Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today with Senators Chafee, Rockefeller, Kennedy, Feingold, Corzine, Reed, Clinton, Kerry, and Kohl entitled the Medicare+Choice Consumer Protection Act is designed to ensure protections for Medicare+Choice beneficiaries that are witnessing increased costs, decreased benefits, and fewer options to obtain affordable supplemental coverage for Medicare. This legislation is a companion bill to H.R. 3267, legislation introduced by Representative Pete Stark. The Medicare+Choice program is an important option for many seniors and the disabled in this country, including 15 percent of seniors in the State of New Mexico. This option must remain a viable one in the Medicare program, but due to the recent rounds of plan withdrawals, benefit reductions, and cost increases that plans have undertaken within the program, there has been a growing level of insecurity among Medicare beneficiaries with respect to their health coverage. Last year, I sponsored legislation, S. 2905, the Medicare+Choice Program Improvement Act of 2000, to increase payments, including the minimum payment amount to Medicare+Choice plans. However, despite payment increases approved by the Congress last year, including some substantial increases in certain more rural areas of the country, we have witnessed over 530,000 people recently lose their Medicare+Choice coverage as a result of HMO pull-outs from the Medicare program, including some in areas that received these much higher payments. Many others have also experienced increases in their costs through the HMO or benefit reductions, including the elimination or substantial reduction of prescription drug coverage. Therefore, while we must continue to explore mechanisms to ensure that the Medicare+Choice program remains a viable one, it is clear that even if their push for higher payments is met that the plans may still choose to pull-out of areas, decrease benefits, or increase costs to seniors. Despite ads being run by some Medicare+Choice plans that they will provide ``health care for life,'' Medicare beneficiaries are seeing constant turmoil and change on a yearly basis. Some Medicare Beneficiaries have been dropped to have seen their benefits reduced or costs increased by HMO's on yearly basis since the creation of the Medicare+Choice program in 1997. In New Mexico, the result of last year's payment increases have resulted in a mixed outcome. Presbyterian's Medicare+Choice plan has reported that they are on track to achieve a profit margin of 3 to 4 percent on its M+C product in 2001 compared to a loss of around 15 percent in the prior year. In contrast, St. Joseph's M+C plan received the substantial increase in its Medicare payment, and yet, eliminated prescription drug coverage to seniors through its HMO without notice to some seniors this past March and still reports the system is up for sale and may completely change this coming year. Beneficiaries are often left confused and uncertain. As 96 year-old Beulah Torrez of Espanola, New Mexico, said after the last round of Medicare+Choice plan changes, ``I just finally gave up. I couldn't afford anything. I couldn't afford the HMOs.'' As we continue to seek ways to improve Medicare+Choice coverage, we should take immediate action to extend important consumer protections to Medicare beneficiaries who find themselves in a plan that no longer meets their needs. To achieve these goals, the bill we are introducing today would. (1) Eliminate the Medicare+Choice lock-in scheduled to go into effect in January 2002. (2) Extend the existing Medigap protections that apply to people whose Medicare+Choice plan withdraws from the program to anyone whose Medicare+Choice plan changes benefits or whose doctor or hospital leaves the plan. (3) Prevent Medicare+Choice plans from charging higher cost-sharing for a service than Medicare charges in the fee-for-service program. Eliminating the lock-in would ensure that seniors and people with disabilities continue to be allowed to leave a health plan that is not meeting their needs. When St. Joseph's health plan eliminated prescription drug coverage from its Medicare plan earlier this year, Medicare beneficiaries were left without drug coverage but were at least able to change their health plan at the end of the month. This flexibility will end in January 2002 unless this legislation is passed. It is important that Medicare beneficiaries, often our nation's most vulnerable citizens, know that if they test an HMO and do not like its system, arrangements and rules that they will be able to leave and choose a Medicare option that better suits their specific needs. Both advocates and the managed care industry support this provision. In addition, if a Medicare+Choice plan withdraws from a community or Medicare entirely, you can under current law move into a select category of Medigap plans, (A, B, C and F, without any individual health underwriting. this provision ensures that Medicare beneficiaries have affordable supplemental Medicare options available to them when, through no fault of their own, their Medicare+Choice plan withdrawals. However, these protections for Medicare beneficiaries currently do not apply with Medicare+Choice plans that make significant changes, such as eliminating benefits, increasing cost sharing, or changing available providers, within the HMO but stop short of completely withdrawing from the Medicare program. In the St. Joseph's case I mentioned above, seniors were unable to receive important Medigap or supplemental Medicare coverage since the plan did not completely withdraw from the service area. For Medicare beneficiaries whose needs no longer are met by the HMO due to such changes, a Medigap supplemental policy and a return to Medicare fee-for-service may often make better sense. Therefore, it is critical to extend the current Medigap protections for when a plan terminates Medicare participation to beneficiaries in plans that have made important changes to the benefits, cost sharing, or provider options. And finally, the third provision of the bill would prevent Medicare+Choice plans from charging higher cost-sharing for individual services than occurs in the Medicare fee-for-service program. According to testimony before the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee by Thomas Scully, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, on December 4, 2001, . . . this year we have found that some plans proposed charging beneficiaries what we believed were unreasonably high copays for particular services . . . Thus, we have a new challenge balancing the need for plans to make decisions about their benefit packages and cost sharing amounts with the important requirement that plan designs do not discourage enrollment. The concern is always that high cost sharing could discourage beneficiaries, who have greater health care needs, from enrolling in or remaining a member of these particular plans. In the case of UnitedHealth Group's Medicare Complete option in Wisconsin, that plan will begin charging a deductible of $295 a day for a hospital stay up to a cap of $4,800 compared to a similar stay under fee-for-service Medicare which has a deductible of $812. While CMS did require the plan to reduce their proposed deductible from $350 to $295 per day, overall out-of-pocket costs can far exceed those that would occur in fee-for-service for many beneficiaries. As Stephanie Sue Stein, Director of the Milwaukee County Department on Aging, said at the same House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing on December 4, 2001, Beneficiaries will still be expected to pay up to $4,800 out-of-pocket in addition to the $55 monthly premium for United's coverage and the $54 monthly premium for Medicare Part B. The excessive cost-sharing proposed by United raises questions about the value of this so-called insurance. It is now clear that many of the 16,000 seniors who have previously relied on UnitedHealthcare to provide access to affordable health care can no longer do so. It looks to us as though the benefit changes for 2002 are designed to discourage enrollment to beneficiaries who have health needs. The question arises why we would allow Medicare+Choice plans to effectively diminish the value of Medicare benefits in this manner. While the Secretary has the authority under current law to prohibit or reduce some of the new cost-sharing arrangements that plans are preparing to impose, the change proposed by this legislation makes it clear that Medicare+Choice plans cannot charge patients more for a service than the patient would face under the Medicare fee-for-service plan. In fact, the ability of Medicare+Choice plans to charge higher cost- sharing for benefits or services than in fee-for-service results in further risk avoidance, or what is referred to as ``cherry picking,'' as plans seek to avoid or deny services to the chronically or severely ill. This can have an adverse consequence for the health of people with disabilities, limit their choices, and result in higher costs for the Medicare program. For all of these reasons, we should enact this provision in short order. While we are undertaking efforts to ensure that Medicare-Choice remains a viable option for Medicare beneficiaries, we must also ensure additional protections for beneficiaries. As Ms. Stein said in her testimony, These plans now call themselves new things, complete and secure and healthy, but they are not complete or secure or healthy. They are radically different. These Medicare+Choice policies are not the same ones people bought when they took advantage of what they perceived to be the value-added benefits sold to them as Medicare+Choice. In fact, they are left with Medicare minus protection, Medicare minus the ability to buy a Medigap policy, Medicare minus the ability to choose different insurance. In fact, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund in April 2001, ``31 percent of Medicare+Choice enrollees are in contracts where the basic plan has a copayment requirement for hospital admissions, compared with just 13 percent in 2000. Outpatient hospital copayments are being required of 45 percent of Medicare+Choice enrollees in 2001, compared with only 29 percent in 2000.'' This will only increase further in 2002. Therefore, to improve fundamental financial protections and health care options for our nation's Medicare seniors and disabled enrollees, I urge the swift passage of this legislation. The following organizations have expressed their support for this legislation: AFSCME Retiree Program, Alliance for Retired Americans, American Association of Homes and Service for the Aging, American Association for International Aging, American Federation of Teachers Program on Retirement and Retirees, American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, Association for Gerontology and Human Development in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, B'nai B'rith Center for Senior Housing and Services, California Health Advocates, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Congress of California Seniors, Eldercare America, Families USA, International Union--UAW, National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, National Association of Retired and Senior Volunteer Program Directors, National Association of Retired Federal Employees, National Association of Senior Companion Program Directors, National Association of State Units on Aging, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, National Council on the Aging, National Renal Administrators Association, National Senior Citizens Law Center, and OWL--Voice for Midlife and Older Women. I request unanimous consent that a fact sheet and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, on December 12, 2001, the Senate passed the Administrative Simplification Compliance Act, by unanimous consent. As the title states, this is a bill about compliance with the ``Administrative Simplification Act'' and not a proposal to delay enforcement of it. This bill permits healthcare organizations, health plans, providers and clearinghouses, which cannot meet the current deadline for compliance with the transactions and code sets rule, to seek and obtain a one-year delay. Such flexibility was necessary due to the complexity and novel nature of the changes mandated under the Administrative Simplification Act. At the same time, certain provisions were built into the rule to allay concerns that entitles that request the delay may merely continue to avoid preparing for compliance. The first of the provisions designed to provide compliance impetus is the requirement to submit a plan no later than October 16, 2002, stating, among other things, how the covered entity will come into compliance by October 16, 2003. These plans must include: (1) an analysis reflecting the extent to which, and the reasons, why, the person is not in compliance; (2) a budget, schedule, work plan, and implementation strategy for achieving compliance; (3) whether the person plans to use or might use a contractor or other vendor to assist the person in achieving compliance; and (4) a timeframe for testing that begins not later than April 15, 2003. I am concerned that there will be a year in which some covered entities are using compliant standard transactions, as prescribed by the Administrative Simplification Act, and others who are not compliant and sought the delay according to them by H.R. 3323. For those in compliance, it is important that they are not penalized for using a compliant standard transaction format, as prescribed by the Administrative Simplification Act, after the original compliance date of October 15, 2002. That is, transactions should not be rejected, burdened, or penalized with additional costs, for being in conformity to the standard transaction format. In order to avoid burdening complying health care entities, those entities seeking delay should also set forth how they will accept and not unduly burden conforming transactions from compliant health care entities between October 16, 2002, and October 16, 2003. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that Administrative Simplification Act accomplishes what it was set out to do, which is to save money for covered entities on transactions costs, provided administrative efficiency, and protect the privacy of personally identifiable health information.