Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of an amendment included in the package of amendments offered by the managers of H.R. 2584, a bill to provide for the conveyance to the Utrok Atoll local government of a decommissioned National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship, and for other purposes. The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, by virtue of its jurisdiction for the U.S. territories, has a long history in dealing with the islands of the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Utrok Atoll is one such group of islands located in the northern Marshall Islands, about 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii. One distinction of these islands is that they were affected by fallout from our Nation's first thermonuclear bomb test--the ``Bravo'' test held at Bikini Atoll in 1954. Since that time, the U.S. Government has been monitoring the health of the individuals affected, providing healthcare, and monitoring the radiation levels on the islands. All Americans should recognize the impact that the development of our nation's nuclear deterrent had on Utrok and the other affected communities at Enewetak, Bikini, and Rongelap. We have a continuing interest in their welfare. This legislation, H.R. 2584, serves that continuing interest by authorizing the transfer of a decommissioned NOAA vessel to the Utrok local government to assist the community by improving transportation to the capital at Majuro. One reason to visit Majuro is to use the U.S. Department of Energy's whole-body counting facility located there. Members of the affected communities can get whole-body counts and reassure themselves about the efficacy of their radiation clean-up and remediation efforts. One concern regarding the transfer of this vessel, however, is whether the community has properly planned for its use and operation. Over the years, the Energy Committee has been involved in several vessel transfers. Two common problems with these projects are that the vessels are found to be ill-suited to the needs of the community or the community lacks the resources to operate and maintain them. I commend the managers of this bill for including an amendment that would require the Utrok government to submit a plan for the use of the vessel, including the identification of sources of funding for operations and maintenance. I understand that NOAA had an annual operating budget for this vessel of $2.9 million. While there would be economies available to reduce these costs, such as hiring a non-U.S. citizen crew, operation and maintenance costs will certainly be beyond the capacity of the Utrok local government. It is my hope that the Utrok local government will work with the Marshall Islands government and with other communities in the area to find the resources needed to make this project a success. If, in the end, the resources are not found, it may be necessary, as it has been in other cases, to sell the vessel in order to purchase a more suitable one, or to use the proceeds to meet the community's needs in other ways. I thank the managers of this bill for including this amendment, and I look forward to reviewing with them, and with the Utrok community, the plan for this vessel's use. The bill (H.R. 2584), as amended, was read the third time and passed.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about high gas prices and high natural gas prices and what we could be doing about it and what I would urge the administration to do about it. I would like to outline 13 concrete steps I believe the President can take to address and to lessen the impact these high prices are having on the U.S. economy and on American families. Several others in the Senate have talked in recent days to suggest that the cure-all for the current high energy prices would be to take up and pass either the Energy bill conference report that was blocked last fall or a new comprehensive Energy bill that is now on the Senate calendar. Clearly there are some specific legislative provisions related to energy that we in the Congress should be passing this year, and I strongly support getting to those. The truth is, though, that neither last year's nor this year's bill does much to address the high prices we now face, either in the area of natural gas or in the area of gasoline one gets at the pump. That was a conclusion the Energy Information Administration, EIA, reached after a thorough analysis of last year's conference report that they carried out at the request of Senator Sununu. The EIA conclusion on that conference report, which applies equally to the Energy bill that is currently on the Senate calendar, is: On a fuel-specific basis, changes to production, consumption, imports, and prices are negligible. As the Wall Street Journal stated so succinctly yesterday in an editorial on the NRC legislation: No energy bill has the ability to ease the crunch in oil and natural gas prices before this fall's election. Even though there is not a legislative fix, or an immediate fix to this set of problems, nevertheless there are a number of effective steps the President can take under current law using existing statutory authority. These steps would actually do more to address current high energy prices, as well as the root causes, than anything we have in the 1,200-page Energy bill that is still awaiting action. Let me first talk about the high price of natural gas and what could be done to deal with that. The first set of specific steps the administration could take to address current high prices involves increasing the domestic supply of natural gas. Those steps would allow the President to reprogram additional funds in fiscal year 2004, the current year--reprogram those to Federal oil and gas programs--and request supplemental funds to reverse the cuts to Federal oil and gas programs that the administration has requested in next year's budget. Federal programs to support increased domestic oil and gas production have fared very poorly in the President's most recent budget request to Congress. This is in spite of the many public statements of support for increased domestic production by administration officials. The rhetoric, unfortunately, has not been matched by actual requests for investment in these activities. Here is a chart that tries to summarize a couple of points. This is entitled ``Bush Administration Budget Cuts for Oil and Natural Gas Production--Fiscal Year 2005.'' It is broken into, first, the budget cuts related to the Interior Department and, second, the budget cuts related to the Energy Department. Let me go through this. A case in point is the oil and gas management program in the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of Interior. This is the program that governs onshore oil and gas production on Federal lands such as the oil and gas production on the Federal lands in New Mexico. The 94,000 Federal onshore oil and gas wells currently account for 11 percent of U.S. natural gas production and 5 percent of our oil production. The administration's own figures show there is a backlog of oil and gas lease applications and drilling permits on Federal lands of about 2,100 for the current fiscal year. That is a remarkable statistic. It means we are foregoing additional oil and gas production and essentially preventing it, not because of some environmental restriction, not because we have closed off some promising new area to development, but because the administration will not hire the people to process the paperwork needed to approve the drilling applications that companies are willing and anxious to undertake. You would think getting adequate Federal resources to support oil and gas exploration in the field in areas that are not controversial would be fairly easy to accomplish. I can assure my colleagues it is not. My home State of New Mexico is a State that produces a substantial quantity of oil and natural gas. I had to go back to the Bureau of Land Management again and again over the last couple of years to get them to hire additional personnel in the Farmington field office to process natural gas drilling permits. Farmington is not alone in this respect. This is a problem all throughout the Intermountain West. Instead of taking aggressive action in this year's budget to reduce the backlog to zero over the next year, the President's latest budget request cuts $3 million from the budget of the oil and gas management program with the difference being made up by raising fees on independent oil and gas producers for each lease application or drilling permit for which they apply. Think about that a moment. In the face of very high natural gas prices, the administration says we should cut Federal expenditures for the very people needed to approve more