the necessary pre-competitive research to maintain our leadership role in this field. I'd like to mention one other technology that will change lighting. That technology is found in your cell phone and on your computer screen. It's called conductive polymers. Three Nobel Prizes were just awarded for this technology. Conductive polymers offer the possibility of covering large surface areas and replacing fluorescent lamps. These materials will not only provide white light, but can display text or programmed color pictures. These technologies can be Internet controlled to adjust building lighting across the country. Let me describe the Next Generation Lighting Initiative Act. If enacted, it will allow our country to capture these revolutionary mergers between lighting and information. It will supply the necessary pre-competitive R&D which no one industry alone can provide, and, which we as holders of the public trust of basic research owe a duty to further. It will keep the United States in a leadership role for commercial lighting and promote energy efficiency that is ten times that of incandescent lights and twice that of fluorescent lights. We need to enact this legislation now. The Next Generation Lighting Initiative authorizes the Department of Energy to grant up to $460 million over ten years to a consortium of the United States lighting industry and research institutions. The goals of the Act are to have a 25 percent penetration of solid state lighting into the commercial markets by the 2013. The Next Generation's consortium will perform the basic and manufacturing research. The lighting industry will take this R&D and develop the necessary technologies to make it commercially viable. This is precompetitive research. It is research that no one industry by itself can perform and which we have a duty to promote together with industry. It has implications for our country's energy policy far broader than economic competitiveness. The potential reduction in energy consumption makes it a national initiative. Once the pre- competitive research is transitioned to industry then it should be terminated, we think that will take about 10 years. If this initiative is successful, then by 2025, it can reduce our energy consumption by roughly 17 billion watts of power or eliminate the need for 17 large electricity generating plants. That's as much as 17 million homes consume in a single day. That's more homes than in California, Oregon, and Washington combined. Almost all of the language of this bill was worked out in detail with the House during the 107th Congress as part of the energy bill conference. We feel it is not only bipartisan but bicameral, and we hope that in this Congress it becomes law. So let me conclude, by saying that the Next Generation Lighting Initiative will carry that U.S. lighting industry into the twenty-first century. It capitalizes on technologies that have the potential to displace our lighting industry. This Initiative will reduce our nation's energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The research necessary to advance this technology requires a national investment that must be in partnership with industry. I encourage my colleagues to review this bill, offer their comments, and join us in its support. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record as follows:

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator DeWine, to introduce legislation which will help maintain our leadership in a field Thomas Edison invented over 100 years ago, lighting. The title of this bill is the Next Generation Lighting Initiative, or NGLI. The NGLI's purpose is to develop a partnership between our government, industry, and the research community, to enable the U.S. lighting to illuminate our surroundings using energy efficient semiconductors. This bill is structured along the lines of the well known government--industry semiconductor partnership called SEMATECH which the Congress authorized in the 1988 National Defense Authorization Act. Lighting currently accounts for roughly 19 percent of the energy use in the United States. Lighting is a $40 billion dollar global industry. The United States occupies roughly one-third of that market. Today's lighting market primarily consists of two technologies. The first technology is incandescent lighting, that's the one Thomas Edison invented over 100 years ago. Incandescent lighting relies on running a current through a wire to heat it up and illuminate your surroundings, but only 5 percent of the electricity in a conventional bulb is converted into visible light. The second type of lighting is fluorescent lights, which use a combination of chemical vapors, mainly mercury, to discharge light when current is passed through it. Fluorescent lights are six times more efficient than a light bulb. In 1998, electricity from lighting cost about 47 billion dollars, which accounted for about 100 million tons of carbon equivalent from fossil energy plants. Today, this paradign is changing, because some scientists recently made a leap ahead in lighting research. Technology leaps displace, very quickly, traditional markets. We know the stories all too well, the horse courier, the telegraph, the telephone and finally the Internet. That's why we are proposing this legislation, because some advances have been made in the areas of solid state lighting that require a national investment that no one lighting industry can match. This emerging technology has the capability to disrupt our existing lighting markets. So quickly in fact, that other countries have formed consortia between their governments, industries, laboratories and universities. Solid state lighting is being taken very seriously around the world. Let me describe solid state lighting. The best examples are red light emitting diodes, or ``LED's'', found in digital clocks. LED's produce only one color but they do not burn up a wire like a bulb and are seven times more efficient. Until recently LED's were limited to yellow or red. That all changed in 1995. In 1995, some Japanese researchers developed a blue LED. Soon other bright colors started to emerge, such as green. That is when things started to change. Because, white light is a combination of red, blue, the recent Japanese breakthrough, and green or yellow. The recent Japanese breakthrough of that simple blue LED has now made it possible to produce white light from LED's ten times more efficient than a light bulb. If it's successful, white light LED's will revolutionize lighting technology and will disrupt the existing industries. It's imperative that we move quickly on these advances. We need a consortia between our government, industry, research labs and academia to develop the necessary pre-competitive research to maintain our