Jeff Bingaman

Mr. BINGAMAN

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. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. From what the Senator has said, he is on my side and should support my amendment. Where a gun is designed and manufactured in such a way that a person would be misled in believing it was unloaded when, in fact, it was still loaded, and a teenager got ahold of that gun and accidentally shot his friend, would the Senator agree under those circumstances that the designer or manufacturer of that gun could be held liable if the jury found that the injury that resulted was reasonably foreseeable?

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

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

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would prohibit the comparative cost adjustment (CCA) or premium support demonstration that was included in the Medicare prescription drug bill last year from operating in the State of New Mexico. There are many problems with the demonstration that I will describe which will have the result of fundamentally undermining the traditional Medicare program and directly conflicts with the President's commitment in his State of the Union address in 2003 when he said, ``Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is.'' That would not be the case in what is being referred to as the comparative cost adjustment program. What is the comparative cost adjustment program? Starting in 2010, the Medicare prescription drug bill provided for a six-year demonstration in selected demonstration sites where private health plans and traditional Medicare would supposedly compete on the basis of price. The demonstration will be conducted in up to six metropolitan areas in which at least 25 percent of eligible beneficiaries are enrolled in some type of managed care plan. Albuquerque, NM, already has an enrollment in private plans that exceeds 25 percent and so would obviously be a targeted community for the demonstration. Santa Fe, NM, could also be on the demonstration list by 2010 as its current reported managed care enrollment is at 17 percent and that is why Congressman Tom Udall is joining us here today in introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives. Congressman Udall and I oppose our Medicare beneficiaries being subjected to a grand experiment, just as similarly proposed premium support demonstrations have been blocked in recent years in Baltimore, Denver, Phoenix, and Kansas City, Missouri. Just as members of Congress blocked those proposed demonstrations, the legislation I am introducing today would protect the entire State of New Mexico from being subjected to such an experiment. I understand that other Senators and Congressmen are introducing similar legislation today to protect the citizens of their respective states as well. I am opposed to the comparative cost adjustment or premium support demonstration being imposed upon the Medicare beneficiaries in New Mexico because the demonstration: 1. fails to truly provide for a level playing field of competition between traditional Medicare and private health plans; 2. leads to much higher volatility and uncertainty in the Medicare program as beneficiaries would have their premiums vary dramatically according to the plan chosen during the demonstration from year to year and from region to region; 3. directly contradicts President Bush's guarantee and the promise of the current multi-million advertising campaign by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that people can keep their traditional Medicare as is; and, 4. pushes traditional Medicare in such regions into what health economists refer to as a ``death spiral.'' Proponents of the premium support demonstration argue that the intent of the experiment is, according to the conference report, ``to test whether competition between private plans and the original Medicare FFS program will enhance competition in Medicare, improve health care delivery for all Medicare beneficiaries, and provide for greater beneficiary savings and reduction in government costs. . . . '' The conference report adds that the demonstration ``will level the playing field between all options available to Medicare beneficiaries.'' Unfortunately, the demonstration will not focus competition or choice on either price or quality precisely because it fails to provide for a level playing field. Under the guise of making Medicare more efficient, the legislation dramatically overpays private health plans in comparison to traditional Medicare. In fact, during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee a few weeks ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson acknowledged that both the Congressional budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget believe the prescription drug bill creates a situation whereby every percentage increase of enrollment by Medicare beneficiaries will cost the Medicare program and American taxpayers billions of dollars. How is this possible? The bill creates this situation by intentionally paying private health plans, on average, an estimated 107 percent of the cost of traditional Medicare. Health plans are receiving disproportionate share hospital payments, graduate medical education funding, and other complicated formula adjustments that ensure payments well in excess of the Medicare fee-for-service program. In addition, health plans, by enrolling healthier patients than traditional Medicare, receive an additional estimated benefit of about eight percent over fee-for-service Medicare. Numerous studies, including those by the General Accounting Office, find that high-cost beneficiaries--including the functionally disabled, the mentally impaired, and the chronically ill--were less likely to join a Medicare HMO. When you combine all the factors, health plans will be paid at least 115 percent of the cost of traditional Medicare. This makes absolutely no sense, particularly when you consider that the bill provides for this despite the fact that studies by Marilyn Moon, Karen Davis, and other respected health care analysts have consistently shown that traditional Medicare provides Medicare beneficiaries a less expensive product with greater patient satisfaction and greater access to providers than private health plans. Although the demonstration would strip out graduate medical education payments to HMOs, it fails to fully eliminate excessive payments to health plans caused by risk selection and includes disproportionate share hospital payments in the FFS benchmark--inevitably raising FFS premiums in comparison to private health plans. Furthermore, there is no level playing field if HMOs enroll healthier and lower cost patients than traditional Medicare and do not have to make the billions of dollars in disproportionate share hospital payments that traditional Medicare must make. Second, a hallmark of the Medicare program has been its beneficiary satisfaction ratings despite the lack of prescription drugs or preventive health benefits. Medicare beneficiaries strongly prefer the guarantee and predictability of coverage and the greater level of access to providers than is provided by private health plans. The demonstration undermines this because it would lead to differential premiums among Medicare beneficiaries in different regions of the country based on rapidly changing health plans options offered and chosen annually. In fact, premiums will fluctuate under the demonstration on an annual basis because the government contribution will be based on the bids of all plans during a particular year. As a result, even if a plan's costs does not increase from one year to the next, the amount paid by a beneficiary can change due to changes in other health plans in the region and changes in the region's benchmark. This makes absolutely no sense and is the second reason why I oppose the premium support demonstration. Third, as noted before, in the President's 2003 State of the Union address, he committed that Medicare beneficiaries would be able to keep their Medicare coverage as is. Moreover, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, is currently spending millions of dollars in an advertising campaign with the assertion that ``you can always keep your same Medicare coverage.'' The comparative cost adjustment program or premium support demonstration completely undermines traditional Medicare and should, as a result, be repealed. Neither the President nor the Federal Government should be telling our Nation's Medicare beneficiaries one thing when the reality is clearly something different, particularly under the demonstration program. This occurs due to the ``death spiral'' that health care economists note will likely occur under the demonstration. If, as numerous studies indicate, private health plans continue to enroll healthier and less costly Medicare beneficiaries than fee-for-service Medicare, then fee- for-service Medicare would be more likely to have higher premiums. Over time, if sicker individuals stay with traditional Medicare and healthier ones move away as premiums rise, traditional Medicare is likely to enter in what is known as a ``death spiral.'' Despite the President's guarantee that ``[s]eniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is . . .,'' that would clearly not be the case in these comparative cost adjustment program demonstrations. If the administration and Congress wants real competition, private plans should be required to compete with traditional Medicare in a manner where both traditional Medicare and private plans are paid the same amount on a risk adjusted basis for the same services. If that were the case, Medicare beneficiaries could select whether they would like to enroll in traditional Medicare or in a competing private health plan based on factors such as quality, access, and cost. Unfortunately, the administration and proponents of premium support know that private plans cannot successfully compete with traditional Medicare. Ironically, in the name of reforming Medicare through competition, they have purposely tilted the playing field toward private health plans. Taxpayers should not have to bear the billions of dollars in additional Medicare spending that overpayment to private plans will cost them over the next 10 years and Medicare beneficiaries should not be subjected to a grand premium support experiment in 2010 where the winner has already been pre-determined. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a document from Families USA be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Adam Rosenberg, a fellow on the staff of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, be given privileges of the floor today, February 25.