drilling, and we should make up the difference by bumping up the cost of a drilling permit. Not only do we not get more supply, but the additional costs that are levied on producers most likely get passed along to consumers and get reflected in natural gas prices. As a result of this so-called status quo effort in the BLM, the administration's own figures estimate the bureaucratic backlog in BLM will only decline by 200 in fiscal year 2005. The net backlog of 2,100 would be reduced to 1,900 during that fiscal year, so 18 months from now we would have approximately 1,900 lease applications awaiting some kind of action. This is an inadequate response in light of the current high prices we face. Instead of making it more costly for domestic producers to look for oil and gas on Federal lands and doing little or nothing to make the necessary resources available in the field to speed the processing of leases and permits, the administration should be asking Congress for an increase in this budget. To address the problem, I recommend the administration take the following three actions to boost domestic natural gas production: First, the Department of Interior should request that fiscal year 2004 funds be immediately reprogrammed to start reducing the drilling backlog at the BLM. Second, the President should submit a supplemental request for an additional $8 million for fiscal year 2005, to get that backlog down to zero. And, third, the President should direct the BLM to abandon the notion of a rulemaking that would erect greater fiscal barriers to the exploration and production of oil and gas on Federal lands. A second set of deep budget cuts affecting natural gas production can be found in the administration's budget requests for the administration's oil and gas R&D programs. These programs are focused on helping independent producers with access to new technologies that make domestic production of oil and gas more efficient and more effective. They fund efforts such as the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council, which has demonstrated a strong track record in boosting the productivity for independent oil and gas producers. They account for much of our domestic oil and gas production. The President's budget request for 2005 cuts these programs by nearly half. One particularly important program, the Department of Energy's Petroleum Exploration and Production Research Program, proposes an 84- percent cut under the administration's budget request. Again, given the need to sustain domestic production and the strong support for these programs that has been repeatedly shown in Congress on a bipartisan basis, it is difficult to justify these funding requests. So my fourth recommendation to the President is that at a minimum the administration submit a supplemental request for $37.1 million for fiscal year 2005 for the Department of Energy oil and gas R&D programs. All we are asking for is that we maintain these programs at current funding levels. Frankly, these programs should be increased, but at the very least we should not be phasing them out as the President is currently proposing. That is natural gas. Let me move to the issue of the high price of gasoline at the pump. Let me make some recommendations as to how that could be relieved. My first recommendation in this regard would be for the administration to temporarily suspend using royalty-in-kind oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Senate voted in favor of such a suspension while we were considering the budget resolution 2 weeks ago. I supported that action. It was proposed on a bipartisan basis by Senators Levin, Collins, and Clinton. I recognize the Senate vote was not binding on the administration. But, the idea of not diverting oil from the market to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time of exceptional tightness in oil markets makes sense at least as a signal to the market that the administration recognizes the depth of economic hardship being caused by current high prices. The President has the authority and discretion to either put the Government's royalty share of oil in the SPR, or to let it be sold on the market, where it will help provide more supply. I believe that the President should direct the Department of Energy to suspend this policy temporarily, to be reinstated when oil prices return to more normal levels. Some have argued that putting the Government's royalty share of oil on the market is some sort of attack on the SPR. That is not true. The practice was started during the Clinton administration, at my urging--and at the urging of others in the industry--because oil prices then were very low, and the extra Government oil being placed on the market was threatening the long-term financial viability of small producers. It was started as a counter-cyclical measure; we should stop it as a counter-cyclical measure in the same way, in my view. My second recommendation to help reduce high gasoline prices would be for the President to press the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries--OPEC--to increase world oil supply. OPEC has successfully managed the global oil market with an increasing degree of precision since its announcement in March 1998 of a pact to lower output and keep oil prices within a $22 to $28 per barrel price band. Supply has been tight and prices have remained high in particular over the past 12 months. On February 10, 2004, OPEC announced a surprise agreement to cut its output quotas by 1 million barrels a day, or 4 percent, starting in March, because of concern that prices may fall once winter ends in the northern hemisphere. Meanwhile, crude oil prices in New York reached a 13-year high of $38.18 a barrel on March 17, 2 weeks before OPEC's next meeting. Given the economic impact that high energy prices are having on American families and businesses, I believe that the administration needs to act more aggressively to combat the mounting economic crisis. With a decrease in supply, the demand for oil could send prices at the gasoline pump well above $2 a gallon this summer. It is time that this administration uses every means at its disposal to bring down high energy prices. OPEC has limited its production of oil to drive prices higher and collect additional profits. This is not acceptable. I recommend that the administration exert diplomatic pressure on OPEC to abandon its agreement of February 10 and to increase oil supplies instead of decreasing. Doing so would not set some new precedent. The Clinton administration used its international leverage to encourage OPEC to keep oil prices stable and affordable during its two terms in office. If President Clinton and his top officials could act in the interest of consumers and the American economy, then I think President Bush can, as well. My third and fourth recommendations to help moderate gasoline price pressures on consumers would be for the administration to fine-tune the current gasoline sulfur regulation to ease price pressures resulting from the transition to low-sulfur gasoline. EPA is in the process of implementing a new rule on sulfur in gasoline. This rule sets the acceptable level of sulfur in gasoline at 120 ppm as of January 1, 2004. Over the next two years, this level will drop to only 30 ppm. The move to cleaner, more sulfur-free transportation fuels is necessary and should continue. The rule rewards companies that achieve early reductions in their operations' baseline level of sulfur to generate sulfur credits for use in 2005. An additional level of special credits called ``allotments'' was developed to reward companies which made significant capital investment. The rule, however, does not have a reliable mechanism for independent fuel importers to participate in the system if markets are tight and the number of allotments they need to buy--to stay in compliance--are not available. I recommend that the administration revise this rule to allow independent importers to carry a small deficit balance in case they are unable to buy enough allotments. By doing so, we will facilitate the ability to move more gasoline that is currently on the world market to U.S. consumers this summer, without compromising environmental protections. If unexpected significant refinery or pipeline disruptions occur, or if gasoline prices rise to levels that cause significant economic harm, I recommend that the administration be prepared to issue an emergency rule allowing the use of the sulfur credits for 2005 in this year. This additional flexibility in the use of sulfur credits would not result in any greater emission of sulfur dioxide over the 2-year period of 2004- 2005, but would add to the ability to bring more gasoline into the United States so that consumer are not paying more than they should. While