leadership role in this field. I'd like to mention one other technology that will change lighting. That technology is found in your cell phone and on your computer screen. It's called conductive polymers. Three Nobel Prizes were just awarded for this technology. Conductive polymers offer the possibility of covering large surface areas and replacing fluorescent lamps. These materials will not only provide white light, but can display text or programmed color pictures. These technologies can be Internet controlled to adjust building lighting across the country. Let me describe the Next Generation Lighting Initiative Act. If enacted, it will allow our country to capture these revolutionary mergers between lighting and information. It will supply the necessary pre-competitive R&D which no one industry alone can provide, and, which we as holders of the public trust of basic research owe a duty to further. It will keep the United States in a leadership role for commercial lighting and promote energy efficiency that is ten times that of incandescent lights and twice that of fluorescent lights. We need to enact this legislation now. The Next Generation Lighting Initiative authorizes the Department of Energy to grant up to $460 million over ten years to a consortium of the United States lighting industry and research institutions. The goals of the Act are to have a 25 percent penetration of solid state lighting into the commercial markets by the 2013. The Next Generation's consortium will perform the basic and manufacturing research. The lighting industry will take this R&D and develop the necessary technologies to make it commercially viable. This is precompetitive research. It is research that no one industry by itself can perform and which we have a duty to promote together with industry. It has implications for our country's energy policy far broader than economic competitiveness. The potential reduction in energy consumption makes it a national initiative. Once the pre- competitive research is transitioned to industry then it should be terminated, we think that will take about 10 years. If this initiative is successful, then by 2025, it can reduce our energy consumption by roughly 17 billion watts of power or eliminate the need for 17 large electricity generating plants. That's as much as 17 million homes consume in a single day. That's more homes than in California, Oregon, and Washington combined. Almost all of the language of this bill was worked out in detail with the House during the 107th Congress as part of the energy bill conference. We feel it is not only bipartisan but bicameral, and we hope that in this Congress it becomes law. So let me conclude, by saying that the Next Generation Lighting Initiative will carry that U.S. lighting industry into the twenty-first century. It capitalizes on technologies that have the potential to displace our lighting industry. This Initiative will reduce our nation's energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The research necessary to advance this technology requires a national investment that must be in partnership with industry. I encourage my colleagues to review this bill, offer their comments, and join us in its support. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record as follows:

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me also speak to the Unemployment Compensation Act we passed. Last week, Congress passed important legislation to help nearly 4 million Americans whose eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits expired on the 28th of December. Three million of these Americans are now entitled to an additional 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits through the first half of 2003. Another 780,000 will receive the remainder of the original 13 weeks that they were entitled to under the temporary extended unemployment compensation program. This is good news. I, as most of my colleagues, I am sure, announced in my State that this was good news for unemployed workers and we needed to thank the President and thank all who helped to get that done. The bad news, though, is that this legislation did not help an estimated 1 million Americans who have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits and are no longer eligible for assistance. The fundamental problem in the United States, in my State of New Mexico as well as other States, is that jobs are being lost and, unfortunately, no new net jobs are being created. The economy is not getting better. It is getting worse. Americans are caught in a downward economic spiral economically that began 2 years ago. It shows no signs of improvement. The problem with the legislation we passed this last week is that it simply ignored these million people who do not have jobs today and who likely will not have jobs anytime soon. These are people who have played by the rules, who, through no fault of their own, find themselves without a job. Many of them are trying to get the skills necessary to be able to take another job, but we have cut off any benefit to them. I believe we need to help these people in a tangible way. Providing extended unemployment benefits in a time of crisis is the least we can do. Unemployment insurance offers, at most, a subsistence level of existence. No one gets rich on unemployment insurance. It seems to me we should be able to offer some financial security to our friends and neighbors when they need it most. In my home State, I have seen this issue most directly in those who have become unemployed in my home county of Grant County where the copper mine and smelter have essentially shut down. The workers in that mine and smelter have found themselves unemployed. The unfortunate reality is that many of those people lost their jobs before March of this last year. Accordingly, they have run through the 39 weeks of unemployment compensation they could receive, and we have failed to add to that and provide any additional assistance to them. Back in the early 1990s, we passed a series of bills over a 2-year period specifically designed to help people who had no chance of obtaining jobs until that economy improved. Most Americans during that period--this was 10 years ago, when former President Bush was in the White House--were entitled to at least 52 weeks of unemployment insurance coverage. Some Americans in high employment States were entitled to even more. I don't understand why we are not willing to step up and do that same thing again in this current economic circumstance. In fact, the economic circumstance we find ourselves in today is at least as bad as what we faced in the early 1990s. We could be using this as an opportunity to retool and make our country stronger economically. Instead, we are pretending the problem does not exist and pretending that these workers will somehow or other fend for themselves. The policy makes no sense to me. I don't think it is good strategy. It is not good economics. I add my voice to that of other colleagues who spoke last week who argued that we need to do more for those who are out of work. I hope if the economy continues to suffer as it currently is, we will revisit this issue and provide these extended unemployment benefits out to 52 weeks for unemployed Americans. Offering extended benefits to Americans who have exhausted their unemployment benefits is a step in making this country stronger. I urge that course on my colleagues. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I first want to offer a few comments about the very important birthday of the greatest civil rights leader of our time, Dr. Martin Luther King, and give some thoughts about the issue of civil rights and our commitment to equal opportunities for all Americans. Obviously, we need to continue to fight to protect the rights of all Americans by supporting and ensuring full implementation of the antidiscrimination laws. But we also need to ensure that programs designed to create equal opportunity for all groups and for all individuals in our society in critical areas such as education and health care are fully implemented. I believe an important test of our commitment to equality is an examination of the broader policy choices we make and the priorities we set as we allocate Federal dollars. We have heard a great deal from the administration, and continue to, about their championing of minorities and the disadvantaged. But, unfortunately, there seems to me to be a pattern of shortchanging the programs and the policy initiatives that are most meaningful to those very groups, at least those groups as I visit with them in my home State. In the context of education--which the Presiding Officer is extremely well versed in--the administration's position has embraced the Children's Defense Fund slogan, which is: We Should Leave No Child Behind. Last Congress, on a bipartisan basis, we enacted the No Child Left Behind Act which, for the first time, demands that our educational system demonstrate progress for all children by closing existing achievement gaps. I believe the accountability provisions in that law can have a revolutionary impact on our educational system and can bring us a great distance toward ensuring equal educational opportunities for all children. But we need to back up these mandates and these requirements by working in partnership with State and local governments to provide the resources the schools and the teachers need to help all of our children to succeed. And I do not believe we have seen a real commitment to do that from this administration. The pending fiscal year 2003 budget, which we are getting ready to debate, even as soon as this afternoon, underfunds the No Child Left Behind Act by $7 billion. The President included a small increase from the title I program--the program targeted to districts and schools with large numbers of disadvantaged students--but even with this increase, the program remains underfunded by $5 billion. The proposed funding level will not be sufficient to keep pace with the growth in child poverty. It will mean over 6 million poor children will be left behind. In addition, the President's budget zero funds programs that are targeted at assisting minority groups. One of those is the dropout prevention program which we wrote into that law. The dropout rate for Hispanic students in this country is almost three times that for non-Hispanic white students. Most recent data-- 1999 through 2000--shows a dropout rate among white non-Hispanic students of 10 percent; among Hispanic students, just over 27 percent. These children are being left behind. Yet despite bipartisan agreement during the negotiations on the No Child Left Behind Act to include this program, to include this initiative at the Federal level, to assist with dropout prevention efforts in our high schools and in our middle schools, the administration has proposed zero funding for the program. They propose zero funding in the 2003 fiscal year budget, which we are going to be debating later today or tomorrow; and I fear they may propose zero funding for the dropout prevention program in the new budget we see at the beginning of February. The refusal to fund this program is an even greater problem in light of the new focus on student performance and assessment. The increased focus on assessments has led many to fear dropout rates will increase as States strive to meet their academic performance goals. There is a danger that kids who are not doing well on tests will be the ones most likely to drop out. We tried to address the issue by including a provision in the new law that requires schools to show that increased test scores do not come at the expense of increased dropout rates. But the administration's recent regulations interpreting the new law gut this protection by allowing schools to claim progress even if dropout rates for some groups increase. If we truly intend to leave no child behind--and I do believe there was good faith in the effort to put this bill together--educational funding, particularly funding for programs such as this I have just discussed that are targeted toward the most disadvantaged children--and this includes a disproportionately large number of minorities--these programs need to be our top priority, not our lowest priority. We also see misconceived priorities in the area of health care. The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences said in a report they issued. [A] large body of published research reveals that racial and ethnic minorities experience a lower quality of health services, and are less likely to receive even routine medical procedures than are white Americans. One of the number of recommendations the report made--and has been ignored, thus far, by the administration--is the recommendation to ensure public health care payors--that means Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, specifically--that the health beneficiaries of those programs are brought to the same level in their benefits as those who get their benefits through the private sector. In the area of providing coverage to low-income pregnant women, the administration first supported and then turned its back on a bipartisan approach to cover low-income pregnant women with access to the full array of prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care that is typical in the private sector. This bipartisan effort--Senator Bond was very involved in this, as were other Senators on both the Republican side and Democratic side--the bipartisan effort would improve the outcomes of deliveries