Mr. BINGAMAN

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

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, right before the last recess I came to the floor to address the need for a revitalized science and technology policy in the country. One example that I gave of the current administration's inattention to science and technology and high-wage job creation was the proposal in the budget that we received a couple weeks ago to eliminate the Advanced Technology Program, or ATP, in the Department of Commerce. This is in the President's fiscal year 2005 budget request. In my view--as I stated it then; and I want to repeat it now-- eliminating the Advanced Technology Program makes no sense. Even the administration's own budget justification, which clearly praises the program, makes clear that the program is valuable. The Advanced Technology Program has been a constant target over the years of those who would like to kill the program for philosophical reasons. But I believe those of us in Congress need to make decisions about Federal programs on a logical basis and on the basis of the good that those programs are doing for the people we represent. So I believe we should examine the Advanced Technology Program by asking two fundamental questions. First, should our Government be sponsoring an Advanced Technology Program at all? And second, is the Advanced Technology Program we are talking about an effective program for advancing technology development in our country? In discussing the need for a Government role, a basic principle with which nearly everyone would agree is that a Government role makes sense when there is a market failure of some sort. When it comes to advanced technology, there is ample empirical evidence of a critical gap between the point at which Federal support for basic research ends and the point at which private capital market support of product development begins. Now, let me try to illustrate that by referencing this chart. This chart is called the ``Valley of Death'' just to try to wake up my colleagues to the fact that this is an important issue. Here, looking at this vertical axis, we are showing the invested money. Along the horizontal axis, we are showing the various stages of developing a technology-based product for use. The Government does invest a fair amount of money in basic research. That is shown over here at the left, in the beginning stages of developing a product or developing a technology. Here we show labs and universities. Our Federal Government does invest a substantial amount in that area, and that is certainly commendable. Of course, many of my colleagues would argue that we do not invest enough there, and I would agree with that, but that is a subject for another day. Industry invests most of its research and development dollars at the other end of this development continuum and invests those funds on commercializing short-term, low-risk, reliably profitable products, and then making incremental improvements on those products which they are fairly confident they can make a return on in the market. In between these two stages of the research and development process, we have what many in the industry call the ``Valley of Death.'' That is the gap where our private capital markets fail to invest applied research dollars to create preproduct, so-called platform technologies. This market failure occurs because such generic technologies are too expensive or they are too risky for industry to develop on its own. At the same time, it is precisely these generic, platform technologies that are the seed corn for new products, and in many cases new market categories. The benefits to industry generally and to our national economy far outweigh the costs of developing such technologies. In the case of defense technologies, the Federal Government is the ultimate customer, and programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--the work that they fund in DARPA in the Defense Department--plays an important partnering role with defense contractors and high-technology firms. But for technologies with predominantly civilian applications, the Federal Government does not have the strong customer stake in developing specific technologies. So filling in this funding gap in the ``Valley of Death'' is precisely the role that the Advanced Technology Program plays for civilian technology. That brings me to the second question that I outlined earlier. That is, is this advanced technology program an effective program for promoting these new platform technologies? Some in the Congress have reacted over the years to the ATP as if it were some sort of Federal program to help Gillette make a five-bladed razor or to help Microsoft write Windows 2006. This is not an accurate description of the ATP by any stretch. Let me give a few examples of actual ways in which the Advanced Technology Program has succeeded in bridging the ``Valley of Death'' for U.S. industries with a resulting positive impact on our economy and our global competitiveness. In 1991, the Council on Competitiveness characterized the U.S. printed wiring board industry as losing badly or lost. That was their description. By this they meant the U.S. was not likely to have a presence in that industry within 5 years. It attracted little private venture funding. Only a handful of the 700 firms in the industry had the capability to undertake advanced research. Through the ATP, a new joint venture between the printed wiring board industry as a whole and the Government was formed that would not have occurred otherwise. The new manufacturing technologies that were developed in the joint venture yielded an estimated cost savings for industry in excess of $35 million. Another example: In the past, U.S. car makers tolerated dimensional variations of up to 5 or 6 millimeters. That is a level that often complicated the assembly process. It required custom manual reworking, and compromised vehicle fit and finish, as it was referred to in the industry. An advanced technology project was put together with the U.S. auto industry, reducing this variation to less than 2.5 millimeters by inventing an array of new technologies. This one project is credited with increasing the U.S. gross domestic product by over $200 million and creating 1,400 jobs. In short, empirical research demonstrates this project helped increase the demand for domestically produced vehicles and helped domestic producers stem the loss of market share to offshore manufacturers. The Advanced Technology Program has also been called the godfather of the DNA diagnostic tool industry. That is another example which clearly my colleagues should look into before they follow the administration's recommendation and try to terminate this program. The Advanced Technology Program was making investments in nanotechnology long before it became a household word, along with investments in homeland security and bringing fuel cells and solar cells and microturbines to the marketplace. In 2003, the White House sponsored a fuel cell demonstration and the President tested a long- life mobile phone. Let me put another chart up here. You might recognize this photo. The President was testing a long-life mobile phone powered by advanced fuel cell technology. Without the Advanced Technology Program, MTI microfuel cells would