some of the preceding actions show how fuel prices can be temporarily moderated by lowering barriers to fuels already on world markets this summer, we need to get our national fuels systems in order for the longer term. Although the administration published a general report on national energy policy in 2001, our country still lacks a focused national fuels strategy. Current policies on issues such as the operation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--SPR--are simply outdated. The administration has made no progress towards stopping and reversing the increasing balkanization of U.S. fuel markets--a balkanization that hits every consumer right in the pocketbook with higher fuel prices than necessary. And there has been no attempt over the past few years to build consensus around a balanced approach to both increase the supply of refined fuels and increase the efficiency of our oil use economy-wide. These changed circumstances and new needs call out for a number of policy initiatives that should be undertaken as part of a broader national fuels strategy. First, such a strategy should look at how conservation in transportation fuel use can be enhanced. Instead of debating on the merits of any single approach to the problem, it would be more productive if the administration were to set a policy target for itself of oil savings it would like to achieve economy-wide over the next 10 years. This would give the administration and the public a yardstick to evaluate the effectiveness of various policy proposals. Such a target would likely be broadly supported across the political spectrum. In the Senate, one such proposal for an oil savings target was supported last year by a vote of 99 to 1. I recommend that the administration set such a policy target, after public consultation. Second, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency should start addressing the need for further refining capacity in areas, such as the east coast, that are now importing gasoline to keep pace with demand. States, localities, consumer groups, environmental groups, and industry should all be invited to participate in a process to identify measures to facilitate capacity expansion. For such a process to succeed, there would have to be credible actions ongoing at the same time to spur increased conservation. But that is if that is possible. I believe that such a process would identify the current barriers to building additional refining capacity, such as permitting and financial disincentives. I would recommend that the administration immediately set such a process in motion, and that it issue a report to the Congress and the public within 6 months, identifying specific options for improving regulatory practices or streamlining permitting processes in order to increase U.S. refining capacity. Third, the administration needs to review its policies regarding the operation and use of the SPR. Right now, we lack ``rules of the road'' for tapping the SPR that are clearly defined and clearly understood. As I have pointed out in previous letters to the Department of Energy, a clearer understanding of how SPR oil will be managed in a new environment of volatile markets and increasingly higher prices would provide more certainty to the market. Fourth, when fuel pries are tight, product flexibility is crucial. If a region needs more gasoline than its refineries can produce, or if a refinery or pipeline shuts down unexpectedly, flexibility becomes the key factor in determining the speed at which motor fuels can be supplied from other regions to meet the shortfall and to dampen the price spikes to consumers. The proliferation of boutique fuel specifications across the country has greatly reduced the overall flexibility and efficiency of our fuel system. It is a major factor in the increasing fragility of our fuel system to price spikes. The Clean Air Act authorized States to regulate fuels through federally approved State implementation plans in order to attain a national air quality standard. That was the right policy, but the implementation of the policy has been flawed. There are now dozens of different kinds of fuels being required by different States, all with Federal approval, leading to more than 110 different formulations of these boutique fuels throughout the United States. These 110-plus different fuel types make the use of existing transportation infrastructure for fuels much less efficient, and, correspondingly, more expensive to run. Those costs get passed directly on to consumers. The large number of types also limits flexibility in product distribution, particularly if a disruption occurs. Consumers pay for that lack of flexibility whenever there is a price spike. The President's 2001 energy policy report directed the EPA to study ``opportunities to maintain or improve the environmental benefits of State and local boutique clean fuel programs while exploring ways to increase the flexibility of the fuel distribution infrastructure, improve fungibility, and provide added gasoline market liquidity.'' There have been 3 years since that directive was given to the EPA, and as far as I know the administration has not taken any significant steps to reduce the growth of these boutique fuels. This is a major failing which we need to address at this time. I believe it is time to take real action. The administration can do that. It has the authority under current law in each of these areas I have cited. The President should direct the Administrator of the EPA, with technical assistance as needed from the Secretary of Energy, to require revisions of State implementation plans to reduce the overall number of fuel specifications by at least a factor of 5 and, preferably, closer to a factor of 10. Finally, a recommendation aimed at preventing fuel shock prices in gasoline or other fuels would be for the administration to encourage the IEA, the International Energy Agency, to direct the strategic stock modeling methods. The IEA monthly oil market reports are critically important to the global oil market. The supply, demand, and stock figures that the IEA projects each month literally turn markets. Energy experts tell us that the method the IEA uses to calculate monthly demand and supply figures is flawed, that it encourages OPEC to undershoot the market in terms of the amount of crude oil it supplies to the world. A revision of the strategic stock calculation methodology could fix this. The root of the flaw lies in the fact that the current IEA market report treats stocks of oil in the major consuming countries as a fixed and variable amount. This treatment of stocks is not realistic. Its effect on IEA models is to bias toward understating the amount of oil OPEC needs to produce for the world market, the so-called ``Call on OPEC.'' Recently it appears that OPEC has given great credence to the ``Call on OPEC,'' in determining what it would supply to the market. Further, key OPEC nations, such as Saudi Arabia, have at times interpreted IEA data to mean the IEA will not punish certain behavior by the cartel to maintain high prices so long as they meet these ``Call on OPEC'' levels. Given the importance of this IEA forecast methodology, it is crucial it be based on the best possible real-world data and not on a static and unrealistic treatment of stock levels. A more real-world treatment of stocks in IEA oil forecast methodology would alleviate some of the tensions which many analysts believe is keeping crude prices higher than they otherwise might have been. For this reason, I recommend the administration engage vigorously with the IEA to improve the realism of the models underlying its monthly oil market report. That change, though seemingly esoteric, could make a real difference, for instance, at the pump to Americans. The United States is a leading member of IEA, so our ability to influence and improve this key market driver is very great. Carrying out the 13 recommendations I have outlined today will help to relieve some of the pressure on our fuel markets that are affecting consumers, adversely affecting them and perhaps will continue to adversely affect them in the coming days and weeks. These recommendations could set the stage for a long-term improvement in our fuels security. My colleagues should know that none of the 13 recommendations require new legislative authority from Congress. The President already has the power to implement these recommendations. I urge him do so. I put these recommendations in a letter to the President, a copy to the Secretary of Energy, and a letter I have sent today. I hope he will consider these commonsense and effective recommendations and take action on them. I will come back to the Senate floor once we receive a response to that letter and hopefully report on the progress being made to help bring down both the cost of natural gas and the cost of gasoline at the pump before this summer is on us. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, in response to the question, first, let me say these are 13 recommendations that do not require legislation. These are all recommendations that I believe the President has full authority to implement and enact under current law. The purpose of my letter to him and this statement today in the Senate was to urge he do right now what can be done under existing law to help deal with these problems. As far as the energy bill is concerned, it is my view that if the majority leader wishes to bring the energy bill to the Senate floor and is willing to allow Senators to offer amendments, then we should certainly proceed in that way. I don't think it is realistic, and I certainly told my colleague from New Mexico and others this repeatedly, I don't think it is realistic to be requiring Democratic Senators to limit amendments at this stage since the bill that will be coming to the floor was written without the input of Democrat Senators.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Conrad, for yielding me some time to describe an amendment I intend to offer and would like to have the Senate consider and vote on. This is an amendment which can be best summarized by reading it. It is only a sentence long. And it says: It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider a bill, amendment, motion, joint resolution, or conference report that increases the number of taxpayers affected by the alternative minimum tax, except for a measure that extends expiring provisions relating to the child tax credit, the 10- percent tax bracket, and the marriage penalty. Mr. President, this is what I would call a first-things-first amendment. I heard the President, in his State of the Union speech--and we have all heard him on numerous occasions--talk about how we need to make permanent the tax cuts. We had a hearing in the Finance Committee where Secretary Snow, our Secretary of the Treasury, came in and said: We need to make permanent our tax cuts. And my question to him was: What about this looming problem that we all know about, which is called the alternative minimum tax? Now, the alternative minimum tax was put in place with the idea that very wealthy individuals should not be able to avoid all taxes. If they calculate their taxes and they figure out some way to determine they do not owe anything, then they have to also calculate on the basis of the alternative minimum tax and at least pay that amount. That was the idea behind it. Unfortunately, with the changes we made in the tax law and with the changes in the economy and the tax structure, we are now to a circumstance where we are beginning to see more and more people affected by the alternative minimum tax. If we were to do what the President has urged--that is, make all these tax cuts permanent--then the number of people who are adversely affected by having to calculate their tax pursuant to the alternative minimum tax would go up very dramatically. Instead of it affecting a couple million people, we are talking about it affecting 30 million people by the year 2012. My amendment says, let's do first things first. Let's figure out how to resolve this problem of the alternative minimum tax, and let's not be bringing bills to the floor and passing legislation unless we have 60 votes in the Senate in favor of it. Let's not be passing legislation to worsen the situation and to require more and more Americans to fall under these provisions of the alternative minimum tax. To me, it is a straightforward, commonsense thing to do. I asked Secretary Snow in this same hearing: How much is it going to cost to fix the problem? His answer was: We don't know. We are working on that. I said: When are you going to know? Well, we are going to know maybe a year from now. That is not an acceptable answer for the Senate or for the Congress or for the American people. We should not be making permanent tax cuts and further cutting taxes unless we know the extent of the revenue loss that is involved in fixing this alternative minimum tax problem. All this does is set up a point of order. It says, if you are going to bring a bill to the floor that adds more Americans to this roster of people who have to calculate and pay their tax pursuant to the alternative minimum tax, then you have to get 60 Senators to agree to pass that bill or else it does not pass. It is a very constructive proposal. It is one that would strengthen this budget resolution substantially. I hope all Members will support the amendment when the time comes for me to offer it. I am advised by my colleague, Senator Conrad, this is not the appropriate time. Therefore, I will not send the amendment to the desk. Again, I appreciate the chance to explain the amendment so my colleagues will know what is involved. As I say, I hope we can get a very strong bipartisan vote in favor of the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this is the kind of good government amendment that I was counting on my colleague from Oklahoma supporting. I am sure the more he studies it, the more merit he will see in the amendment. I will be glad to send it to the desk at this point, if now is the correct time.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, in response to my colleague from Oklahoma, I would certainly want to send it to the desk and have the opportunity to call it up for a vote at the appropriate time, if that is appropriate at this time. I do send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, this amendment is straightforward. It would create a 60-vote point of order against tax legislation that would have the effect of forcing more taxpayers into having to pay the alternative minimum tax. The point of order would not lie against tax legislation that extends the expiring marriage penalty relief, the 10- percent tax bracket, or the child tax credit, but it would lie against other tax legislation. We have about 3 million people who paid the alternative minimum tax last year. It is expected to go up over $30 million by 2010. This amendment doesn't fix that, but this amendment would keep the situation from getting worse by us passing legislation that adds more taxpayers to that group. I think this is a very meritorious amendment and I urge support for it.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable section of the act for the purpose of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me congratulate my colleague, Senator Inhofe, for putting this amendment forward. It is a very meritorious amendment. I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I rise in strong support of the Murray-Kennedy amendment. This would fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act. The question of how much money the Federal Government should provide to local school districts to assist in meeting the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act was something we discussed extensively when the bill was being written. Many of us urged that those figures be higher than they wound up being, but the authorizing legislation contains figures which we think the Congress should honor and should step up to and fund. That is exactly what this amendment would do. I congratulate my colleagues, Senator Murray and Senator Kennedy, for putting this amendment forward. As I am sure has been discussed extensively, the core idea behind the No Child Left Behind Act was we would require States and school districts to establish what would be considered performance goals for their students, that they would make what we call ``adequate yearly progress'' in achieving those goals, and that the Federal Government is committed to provide assistance in doing that. Unfortunately, we have fallen short. Unfortunately, this President has not asked for the full funding on that legislation in any year since it has been in effect. Again this year, he has not asked for that funding. This amendment would try to correct that problem. I believe it is a very meritorious amendment. I want to particularly spend my very few minutes here focused on one particular program I have spoken about many times on the Senate floor. It is very important in my home State of New Mexico; that is, a provision in the No Child Left Behind legislation the President signed which calls for the Federal Government to assist local school districts in trying to keep kids in school. It was dropout prevention efforts by the Federal Government to assist the local school districts in pursuing those. The idea was, as you are requiring more and more of students, teachers, and schools, there is a great temptation on the part of those schools and those