Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, at this point I will yield the floor. I know my colleague from Tennessee wishes to speak about a variety of issues, and then there is another amendment which we also will be sending to the desk for Senator Inouye, who will be here fairly shortly, related to provisions that have come from the Commerce Committee. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the good work my colleague from Tennessee, as comanager of the bill, has been doing on this issue, as I have been unavoidably detained over in the Energy Committee. It is my understanding, unless someone knows otherwise, that all debate expected on the pending amendment has taken place. As far as I have been informed, the Senate is ready to dispense with the amendment.

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

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, for the information of Senators, this amendment makes a series of clarifying changes in the bill that are technical in nature. It is not controversial, as far as I have been informed. I am informed by the leadership that they would like to leave this pending at this point. We will proceed that way in case a Member decides to come and speak on it. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I wish to congratulate Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, who will receive the Organic Leadership Award on May 7, 2007. The award is bestowed annually by the Organic Trade Association on individuals who have demonstrated leadership and vision in furthering the goals of organic agriculture. Dr. Shapiro has had a very impressive career in organic agriculture, having been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, plant genetics, and food production systems for over 35 years. He is best known as the principal author of ``Gardening for the Future of the Earth,'' which shows how to ``create natural bounty in your own backyard and help save the planet one seed at a time.'' During his long and diverse career, Dr. Shapiro has been a community gardening activist, a university professor for 15 years, twice a Fulbright Scholar, twice a Ford Foundation Fellow, and winner of the National Endowment for the Humanities Award. He has worked with indigenous communities, nongovernmental organizations, governmental agencies, and private institutions throughout the world, including Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Forest Service, ICRAF, The World Agroforestry Centre, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and many other national and regional agricultural institutions in Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. Most recently, Dr. Shapiro has held a leadership role in Seeds of Change, the largest certified organic seed company in the country. Located along the Rio Grande in El Guique, NM, Seeds of Change, a division of Mars, Incorporated, is a pioneering cultivator of organically grown seeds for home and market growers, a leader in the organic foods industry, and a valued resource for organic farmers. Dr. Shapiro has been dedicated to Seeds of Change since its inception and was a key figure during the launching of the Seeds of Change 100 percent certified organic food line in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan. I am proud that New Mexico is home to Seeds of Change and that the company, and organic agriculture as an industry, has been so well served by the expertise and vision of Dr. Shapiro throughout its growth. Again, I congratulate Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro for receiving the Organic Trade Association's highest honor. I thank him for his commitment to furthering organic agriculture around the world, and I wish him continued success in the years ahead.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wanted to take a few minutes of the Senate's time to talk about a bill that I introduced, along with Senator Burr and Senator Kennedy, entitled the Graduation Promise Act of 2007, or GPA. This bill would create a Federal-State-local partnership to improve the Nation's graduation rates and help transform our lowest performing high schools. This is a bill we just introduced today. I thank Senator Burr and Senator Kennedy for their commitment to improving our high schools and for increasing graduation rates in this country. I am very pleased to be working with both of them on this legislation. I am also very glad that GPA, this legislation we have introduced, is supported by the Alliance for Excellent Education, by the Center for American Progress, by Jobs for the Future, by the National Council of La Raza, by First Focus, and many other education groups. Nearly 20 years ago, the Nation's Governors met for the first education summit and, as far as I know, for the only national education summit in our country's history. They met with the first President Bush in Charlottesville, VA. They agreed to set high expectations for education for the coming decade. That was the decade following 1989. One of those standards they set was for an increase in high school graduation rates to 90 percent by the year 2000. Today, we are not even close to achieving that goal. In fact, the Nation's graduation rate has stagnated at around 70 percent instead of 90 percent. Graduation rates for Hispanic and African-American students are lower than that. In my home State of New Mexico, by some estimates, the graduation rate is less than 60 percent in some high schools. Many students are entering the ninth grade significantly behind in their reading and mathematics skills. They are ill-prepared to master the challenges of the typical high school curriculum. Not surprisingly, these students are more prone to academic failure and grade retention and, accordingly, the dropout rates among these students are disturbingly high, specifically in the ninth grade. But low graduation rates are only one broad indicator of the crisis affecting our Nation's high schools. Even if a student makes it to graduation, only a third of all students who enter the ninth grade will graduate with the skills and the knowledge necessary to go on to college or to succeed in the modern workplace. They are not receiving the kind of quality education that permits a seamless transition to a job or postsecondary education. Again, this problem disproportionately affects minority students. Only 16 percent of Hispanic students and 23 percent of African-American students graduate prepared for college, compared to 40 percent for other students. This situation is simply unacceptable. In the global technology-based economy we live in today, a high school diploma is a minimum qualification for most jobs in our fastest growing sectors. The United States ranks 19th in high school graduation rates among major industrial democracies. The Federal Government recognized that investments in early childhood and elementary grades are critical to a student's academic growth and