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will benefit every public transit agency in America by streamlining their purchasing of buses with Federal funding. I am pleased to be joined in introducing this bill by my colleague, Senator DOMENICI, who has worked with me on developing this important legislation. Our bill is very simple. It authorizes a 5-year pilot program to allow State and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance the option to purchase transit buses through the General Services Administration. Allowing public transit agencies the option to purchase buses through the GSA could result in substantial cost savings to the Federal Government. In addition, GSA's standardized options and prices would help streamline the procurement process for buses, which could be especially valuable to smaller communities. I do believe our bill will help stretch each dollar of Federal transit funding a little bit farther. Currently only the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has the option to purchase buses through the General Services Administration. WMATA is today using this authority to purchase buses. The pilot program authorized in our bill would open up the option to all public transit agencies around the country that receive Federal transit assistance. However, as a pilot program, it is limited only to heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches. Because of GSA's limited experience with transit buses, the bill provides for the pilot program to be managed by the Federal Transit Administration. The General Services Administration currently offers three heavy-duty transit buses and two intercity coaches. GSA selected these suppliers in full and open competitive solicitations, and the companies had to bid attractive terms and prices in order to win those 5-year contracts. However, to ensure that all bus suppliers have an equal opportunity to provide buses through the GSA, our bill requires GSA to reopen immediately the original solicitation to provide a full and open competition for all bus manufacturers interested in selling buses through GSA contracts. In addition, bus suppliers that already have GSA contracts would be permitted to modify their proposals. Finally, to ensure future fairness to all bus suppliers, the GSA will expand the bus program to a full multiple-award schedule with a larger variety of vehicles and choices of optional equipment. GSA indicates this process will take 12 to 18 months. Therefore, our bill directs GSA to complete the multiple-award schedule by December 31, 2003, and authorizes state and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance to purchase heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches off these new GSA schedules. The pilot program ends after 5 years on December 31, 2006. I believe it is very important to point out that as a pilot program, our bill is limited only to transit buses and intercity coaches. It has no effect on companies that supply other types of vehicles, pharmaceuticals, or any other product that currently can be purchased through the General Services Administration. I believe transit buses are a unique situation. Public transit agencies should be allowed to use their Federal funding to purchase buses through the GSA. There are only a few bus manufacturers in America today and most buses are purchased using Federal funds provided by the Federal Transit Administration. In fact, our bill requires that a majority of the cost of all buses purchased through the GSA be from Federal funds. We also believe that the pilot program authorized in our bill could provide valuable information on bus purchasing that Congress may want to consider when the 6-year transportation bill is reauthorized in 2003. Our bus manufacturers are not having an easy time in this recession. Our bill will help expedite bus companies by eliminating the cost of responding to myriad requests for proposals from public transit agencies. That's why bus manufacturers, through the American Public Transportation Association, support our proposal. Our bill will also help the public transit agencies by reducing the cost of preparing the requests for proposals and assessing the responses. I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support for our bill from the American Public Transportation Association be included in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. I do believe this is a meritorious proposal and hope it will be enacted as soon as possible. I look forward to working with Senator Sarbanes, chairman of the Banking Committee, and the members of his committee to see if prompt action can be taken on this bill. The pilot program has the support of the Federal Transit Administration, bus manufacturers, and public transit agencies across the Nation. 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 that will benefit every public transit agency in America by streamlining their purchasing of buses with Federal funding. I am pleased to be joined in introducing this bill by my colleague, Senator DOMENICI, who has worked with me on developing this important legislation. Our bill is very simple. It authorizes a 5-year pilot program to allow State and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance the option to purchase transit buses through the General Services Administration. Allowing public transit agencies the option to purchase buses through the GSA could result in substantial cost savings to the Federal Government. In addition, GSA's standardized options and prices would help streamline the procurement process for buses, which could be especially valuable to smaller communities. I do believe our bill will help stretch each dollar of Federal transit funding a little bit farther. Currently only the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has the option to purchase buses through the General Services Administration. WMATA is today using this authority to purchase buses. The pilot program authorized in our bill would open up the option to all public transit agencies around the country that receive Federal transit assistance. However, as a pilot program, it is limited only to heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches. Because of GSA's limited experience with transit buses, the bill provides for the pilot program to be managed by the Federal Transit Administration. The General Services Administration currently offers three heavy-duty transit buses and two intercity coaches. GSA selected these suppliers in full and open competitive solicitations, and the companies had to bid attractive terms and prices in order to win those 5-year contracts. However, to ensure that all bus suppliers have an equal opportunity to provide buses through the GSA, our bill requires GSA to reopen immediately the original solicitation to provide a full and open competition for all bus manufacturers interested in selling buses through GSA contracts. In addition, bus suppliers that already have GSA contracts would be permitted to modify their proposals. Finally, to ensure future fairness to all bus suppliers, the GSA will expand the bus program to a full multiple-award schedule with a larger variety of vehicles and choices of optional equipment. GSA indicates this process will take 12 to 18 months. Therefore, our bill directs GSA to complete the multiple-award schedule by December 31, 2003, and authorizes state and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance to purchase heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches off these new GSA schedules. The pilot program ends after 5 years on December 31, 2006. I believe it is very important to point out that as a pilot program, our bill is limited only to transit buses and intercity coaches. It has no effect on companies that supply other types of vehicles, pharmaceuticals, or any other product that currently can be purchased through the General Services Administration. I believe transit buses are a unique situation. Public transit agencies should be allowed to use their Federal funding to purchase buses through the GSA. There are only a few bus manufacturers in America today and most buses are purchased using Federal funds provided by the Federal Transit Administration. In fact, our bill requires that a majority of the cost of all buses purchased through the GSA be from Federal funds. We also believe that the pilot program authorized in our bill could provide valuable information on bus purchasing that Congress may want to consider when the 6-year transportation bill is reauthorized in 2003. Our bus manufacturers are not having an easy time in this recession. Our bill will help expedite bus companies by eliminating the cost of responding to myriad requests for proposals from public transit agencies. That's why bus manufacturers, through the American Public Transportation Association, support our proposal. Our bill will also help the public transit agencies by reducing the cost of preparing the requests for proposals and assessing the responses. I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support for our bill from the American Public Transportation Association be included in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. I do believe this is a meritorious proposal and hope it will be enacted as soon as possible. I look forward to working with Senator Sarbanes, chairman of the Banking Committee, and the members of his committee to see if prompt action can be taken on this bill. The pilot program has the support of the Federal Transit Administration, bus manufacturers, and public transit agencies across the Nation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy very much for yielding. I also thank him for his leadership on this very important legislation. I have admired his work in the Senate since I have been in the Senate. There is no legislation, that I am aware of, however, that has passed under his jurisdiction and with his leadership that is more important than this education bill--the Leave No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. I also would like to thank Senator Gregg. I think he has worked long and hard on this set of issues and also deserves great credit for this final product. Congressman Miller and Congressman Boehner in the House both deserve tremendous credit, as do many of the Members in the Senate and the House. Of course, I thank the staff of all concerned for the wonderful work they have done, particularly my own staff member Carmel Martin who has been mentioned by Senator Kennedy. She has been an integral part of all the negotiations related to this legislation and has done a wonderful job advocating for the proposals and initiatives that I believe are most important. I'm pleased to say that all of those proposals are in the final bill. Before I get into positive aspects of the conference report, let me say a few things about the disagreement we had at the end of the conference related to IDEA funding and specifically, the Harkin-Hagel amendment regarding IDEA funding. My State of New Mexico has the highest child poverty rate among the entire 50 States. We rank 11th in terms of the school age population growth during the last decade; about 16 percent of our student population is served by special education, which is also one of the highest in the Nation. Providing a comprehensive, responsive system of education and social supports is extremely important in my State and for the entire Nation. That goal will not be possible in coming years unless we at the Federal level step up to the responsibility we committed to many years ago, and that is to provide 40 percent of the cost of IDEA services. That is not an unreasonable or excessive commitment by the Federal Government, but it is something we have never achieved. We have never achieved the promise we made to the citizens of this country when IDEA was first passed, but it is time we did that. I congratulate Senator Harkin for his hard work to get that done, along with Senator Kennedy. I believe this is an issue that will be revisited next year when we reauthorize IDEA. I will strongly support the full funding provision then, as I did this time. Let me say a few things about the positive aspects of the legislation currently before the Senate. This is a milestone, as I see it. I recall, and the Senator referred to, the earlier debates about eliminating the Department of Education. I recall those debates were raging in the Senate when I came in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, they persisted well into the 1990s. However, we have reached a major milestone. We have turned a corner. We have developed a bipartisan consensus that education needs to be a national priority, and not just a State priority or a local priority. We also have developed a bipartisan consensus that the Federal Government needs to accept substantial responsibility for improving the quality of education, and not just leave that to the States or leave that to local school districts. I see that as great progress. It is incorporated in this legislation, and that is why I believe this legislation is so significant. I am proud to support the bill. I believe it does contain provisions that can bring revolutionary change to our education system. They do not automatically bring that revolutionary change to our educational system, but they put in place a framework which, if we follow through, can dramatically improve our education. The most important of these provisions, as I see it, are related to accountability for student performance. They relate to the challenge of ensuring that students actually make progress. In 1999, Congressman Miller introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to create an accountability system for student performance with the focus on closing the achievement gaps between disadvantaged student groups and nondisadvantaged groups of students. That same year, I introduced companion legislation in the Senate. In both of those bills, we required new accountability for the quality of the instruction by mandating that teachers be qualified in the subjects they are assigned to teach and requiring public reporting related to student performance and teacher qualification. Our legislation also required that schools demonstrate progress in improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. At the beginning of this Congress, over nearly a year ago, we reintroduced our respective bills and we were grateful to receive bipartisan support for our proposals. Senator Lugar joined me in legislation we introduced in the Senate, and in the House Congressman Boehner became very involved in this effort. Perhaps most significantly, President Bush became very involved in this effort, as he indicated he would during