teachers to just say, let's look the other way and allow some of these poorly performing students to leave school. That way we can get our standards up and everyone will be happy. Unfortunately, that has happened. It is happening in my State. It is happening in many States in the country. We are not doing what we committed to do--we, the Federal Government are not doing what we committed to do in that legislation to assist schools in heading this off. We committed in the legislation to provide $125 million per year to assist in dropout prevention. This year, this current year, we are providing $5 million--not $125 million but $5 million. Considering the number of school districts in this country, the number of students who are at risk of dropping out, this is a ridiculously low figure. Unfortunately, if we are not able to adopt the Murray-Kennedy amendment, we are going to be faced with a situation where when we come to the Appropriations Committee, they will say there is no money to fund this. It was funded at $5 million. Maybe we will continue to fund it at $5 million again. Essentially, the Federal Government is going to once again take a walk on any responsibility to assist with solving this problem. I believe firmly when we allow a student to drop out of school before they graduate, we are leaving that student behind. We are leaving that child behind. Clearly, we need to make a priority out of this. This is a problem that particularly affects my State. We have a very large Hispanic and Native American population. The graduation rates among those groups are slightly better than 50 percent. That means we will find half of the Hispanic and Native American students who started in the 9th grade actually going through that graduation ceremony. That is a terrible indictment of our education system. The least we can do is put in the small amount that was contemplated when we wrote the No Child Left Behind Act. This is very important to schools throughout my State, to the larger schools, also to the rural schools. I hope it is a correction that can be made. I hope very much the Murray-Kennedy amendment is adopted so the funds will be there to actually accomplish this objective. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, Federal child nutrition programs have long played a critical role in promoting healthy diets for American children. First conceived over 50 years ago in response to concerns about the impacts of the diets of American youth on their fitness for the armed forces, Federal child nutrition programs have since expanded and evolved to meet the needs of a diverse population. However, alarming increases in obesity rates for children and adolescents indicate that we are not doing enough in terms of nutrition education. The statistics are truly startling. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are responsible for two out of three deaths in the United States, and the major risk factors for those diseases and conditions are established in childhood through unhealthy eating habits, physical inactivity, obesity, and tobacco use. In the last two decades, obesity rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents, and today, one in seven young people are obese, and one in three are overweight. Additionally, three out of four high school students in the United States do not eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Finally, a recent report by the Surgeon General estimated that obesity-related costs in the U.S. are close to $100 billion a year. Unfortunately, nutrition education programs have been chronically under-funded. We have authorized 50 cents for every child served through Federal child nutrition programs, which is equivalent to over $24 million. This amount refers not to 50 cents per day, per week, or per month--this is 50 cents per year! However, last year, the only nutrition education program specifically directed at our Nation's school children, Team Nutrition, was funded at $10 million. This is equivalent to spending 21 cents a year on each child, a woefully inadequate amount. In addition, no funds were appropriated to nutrition education programs specifically designed to help States implement Team Nutrition materials. The Early Attention to Nutrition (EATN) Act of 2004, which I am introducing today together with Senators Lugar and Dodd, would raise the total amount dedicated to nutrition education to $50 million a year. The funds would be used by the USDA to develop Team Nutrition materials, and to support Team Nutrition Networks in the States. Currently, only 21 States receive funding through Team Nutrition. This bill would allow all States to obtain Team Nutrition grants, and would fund a Team Nutrition Network in each State, which would be responsible for disseminating and coordinating nutrition education initiatives. The goal of the Team Nutrition Networks is to: instruct students with regard to the nutritional value of foods and the relationship between food and human health; provide assistance to schools in the adoption and implementation of school policies that promote healthy eating; foster community environments that support healthy eating and physical activities; provide training and technical assistance to teachers and school food service professionals consistent with this section; evaluate State and local nutrition education programs; disseminate educational materials statewide through the use of the Internet, mailings, conferences, and other communication channels; provide subgrants to school and school food authorities for carrying out nutrition education activities at the local level; and provide information to parents and caregivers regarding the nutritional value of food and the relationship between food and health. Now is the time to take action toward improving the health and well- being of our Nation's youth. The cost of improving the health of our children will be far less than the cost of the health consequences to come if we do nothing. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and two letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, Federal child nutrition programs have long played a critical role in promoting healthy diets for American children. First conceived over 50 years ago in response to concerns about the impacts of the diets of American youth on their fitness for the armed forces, Federal child nutrition programs have since expanded and evolved to meet the needs of a diverse population. However, alarming increases in obesity rates for children and adolescents indicate that we are not doing enough in terms of nutrition education. The statistics are truly startling. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are responsible for two out of three deaths in the United States, and the major risk factors for those diseases and conditions are established in childhood through unhealthy eating habits, physical inactivity, obesity, and tobacco use. In the last two decades, obesity rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents, and today, one in seven young people are obese, and one in three are overweight. Additionally, three out of four high school students in the United States do not eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Finally, a recent report by the Surgeon General estimated that obesity-related costs in the U.S. are close to $100 billion a year. Unfortunately, nutrition education programs have been chronically under-funded. We have authorized 50 cents for every child served through Federal child nutrition programs, which is equivalent to over $24 million. This amount refers not to 50 cents per day, per week, or per month--this is 50 cents per year! However, last year, the only nutrition education program specifically directed at our Nation's school children, Team Nutrition, was funded at $10 million. This is equivalent to spending 21 cents a year on each child, a woefully inadequate amount. In addition, no funds were appropriated to nutrition education programs specifically designed to help States implement Team Nutrition materials. The Early Attention to Nutrition (EATN) Act of 2004, which I am introducing today together with Senators Lugar and Dodd, would raise the total amount dedicated to nutrition education to $50 million a year. The funds would be used by the USDA to develop Team Nutrition materials, and to support Team Nutrition Networks in the States. Currently, only 21 States receive funding through Team Nutrition. This bill would allow all States to obtain Team Nutrition grants, and would fund a Team Nutrition Network in each State, which would be responsible for disseminating and coordinating nutrition education initiatives. The goal of the Team Nutrition Networks is to: instruct students with regard to the nutritional value of foods and the relationship between food and human health; provide assistance to schools in the adoption and implementation of school policies that promote healthy eating; foster community environments that support healthy eating and physical activities; provide training and technical assistance to teachers and school food service professionals consistent with this section; evaluate State and local nutrition education programs; disseminate educational materials statewide through the use of the Internet, mailings, conferences, and other communication channels; provide subgrants to school and school food authorities for carrying out nutrition education activities at the local level; and provide information to parents and caregivers regarding the nutritional value of food and the relationship between food and health. Now is the time to take action toward improving the health and well- being of our Nation's youth. The cost of improving the health of our children will be far less than the cost of the health consequences to come if we do nothing. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and two letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, along with Senator Alexander, the High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004. High-end computing, also known as high performance computing or supercomputing, is a critical component to the scientific advances, defense capabilities, and commercial competitiveness of the United States in the 21st century. Several recent developments in high-end computing have stimulated a re-examination of current U.S. policies and approaches. These developments include: 1. the deployment of Japan's Earth System Simulator, which now occupies the number one position on the Top 500 list of the world's fastest computers; 2. concerns about the difficulty in achieving substantial fractions of peak hardware computational performance on high-end systems; and 3. the ongoing complexity of developing, debugging, and optimizing applications for high-end systems. In addition, there is growing recognition that a new set of scientific and engineering discoveries could be catalyzed by access to very-large-scale computer systems--those in the 100-teraflop to petaflop range. Lastly, the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Office of Science and Technology Policy's High End Computing Revitalization Task Force, and the national security community have each released interim or final comprehensive reports expressing serious concern over the current U.S. position in high-end computing research. Without government support, market forces are unlikely to drive sufficient innovation in high-end computing, because the private sector would not capture the full value of its innovations on a short enough time scale. In supercomputing, innovation is important in architecture, in software, and in application strategies and solution methods. The coupling of these aspects is equally important. Major architecture challenges stem from the uneven performance scaling of different components. In particular, as the gap between processor speeds, memory bandwidth, and memory and network latency increases, new ideas are needed to increase bandwith and mitigate latency. Additionally, as new mechanisms are introduced to address those issues, there is a need for ways to supply a stable software interface that facilitates exploiting hardware performance improvements while the changes in mechanism. A new large-scale computer system exceeding the capability of Japan's Earth Simulator would provide an excellent test-bed for promising new advancements in these areas as well as provide science, industry, and defense with an extraordinarily powerful new tool for advancing the interests of the United States. The need for software innovation is motivated by its role as an intermediary between the application, the problem being addressed, and the architectural platform. Innovation is needed in the ways that system software manages the use of hardware resources, such as network communication. New approaches are needed for ways in which the applications programmer can express parallelism at a level high enough to reflect the application solution and without platform-specific details. Novel tools are needed to help application-level software designers development their solutions at a more abstract and problem- specific level. Software technology is also needed to lessen future dependence on legacy codes. Enough must be invested in the creation of advanced tool and environment support for new language approaches so that users can more readily adopt new software technology. Importantly, advances in algorithms can sometimes improve performance much more than architectural and other software advances do. A center for high-end computing software would aid immensely in spurring innovation in this underdeveloped research area, an aid in coordinating the federal government's efforts with industry, academia, and between its national laboratories. The department of Energy (DOE) and its Office of Science research programs are uniquely qualified to lead research in these fields. They have played an important role in the development of high-end computing, networking, and information technology. These capabilities have been readily accessible to the U.S. scientific community for a diverse set of grand challenge scientific computational problems. Contributions by the DOE include pioneering the concept of remote, interactive access to supercomputers (developing the first interactive operating system for supercomputers, establishing the first national supercomputer center); developing the mathematical foundations for high performance computing with numerical linear algebra libraries used worldwide; leading the transition to massively parallel supercomputing by developing software to allow processors to communicate with each other; and contributing to the development of the Internet with software that dramatically speeds up the transmission of messages. Many challenges are associated with modeling complex physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, especially on massively parallel computers with peak speeds in hundreds of teraflops. These challenges include the management and analysis of petabyte-scale data sets. A program to address these challenges will require multi-disciplinary collaborations between theoretical and computational scientists, computer scientists, and applied mathematicians at universities, national laboratories, and industry. Such a program will enhance the ability of the DOE to meet its mission goals and advance the state of the art for the U.S. economic and industrial base in the fields of energy, genetics, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, chemical processing, electronics, geology, and transportation. This bill will be a major step toward addressing today's greatest needs and, to creating the high-wage jobs of the future. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, along with Senator Alexander, the High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004. High-end computing, also known as high performance computing or supercomputing, is a critical component to the scientific advances, defense capabilities, and commercial competitiveness of the United States in the 21st century. Several recent developments in high-end computing have stimulated a re-examination of current U.S. policies and approaches. These developments include: 1. the deployment of Japan's Earth System Simulator, which now occupies the number one position on the Top 500 list of the world's fastest computers; 2. concerns about the difficulty in achieving substantial fractions of peak hardware computational performance on high-end systems; and 3. the ongoing complexity of developing, debugging, and optimizing applications for high-end systems. In addition, there is growing recognition that a new set of scientific and engineering discoveries could be catalyzed by access to very-large-scale computer systems--those in the 100-teraflop to petaflop range. Lastly, the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Office of Science and Technology Policy's High End Computing Revitalization Task Force, and the national security community have each released interim or final comprehensive reports expressing serious concern over the current U.S. position in high-end computing research. Without government support, market forces are unlikely to drive sufficient innovation in high-end computing, because the private sector would not capture the full value of its innovations on a short enough time scale. In supercomputing, innovation is important in architecture, in software, and in application strategies and solution methods. The coupling of these aspects is equally