not have been able to develop this breakthrough technology to power this very phone. So that is another example. As I have tried to make amply clear, there are many examples of ATP successes. There are certainly also other examples where ATP projects have not been successful. That is the nature of a high-risk, high- payoff research program. But let's put the successes and the failures in the overall context. The total cost of ATP funding to date has been about $2.1 billion. That is over the life of that program. All told, the preliminary results of a 2003 ATP survey of over 350 companies indicates the actual economic value resulting from ATP joint ventures exceeds $7.5 billion. The benefits from just a few projects analyzed to date are projected to exceed $17 billion, when those platform technologies are fully exploited by the industries involved. ATP has also been the subject of a recent overall assessment by the National Academies of Science and Engineering, and the core conclusions of this 2001 study speak strongly both to the success of the program and to the generic focus of the program. The national academies concluded the ATP was an effective partnership program at the generic technology level. The academies specifically found the selection criteria applied by the ATP enabled it to meet broad national needs and to help ensure the benefits of successful awards extend across firms and industries. The national academies have also found the ATP peer review of applicants for both technical feasibility and commercial potential was effective in targeting promising new technologies that were unlikely to have been funded through the normal operation of the capital markets. I could go on and on about the conclusions of the national academies study. Let me just say the reality is industry will not fill the void the President would create if his budget proposal to kill this Advanced Technology Program were agreed to. Given industry's increased emphasis on short- term applied R&D and consequently reduced emphasis on early phase technology research, the elimination of the Advanced Technology Program would simply trigger the further erosion of U.S. technology leadership and lead to even greater loss of high-technology, high-wage jobs in the future. I would like to end with a quote from David Morgenthaler, former president of the National Venture Capital Association. The members of the National Venture Capital Association account for around 80 percent of the venture investment taking place in the United States today. David Morgenthaler says: It does seem that early stage help by the government in developing platform technologies and financing scientific discoveries is directed exactly at the areas where institutional venture capitalists cannot and will not go. When experts in venture capital and leaders in industry and our National Academies of Science and Engineering all agree the Advanced Technology Program plays a unique and valuable role in supporting our high technology competitiveness, we ought to pay attention. I hope all my colleagues will join me in resisting the unwise proposal which we have been given by the President to terminate the Advanced Technology Program. ATP has demonstrably contributed to maintaining our manufacturing strength. A strong and well-funded Advanced Technology Program will help the United States remain competitive in high tech manufacturing in the future. Instead of ending this program, we should look for ways to duplicate its strengths in other civilian technology areas such as energy and environment and homeland defense. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would prohibit the comparative cost adjustment (CCA) or premium support demonstration that was included in the Medicare prescription drug bill last year from operating in the State of New Mexico. There are many problems with the demonstration that I will describe which will have the result of fundamentally undermining the traditional Medicare program and directly conflicts with the President's commitment in his State of the Union address in 2003 when he said, ``Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is.'' That would not be the case in what is being referred to as the comparative cost adjustment program. What is the comparative cost adjustment program? Starting in 2010, the Medicare prescription drug bill provided for a six-year demonstration in selected demonstration sites where private health plans and traditional Medicare would supposedly compete on the basis of price. The demonstration will be conducted in up to six metropolitan areas in which at least 25 percent of eligible beneficiaries are enrolled in some type of managed care plan. Albuquerque, NM, already has an enrollment in private plans that exceeds 25 percent and so would obviously be a targeted community for the demonstration. Santa Fe, NM, could also be on the demonstration list by 2010 as its current reported managed care enrollment is at 17 percent and that is why Congressman Tom Udall is joining us here today in introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives. Congressman Udall and I oppose our Medicare beneficiaries being subjected to a grand experiment, just as similarly proposed premium support demonstrations have been blocked in recent years in Baltimore, Denver, Phoenix, and Kansas City, Missouri. Just as members of Congress blocked those proposed demonstrations, the legislation I am introducing today would protect the entire State of New Mexico from being subjected to such an experiment. I understand that other Senators and Congressmen are introducing similar legislation today to protect the citizens of their respective states as well. I am opposed to the comparative cost adjustment or premium support demonstration being imposed upon the Medicare beneficiaries in New Mexico because the demonstration: 1. fails to truly provide for a level playing field of competition between traditional Medicare and private health plans; 2. leads to much higher volatility and uncertainty in the Medicare program as beneficiaries would have their premiums vary dramatically according to the plan chosen during the demonstration from year to year and from region to region; 3. directly contradicts President Bush's guarantee and the promise of the current multi-million advertising campaign by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that people can keep their traditional Medicare as is; and, 4. pushes traditional Medicare in such regions into what health economists refer to as a ``death spiral.'' Proponents of the premium support demonstration argue that the intent of the experiment is, according to the conference report, ``to test whether competition between private plans and the original Medicare FFS program will enhance competition in Medicare, improve health care delivery for all Medicare beneficiaries, and provide for greater beneficiary savings and reduction in government costs. . . . '' The conference report adds that the demonstration ``will level the playing field between all options available to Medicare beneficiaries.'' Unfortunately, the demonstration will not focus competition or choice on either price or quality precisely because it fails to provide for a level playing field. Under the guise of making Medicare more efficient, the legislation dramatically