his campaign. I congratulate the President for the success he has had and the contribution he has made to this important legislation. I also want to thank him and the other Members for their great work on this bill. For the first time, I believe States and local school districts and individual schools will be held accountable for improving academic achievement for all students, not just a few students. This bill ensures that Federal funds are tied to those gains in student performance. Most importantly, it ties these funds to eliminating achievement gaps. The components of the accountability system are worth mentioning. Let me mention some of them. First, raising standards for all students, providing an objective measure for progress. Second, focusing on the progress of disadvantaged students by setting separate goals for their achievements so that schools must show gains for those groups or be labeled as failing to make adequate progress. Third, the bill calls for identifying schools that are failing to meet these goals in a timely manner so they can get additional funding, so they can get additional support. If they still cannot show improvement after that funding and support is provided for a period of years, then it provides some strict consequences for the chronic failure to adequately serve those students. Next, the bill calls for working to ensure that every class has a qualified teacher and that low-income and minority students are not taught by unqualified teachers at a higher rate than are other students in our school systems. Finally, the bill provides an expanded role for parents. As described by Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg, this empowers parents and gives them a report card that parents can take to understand precisely the quality of the education their child is receiving. Although we need to do more for IDEA funding and on the appropriations front--and that debate will continue next year--the conference report does include increased authorization levels for key programs. In addition to the set-aside for accountability and turning around struggling schools, the bill guarantees that States receive at least $3 million each to help develop required assessments. It authorizes $490 million nationally for this purpose. The bill sets out authorization levels for title I that lead to full funding for that program. The bill also authorizes resources to help create 21st century schools by authorizing the use of Federal funds for school renovation, providing $650 million to improve school safety, providing $1.25 billion for afterschool programs, and $2 billion to integrate technology into the classroom. I should also note that the technology program in current law, which I helped to author, has been improved by making teacher training in technology a priority for the $1 billion provided to school districts nationally. The conference report also authorizes a separate teacher training in technology program for Schools of Education so new teachers will graduate with the skills they need to use technology to improve student performance. These measures will ensure that teachers will know how to effectively use technology in their classroom instruction. There are several provisions in here that I want to highlight that relate to improving high schools. Most of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has historically focused on elementary schools, and that is appropriate. But we have some provisions in this final bill that relate to high schools and to improving the quality of teaching at the middle school and the high school level. One of those is the advanced placement program. This bill includes a new measure supporting advanced placement programs. I sponsored this measure with Senators Hutchison and Collins and I thank them for their support. It provides high school students with challenging academic content in advanced placement courses. They raise the bar for academic standards and allow students to earn valuable college credits. Last year there were about 1.5 million students who took advanced placement courses in this country. Unfortunately, that does not represent nearly the number of students it should. Only 54 percent of the Nation's high schools currently offer advanced placement courses. The rest do not. There is much more that can be done here. The purpose of the advanced placement measures included in this bill is to build on the existing Advanced Placement Incentive Pilot Program to provide grants to States and districts seeking to raise academic standards through advanced placement programs. This is an extremely important initiative. In my State, we have one school district--the Hobbs Municipal Schools--that has made tremendous progress by emphasizing the advanced placement instruction and the pre-advanced placement instruction in their middle schools and high schools. This is something that I believe all students throughout the country could benefit from very substantially. Another program contained in this bill that is a major benefit for high school students in particular and middle school students is the dropout prevention initiative. When the Governors met with former President Bush in Charlottesville at the National Education Summit many years ago, one of the national goals identified for the country was that we would have at least 90 percent of all of our students completing high school and getting a graduation certificate before they left high school. That was the goal set. Unfortunately, we have done very little to achieve that goal in the 12 years since it was identified. This legislation, for the first time, makes dropout prevention a national priority. That is extremely important in my State. We have the unfortunate circumstance that a disproportionately greater number of minority and low-income students wind up leaving school before they graduate. There are over 3,000 students who drop out of school each day in this country. Hispanic youth are nearly three times more likely to drop out than non-Hispanic students in our classrooms. The disparity is equally great for Native American students. The Dropout Prevention Program provided here commits Federal funds and grants to local schools and school districts to help them deal with this very important issue. Senator Reid of Nevada cosponsored this legislation with me and deserves great credit for his longstanding support of the effort we made to get attention to this dropout problem. I am very pleased that is included in the bill. One other provision I want to highlight that I believe is very important is the Smaller Learning Communities Program. I am persuaded--and I believe the evidence clearly demonstrates--that when larger school buildings are divided up into smaller learning communities, the student achievement levels rise, the dropout rates decline. There is greater security, less violence, and less absenteeism. This is an extremely important initiative. Again, this is something that I think is a very positive provision in this legislation. Let me highlight a few programs that have great significance in my home State of New Mexico. The bill authorizes the program related to tribally controlled schools and Indian education. One in four of all tribally controlled schools is in my State of New Mexico. We also have many Native American students in our public schools. We worked closely with our colleagues on the Indian Affairs Committee to improve the existing legislation governing these programs. In addition, the bill revamps and expands a program providing funds to districts with a large Federal presence, or impact aid districts. These districts have smaller, and in some cases have no local tax base because of the existence of Federal land or Indian land within that school district. Under this bill, the existing construction program for these districts is expanded so that more districts can qualify for Federal assistance for facility renovation and modernization. There are other very important initiatives in this bill. We substantially expand the program that assists students with limited- English-proficiency. That is a very important program for my State, where over 20 percent of our total student population are English Language Learners. The report also includes a program for small and rural districts. In my state 88 percent of the districts are rural and 45 percent serve fewer than 1,000 students. The rural program in the conference report will ensure that these districts can effectively use their federal resources. I know there are others waiting to speak. Let me conclude by again thanking Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg for their leadership, and their staff, and Danica Petroshius, in particular, for all of her work with us; again, my own staff member, Carmel Martin, who worked so hard on the legislation. I see this as a very major step forward. I look forward to following through. As I said, none of this is self-implementing. This is authorizing legislation. We will need to come back each year for the next 6 years during the time this bill is in effect and see to it that adequate resources are provided so that these programs can be adequately funded and so that States will not be able to legitimately say that it is wrong to hold them accountable if we do not provide them with assistance. I think we can and should do that. We must follow through so we can do something here that will make a major difference for future generations in this country. I am very pleased to support the legislation. I urge my colleagues to give it a positive vote. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I thank my colleague. First, let me compliment him for raising concerns about the provision. I also compliment Senator Reid for his commitment to try to help deal with some of these issues requiring additional attention to water conservation in the West. I do think that is a real need. It is a real need we see all the time. Senator Domenici, my colleague, raised questions about the particular program and how that would affect our States and whether it would be an appropriate program to implement. Those were very valid questions. This modification that Senator Domenici has now sent to the desk, on behalf of himself and me and Senator Reid, is a very good compromise. What it does is make it very clear that each State can make its own determination as to whether this is a program in which it wants to be involved. If it does not, then clearly it should not be forced to do so. This is a very good result. It certainly meets our needs in New Mexico. I compliment Senator Domenici for this modification. I compliment Senator Reid as well for his leadership on this whole range of issues.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, Last week I offered an amendment on behalf of Senator Domenici and myself. It authorizes State and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance to purchase transit buses through the General Services Administration. Because of GSA's limited experience with transit buses, the amendment provides for the pilot program to be managed by the Federal Transit Administration. Currently only the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has the option to purchase buses through the General Services Administration. The pilot program would open up that option to other public transit agencies around the country that also receive Federal transit assistance. However, the pilot program is limited only to heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches. The initial pilot program would end on December 31, 2003. The General Services Administration currently offers three heavy-duty transit buses and two intercity coaches. GSA selected these suppliers as a result of competitive solicitations, and the companies had to bid attractive terms and prices in order to win those 5-year contracts. GSA intends to expand its existing sources of simply to a full multiple-award schedule with a larger variety of vehicles and choices of optional equipment. GSA indicates this process will take 12 to 18 months. Therefore, our amendment directs GSA to complete the multiple- award schedule by December 31, 2003, and authorizes state and local transit authorities that receive Federal transit assistance to purchase heavy-duty transit buses and intercity coaches off these GSA schedules. This authority would expire on December 31, 2006. Allowing additional public transit agencies the option to purchase these buses from GSA could result in substantial options and prices would help streamline the procurement process, which could be especially valuable to some of the smaller communities. Purchasing buses through GSA will help stretch each dollar of Federal transit funding a little bit farther. I believe it is very important to point out that this pilot program is limited only to transit buses and intercity coaches. It has no effect on companies that supply other types of buses or vehicles, pharmaceuticals, or any other product that currently can be purchased through the General Services Administration. I believe transit buses are a unique situation. Purchases through the GSA should be allowed. There are only a few bus manufacturers in America today and most buses for public transit are purchased using Federal funds provided by the Federal Transit Administration. Our bus manufacturers are not having an easy time. Our amendment will help expedite bus purchases by eliminating the cost of responding to myriad requests for proposals from public transit agencies. Our amendment will also help the public transit agencies by reducing the cost of preparing the requests for proposals and assessing the responses. I do believe this is a meritorious amendment. It is one I would very much like to see adopted as part of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support it. The amendment has the support of the Federal Transit Administration, bus manufacturers, and public transit agencies across the Nation. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the American Public Transportation Association be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, that letter makes some very strong points. The title of the letter is ``We're Sticking to Our Principles.'' It says the National Milk Producers Federation established the following principles to help assess whether a new dairy program meets that definition: No. 1, it must be national. No. 2, it must not discriminate between States and regions. No. 3, it must not discriminate between farmers by limiting payments based on herd size. No. 4, it must not cause competitive disadvantages or advantages between dairy farmers. And No. 5, it should not increase production to the point where overproduction eventually erodes the farm gate prices. On that basis they believe the amendment offered by Senator Crapo is the proper course. I urge that course of action on my colleagues. Exhibit 1