important. Major architecture challenges stem from the uneven performance scaling of different components. In particular, as the gap between processor speeds, memory bandwidth, and memory and network latency increases, new ideas are needed to increase bandwith and mitigate latency. Additionally, as new mechanisms are introduced to address those issues, there is a need for ways to supply a stable software interface that facilitates exploiting hardware performance improvements while the changes in mechanism. A new large-scale computer system exceeding the capability of Japan's Earth Simulator would provide an excellent test-bed for promising new advancements in these areas as well as provide science, industry, and defense with an extraordinarily powerful new tool for advancing the interests of the United States. The need for software innovation is motivated by its role as an intermediary between the application, the problem being addressed, and the architectural platform. Innovation is needed in the ways that system software manages the use of hardware resources, such as network communication. New approaches are needed for ways in which the applications programmer can express parallelism at a level high enough to reflect the application solution and without platform-specific details. Novel tools are needed to help application-level software designers development their solutions at a more abstract and problem- specific level. Software technology is also needed to lessen future dependence on legacy codes. Enough must be invested in the creation of advanced tool and environment support for new language approaches so that users can more readily adopt new software technology. Importantly, advances in algorithms can sometimes improve performance much more than architectural and other software advances do. A center for high-end computing software would aid immensely in spurring innovation in this underdeveloped research area, an aid in coordinating the federal government's efforts with industry, academia, and between its national laboratories. The department of Energy (DOE) and its Office of Science research programs are uniquely qualified to lead research in these fields. They have played an important role in the development of high-end computing, networking, and information technology. These capabilities have been readily accessible to the U.S. scientific community for a diverse set of grand challenge scientific computational problems. Contributions by the DOE include pioneering the concept of remote, interactive access to supercomputers (developing the first interactive operating system for supercomputers, establishing the first national supercomputer center); developing the mathematical foundations for high performance computing with numerical linear algebra libraries used worldwide; leading the transition to massively parallel supercomputing by developing software to allow processors to communicate with each other; and contributing to the development of the Internet with software that dramatically speeds up the transmission of messages. Many challenges are associated with modeling complex physical, chemical, and biological phenomena, especially on massively parallel computers with peak speeds in hundreds of teraflops. These challenges include the management and analysis of petabyte-scale data sets. A program to address these challenges will require multi-disciplinary collaborations between theoretical and computational scientists, computer scientists, and applied mathematicians at universities, national laboratories, and industry. Such a program will enhance the ability of the DOE to meet its mission goals and advance the state of the art for the U.S. economic and industrial base in the fields of energy, genetics, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, chemical processing, electronics, geology, and transportation. This bill will be a major step toward addressing today's greatest needs and, to creating the high-wage jobs of the future. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, Senator Hatch and Senator Murray, for their leadership on extending and strengthening the research and development, R&D tax credit. The ability of our Nation to remain a world leader in technology and innovation is directly related to the investment we make in research and development. The R&D tax credit is an important component of this strategy as it creates an incentive for private companies to invest in research they might not otherwise have invested in but for that tax credit. This is an efficient way to accomplish a goal in our society that is increasing funding for research. Senator Domenici and I have been working here for the last several years to make some changes in the R&D tax credit law. The amendment I have sent to the desk incorporates those changes we have worked on. The amendment is based on legislation we filed in each of the last several Congresses, most recently S. 515 in the 107th Congress. This amendment addresses two weaknesses in the current R&D tax credit. The first part of the amendment provides participants in a research consortium with a flat 20-percent research credit. A consortium is defined as a group of five or more unrelated companies which are working together on a specific type of mutually beneficial research. Under current law, these companies are unable to take advantage of the full R&D tax credit. That does not make good sense. We should be encouraging companies to work together to share the costs of research instead of requiring that each of them bear the full capital expenditure to which they would be entitled in order to get the research tax credit. The amendment I have sent to the desk which Senator Domenici and I have been working on would correct this and would encourage this type of private research teaming. The second part of the amendment would be to get rid of a restriction that allows companies to only consider 65 percent of their research expenses for purposes of calculating their tax credit when the funds are paid to an outside party such as a Federal laboratory or university or a small business. Again, as with consortiums, this provision makes no sense as it exists in current law. In many if not most cases it is far more efficient and economical for a company to have their research done at a facility that is already equipped to do this type of experimentation and development. We ought to be encouraging businesses to utilize these resources instead of discouraging that use. For this reason, the amendment would allow a company to consider 100 percent of all of their expenses when contracting with a lab or university or small business to handle their research projects. The amendment would come into effect at the end of the year. It would continue for as long as the R&D provisions are in effect which, under the Hatch-Murray amendment which is what this proposal would amend, is the end of 2005. I look forward to working with my colleagues, Senators Hatch and Murray, on their R&D amendment. I very much appreciate their support for these small changes Senator Domenici and I would like to see made in this bill. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, what is the pending business?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment be set aside.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, how much time do I have?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, my amendment would correct one of the most obvious problems with S. 1805. In fact, what it would do is to amend S. 1805 so that the bill would do more of what its proponents claim they want to do. The proponents of S. 1805 say its purpose is to bar frivolous or junk lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers. They define these frivolous suits as situations in which the manufacturer and the dealer have done nothing wrong, but situations where although they have done nothing wrong they are being sued when a perfectly good gun, but in a perfectly legal manner, is misused by a criminal to cause damage that neither the manufacturer nor the dealer intended or could have foreseen. I have some sympathy with that concern. In my view, there ought to be some protections against frivolous cases, but S. 1805 bars much more than frivolous cases. It also bars cases where the injury is caused by an act or omission of the manufacturer or dealer where the gun was defectively designed or manufactured and where that defective design or manufacture was what caused the injury. The National Rifle Association has distributed a statement opposing my amendment. In that statement they say that S. 1805 does not prohibit reasonable suits in product defect cases where the firearm or ammunition is used in a reasonably foreseeable manner. That statement is blatantly false. S. 