overpays private health plans in comparison to traditional Medicare. In fact, during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee a few weeks ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson acknowledged that both the Congressional budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget believe the prescription drug bill creates a situation whereby every percentage increase of enrollment by Medicare beneficiaries will cost the Medicare program and American taxpayers billions of dollars. How is this possible? The bill creates this situation by intentionally paying private health plans, on average, an estimated 107 percent of the cost of traditional Medicare. Health plans are receiving disproportionate share hospital payments, graduate medical education funding, and other complicated formula adjustments that ensure payments well in excess of the Medicare fee-for-service program. In addition, health plans, by enrolling healthier patients than traditional Medicare, receive an additional estimated benefit of about eight percent over fee-for-service Medicare. Numerous studies, including those by the General Accounting Office, find that high-cost beneficiaries--including the functionally disabled, the mentally impaired, and the chronically ill--were less likely to join a Medicare HMO. When you combine all the factors, health plans will be paid at least 115 percent of the cost of traditional Medicare. This makes absolutely no sense, particularly when you consider that the bill provides for this despite the fact that studies by Marilyn Moon, Karen Davis, and other respected health care analysts have consistently shown that traditional Medicare provides Medicare beneficiaries a less expensive product with greater patient satisfaction and greater access to providers than private health plans. Although the demonstration would strip out graduate medical education payments to HMOs, it fails to fully eliminate excessive payments to health plans caused by risk selection and includes disproportionate share hospital payments in the FFS benchmark--inevitably raising FFS premiums in comparison to private health plans. Furthermore, there is no level playing field if HMOs enroll healthier and lower cost patients than traditional Medicare and do not have to make the billions of dollars in disproportionate share hospital payments that traditional Medicare must make. Second, a hallmark of the Medicare program has been its beneficiary satisfaction ratings despite the lack of prescription drugs or preventive health benefits. Medicare beneficiaries strongly prefer the guarantee and predictability of coverage and the greater level of access to providers than is provided by private health plans. The demonstration undermines this because it would lead to differential premiums among Medicare beneficiaries in different regions of the country based on rapidly changing health plans options offered and chosen annually. In fact, premiums will fluctuate under the demonstration on an annual basis because the government contribution will be based on the bids of all plans during a particular year. As a result, even if a plan's costs does not increase from one year to the next, the amount paid by a beneficiary can change due to changes in other health plans in the region and changes in the region's benchmark. This makes absolutely no sense and is the second reason why I oppose the premium support demonstration. Third, as noted before, in the President's 2003 State of the Union address, he committed that Medicare beneficiaries would be able to keep their Medicare coverage as is. Moreover, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, is currently spending millions of dollars in an advertising campaign with the assertion that ``you can always keep your same Medicare coverage.'' The comparative cost adjustment program or premium support demonstration completely undermines traditional Medicare and should, as a result, be repealed. Neither the President nor the Federal Government should be telling our Nation's Medicare beneficiaries one thing when the reality is clearly something different, particularly under the demonstration program. This occurs due to the ``death spiral'' that health care economists note will likely occur under the demonstration. If, as numerous studies indicate, private health plans continue to enroll healthier and less costly Medicare beneficiaries than fee-for-service Medicare, then fee- for-service Medicare would be more likely to have higher premiums. Over time, if sicker individuals stay with traditional Medicare and healthier ones move away as premiums rise, traditional Medicare is likely to enter in what is known as a ``death spiral.'' Despite the President's guarantee that ``[s]eniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is . . .,'' that would clearly not be the case in these comparative cost adjustment program demonstrations. If the administration and Congress wants real competition, private plans should be required to compete with traditional Medicare in a manner where both traditional Medicare and private plans are paid the same amount on a risk adjusted basis for the same services. If that were the case, Medicare beneficiaries could select whether they would like to enroll in traditional Medicare or in a competing private health plan based on factors such as quality, access, and cost. Unfortunately, the administration and proponents of premium support know that private plans cannot successfully compete with traditional Medicare. Ironically, in the name of reforming Medicare through competition, they have purposely tilted the playing field toward private health plans. Taxpayers should not have to bear the billions of dollars in additional Medicare spending that overpayment to private plans will cost them over the next 10 years and Medicare beneficiaries should not be subjected to a grand premium support experiment in 2010 where the winner has already been pre-determined. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a document from Families USA be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. I know the chairman is aware that community leaders in the four states have been working for 9 years to focus attention on the SPIRIT corridor because of the heavy truck traffic on the route and the important role that transportation plays in economic development. Is the chairman aware that Senators Roberts, Domenici, and I have offered an amendment to the highway bill to designate the SPIRIT corridor as a high priority corridor, but the managers of the bill have stated they prefer to consider it during the conference with the House?

Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the chairman for his consideration of my amendment in the conference. protecting history and natural beauty

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee for all of his fine work on this highway bill the Senate is now considering. I know he has had a very difficult task to balance the infrastructure needs of each state, and I appreciate the excellent job he and his staff have done. If I could, I ask the chairman if he is familiar with the proposal to designate U.S. Highway 54 in the States of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas as the SPIRIT high priority corridor on the National Highway System?