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I do not know of any other farm program that favors one region to this extent and has such a dramatic disparity in the use of taxpayers' dollars. In this case, one region will receive 25 percent of the Federal payments, though it produces less than 18 percent of the Nation's milk. Moreover, in one region, farmers are guaranteed a price of nearly $17 per hundredweight, while prices elsewhere are based on market rates and undoubtedly will be substantially lower. In my view, this is not a balanced program. In addition, I am concerned that indirect payment schemes, such as that proposed here, would distort the market by encouraging overproduction. I know that is a point the Senator from Idaho made in his remarks. Overproduction drives down the prices that farmers receive for their milk. When there is overproduction, the Government will step in and purchase surplus dairy products in the form of cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk. We simply have not had the time to digest properly the dramatic new proposal and to make sure we know the implications of this new proposed scheme. I do believe a market-oriented policy that includes a minimum dairy price support program and the Federal milk marketing orders is the basic approach we need for national dairy policy. These are the programs that are currently in place. This amendment would simply ensure that these programs continue. I appreciate the efforts of the proponents of the new program to develop a national policy that benefits dairy farmers everywhere. I do not believe that what we have before us does that. I believe we should work toward a balanced national dairy policy that is fair to all farmers, not one that pits one State against another or one region against others. We need a policy that is fair to consumers and processors and promotes a market-oriented dairy policy, not a scheme that could dramatically affect milk prices and add new layers of Government regulation and control. I want to continue working with Senator Harkin, Senator Lugar, and other interested Senators to ensure we end up with a dairy policy that is good for all regions of the country, and I am pleased to support the amendment Senator Crapo is offering. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the National Milk Producers Federation in support of Senator Crapo's amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I start by thanking Senator Harkin for his hard work on this farm bill. I know he has a difficult task pulling people together to craft a bill. As chairman of the committee, he and his staff need to be complimented for the fine work they have done on the bill. It is important legislation for farmers in New Mexico, and I hope the Senate can move ahead to complete action on the farm bill. The bill has several provisions important to my State. I thank the chairman for working with me on those. I also thank Senator Harkin for the strong efforts he has made to improve the conservation programs in the bill which are particularly important to my State. However, all that being true, I wish to express a serious concern about the dairy provisions in the bill. As I understand it, the substitute bill creates a totally new dairy program. I believe the new dairy scheme in the bill is wrong for the Nation's dairy farmers and wrong for consumers as well. That is why I support Senator Crapo's amendment to strike this provision and to instead have a study to determine which, if any, of the proposals that are currently floating in the Senate ought to be considered in the future. I do appreciate the effort that Senator Harkin and Senator Daschle and others, as well as our staffs, have made to come up with a balanced dairy policy. The latest version I have seen is a dramatic improvement over previous versions, and I appreciate that. My State of New Mexico is the 10th largest dairy producing State and one of the fastest growing dairy producing States. Dairy production in my State has grown 200 percent in the past 10 years. We have large, efficient dairies which are clearly the big losers under this latest proposal. These are family-owned dairies, just as in other States. They are larger in my State because we have the land and the resources to support those larger dairies. Because the latest version of the proposal has only been available a few hours, we do not know the full impact on milk prices and dairy farm income. However, I think it is fair to say that the legislation clearly favors certain regions and certain sizes of farms. Moreover, we do not know what the real impact will be on future production rates, prices the farmers receive for their milk, and nobody has had time to do proper analyses to consider all the complex ramifications of this dramatic change in policy. We just received a very preliminary analysis of the new proposal. The analysis compares the subsidies to farmers in terms of Federal payments per hundred pounds of milk produced, and our analysis shows that States in the Northeast would receive on average a Federal payment of more than $2 per hundred pounds of milk. Farmers in my State would receive 40 cents, five times less than the Federal payments to farmers in the Northeast. Based on this analysis, my State of New Mexico would be 50th out of 50 States in Federal payments per hundredweight. Arizona, Florida, Wyoming, California, Idaho, and Washington State would all receive less than $1 per hundredweight. Farmers in Georgia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Oregon, and Arkansas would receive half as much as farmers in Northeastern States. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table prepared for my office by Mr. Ben Yale be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. This table shows the Federal payments per hundred pounds of milk produced in each State. The table is based on the preliminary analysis performed by the Independent Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I am glad to yield to my colleague from North Dakota. I compliment him on the very major contributions he made in the development of this bill.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, may I respond briefly to the comments? The Senator from Louisiana has been a tireless and very effective advocate for her State and for coastal regions generally in this regard. There are substantial impacts that oil and gas development in particular have had on those regions. We have tried in this legislation to include a provision at her urging that will help provide resources to deal with those impacts. I think it is good legislation. It will be good public policy. I thank her for her many other contributions to this legislation as well. She is a very valued member of our committee and has made great contributions to various provisions in the bill since the beginning of consideration of it. I thank her very much.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Obviously, I believe it would advance the interests of the country in a very substantial way. I appreciate very much the comments of the Senator from North Dakota. Again, I want to just acknowledge and compliment him on the great contributions he made to the development of this legislation. We have many of his ideas that are central to this legislation. We look forward to the scrutiny by the rest of our colleagues in the Senate, and I hope very much when this bill comes up for consideration that we will have a good bipartisan vote in favor of it. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I see there are other Senators wishing to speak.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Well, I am glad to briefly describe again the main things we are trying to do in the conservation area and increased efficiency area. We are trying to increase efficiency in all aspects of how we use energy--in appliances, residential construction, commercial construction, and increased efficiency with the Federal Government and State governments and schools, school buses, automobiles, and SUVs, and the whole range of places where we use energy in our society, in our economy. We are trying to say we can be much more efficient in the use of energy we produce. There is a great opportunity there. When the President came out with his energy plan, and the Vice President came out with his plan, it had one statistic that was referred to repeatedly, and that is that we are going to have to build 1,300 new power generation plants in the next 20 years. Well, that is not our analysis. We don't believe that is the case. We think if we take some prudent steps to improve efficiency in conservation, we clearly will need new generation in the next 20 years, but not anything like the new generation to which the Vice President has referred. So I think there is a great opportunity here. As the Senator from North Dakota says, we have tried very hard to balance the two--balance increased production with increased efficiency, and move us down the road in a way that is acceptable to the environment.

Mr. BINGAMAN. When you hear all the rhetoric about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--and we have heard various speeches about that in this Chamber--one would think it is the only place in the United States where we could find more oil. That is far from true. There are 32 million acres of the outer continental shelf off the coast of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi that have already been leased by the Government to oil companies for exploration and production. They are shown on this map I show you by these yellow blocks. There is no requirement that any legislation be passed in order for drilling to occur in these areas. These are areas that have been leased. They can be drilled. We need to do what we can to encourage the actual development of those leases. In addition to the production off the Gulf of Mexico, there are outstanding prospects for increased production from the National Petroleum Reserve--Alaska. Again, the Presiding Officer and I had the opportunity to see the promise that some of the oil companies obviously felt about the potential production there. Under the Clinton administration, the previous administration, leasing was expanded in this area. Industry made some major finds. There is no law that needs to be passed in order for additional leasing to occur in that area. I, for one at least, believe that is an appropriate place for us to be pursuing additional oil production. If the problem really is not finding areas to lease under current law, then why is there not more domestic production going on in the areas that are already leased for exploration and production? We need to look at that question. That is not a simple question to answer. We need to look at the differences between our Federal and State royalty and tax policies and those of other countries with oil and gas resources. We have provisions in this bill to try to have that analysis done. A second proposal to boost domestic production in the near future is to provide adequate funding for the Federal programs that actually issue new leases and new permits for oil and gas production. For all the rhetoric from the administration about the need to boost domestic production, in its last budget request, the administration did not ask for adequate funding to do this work properly. The result of inadequate funding for U.S. land management agencies is delay and frustration on the part of U.S. oil and gas producers. This bill calls for increased budget levels for those functions. The Federal Government can then take the necessary steps to make oil and gas leasing faster and more predictable where it is already permitted. The bill also contains increased research and development funding to support domestic oil and gas production by smaller companies and independent producers. These entities account for the majority of on- shore U.S. production of oil. They do not have the resources to do their own exploration and production research and development. Let me say a few words about coal. This is an important contributor to our current energy supply picture. Fifty-nine percent of our electricity generation nationwide is based on coal. This chart I show you is a good background chart for anyone interested in how we produce electricity in this country. You can see this top line is coal. That represents the 59 percent to which I just referred. Fifty-nine percent of our electricity generation is based on coal. We have tremendous coal resources. We have been called the ``Saudi Arabia of coal'' by some. But coal's place in our energy future needs to be clean and needs to be emission-free. Coal-based generation, as we all know, produces more greenhouse gas emissions per Btu of energy output than does natural gas-fired generation that I was talking about a few minutes ago. Other pollutants from coal-fired plants have been the source of regional tensions between States where coal-fired plants are located and States that are downwind from those plants. Coal is too important a resource to write off. Technology holds a promise for dramatically lowering, even to zero, the emissions from coal-based plants. This bill takes a very forward-looking approach to the issue by authorizing a $200 million per year research and development demonstration program based on coal gasification, carbon sequestration, and related ultraclean technologies for burning coal. The proposal was a result of a strong bipartisan push in our committee by Senator Evan Bayh and Senator Craig Thomas and is one more example of the crucial role that research and development is going to play--and needs to play--in shaping our energy future. Research and development are also keys to the future of nuclear power in this country. Nuclear reactors emit no greenhouse gases, so on that basis one would think they are an option that we should be looking at for the future. But nuclear plants have other characteristics that are not as attractive. They have very high up-front capital costs compared to other generating options. That puts them at a disadvantage in the marketplace. The nuclear waste problem is not yet solved. Nuclear safety is a continuing concern for many in the