success. Still, attention and resources must be sustained throughout the middle and high school years as well if the national goal of leaving no child behind is to be met. Unfortunately, we have not been doing this. Only about 8 percent of all title I dollars go to our high schools today. Our continued economic security hinges on preparing our young people to enter college and to enter the 21st century workforce. In fact, our national security depends on it. Fortunately, research has come to light that will help us to better understand the factors behind the low graduation and student performance data. For instance, we can identify the high schools that are producing the majority of dropouts in this country. These schools-- roughly 2,000 schools I am referring to--represent about 15 percent of all high schools in the country, and they have persistently low rates of graduation and low rates of grade promotion. If we look at the typical senior class at one of these high schools, it will have decreased in size by at least 40 percent since the students entered the school 4 years earlier. These high schools are in every State. They tend to be concentrated in urban areas, and they serve more than a third of our African-American and Hispanic students nationwide. Unfortunately, there are 23 of these high schools in my home State of New Mexico. Research has also shed light on the specific factors that allow us to predict who is going to drop out of high school. We can identify with up to 80 percent accuracy the future dropouts as early as the ninth grade. We can do so by looking at such predictors as course failure, poor attendance, behavior problems, and retention in earlier grades. Students who enter high school significantly lagging behind in their academics and who show signs of becoming disengaged from the school are prone to drop out unless additional support is put in place. Finally, research-based solutions with solid evidence of success are transforming of our high schools with low graduation rates. Restructuring schools into smaller, more personalized learning environments ensures that students become engaged from the time they enter the ninth grade on. Sustained efforts to boost attendance ensure they will not fall further behind. Schools that have combined these efforts with a high-quality curriculum and structural improvements have been very successful at improving student performance and improving graduation rates. They have done so with transitional math and English for ninth graders that will help them catch up by offering challenging curricula and tangible contextual applications of learning in order to rekindle the interests of these students and creating teaching teams, targeting professional development for the teachers to help them meet this challenge. A combination of these interventions has improved student performance and increased graduation rates. We know this problem can be solved to meet the goal. This legislation has been introduced by Senators Burr and Kennedy, and I hope very much this legislation and many of its provisions can be included when we get to a markup of the No Child Left Behind legislation later this year. I submit we cannot afford to let the estimated 2,000 failing high schools continue to push students off the path to prosperity. Collectively, these schools serve about 2.4 million students. We need to ensure for the continued prosperity of the country that these students remain in school and graduate with the skills needed to become productive citizens.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I wanted to take a few minutes of the Senate's time to talk about a bill that I introduced, along with Senator Burr and Senator Kennedy, entitled the Graduation Promise Act of 2007, or GPA. This bill would create a Federal-State-local partnership to improve the Nation's graduation rates and help transform our lowest performing high schools. This is a bill we just introduced today. I thank Senator Burr and Senator Kennedy for their commitment to improving our high schools and for increasing graduation rates in this country. I am very pleased to be working with both of them on this legislation. I am also very glad that GPA, this legislation we have introduced, is supported by the Alliance for Excellent Education, by the Center for American Progress, by Jobs for the Future, by the National Council of La Raza, by First Focus, and many other education groups. Nearly 20 years ago, the Nation's Governors met for the first education summit and, as far as I know, for the only national education summit in our country's history. They met with the first President Bush in Charlottesville, VA. They agreed to set high expectations for education for the coming decade. That was the decade following 1989. One of those standards they set was for an increase in high school graduation rates to 90 percent by the year 2000. Today, we are not even close to achieving that goal. In fact, the Nation's graduation rate has stagnated at around 70 percent instead of 90 percent. Graduation rates for Hispanic and African-American students are lower than that. In my home State of New Mexico, by some estimates, the graduation rate is less than 60 percent in some high schools. Many students are entering the ninth grade significantly behind in their reading and mathematics skills. They are ill-prepared to master the challenges of the typical high school curriculum. Not surprisingly, these students are more prone to academic failure and grade retention and, accordingly, the dropout rates among these students are disturbingly high, specifically in the ninth grade. But low graduation rates are only one broad indicator of the crisis affecting our Nation's high schools. Even if a student makes it to graduation, only a third of all students who enter the ninth grade will graduate with the skills and the knowledge necessary to go on to college or to succeed in the modern workplace. They are not receiving the kind of quality education that permits a seamless transition to a job or postsecondary education. Again, this problem disproportionately affects minority students. Only 16 percent of Hispanic students and 23 percent of African-American students graduate prepared for college, compared to 40 percent for other students. This situation is simply unacceptable. In the global technology-based economy we live in today, a high school diploma is a minimum qualification for most jobs in our fastest growing sectors. The United States ranks 19th in high school graduation rates among major industrial democracies. The Federal Government recognized that investments in early childhood and elementary grades are critical to a student's academic growth and success. Still, attention and resources must be sustained throughout the middle and high school years as well if the national goal of leaving no child behind is to be met. Unfortunately, we have not been doing this. Only about 8 percent of all title I dollars go to