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I have submitted an amendment to continue an important Federal program begun in TEA-21 that addresses a unique problem with the roads in and around the Nation's single largest Indian reservation and the neighboring counties. Through this program, Navajo children who had been prevented from getting to school by frequently impassable roads are now traveling safely to and from their schools. Because of the unusual nature of this situation. I believe it must continue to be addressed at the Federal level. The Navajo Nation is by far the Nation's largest Indian Reservation, covering 25,000 square miles. Portions of the Navajo Nation are in three States: Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. No other reservation comes anywhere close to the size of Navajo. The State of West Virginia is about 24,000 square miles. In fact, 10 States are smaller in size than the Navajo reservation. The counties in the three States that include the Navajo reservation must maintain the roads used by county school buses but receive no Federal or local tax funds to maintain the roads. Nearly all of the land area in these counties is under Federal or tribal jurisdiction. As I understand it, counties in States with large reservations are not required to maintain roads on the reservation. Of course, no other reservation is anywhere close to the size of the Navajo reservation. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, about 9,800 miles of public roads serve the Navajo nation. Only about one-fifth of these roads are paved. The remaining 7,600 miles, 78 percent, are dirt roads. Every day school buses use nearly all of these roads to transport Navajo children to and from school. In response to this unique situation, I authored a provision in TEA- 21 to provide annual funding to the counties that contain the Navajo reservation to help ensure that children on the reservation can get to and from their public schools. Under section 1214(d) of TEA-21, $1.5 million is made available each year to be shared equally among the three states that contain the Navajo reservation. These Federal funds can be used only on roads that are located within or that lead to the reservation, that are on the State or county maintenance system, and that serve as school bus routes. For the last 6 years, the counties have used the annual funding to help maintain the routes used by school buses to carry children to school buses to carry children to school and to Headstart programs. The amendment provides a simple 6-year reauthorization of that program, with a modest increase in the annual funding to allow for inflation and for additional roads to be maintained in each of the three States. Continuing this program for 6 more years is fully justified because of the vast area of the Navajo reservation--by far the Nation's largest. I do believe the unique nature of this situation can only be dealt with effectively by the Federal Government. I am pleased to have my colleague, Senator Domenici, as a cosponsor, and I hope all Senators will support our amendment. I ask unanimous consent that several letters supporting this amendment be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me respond briefly to the comments of my colleague. I respect his background and knowledge in engineering and science. He is, I believe, the only qualified engineer we have serving in the Senate at this point. I certainly respect that. I believe strongly the Advanced Technology Program which he has discussed is a very good use of taxpayer dollars. It is not, as he describes it, subsidizing product development by individual companies. It is, in fact, assisting with generic, broad-based, high-risk, precompetitive technology development. I suggest to my colleague much of our ability to compete in world markets depends upon our remaining world leaders in the various generic technologies we are talking about. In microelectronics, in nanotechnology, in a whole range of areas, we need to have Government support for continued development of generic technologies so our companies can, in fact, pick up on that and hopefully be competitive in the world markets. That is what has happened in biotechnology. Maybe the genome project is a terrible use of taxpayer dollars, funding the development of the genome product. There are a lot of commercial benefits coming out of that and many more in the future. But that was a government-funded research effort, and that was an extremely good investment. That is one of many examples. The Advance Technology Program--and I do not have all the examples with me today, but I will bring them to the Senate in the days ahead. But to say the rest of the world can do what it wants in the way of pursuing generic-enabling, precompetitive technologies, we are doing nothing in those areas, is shortsighted in the extreme. Essentially, that is what this administration has done. We do not want an Advanced Technology Program in this country. The Japanese can do what they want, the Europeans can do what they want, the Chinese can do what they want, along with every other major country. I just returned 2 months ago from a trip to Taiwan. I urge my colleague to go to Taiwan--maybe he has been to Hsinchu Science Park near Taipei--and talk to them about how it is inappropriate for government to be involved in any way assisting in the development of precompetitive technology that might benefit some of these companies. They do not understand what language you are talking in that kind of discussion. We are in a severe competition with the rest of the world to remain the world leader in science and technology. The advanced technology program is an essential part of us maintaining that leadership. It is wrongheaded for this administration in this day and time to be coming to the Congress and saying, let's eliminate this program. Sure, we want high-wage jobs to be created, but the answer to that has been, Let's cut taxes some more. That is not an economic strategy that is going to get the job done. We need various elements of an economic strategy. One of those is to remain the world leader in generic precompetitive technology development. That is what the Advanced Technology Program is intended to do. I strongly favor continued and increased funding of it. We have a basic disagreement on this issue. I wanted that on the record.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, for the last 2\1/2\ years the primary efforts of the President and much of official Washington have focused on: How do we meet the threat of terrorism? Clearly, that is a threat we need to meet as a country, but there are other threats and other challenges that demand our attention as well. The first, most important of those, in my view, is the need to create high-wage jobs. Others have spoken about that. The Senator from South Carolina spoke about it. Others in the Senate have spoken about it in the last few days. High-wage job creation requires, as a precondition, that we adopt sound monetary and fiscal policies. The monetary policy we leave up to the Federal Reserve, but the responsibility for maintaining sound fiscal policy rests with the President and with the Congress. Both this President and this Congress have failed miserably in carrying out that responsibility. Much has been said about that failure, and I am not going to repeat those arguments again today. But even if the President and the Congress come to their senses and pursue a policy that is responsible with regard to fiscal affairs, the problem of how we are going to create high-wage jobs is still unaddressed. So the question is: What actions can we take to achieve that goal? Each of us can list at least some of the building blocks for a high- wage society, fair and equitable tax structure, an educated and skilled workforce, an efficient, robust transportation infrastructure, a modern communications infrastructure, and so on. I would argue that any discussion of high-wage job creation should start with what military strategists refer to as the point of the spear, the tip of the spear, and I firmly believe that in the economic competition for high-wage job creation, this point of the spear is science and technology. Just as in the case of our national security, our economic future depends on our remaining the world leader in science and technology. If that leadership is lost, then our capacity for high-wage job creation will soon atrophy. Joseph Schumpeter, who taught all of us about the creative destruction that is inherent in our capitalist system, the competition that is brought on by new technologies and new markets destroys companies, it destroys entire industries. Jobs that existed in those industries are lost, only to be replaced by new jobs in other industries, in new companies that are nimble enough to take advantage of the dynamic change that is ongoing at all times. As Andy Grove of Intel has said, only the paranoid survive. If we want