public. Our cadre of nuclear scientists and engineers is growing older and dwindling, and we are not seeing a large supply of students being trained to help us deal with nuclear issues in the future. This bill takes on these problems by focusing on research and development on new nuclear plant designs that might address these problems and on a program to strengthen university departments of nuclear science and technology. The bill also contains a partial reauthorization of the basic nuclear liability statute; that is, the Price-Anderson Act. The part that is in the bill deals with liability of Department of Energy nuclear contractors, including the National Laboratories that are a significant source of our national nuclear expertise. The other main part of the Price-Anderson Act, dealing with the commercial nuclear power industry, is being developed by the Committee on Environment and Public Works and is expected to be offered by them as an amendment when we get to the floor consideration of the bill. Hydropower is another source of energy supply that this bill addresses related to electricity generation. Many hydroelectric facilities are reaching the age at which their original licenses under the Federal Power Act are about to expire. The process of relicensing these facilities needs to be protective of the environment, predictable for licensees, and efficient in the way it is administered. We have been working for months with both the hydropower industry and the environmental groups to develop a consensus on how to achieve these goals. There is strong bipartisan interest in moving in that direction. We are committed to working toward this end. We have worked with Senator Craig extensively on this issue. We look forward to continuing that communication and hope that by the time this bill comes to debate on the floor we have a consensus on that issue. A final way in which the bill focuses on increasing the supply of domestic energy is through a series of provisions facilitating the development of energy resources on Indian lands. Let me say that is an important new area we are trying to put some emphasis on in the bill. The second of the major overarching goals that I mentioned at the beginning of my comments was this need to use energy supplies more efficiently and productively. So far, we have talked about how to increase supplies of energy through renewables, through oil, gas, coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear. Let me refer now to parts of the bill that deal with this second overarching goal: how to use energy supplies more productively and efficiently. As I have mentioned consistently throughout the past year, you cannot have a sound energy policy based only on production or only on conservation. We need to focus on both. Our energy policy needs to combine programs that boost supplies with programs that use those supplies more efficiently. The first major way in which we can use our energy supply more efficiently is by having an electricity transmission system that is ready for the challenges of the next century. Electricity is essential to our modern way of life, yet our electric system largely operates on a design that is nearly a century old. We have vulnerabilities in our current system. We just excerpted some of the headlines from national newspapers, and I have put those up here on a chart to remind people of what we were hearing in the news and on television earlier this year. Let me just read a few of these: ``Electricity crisis: The Grinch that stole Christmas.'' That was last Christmas. ``Happy holidays. Now turn off that Christmas tree.'' That was last Christmas. ``California declares power emergency.'' ``Blackout threat remains as California scrambles.'' ``California power woes affect entire west coast.'' ``Energy chief moves to avert California blackouts.'' ``Utilities seek immediate rate hike to avoid bankruptcy.'' Those are the types of headlines we were seeing at the end of last year and early this year. We need to address the issue of electricity generation and transmission. The central challenge we face with electricity is to have two elements: First, to have market institutions that ensure reliable and affordable supplies of electricity and, second, to have policies that favor future investments in new technologies that give consumers real choices over their energy use. We have provisions in this bill to do just that. I could go through those provisions in detail. Since I notice there are others wishing to speak, I will skip over some of these and move on to the highlights of the rest of the bill. A second way in which we need to increase efficiency in the various uses of energy is in the fuel efficiency of vehicles. The bill contains two provisions in that regard: One that mandates higher fuel efficiency in the vehicles purchased by the Federal Government for civilian use, and a second that provides a framework for the Department of Energy to assist States in expanding scrappage programs to get old fuel inefficient vehicles off the roads. This is cash for clunkers, as it has been referred to by some. I know Alan Binder has spoken eloquently about how important he thinks it is that we pursue that course both for our energy future and as a way to get cash into the hands of people to stimulate the economy at this point. Let me move to one other chart to make the point that we do need to deal with this issue of transportation, if we are going to begin to deal with total oil demand in the country. This is a chart that shows U.S. oil consumption in millions of barrels per day. It goes from the year 1950 to the year 2020. This line, which is here at 2000, sort of shows where we are today. You can see that the total oil demand has been increasing and is expected to keep increasing. Total transportation demand has been increasing and is expected to keep increasing. Domestic oil production has been declining since about 1970. That is not going to change. Domestic oil production is going to continue to decline. We can affect it. Domestic oil production, if ANWR is opened, will be affected. It will increase it somewhat. That is reflected with this little red line. But when you look at what are the steps that can be taken that will have a major impact on this total oil demand, this top number, you can see that doing something about transportation demand is by far the largest action that we can take. The Commerce Committee is having a hearing tomorrow on this very issue. They are intending to develop a proposal to bring to the Senate as an amendment to this bill to indicate a change in the requirements, the corporate average fuel efficiency requirements, the CAFE standards, fuel efficiency standards, and I look forward to seeing what they propose. I do believe it is important we take serious steps in this regard. The House-passed bill did not do that. We as a Nation have to come to grips with this issue. The technology is there. This is not something we have to go out and speculate on as to whether the technology could be developed that will get us better fuel efficiency. We all know Senator Bennett, our good friend from Utah, has a hybrid electric vehicle he parks right out here at the Senate steps. I complimented him on it. I asked him yesterday: What kind of fuel efficiency do you get on that car? He said: 53 miles per gallon in town. Now, that is a clear signal to me that the technology is there. We can produce more efficient vehicles. We should do that. We should provide incentives for people to use those. There are other steps. The Federal Government can do a much better job of increasing efficiency in the energy it uses. We have included various provisions to encourage that. Industrial energy efficiency can be dramatically improved. We have various provisions to encourage that. Commercial and consumer products can be much more efficient than they are, and we have provisions in the bill to encourage that. There is a new generation lighting initiative in this bill which I believe is a major step in the right direction. We are still using incandescent light bulbs, just as Thomas Edison taught us. There is no reason why we can't be using much more advanced technology which is much more efficient. About 25 percent of the power that goes into most lighting fixtures actually winds up being translated into light. The rest goes off in heat. We can do much better than that. This next generation lighting initiative we believe will help U.S. industry to meet that challenge and help our country to benefit from the development of those new technologies. We also have a provision for substantially increasing the effort for energy efficiency assistance programs. This is the LIHEAP program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Many people depend upon that as we get into the winter months. You do not know it today by the temperature outside, but there are cold days coming. In the winter, this is an extremely important program. And also in the summer, when air conditioning is needed, this is an extremely important program for many of our citizens. We propose increases there. A third and final overarching goal of the bill is to balance energy policy with other important societal considerations. Energy production and use comes associated with a host of consequences for the environment. We need to strike the right balance among energy, the environment, and the economy. That balance is what we are sent to Washington to try to find. This bill addresses the issues in a number of ways. Several provisions of the bill deal with the legacy of past problems posed by energy production and use for the environment. We have major provisions to focus the attention of the country and the Government on dealing with the issue of global climate change, a proposal Senators Byrd and Stevens made earlier this year that has been considered in the Governmental Affairs Committee, setting up an office to look at global climate change to come up with a policy and coordinate our governmental response to that issue. That is a proposal the bulk of which we have included in this legislation. That is a very important part of the bill. I have said from the beginning of the discussion about an energy bill that we needed to have one that integrated energy policy with climate change policy, and we have tried very hard to do that. We also have provisions in the bill to reconcile energy policy with the needs we have for security of our energy infrastructure. The events of September 11 have caused us to think about potential security vulnerabilities of the energy infrastructure. This is an area where there is a considerable amount of work that has been done, but more needs to be done. We have provisions to focus on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to direct the administration to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We also have provisions related to security of other parts of our energy infrastructure. Let me say a couple of words about why we have not included a provision in this bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. If you take all of the discussion about energy policy that has occurred in the Chamber over the last 10 or 11 months, you would think that this was the centerpiece, this is the main thing the country needs to be doing to solve its energy problems. I dissent from that view. I do not believe this is the centerpiece of our energy policy. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog. I do believe that opening the wildlife refuge for drilling is not an essential or substantial part of solving our national energy needs in the future. As you can see from this chart, it does increase production domestically. It does not increase it to such an extent that our problems of growing dependence on foreign sources of oil are solved. That debate is one that I am sure we will have, and we have had it already many times in the Senate Chamber. We will have an opportunity to have it again when this bill comes up, and each Senator has a strongly held view on the subject. Let me put up one final chart and then I will conclude. Earlier this year, President Bush appointed a task force and asked Vice President Cheney to head the task force and work up a so-called energy plan for the country, look at our long-term energy needs. Although that plan was severely criticized by some, I thought there were some constructive suggestions in it. I didn't agree with everything in it, but I thought there were constructive sections in it. The administration recommended that the Congress act in 10 different policy areas. We have those on this chart. They range from electricity, to energy tax incentives, expedited Alaska gas pipeline construction, and on down through the list. The House-passed legislation, H.R. 4, which has been proposed here at various times on the Senate floor, addresses 5 of the 10 key areas that the administration proposed that we address. The legislation we are introducing today addresses 9 of the 10 key issue areas. I am not saying the administration embraces every aspect of what we proposed in each of these nine areas, but in many respects we do believe we are making recommendations that are consistent with that energy plan that was earlier issued by the administration. We believe these issues should not be partisan. We believe there is a great deal of common ground that we can find on energy issues. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Democratic side and the Republican side in identifying ways this bill can be improved, if there are suggestions out there. The bill is there for anyone to study and to suggest improvements. I think, in many ways, having it available for that kind of scrutiny over the next weeks, until we get into the new session after the first of the year, will be very good and will help us produce a better product for the American people. I see this as a project that, hopefully, will set the course for our energy policy in this country perhaps for another decade, for some period. It was 1992 when we passed the last major energy bill in the Congress and had it signed into law. There is no reason to believe we are likely to try comprehensive energy legislation in the near term again. I hope very much that we can seriously consider this legislation in the new session of the Congress in February, as Senator Daschle has indicated, and that we can pass a bill on a bipartisan basis and go to conference with the House.