our high schools today. Our continued economic security hinges on preparing our young people to enter college and to enter the 21st century workforce. In fact, our national security depends on it. Fortunately, research has come to light that will help us to better understand the factors behind the low graduation and student performance data. For instance, we can identify the high schools that are producing the majority of dropouts in this country. These schools-- roughly 2,000 schools I am referring to--represent about 15 percent of all high schools in the country, and they have persistently low rates of graduation and low rates of grade promotion. If we look at the typical senior class at one of these high schools, it will have decreased in size by at least 40 percent since the students entered the school 4 years earlier. These high schools are in every State. They tend to be concentrated in urban areas, and they serve more than a third of our African-American and Hispanic students nationwide. Unfortunately, there are 23 of these high schools in my home State of New Mexico. Research has also shed light on the specific factors that allow us to predict who is going to drop out of high school. We can identify with up to 80 percent accuracy the future dropouts as early as the ninth grade. We can do so by looking at such predictors as course failure, poor attendance, behavior problems, and retention in earlier grades. Students who enter high school significantly lagging behind in their academics and who show signs of becoming disengaged from the school are prone to drop out unless additional support is put in place. Finally, research-based solutions with solid evidence of success are transforming of our high schools with low graduation rates. Restructuring schools into smaller, more personalized learning environments ensures that students become engaged from the time they enter the ninth grade on. Sustained efforts to boost attendance ensure they will not fall further behind. Schools that have combined these efforts with a high-quality curriculum and structural improvements have been very successful at improving student performance and improving graduation rates. They have done so with transitional math and English for ninth graders that will help them catch up by offering challenging curricula and tangible contextual applications of learning in order to rekindle the interests of these students and creating teaching teams, targeting professional development for the teachers to help them meet this challenge. A combination of these interventions has improved student performance and increased graduation rates. We know this problem can be solved to meet the goal. This legislation has been introduced by Senators Burr and Kennedy, and I hope very much this legislation and many of its provisions can be included when we get to a markup of the No Child Left Behind legislation later this year. I submit we cannot afford to let the estimated 2,000 failing high schools continue to push students off the path to prosperity. Collectively, these schools serve about 2.4 million students. We need to ensure for the continued prosperity of the country that these students remain in school and graduate with the skills needed to become productive citizens.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on May 1, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on S. 129, a bill to study and promote the use of energy- efficient computer servers in the United States; S. 838, a bill to authorize funding joint ventures between United States and Israeli businesses and academic persons; H.R. 85, a bill to provide for the establishment of centers to encourage demonstration and commercial application of advanced energy methods and technologies; and H.R. 1126, a bill to reauthorize the Steel and Aluminum Energy Conservation and Technology Competitiveness Act of 1988. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by email to Amanda_Kelly@energy.senate.gov. For further information, please contact Jonathan Epstein at (202) 224-3357 or Amanda Kelly at (202) 224-6836.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Water and Power of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on May 2, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on S. 27, a bill to authorize the implementation of the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by email to Gina_Weinstock@energy.senate.gov. For further information, please contact Michael Connor at (202) 224- 5479 or Gina Weinstock at (202) 224-5684. subcommittee on public lands and forests

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. The hearing will be held on May 3, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 205 and H.R. 865, to grant rights-of-way for electric transmission lines over certain Native allotments in the State of Alaska; S. 390, to direct the exchange of certain land in Grand, San Juan, and Uintah Counties, Utah; S. 647, to designate certain land in the State of Oregon as wilderness; S. 1139, to establish the National Landscape Conservation System; H.R. 276, to designate the Piedras Blancas Light Station and the surrounding public land as an Outstanding Natural Area to be administered as a part of the National Landscape Conservation System; and H.R. 356, to remove certain restrictions on the Mammoth Community Water District's ability to use certain property acquired by that District from the United States. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by email to rachel_pasternack@energy.senate .gov. For further information, please contact David Brooks at (202) 224- 9863 or Rachel Pasternack at (202) 224-0883.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12 noon tomorrow, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 76, the nomination of Halil Suleyman Ozerden to be a U.S. district judge; that there be 10 minutes for debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member or their designees; that at the conclusion or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote on that nomination; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 165, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 166, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1681, which was received from the House.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, if there is no further business today, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 165 as a further mark of respect to the memory of the late Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 24; that on Tuesday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business for 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak therein, with the first 30 minutes under the control of the Republicans and the final 30 minutes under the control of the majority; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 761; that on Tuesday, at the conclusion of the vote on the judicial nomination, the Senate stand in recess until 2:15 p.m.