the United States to lead in the 21st century, we need to recognize that the world of the future is being shaped by new technologies and their rapid diffusion. Entire industries may disappear in the process or be utterly transformed, and there are many examples. One is the entire industry of recorded music that is being reshaped by the ease of downloading music from the Internet. Sales of recorded CDs have been dropping each year for the past few years. Today, blank CDs for making recordings at home substantially outsell recorded CDs. When one walks into Staples or Office Depot, one sees a big display of blank CDs for sale, and one can be certain that most of those CDs are not destined to be used to store spreadsheets of data. Even the small number of high-profile lawsuits against individuals who burn disks of music without regard to the copyrights have not substantially altered this phenomenon. The music industry still is in search of a mechanism to adapt to this fundamentally new business environment brought about by the diffusion of two new technologies; that is, the Internet and, secondly, cheap CD- burning drives. Another example: The biotechnology industry. This is an industry that has sprung up in a very short period of time. The basic patent for genetic engineering, the Cohen-Boyer patent on making recombinant DNA, was issued 30 years ago. No one at that time could have predicted we would one day have a biological industry rivaling the chemical processing industry that was already a century old at that point. The United States has reaped enormous economic benefits from being the first country to lead in the development of the Internet and the harnessing of biotechnology, but these revolutions are far from being the last technological revolutions we have seen or will see in the future. So the key questions at this point in time for us are: Which countries will win the competition to develop these new industries, these new jobs, based on future technological changes? Which countries will benefit overall from those changes? Which countries will lose out? After the current wave of technological change has passed, which countries will be best positioned for the next inevitable wave of change? We ignore these questions at our peril. After reviewing the President's proposed 2005 budget for science and technology, I am persuaded that this administration is ignoring these questions now. It is clear that we are, in fact, in the middle of a set of interrelated technological revolutions that are both reshaping existing industries and leading in a number of cases to entirely new industries. A short list of those ongoing revolutions would include the following: Microelectronics, particularly the continued miniaturization and diffusion of data processing power; secondly, high-end super computing; third, telecommunications technologies; fourth, man-made materials, including materials in which the structure has been designed and built at the atomic or the molecular level. This is, in essence, nanotechnology. Another example is robotics. Another is biotechnology, which I have referred to before. Also, technologies to increase energy supply such as renewable energy technologies that are as inexpensive as traditional fossil fuel sources of energy and that use hydrogen as an energy carrier, and also technologies for increased energy conservation. We know that these technologies are crucial to our future. The question is: Will America play a leading role in their continued development? The answer is not that self-evident. In the 60 years since World War II, other countries and other regions of the world have built science and technology capabilities that rival ours today and in many cases are destined to rival ours in the future. The Governments of China and India and Japan and the European Union have all targeted advancements in their research and innovation system as key elements of their plans for future national and regional economic prosperity. Even if we have a strong science and technology policy in this country, these other countries and regions will give us stiff competition. Unfortunately, though, just as this international challenge is becoming very clear, this administration appears to be sticking its head in the sand. A look at the budget proposal for fiscal year 2005 submitted by President Bush on February 2, shows the serious gaps in support of the kind of basic science and engineering that will be the most important to the development of technologies and industries of the future. Let me give some examples: The budget proposes $660 million in cuts for basic and applied research at the Department of Defense, the sort of research that has the greatest potential for dual use and effective spinoff to the civilian high-technology industries. There is a proposed $68 million cut for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which is a major supporter of basic physical sciences and engineering research. There is a $63 million proposed cut for energy conservation research and development at the Department of Energy. There is a proposed $183 million cut for fiscal year 2005 for agricultural research. There is a proposed $24 million cut for transportation research. There is the proposed total elimination of the Advanced Technology Program in the Department of Commerce. That is a loss of $171 million for new technologies that would otherwise have been enabled and brought to commercial reality. This termination of the Advanced Technology Program is particularly egregious in light of the circumstances we face. The rationale for the termination in the President's own budget document deserves to be enshrined as some sort of classic wrongheaded reasoning. Let me read this for anyone who is listening to understand what was said. This is word for word out of the President's budget document. The heading is ``Advanced Technology Program--ATP.'' This is a description: The ATP endeavors to help accelerate the commercialization of high-risk, broad-benefit enabling technologies with significant commercial potential. ATP is a merit-based, rigorously competitive, cost-shared partnership program that provides assistance to U.S. businesses and joint R&D ventures to help them improve their competitive position. The President's 2005 Budget proposes to eliminate the program and, therefore, no funds are requested for FY 2005. So that is it. I did not add a single word. I did not subtract a single word from the President's rationale. Literally it says ATP is a great program; it helps our competitiveness; it is effective. Therefore, we propose to kill it. There is another aspect to President Bush's budget that makes the point that science and technology policy is a low priority for this administration. That is the underfunding of important R&D programs that Congress has recently authorized by overwhelming margins and that the President has signed into law. One example is cybersecurity research and development. Every American knows that computer viruses and worms can cause serious damage to the economy. In November of 2002, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Cyber Security Research and Development Act. That bill authorized a significant program of research and development on computer and network security in the National Science Foundation. For fiscal year 2005, those R&D authorizations amounted to just over $122 million. After signing the bill, the President had a complete budget cycle to develop a budget request incorporating the authorizations that he signed into law. There appears to be no proposed funding in 2005 in the National Science Foundation to carry out the law. In essence, the President's signature on a law to increase R&D investment in cybersecurity meant nothing when it came time for the administration to put together a proposed budget for 2005. In fact, the budget element for the National Science Foundation budget that would fund this activity is proposed for a decrease of $40 million. A similar situation has occurred in the area of nanotechnology. Again, last year Congress passed, and the President signed, a major research authorization bill for nanotechnology. The contents of the bill were well known during the bulk of the budget cycle. For fiscal year 2005, the bill provide for nanotechnology spending across five agencies adding up to over $800 million. The President chose to hold a formal signing ceremony at the White House on this bill, and this is unusual for a bill dealing with research and development legislation. The White House press release for the signing ceremony noted that the President had previously requested a 10-percent increase in nanotechnology funding for the 2004 budget. In the fiscal year 2005 budget request, after the signing ceremony, after the photo opportunity, the President asked for a 3-percent increase for the national nanotechnology initiative as calculated by the Office of Management and Budget. Before we passed the legislation, he