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, today I joined Senator Daschle in introducing the Energy Policy Act of 2002. This bill is a culmination of a great deal of work involving several committees in the Senate. In the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources alone, we had over 50 hearings in the 106th and 107th Congresses that relate to this bill. The staff of the committee, particularly the majority staff, who have worked on drafting the legislation we introduced today, did yeoman's work. I will mention the individuals who worked so hard on this: Of course, Bob Simon, who is our staff director. This list is in no particular order except perhaps alphabetical, although I am not sure that is exactly right. Patty Beneke worked hard on various provisions; Jonathan Black; Shelley Brown helped us with the bill; Mike Connor; Deborah Estes; Sam Fowler, who was the principal draftsman on the bill; Jennifer Michael; Leon Lowery; Shirley Neff made tremendous contributions. Malini Sekhar, Vicki Thorne, John Watts, Bill Wicker, and Mary Katherine Ishee also made great contributions. So I want to publicly state my appreciation to them for the good work they did. Although the bill that we introduced today is the culmination of a great deal of work, it is also in many ways just a beginning. It is a starting point for the next phase of the Senate's consideration of energy policy. Senator Daschle has indicated he desires for us to bring it up and debate this legislation and the entire subject area during the first period of the next session. One obvious question is why we invested so much time on this topic of energy in developing this bill. There are two basic answers to that question. First, energy is central to our present and future economic prosperity. Any of us who lived in the last few decades of this country know we depend upon foreign sources for much of our energy. Our economy is vitally dependent upon reasonable prices for energy. Second, there has been significant changes in energy markets since the last time Congress considered comprehensive energy legislation. The last major energy bill we passed was the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Since that time, as a nation we have moved further away from command and control regulation of energy toward a system that relies much more on market forces to set the price of energy. In the process, our energy markets have become more competitive, more dynamic, and there have been some significant bumps in the road which we have all observed. Consumers are now more vulnerable to the vagaries of energy markets and the volatile prices for energy. The structures to regulate these emerging market forces are not fully developed, as we could see very clearly in the last few weeks with regard to the circumstances of Enron Corporation. Gasoline supplies nationwide have become increasingly subject to local crises and to price spikes due to the proliferation of inflexible local fuel specifications and tight capacity in refining and in pipelines. Of course, the events of September 11 have caused many of us to reflect on the inherent vulnerabilities of our energy transmission system. The time may be right for us to rethink how we site energy infrastructure, the balance between central and distributed generation of power in our electricity system. So Congress needs to respond to these changes and challenges and opportunities. If we do so in a balanced and comprehensive and forward- looking way, then we can develop an energy policy that will lead to a new economic prosperity for the country and for the world. But we will not get there simply by perpetuating the energy policy approaches of the past. New ideas and approaches are needed as well as greater investment to move into the future. That is what this bill we have introduced today tries to do. The bill has three overarching goals. This chart specifies what those are. First, we try to ensure adequate and affordable supplies of energy from a variety of sources--from renewable sources as well as from oil and gas and coal and nuclear. I emphasize renewables because, as I will indicate in a few moments, that is an area to which we have given too little attention. Second, the bill improves the efficiency and productivity of our energy use, including energy reliability and the productivity of our electric transmission system and energy use in industry, in vehicles and appliances, and in buildings. The third overarching goal of this legislation is to keep other important policy goals in addition to our energy policies, goals such as protection of the environment and global-climate-change-related issues--keep those goals in mind as we sort through our energy policy choices. I think we can achieve these three goals if we accelerate the introduction of new technologies and if we create flexible market conditions that empower energy consumers so they can make choices that will benefit both them and our society more generally. This combination of new technology and policy innovation in pursuit of a diverse and robust national energy system can be seen in the provisions of this bill as they relate to the first major goal. This is obtaining an adequate and affordable supply of energy. So let me start the discussion by speaking first about this important subject of renewable energy that I referred to a minute ago. Our Senate bill contains numerous provisions enhancing the contribution of renewable forms of energy to our future energy mix. Under the ``business as usual'' approach of the House energy bill, H.R. 4, which has been proposed at various times on the Senate floor, the contribution to our energy mix from renewables will not substantially increase over the next 20 years. The result will be an energy system, particularly for the production of electricity, that will go from being about 68 percent based on coal and natural gas to being about 80 percent based on those two fuels. That overdependence would leave our country very vulnerable to shortfalls in the delivery of either of those commodities. Consumers would be exposed to severe risks of price spikes. We clearly need more diversity in the ways that we produce electricity in this country, not less diversity. Our overdependence does not make sense in light of the commitments to renewable energy that have been made in other countries, particularly in Europe. This chart demonstrates that very graphically. This chart is entitled ``Commitment to Renewable Generation.'' This is generation of electricity. The percentage increase in nonhydro renewable generation during the 5 years 1990-1995--a 6-year period, I guess--here you can see the percentage increase. In the case of Spain, it was a little over 300 percent. In the case of Germany, it was something over 150 percent--175 percent. In the case of Denmark, it was nearly 150 percent. Then it goes on down until you get to the United States, which is way down in the single digits. There are countries that did less during that 5- or 6-year period than we did but not many. Even France, which is often held up as a model for its commitment to nuclear power, has outpaced the United States in recent years in its investment in renewable sources of electricity other than nuclear power. The United States needs to lead the world in renewable technologies. We have abundant domestic renewable resources. The world market for such technologies is capable of strong growth in the future. Renewable technology leadership would help U.S. firms achieve a strong position in winning those markets and thus creating new jobs in our own country. If our country is to lead the world in renewable energy technologies, we need to do a better job of getting those technologies into the marketplace in this country. Our bill that we have introduced today would boost future use of renewables in five major ways. Let me summarize those five ways. First, the bill contains market incentives that would triple the amount of electricity produced from renewable energy over the next 20 years. Here is another chart that tries to show graphically where we are today, slightly after the year 2000, at less than 5 quadrillion Btus annually. This green wedge shows what we would anticipate as the growth in the production or generation of electricity from renewable sources between now and the year 2020 under this legislation that we have introduced. These incentives include a renewable portfolio standard that creates a market for new renewable sources of electricity, whether they are wind or solar or biomass or incremental hydroelectric generation from existing dams. A second market incentive is the Federal purchase requirement for renewables that would grow to 7.5 percent of all Federal electricity purchases by the year 2010. The renewable energy production incentive, which is an existing program to help rural electric co-ops and municipal utilities generate renewable energy, is also reauthorized in this bill and extended to include Indian lands which contain some prime renewable resources. So that is the first way in which this bill would make an effort to boost our future use of renewables. The second is that the bill being introduced today greatly expands the contribution of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel- powered vehicles and transportation. By 2005, 75 percent of the Federal Government's vehicles that can burn alternative fuels would be required to do so, creating more market certainty for renewable fuels and their associated infrastructure. By 2012, 5 billion gallons a year of renewable fuels would be blended into our gasoline, decreasing our import dependence on foreign oil. The third way in which the bill helps renewables contribute more to our energy mix is by removing existing regulatory barriers that affect renewable energy. For example, wind and solar power can be effectively tapped by small distributed generation systems, but current practices and rules in the marketplace often discriminate against distributed generation. Our bill tries to deal with this problem by requiring electric utilities to offer their customers net metering, in which a customer can offset his electric bill by the amount of electricity that he generates and sells to that local utility. The bill also requires fair transmission rules for intermittent generation such as wind and solar. Finally, the bill mandates easier interconnection for distributed energy production into the interstate transmission grid and requires States to examine ways to facilitate that interconnection of distributed energy into local electric distribution systems as well. A fourth major way in which our bill promotes renewables is by disseminating information about and facilitating access to areas of high resource potential, particularly on our public lands. There are many places in this Nation and my State that have untapped renewable energy potential. The bill creates a pilot program at the Department of Energy and in the Forest Service for development of wind and solar energy projects on Federal lands. A fifth and final area in which the bill helps make renewable energy a bigger part of our energy picture in the future is through enhanced research and development programs. These research and development programs in our bill at the Department of Energy will grow from an authorized level of $500 million in fiscal year 2003 to $733 million by fiscal year 2006. I would like to briefly talk about some of the other more traditional energy supply sources in addition to renewables that we try to promote and encourage in this legislation. Natural gas is one of those in our Nation at a crossroads major policy decision with regard to energy security. U.S. natural gas demand is expected to increase from 23 trillion cubic feet per year. Demand is expected to be about 35 trillion cubic feet per year by 2020. Much of that demand is going to be driven by the use of natural gas for electricity generation because, as we build more powerplants to produce more electricity, virtually all of those new powerplants that are coming on line--not all, but many of those new powerplants that are coming on line--are expected to use natural gas. As you can see from this chart, which goes from the period of 1970 through 2020, today there is more consumption of natural gas than there is production in the country. But it is not a very major gap. As we move forward for the next 20 years, that gap grows. Our consumption of natural gas is going to increase more quickly than the production of natural gas is expected to increase. We tried to follow the developments in this field internationally to understand what is occurring. We have a very disturbing development of which I think the Senate needs to be aware and of which our entire country needs to be aware. As a result of this gap that I have pointed out on this chart, as a nation we are at the risk of becoming dependent upon imported natural gas brought to our shores in tankers for a substantial portion of the gas that we consume. The countries on which we would rely for much of that gas are prone to political instability. They are in the early stages of forming an OPEC-like organization for natural gas exporters. There is a cover story in the June 2001 issue of OPEC's Bulletin that discusses Iran hosting an inaugural meeting of the Gas Exporting Counties Forum. As a nation, we do not want to be in the position of having to deal with a cartel in natural gas in addition to the cartel we already deal with related to oil. Our bill takes several steps to come up with a different policy for natural gas. We increase funding for research to develop domestic natural gas deposits in deepwater areas in the Gulf of Mexico and in harder to tap geologic formulations on shore. We provide research funds to explore the potential of methane hydrates that are trapped on the ocean floor at great depths. The bill authorizes more funds to facilitate the permitting and leasing of Federal lands for natural gas production in places where that is environmentally acceptable. The bill addresses a number of developing problems in natural gas production, such as conflicts over coal bed methane and hydraulic fractures and to bring these conflicts to resolution before they reach crisis proportions. But even these steps, which I believe will be useful and important, will not be enough to close the gap that is reflected on this chart. The most significant step the bill tries to take for future natural gas supply is to provide enough financial incentives so that we see the construction of a pipeline to bring down from Alaska the vast reserves of natural gas that have been discovered and have already been developed in