1805 says a person can bring a suit for injury caused by a defective product if the injury is reasonably foreseeable, but then it goes on to say it is only reasonable to foresee injuries that occur when in all other respects the gun is used in a lawful manner. In other words, we should not expect a manufacturer of a gun to anticipate that anyone would ever be injured from the use of that gun while some other law might be violated. This is contrary to common sense. It is analogous to saying that a car manufacturer could only be held liable for a defective steering system in the car if the driver were in all other respects obeying all traffic laws when the injury occurred. If the driver happened to be speeding or had an expired license, then suit for the defective steering system would be barred. That means all suits against the manufacturer/dealer, not just by the driver of the car but by anyone else who was injured, a pedestrian or a passenger in the car, would be barred if we were to apply the same logic that we are applying in this bill to automobile manufacturers as well. Let me explain a real-life situation where this problem occurred in my home State and in our largest city of Albuquerque. In 1993, there were three teenage boys, 14, 15 and 16, who were hanging out together at the house of the parents of the 14-year-old. Sean Smith was his name. They decided to go out for something to eat, and while they were out they were approached in a parking lot to see if they would be willing to buy a gun along with some ammunition for that gun, and the price quoted to them was $40. The 15-year-old in the group, whose name was Michael, examined the gun's chamber and saw that it was empty. He took the ammunition magazine and he inserted it in the gun since it was being offered as part of the package deal. He inserted it in the gun and he bought the whole thing. Then they went back to Sean's house to continue to waste time. At the house, Michael took the magazine back out of the gun and they continued to pass the gun around while they were doing various other things. All three of these teenagers thought the gun was unloaded since the magazine had been taken out of the gun again. While they were passing this gun around, one of the boys, as he later said, stupidly pulled the trigger and accidentally shot Sean, the youngest of these three teenagers, who was talking on the telephone across the room. A bullet hit him in the mouth. It seriously injured him. Sean and his parents filed suit against the manufacturer and distributor, claiming that the gun was defectively designed in that there was no warning that the gun might still be loaded even though the magazine had been removed and there was no safety device on the gun to prevent it from being fired when the magazine had been removed. The trial judge dismissed the case, but the New Mexico Court of Appeals said the case should have been allowed to proceed, and they reinstated the case. In doing so, they made a very key distinction. In their opinion, they said: This is not a case where the plaintiffs are arguing that this gun was per se defective and capable of being misused. This is a case where the plaintiffs are saying that the design of a gun was defective and that the designers and manufacturers should have foreseen that an accident like this could happen. The court said that the jury should have been allowed to determine whether this kind of injury was foreseeable with a gun designed in this way. If S. 1805, as it currently exists on the Senate floor, is enacted without my amendment, this suit by Sean Smith and his parents will be banned, and similar suits will be banned. This is not just my opinion. This is the opinion of the Congressional Research Service. In a memorandum to me last week, they stated that for this case to avoid the bar that is imposed by S. 1805, the plaintiffs would have to show two things. No. 1, they would have to persuade a jury that the injury was reasonably foreseeable, but second, they would have to show that in no other respect was the misuse of the weapon either criminal or unlawful. The Congressional Research Service concludes that there is a New Mexico criminal statute prohibiting the negligent use of a deadly weapon, and that this statute was violated here so that in their view the suit would be barred under the language of S. 1805. The truth is, in virtually every State in this country there is a criminal statute prohibiting the negligent use of a deadly weapon. So what S. 1805 is saying is, if a person is injured by the negligent use of a gun, then the Congress is declaring that the designer, manufacturer, and dealer cannot be sued even if the injury was the result of the negligence of that designer, manufacturer, or dealer. Congress is saying that regardless of the facts of the case, we in Congress are deciding that all such injuries are not reasonably foreseeable by those potential defendants. I said that this conclusion contradicts all common sense. Let me also point out in addition to that the tort laws of our States say you can sue people for injuries they suffer if the injuries were caused by the negligence of the person you are suing and the person should have reasonably foreseen those injuries would occur. This is also black letter law, well recognized by the American Law Institute in their restatement of torts, their Second Restatement of Torts, which I think is universally recognized as an accurate statement of the law in this country. In section 302(a) of that restatement of torts, the ALI, the American Law Institute, says: An act or an omission may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another through the negligent or reckless conduct of another or a third person. Then, in 302(b), they go on to say: An act or an omission may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another through the conduct of the other or a third person which is intended to cause harm, even though such conduct is criminal. S. 1805 redefines what is reasonably foreseeable for companies that are in this particular business--this particular business being the designing, the manufacturing, and the selling of guns. It says that we may want to require auto manufacturers to foresee that producing a defective steering system could injure people, even people who are riding in cars where the driver is violating another law, but we will not require that gun manufacturers foresee that producing a defective gun may injure people unless, in all other respects, there are no laws being violated. So my amendment is very simple. It states gun manufacturers should be held to the same standard of care as other manufacturers are; that is, auto manufacturers, lawnmower manufacturers, manufacturers of toasters. It defines ``reasonably foreseeable'' the way it is universally defined in the tort law. That is the reasonable anticipation that harm or injury is likely to result. We should not be passing a law to shield gun manufacturers from the standard of care that all other manufacturers are required to meet. As written, S. 1805 carves out special protection for a special interest group. This is not the equal justice under law that we all give speeches about on the Senate floor. This is not fair to the victims of gun violence and gun accidents, such as Sean Smith and his family in Albuquerque. When an injury such as this occurs, they should have some redress in the courts. Without my amendment, they will not. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. I yield additional time to the Senator.

Mr. BINGAMAN. If the Senator will respond on my time, in this case, the gun in question, a pistol these kids bought, and when they bought it they looked in the barrel--he was 15 years old--he looked in the chamber, saw there was no bullet in there, he got the magazine and put it in because he was buying a magazine along with the gun. They went back home and he took the magazine out and they were passing it around. He assumed when he took the magazine out the bullets also all came out. They all assumed that, these three boys. Now, in fact, they were wrong. One of these bullets had stayed in the chamber and then there was the accidental shooting of one of the boys. The parents of this boy who was shot went to court and said, either you should have had some kind of warning that having a magazine out did not mean the gun was unloaded or you should have a safety which provided if the magazine was out you could not pull the trigger, one of the two. The issue before our court in New Mexico was, shouldn't the jury be able to decide that; should the jury be able to decide whether the injury that resulted here was reasonably foreseeable. But does the Senator think in that circumstance it is appropriate for the jury to make a decision?