for both pregnant women and their children, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities who are disproportionately enrolled in these public sector programs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, African American women have mortality rates over four times higher than that of non-Hispanic whites. American Indian/Alaska Natives, Asian/Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic women have mortality rates 67 percent, 55 percent, and 41 percent, respectively, that are higher than non- Hispanic whites. To address this problem, we have pushed to provide States the option to provide comprehensive coverage to pregnant women, including lifesaving postpartum care through the CHIP program. The Bush administration has decided to reject that approach and, instead, proposed a regulation that does not provide comprehensive coverage such as postpartum care to pregnant women. The administration has chosen, instead, to pursue an ideological agenda with respect to women's health and abortion rather than to address this most basic health issue for women and infants. There are other areas that show a lack of commitment to equal opportunity for Americans. For example, the administration alleges it wants to eliminate poverty through progressive welfare-to-work policies. I heard the President yesterday indicating his desire that people work 40 hours a week. I favor requiring people to work whatever is reasonable, but we have seen great resistance from the administration in our efforts to increase child care funding, which is essential for the mothers we are now requiring to go to work. We need to see that that issue is adequately addressed. And the administration needs to support our efforts to increase child care funding as part of any reauthorization of the welfare legislation. There has been a lot of discussion in the last few days about the unfairness and inequities in the tax proposal of the administration and how that is clearly skewed to help the wealthy and not to help the average American of whatever racial or ethnic background. In the area of pension reform, again, minorities are less likely to work for an employer that offers a retirement plan. We need to do something significant to try to expand pension coverage in this country. That is a great failing. Well over half of the private sector employees in my State do not have pension coverage, and that is an issue that needs addressing as much as anything else in the pension area. To summarize my views, we need to provide equal access to high quality education, equal access to adequate health care, and to child care. We need to support equitable tax policies. That is what is essential if we are going to support equity and equality and really follow through on the rhetoric which we hear related to the birthday of Martin Luther King.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I do share that view and appreciate the fact that wilderness study area release is no longer a concern in this legislation.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I share the assistant majority leader's view that this bill would address an important need for a safe recreational shooting facility in southern Nevada and believe that S. 1451, which my committee reported favorably with amendment, is a good bill. The two primary concerns raised by many interested parties were that the original bill would have released land from wilderness study area status and that the parcel of land conveyed was possibly too large, and therefore the bill might set an unfortunate precedent on those two issues.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, when this session of Congress ends, one member of New Mexico's congressional delegation will be retiring, and I rise to acknowledge his departure from public life and to express appreciation for his loyal service to our state and this nation. Joe Skeen has been involved in Republican politics in New Mexico for more than forty years, most of them as an elected official. He was in the State Senate for ten years, and while his two campaigns for governor in the 1970's were unsuccessful, he is one of the very few in the history of our country elected to the Congress as a write-in candidate. That occurred in 1980, and he has served his district in the House of Representatives for eleven terms, longer than any New Mexico House Member. It cannot be said that Joe and I agree on even every fourth issue that comes down the pike, but we have worked well together on so much that matters to New Mexico. I have never doubted for a moment his devotion to what he thinks is right, nor have I doubted his ability to get the job done. New Mexico is a small town in many ways, and while Joe and I were acquainted before either of us came to Washington, it was when I came here that we really got to know one another. I consider him, and his wife, Mary, to be friends, and am honored that they think the same of me. They raise sheep on their ranch in Lincoln County, and I know Joe will be glad to get back home after having distinguished himself in the Congress, and representing his District so well. We'll miss him.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, it is rare for me to make a statement for the Record in honor of a retiring staff member, but this is a rare staff member--one who by any measure would be deserving of the Senate's time and of space in the Congressional Record. I am speaking of Dolores Garcia, whose service in the Senate started the same day as my own, January 3, 1983. Dolores and I had worked together prior to that when I was Attorney General of New Mexico, and she had been with the Attorney General's staff long before I came to that office. My staff and I, as well as countless New Mexicans, feel fortunate to know and work with Dolores. Diligent, competent, with a benevolent nature and a strong work ethic, Dolores embodies the best of human traits. In her work as the coordinator for service academy nominations, she has started many young leaders on their way to success. She helps keep my Santa Fe office running smoothly, attends the needs of local and legislative officials, helps manage my office budget, and coordinates my state schedule. No matter how busy she might be, she always has time and a kind word for those who turn to her for help. Dolores is a great friend to my staff and me. We hold her in the highest esteem. Another long-time staff member commented that he thought his best hope of getting into Heaven is on her coattails. I feel the same, Mr. President, and would feel fortunate to have her vouch for me.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I do share that view and appreciate the fact that wilderness study area release is no longer a concern in this legislation.