the Prudhoe Bay region. The Presiding Officer and I had the opportunity to visit there earlier this year. The existing reserves are estimated to be over 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. It is estimated that the total natural gas resources on the North Slope of Alaska could be in the order of 100 trillion cubic feet. A natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 States would provide at least 4 billion to 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day before the end of this decade. Once the pipeline is constructed, it would provide gas to American consumers for at least 30 years. It would be a stabilizing force in natural gas prices as well. The project makes a great deal of sense. But it has not happened because there is a lack of certainty about the investment risk of building such a major pipeline. We are talking about an enormous undertaking. The pipeline would be one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken. It would create a massive number of jobs in Alaska, in Canada, and in the lower 48. The project would require the construction of the largest gas treatment plant in the world, and the laying of about 3,600 miles of pipe requiring 5 million to 6 million tons of steel. The preliminary estimates are the cost would be in the range of $40 billion. But since natural gas prices vary from $2 to $10--which we have seen that just in the last 12 months--per mcf it is hard for the market to take on this challenge by itself. So we are proposing legislation that would expedite the process for permitting, for providing rights-of-way, and certifications that are needed for the U.S. segment of the pipeline. The Government would step up and offer to underwrite loans for 80 percent of the cost of the line that is constructed within the United States. There are various other provisions which we think would improve the likelihood that this pipeline would be built in the near future. I believe it is important for the Senate to be proactive on this project--not simply to sit back, cross our fingers and hope that the various companies that are looking at this decide to go ahead. If we do not act while there is substantial private sector interest in building this pipeline, we will lose an important opportunity to bolster our national energy security in natural gas. As a consequence, we might well be hearing speeches 10 to 20 years from now about our dependence on foreign natural gas which would sound a lot like the speeches we have been hearing about our dependence on foreign oil. Since I mentioned oil, let me say a few things about what we have in this bill related to oil, and the ways we are trying to increase domestic production of oil. (Mr. DAYTON assumed the chair.)

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to use up to the hour of time postcloture that I am entitled to and that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes on the main legislation that is pending before the Senate, the Railroad Retirement and Survivors Act of 2001. The procedures that we follow in the Senate sometimes obfuscate or make it impossible to determine exactly what it is we are debating. We have so many different issues that we are debating all at the same time. I wanted to bring the focus of the Senate back for a minute to the main issue that we should be debating, and that is the pending railroad retirement legislation. There is an amendment that has been offered to the railroad retirement legislation by Senator Lott, and it involves an effort to pass the House-passed energy bill, H.R. 4, and also an effort to have the Senate on record on the issue of so-called therapeutic cloning. Someone might ask, How do therapeutic cloning and an energy bill relate to each other, and how do those two items happen to be related to railroad retirement? Well, there is no relationship. Essentially, what we are going to decide shortly after 5 o'clock is, Are we in fact going to pursue passage of this railroad retirement bill and keep these extraneous matters to the side so they can be dealt with under different circumstances, with full debate, later in this Congress, or are we going to get sidetracked and essentially get off track on dealing with railroad retirement? It is very important, in my view, that we deal with railroad retirement. This is the opportunity, this is the chance we have. There are 74 cosponsors. I know that has been mentioned several times on the floor. I am one of those cosponsors. This legislation did pass the House of Representatives by 384 votes in favor, 33 against. While clearly I respect the rights of colleagues to express the concerns and interests of other Senators in bringing other matters forward, I think it is high time we went ahead and passed this bill and sent it to the President. A great deal has changed since we began providing benefits to railroad employees back in the 1930s. We have tried to update this retirement system to reflect some of the changes in the cost of living and lifespans of former employees and their spouses. Several years ago, Congress told the railroad companies and the unions to sit down and work out their differences on this legislation so that we could get a set of proposals that Congress could consider. This bill--the railroad retirement bill before us today--is the product of those negotiations. It deserves our attention and our support. The country owes a great deal of the growth and dominance we have had in the industrial and agricultural sectors to the railroad industry and to the employees of that industry. We need to be sure that these men and women receive retirement and disability benefits to reflect what they have accomplished, what they have done for this country. This legislation tries to allow those employees with 30 years of employment in the industry to retire at age 60 without a reduction of their benefits. It would also provide the surviving spouse of a railroad worker with a benefit that appreciates the cost of maintaining a household and is not cut in half when the first spouse dies. Under current law, a widow or widower receives half of their tier 2 annuity, which, in most cases, will not be enough to pay for the basic necessities of life. This legislation also allows current railroad employees to have their retirement benefits vested after 5 years rather than after 10 years, which is the current law. Finally, the legislation repeals the maximum benefit ceiling that is currently in place and allows the amount of benefit to be based solely on the existing formula of the highest 2 years of income over the past 10 years. These are reasonable changes, they are fair changes. I believe very strongly we should in these final days of this first session of the 107th Congress pass this bill. We should send it to the President for his signature, and we should resist the efforts we are seeing in this Chamber today to bog this down by attaching other very controversial legislation by the amendment process. I hope cloture will be invoked on the amendment that Senator Lott has offered and that it can be withdrawn. We can then proceed to vote on the railroad retirement bill and pass it and have that one piece of very constructive legislation sent to the President before the week is out. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today with Senators Campbell and Cantwell entitled the ``Urban Indian Health Medicaid Amendments Act of 2001'' would raise the Medicaid matching rate to 100 percent for Medicaid-covered services provided to Medicaid- eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives at urban Indian health programs. The legislation eliminates the discrepancy in current law that provides for a higher matching rate to states for care delivered in an non-urban outpatient facility operated by the Indian Health Service, or IHS, or by a tribe or a tribal organization under contract with IHS compared to the lower matching rate to an urban Indian program funded by the IHS to deliver services to Medicaid-eligible Native Americans residing in urban areas. The bill would not alter current policy toward facilities operated by the IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations. As under current law, the Federal Government would continue to pay 100 percent of the cost of treating Medicaid-eligible American Indian or Alaska Natives at an IHS hospital or tribal clinic. Similarly, the bill would not alter the amounts paid to IHS hospitals or tribal clinics for treating Medicaid patients. Instead, the bill simply extends the 100 percent federal matching rate to the costs of treatment of Medicaid-eligible Native Americans in urban Indian health programs and corrects the inconsistency in treatment under current Medicaid law. The urban Indian health program was first authorized in 1976 in Title V of the ``Indian Health Care Improvement Act.'' According to a report entitled ``Urban Indian Health'' by the Kaiser Family Foundation that was released this month, ``The purpose of the Title V program is to make outpatient health services accessible to urban Indians, either directly or by referral. These services are provided through non-profit organizations, controlled by urban Indians, that receive funds under contract with the IHS.'' In fact, the Federal Government, through the IHS, currently funds 36 urban Indian health programs in 20 states: Arizona, 3; California, 8; Colorado, 1; Illinois, 1; Kansas, 1; Massachusetts, 1; Michigan, 1; Minnesota, 1; Montana, 5; Nebraska, 1; Nevada, 1; New Mexico, 1; New York, 1; Oklahoma, 2; Oregon, 1; South Dakota, 1; Texas, 1; Utah, 1; Washington, 2; and Wisconsin, 2. These programs are nonprofit organizations that provide outpatient primary care services, and in some cases, just referral services, to urban Indians, many of whom are eligible for Medicaid. In FY 2001, Congress appropriated $29.9 million, or just 1 percent of the Indian Health Service budget, in discretionary funding to these programs. These programs are expected to supplement this direct funding with revenues from third party payers, such as private insurance and Medicaid. Urban Indian health programs may participate as providers in their state's Medicaid program and receive payment for services covered by Medicaid that are furnished to Medicaid-eligible urban Indians. Whatever amount the state pays the urban Indian program for a Medicaid patient visit, the Federal Government will match the State's expenditure at the State's regular Federal Medicaid matching rate, or FMAP. In contrast, if an American Indian or Alaska Native who is eligible for Medicaid receives primary care services covered by Medicaid at an outpatient facility operated by the IHS or by a tribe or a tribal organization under contract with the IHS, the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the cost of the service. The policy rationale for this enhanced matching rate is that because Indian health is a Federal responsibility, states should not have to share in the costs of providing Medicaid services to Native American beneficiaries receiving care through facilities operated directly by the Federal Government's IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations on behalf of the IHS. This same rationale applies to Medicaid-covered services provided by urban Indian programs funded by the IHS to deliver services to Medicaid-eligible Native Americans residing in urban areas. Unfortunately, the Medicaid statute does not reflect this policy. This legislation would address this inequity. Moreover, as a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation entitled ``Urban Indian Health'' released this month adds, ``Extension of this 100 percent matching rate to services provided by Title V providers to Medicaid-eligible urban Indians may give State Medicaid programs an incentive to treat these `safety net' clinics more favorably in both a fee-for-service and managed care context.'' The proposal would simply amend the third sentence in section 1905(b) of the Social Security Act to read as follows (new language in italic): Notwithstanding the first sentence of this section, the Federal medical assistance percentage shall be 100 per centum with respect to amounts expended as medical assistance for services which are received through an Indian Health Service facility or program whether operated by the Indian Health Service or by an Indian tribe or tribal organization or by an urban Indian health program (as defined in section 4 of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act). The amendment would be effective for Medicaid services furnished on or after October 1, 2001. Under this language, the enhanced 100 percent matching rate would apply only to services furnished directly ``through'' an urban Indian health program, not by referral. Note that the amendment would not determine the particular amount the state Medicaid program pays an urban Indian health program for a particular service, such as a patient visit. The language only affects the Federal Government's share of that payment amount. Despite the fact that recent Census figures indicate that 57 percent of the 2.5 million people that identify themselves solely as American Indian and Alaska Native live in metropolitan areas, including 17,444 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the IHS budget only provides 1 percent of its funding to urban Indian health programs. We should and must begin to take steps to eliminate such dramatic discrepancies. As a result, within the Medicaid program, just as the Federal Government reimburses States 100 percent for the costs of services delivered to Native American beneficiaries receiving care through facilities operated directly by the Federal Government's IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations on behalf of the IHS, the same should apply to urban Indian health programs. This simple, yet important bill will eliminate the disparity and I urge its swift passage. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today with Senators Campbell and Cantwell entitled the ``Urban Indian Health Medicaid Amendments Act of 2001'' would raise the Medicaid matching rate to 100 percent for Medicaid-covered services provided to Medicaid- eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives at urban Indian health programs. The legislation eliminates the discrepancy in current law that provides for a higher matching rate to states for care delivered in an non-urban outpatient facility operated by the Indian Health Service, or IHS, or by a tribe or a tribal organization under contract with IHS compared to the lower matching rate to an urban Indian program funded by the IHS to deliver services to Medicaid-eligible Native Americans residing in urban areas. The bill would not alter current policy toward facilities operated by the IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations. As under current law, the Federal Government would continue to pay 100 percent of the cost of treating Medicaid-eligible American Indian or Alaska Natives at an IHS hospital or tribal clinic. Similarly, the bill would not alter the amounts paid to IHS hospitals or tribal clinics for treating Medicaid patients. Instead, the bill simply extends the 100 percent federal matching rate to the costs of treatment of Medicaid-eligible Native Americans in urban Indian health programs and corrects the inconsistency in treatment under current Medicaid law. The urban Indian health program was first authorized in 1976 in Title V of the ``Indian Health Care Improvement Act.'' According to a report entitled ``Urban Indian Health'' by the Kaiser Family Foundation that was released this month, ``The purpose of the Title V program is to make outpatient health services accessible to urban Indians, either directly or by referral. These services are provided through non-profit organizations, controlled by urban Indians, that receive funds under contract with the IHS.'' In fact, the Federal Government, through the IHS, currently funds 36 urban Indian health programs in 20 states: Arizona, 3; California, 8; Colorado, 1; Illinois, 1; Kansas, 1; Massachusetts, 1; Michigan, 1; Minnesota, 1; Montana, 5; Nebraska, 1; Nevada, 1; New Mexico, 1; New York, 1; Oklahoma, 2; Oregon, 1; South Dakota, 1; Texas, 1; Utah, 1; Washington, 2; and Wisconsin, 2. These programs are nonprofit organizations that provide outpatient primary care services, and in some cases, just referral services, to urban Indians, many of whom are eligible for Medicaid. In FY 2001, Congress appropriated $29.9 million, or just 1 percent of the Indian Health Service budget, in discretionary funding to these programs. These programs are expected to supplement this direct funding with revenues from third party payers, such as private insurance and Medicaid. Urban Indian health programs may participate as providers in their state's Medicaid program and receive payment for services covered by Medicaid that are furnished to Medicaid-eligible urban Indians. Whatever amount the state pays the urban Indian program for a Medicaid patient visit, the Federal Government will match the State's expenditure at the State's regular Federal Medicaid matching rate, or FMAP. In contrast, if an American Indian or Alaska Native who is eligible for Medicaid receives primary care services covered by Medicaid at an outpatient facility operated by the IHS or by a tribe or a tribal organization under contract with the IHS, the Federal Government will pay 100 percent of the cost of the service. The policy rationale for this enhanced matching rate is that because Indian health is a Federal responsibility, states should not have to share in the costs of providing Medicaid services to Native American beneficiaries receiving care through facilities operated directly by the Federal Government's IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations on behalf of the IHS. This same rationale applies to Medicaid-covered services provided by urban Indian programs funded by the IHS to deliver services to Medicaid-eligible Native Americans residing in urban areas. Unfortunately, the Medicaid statute does not reflect this policy. This legislation would address this inequity. Moreover, as a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation entitled ``Urban Indian Health'' released this month adds, ``Extension of this 100 percent matching rate to services provided by Title V providers to Medicaid-eligible urban Indians may give State Medicaid programs an incentive to treat these `safety net' clinics more favorably in both a fee-for-service and managed care context.'' The proposal would simply amend the third sentence in section 1905(b) of the Social Security Act to read as follows (new language in italic): Notwithstanding the first sentence of this section, the Federal medical assistance percentage shall be 100 per centum with respect to amounts expended as medical assistance for services which are received through an Indian Health Service facility or program whether operated by the Indian Health Service or by an Indian tribe or tribal organization or by an urban Indian health program (as defined in section 4 of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act). The amendment would be effective for Medicaid services furnished on or after October 1, 2001. Under this language, the enhanced 100 percent matching rate would apply only to services furnished directly ``through'' an urban Indian health program, not by referral. Note that the amendment would not determine the particular amount the state Medicaid program pays an urban Indian health program for a particular service, such as a patient visit. The language only affects the Federal Government's share of that payment amount. Despite the fact that recent Census figures indicate that 57 percent of the 2.5 million people that identify themselves solely as American Indian and Alaska Native live in metropolitan areas, including 17,444 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the IHS budget only provides 1 percent of its funding to urban Indian health programs. We should and must begin to take steps to eliminate such dramatic discrepancies. As a result, within the Medicaid program, just as the Federal Government reimburses States 100 percent for the costs of services delivered to Native American beneficiaries receiving care through facilities operated directly by the Federal Government's IHS or by tribes or tribal organizations on behalf of the IHS, the same should apply to urban Indian health programs. This simple, yet important bill will eliminate the disparity and I urge its swift passage. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, last evening, the Senate passed by unanimous consent S. 1741, the Native American Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Technical Amendment Act of 2001, which I had introduced with Senator McCain and 23 other bipartisan cosponsors. S. 1741 is identical to S. 535 and was introduced as a freestanding bill to address a jurisdictional concern raised with the committee referral of the initial bill. Due to the importance of the legislation, I am pleased that the entire Senate saw fit to allow this bill to be reintroduced and passed by unanimous consent yesterday. The legislation makes a simple, yet important, technical change to the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment and Prevention Act of 2000 by clarifying that American Indian and Alaska Native women should not be excluded from receiving coverage through Medicaid for breast and cervical cancer treatment. The Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act of 2000 gives States the option to extend coverage for the treatment of breast and cervical cancer through the Medicaid program to certain women who have been screened through the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, or Title XV of the Public Health Service Act, and who do not have what is called ``creditable coverage,'' as defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPPA. In referencing the HIPPA definition of ``creditable coverage,'' the bill language inadvertently precludes coverage to Native American women who have access to medical care under the Indian Health Service, or IHS. HIPPA included a reference to IHS or tribal care as ``creditable coverage'' so that members of Indian Tribes eligible for IHS would not be treated as having a break in coverage, and thus subject to pre- existing exclusions and waiting periods when seeking health insurance, simply because they had received care through Indian health programs, rather than through a conventional health insurance program. Thus, in HIPPA, the inclusion of the IHS or tribal provision was intended to benefit American Indians and Alaska Natives, not penalize them. However, use of the HIPPA definition in the recent Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment and Prevention Act has the exact opposite effect. In fact, the many Indian women, who rely on IHS or tribal programs for basic health care, are specifically excluded from the law's new eligibility under Medicaid. Clearly it was not the intent of Congress to specifically discriminate against low-income Native American women and to deny them much needed health treatment to combat breast or cervical cancer. The legislation resolves these problems by clarifying that, for purposes of the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act, the term ``creditable coverage'' shall not include IHS-funded care so that American Indian and Alaska Native women can be covered by Medicaid for breast and cervical cancer treatment, as they are for all other Medicaid services. Since a number of States are currently moving forward to provide Medicaid coverage under the State option, the need for this legislation is immediate to ensure that some American Indian and Alaska Native women are not denied received life-saving breast and cervical cancer treatment due to a Congressional drafting error. In addition, this bill would also reduce the administrative burdens this language places on states. Under administrative guidance, some Native American women can be enrolled on the program depending on a determination of their ``access'' to IHS services, which depends on certain documentation obtained by Native American women seeking breast and cervical cancer treatment from IHS. In order to determine the Medicaid eligibility of Native American women who are screened as having breast or cervical cancer through the Title XV program each year, states are having to put together a whole set of regulations and rules to make these special ``access'' determinations. During this year, almost 50,000 women are expected to die from breast or cervical cancer in the United States despite the fact that early detection and treatment of these diseases could substantially decrease this mortality. While passage of last year's bill makes significant strides to address this problem, it fails to do so for certain Native American women and that must be changed as soon as possible. In support of Native American women across this country that are being diagnosed through CDC screening activities as having breast or cervical cancer, this legislation will assure that they can also access much needed treatment through the Medicaid program while also reducing the unnecessary paperwork and administrative burdens on states. I would like to thank all Senators for their support and specifically thank Chairman Inouye and Senator Campbell of the Committee on Indian Affairs and Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley of the Finance Committee for agreeing to move the bill. In addition, I would like to thank the bill's cosponsors, which include Senators McCain, Daschle, Baucus, Clinton, Domenici, Feingold, Kennedy, Johnson, Murray, Stabenow, Wellstone, Harkin, Miller, Snowe, Inouye, Smith of Oregon, Cantwell, Inhofe, Landrieu, Cochran, Boxer, Murkowski, Mikulski, and Grassley for their help in getting the bill passed. I would also like to thank Sara Rosenbaum at George Washington University for bringing this problem to our attention and for her vast knowledge on this issue and Andy Schneider for his technical advice and counsel on correcting the problem. In addition, this bill would never have passed without the outstanding support and efforts by Fran Visco, Jennifer Katz, Wendy Arends, Alana Wexler, Joanne Huff, and Vicki Tosher at the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Wendy Selig, Licy Docanto, Brian Lee, and Janet Thomas of the American Cancer Society, Dawn McKinney and Laura Hessburg of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Leigh Ann McGee of the Cherokee Nation, Jacqueline Johnson of the National Congress of American Indians, and the many Indian health organizations that have helped with the passage of this legislation as well. I urge the House to immediately take up and pass this legislation and for the President to sign it into law to ensure that Native American women are not inappropriately denied treatment for their breast and cervical cancer. As states proceed with the implementation of last year's bill, any further delay and failure to act could unnecessarily threaten the lives of Native American women across this country.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Thursday, December 6, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the negotiations for renewing the Compact of Free Association. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. Those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should e-mail it to shelly brown@energy.senate.gov or fax it to 202/224-4340. For further information, please contact Kira Finkler of the committee staff at (202) 224-8164.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will hold a hearing on Wednesday, December 5, 2001, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following nominations: Margaret S. Y. Chu to be Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Department of Energy; Beverly Cook to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Environment, Safety and Health), Department of Energy; Jeffrey D. Jarrett to be Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Department of the Interior; and Rebecca W. Watson to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior (Land and Minerals Management), Department of the Interior. Those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record on any of these nominations should e-mail it to amanda goldman@energy.senate.gov or fax it to 202/224-9026. For further information, please call Sam Fowler or Amanda Goldman at 202/224-4103. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, due to a jurisdiction concern raised with the committee referral of S. 535, I am reintroducing the Native American Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Technical Amendment Act of 2001 today with Senator McCain and 23 other bipartisan cosponsors. To ensure the availability of life-saving breast and cervical cancer treatment to American Indian and Alaska Native women, I urge the bill's immediate passage. I request unanimous consent that a fact sheet and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.