asked for a 10-percent increase. After we passed the legislation, he asked for a 3-percent increase. When you compare the President's nanotechnology request for fiscal year 2005 to the authorized levels that he signed into law, it turns out that he has requested $200 million less for nanotechnology R&D in the budget that he sent us on the February 2, compared to the authorization that was signed a few months earlier. Finally, there is a total disconnect between science and the administration's plans for the space program. At the same time that the President is cutting and terminating or failing to fully fund R&D programs with demonstrated effectiveness in creating jobs and wealth in the country, he is proposing a manned Moon-Mars initiative at NASA. That is likely to yield some benefit to the Nation. There is a lot of debate about how much benefit. Most of the alleged technology spinoffs of past space exploration activities have not been as great as was advertised. We did not invent Teflon or Velcro or even Tang, as part of the space program, contrary to the belief of many. To pay for the new Moon-Mars initiative, the President proposes to take funds from other parts of NASA during the next few years. Beyond that, future Presidents will have to direct substantial funds to manned space fight in order to keep the program on schedule. We have already seen the first wrongheaded move at NASA in the area of diverting resources and that is the proposed abandonment of the Hubbel space telescope, which is one of the premier assets of NASA at this time. The Hubbel telescope is still in its prime. It is capable of continuing to make major discoveries about our universe and its formation. The proposal to abandon the Hubbel telescope to find money to plan for a manned mission to Mars is a clear example of the low value that seemingly is placed on real science by the administration. Because of the outcry from the scientific community and from some colleagues in the Congress, notably Senator Mikulski of Maryland, this proposal is now getting a second review, but it is too soon to say that it will, in fact, be withdrawn. The fact that this termination was proposed in the first place illustrates the lack of priority given to science in the administration's thinking about our Nation's future. There are other policies as well that this administration has put forward related to science and technology that are also deleterious to our future, just as these cutbacks in funding are, to which I have referred. One example is the visa and other immigration restrictions that have been put in place over the past 2 years related to science and engineering students in this country. Foreign-born students coming to this country have for decades been an important asset to the United States. After completing their training, many have stayed here to make significant contributions to both basic science and innovation. They are a great source of strength in our innovation system and to our country. We have only to look at the current Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Zerhouni, who was born in Algeria and came to the United States in his early twenties to train in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Today, in the name of increasing our national security, we are making it extremely difficult for the best and brightest foreign students to come to the United States and be educated and to remain in this country and become citizens as Dr. Zerhouni was able to do. Instead, the effect of our policies and the ham-handed way we are implementing those policies is driving away from the United States some of the scientists and engineers who want to come here to build a better life for themselves and for our society. This is an issue we need to look at seriously, and we need to begin to make rational decisions with regard to it. The end result of these policies that have been implemented today is that the brightest students from around the world will increasingly choose non-U.S. educational institutions for their advanced education, and major scientific meetings will increasingly take place outside the United States. Our policies could have the effect of strengthening the innovation systems in other countries. As a result, we might well be encouraging high-wage job growth to take place overseas instead of the United States. What can we do about these issues? We in Congress can do several things. Let me mention a few. First, Congress can put more pressure on the President to beef up the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP. One of the basic reasons there seems to be so little leadership on science and technology issues coming out of the White House may be that the Office of Science and Technology Policy appears to be significantly and severely understaffed. The current Science Advisor is authorized under law to have six high-level deputies and most previous Science Advisors were extremely well qualified people in all of those positions. Under this administration, only two of those six positions have been filled. No attempt was made to adjust that staffing strategy after the events of 9/11. Clearly, this is an issue that deserves attention. The President's Science Advisor appears to have spent the bulk of his energy on terrorism-related issues since 9/11 with the result that the overall health of our science and technical foundations has not gotten the attention it otherwise could have received from a fully functioning OSTP. A second action item we could address in Congress is require the President to actually prepare and make public a science and technology policy. We have a lot of speeches about how we need a national energy policy in the country. Why don't we need a national technology policy? Having such a document is not a panacea, but the discipline of having to sit down and write such a document will force the White House to give some thought and examination to the technological opportunities and revolutions we face and on which we are in danger of missing out. Previous Presidents have had explicit policies in this area. The value of such policies has only increased in recent years. A third action we can take in preparing this new budget resolution is to insist that the entire Federal science and technology budget get better and more unified consideration. It would be valuable to have some joint hearings across the relevant committees in the Senate on the overall shape of our science and technology spending. It might be worth considering whether the functional structure of the budget itself should be revised to put the entire Federal S&T budget in one place so that there is more transparency as to what the real trends are in the national budget for science and technology. A final action item I would mention today is Congress needs to take a strong role in resisting the cuts that are being proposed by this President to the research and development budget, particularly to programs such as the Advanced Technology Program. Frankly, instead of terminating the ATP, we should be looking to duplicate its strategies and successes in other Federal agencies. For example, both in the Department of Energy and in the Environmental Protection Agency, we could benefit from having programs structured along the lines of the Advanced Technology Program as part of the overall mix of programs in each agency to spur the development of new technology. One thing I hope Congress does not do is what the administration unfortunately has done; that is, to lose focus on where the real source of our future national wealth and high-wage job creation opportunities lie. Our future economic security crucially depends on innovation and genius as reflected in our scientists and engineers, particularly universities and major laboratories that are supported by the Federal Government. Our long- term economic future depends upon us making well-reasoned choices about what our real priorities are, and science and technology needs to be recognized as a priority that it in fact is for the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 30 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me just continue, if I can, for another 2 minutes before yielding to my colleague. I promise it will be very short. I thank the Senator from Nevada very much for the examples he cited. I think there are many other examples, and in the coming days and weeks I will try to bring some of those to the floor, as I am sure my colleague from Nevada will. The truth is, we would not have an Internet if it were not for Government-funded technology development. The President himself has identified some areas where he believes we need to put additional resources into research and development--developing hydrogen-operated vehicles, for example. There are a great many areas where the Government does have a legitimate role to play in underwriting generic, precompetitive technology our companies can then take to be competitive and remain competitive. That is what the Advanced Technology Program has done. There are many examples we can point to over the years of successes they have had, and we will get those examples out for the Senate. But it is shortsighted in the extreme for us to be saying, in this day and time, when we are worried about high-wage job creation in this country, that the way to start dealing with that is to eliminate this kind of program, to eliminate our support for science and technology development in the Department of Commerce. That is a very shortsighted approach. I hope this Congress will not agree with this President and go along with this kind of cut. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor. Again, I thank my colleague, Senator Thomas, for his courtesy in allowing us to continue this debate as long as we have.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Adam Rosenberg, who is an AAAS fellow on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, during consideration of this legislation.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Essential Air Service Preservation Act of 2003. I am pleased to have my colleague Senator Snowe as the principal cosponsor of the bill. Senator Snowe has been a long-time champion of commercial air service in rural areas, and I appreciate her continued leadership on this important legislation. Senators Shumer, Leahy, Clinton, Ben Nelson, Lincoln, Hagel, Jeffords, Domenici, and Harkin, are also cosponsors of the bill. Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before airline deregulation could continue to receive scheduled service. Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all. Our bill is very simple. It preserves Congress's intent in the Essential Air Service program by repealing a provision in the FAA reauthorization bill that would for the first time require communities to pay for their commercial air service. Congress has already barred the Department of Transportation from implementing any cost sharing requirements on Essential Air Service communities for one year. This bill would now make the ban permanent. I believe that implementing any mandatory cost sharing is the first step in the total elimination of scheduled air service for many rural communities. It is indeed a sad commentary on this Congress that my colleagues and I have to introduce this bill at all. Time and again Congress has gone on record opposing mandatory cost sharing for EAS communities, yet it keeps coming back. In June, during consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Inhofe and I, with 13 bipartisan cosponsors, offered an amendment that struck out a provision in that bill imposing mandatory cost sharing on some EAS communities. I was pleased the full Senate agreed and voted to eliminate mandatory cost sharing from the FAA reauthorization bill. In parallel, the full House of Representatives adopted a similar amendment to the FAA bill. Thus, the bills that were sent to conference required no cost sharing for EAS communities. Most students of government would tell you that when a majority of both houses of Congress have voted against a particular measure, the conferees couldn't arbitrarily put it back in. Well, they did. In another example of this Congress's secret back room dealing, the conferees excluded the minority members, flagrantly ignored the will of the majority in the House and the Senate, and restored the very cost- sharing language both houses one month before had voted to reject. I believe adding this extraneous and objectionable provision was an egregious violation of the conference process. When cost sharing showed up in the FAA conference report, Congress, with bipartisan support, stopped the Department of Transportation from implementing the measure for one year by barring the use of 2004 appropriations for that purpose. The bill we are introducing today permanently repeals the mandatory cost-sharing requirements that the conferees reinserted into the FAA reauthorization bill after both the House and Senate had voted not to include them. I hope both houses of Congress will again do the right thing by passing our bill. All across America, small communities face ever-increasing hurdles to promoting their economic growth and development. Today, many rural areas lack access to interstate or even four-lane highways, railroads or broadband telecommunications. Business development in rural areas frequently hinges on the availability of scheduled air service. For small communities, commercial air service provides a critical link to the national and international transportation system. The Essential Air Service Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 34 states. EAS supports an additional 33 communities in Alaska. Because of increasing costs and the current financial turndown in the aviation industry, particularly among commuter airlines, about 28 additional communities have been forced into the EAS program since the terrorist attacks in 2001. In my State of New Mexico, five cities currently rely on EAS for their commercial air service. The communities are Clovis, Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and my hometown of Silver City. In each case commercial service is provided to Albuquerque, the State's business center and largest city. I believe this ill-conceived proposal requiring cities to pay to continue to have commercial air service could not come at a worse time for small communities already facing depressed economies and declining tax revenues. As I understand it, the mandatory cost-sharing requirements in the FAA reauthorization bill could affect communities in as many as 22 states. Based an analyses by my staff, the individual cities that may be affected are as follows: Alabama--Muscle Shoals; Arizona--Prescott, Kingman; Arkansas--Hot Springs, Harrison, Jonesboro; Colorado--Pueblo; Georgia--Athens; Iowa--Fort Dodge, Burlington; Kansas-- Salina; Kentucky--Owensboro; Maine--Augusta, Rockland; Michigan--Iron Mt.; Mississippi--Laurel; Nebraska--Norfolk; New Hampshire--Lebanon; New Mexico--Hobbs, Alamogordo, Clovis; New York--Saranac Lake, Watertown, Jamestown, Plattsburgh; Oklahoma--Ponca City, Enid; Pennsylvania-- Johnstown, Oil City, Bradford, Altoona; South Dakota-- Brookings, Watertown; Tennessee--Jackson; Texas--Victoria; Vermont--Rutland; Washington--Moses Lake. As I see it, the choice here is clear: If we do not preserve the Essential Air Service Program today, we could soon see the end of all commercial air service in rural areas. The EAS program provides vital resources that help link rural communities to the national and global aviation system. Our bill will preserve the essential air service program and help ensure affordable, reliable, and safe air service remains available in rural America. Congress is already on record opposing mandatory cost sharing. I hope all Senators will once again join us in opposing this attack on rural America. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Essential Air Service Preservation Act of 2003. I am pleased to have my colleague Senator Snowe as the principal cosponsor of the bill. Senator Snowe has been a long-time champion of commercial air service in rural areas, and I appreciate her continued leadership on this important legislation. Senators Shumer, Leahy, Clinton, Ben Nelson, Lincoln, Hagel, Jeffords, Domenici, and Harkin, are also cosponsors of the bill. Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before airline deregulation could continue to receive scheduled service. Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all. Our bill is very simple. It preserves Congress's intent in the Essential Air Service program by repealing a provision in the FAA reauthorization bill that would for the first time require communities to pay for their commercial air service. Congress has already barred the Department of Transportation from implementing any cost sharing requirements on Essential Air Service communities for one year. This bill would now make the ban permanent. I believe that implementing any mandatory cost sharing is the first step in the total elimination of scheduled air service for many rural communities. It is indeed a sad commentary on this Congress that my colleagues and I have to introduce this bill at all. Time and again Congress has gone on record opposing mandatory cost sharing for EAS communities, yet it keeps coming back. In June, during consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Inhofe and I, with 13 bipartisan cosponsors, offered an amendment that struck out a provision in that bill imposing mandatory cost sharing on some EAS communities. I was pleased the full Senate agreed and voted to eliminate mandatory cost sharing from the FAA reauthorization bill. In parallel, the full House of Representatives adopted a similar amendment to the FAA bill. Thus, the bills that were sent to conference required no cost sharing for EAS communities. Most students of government would tell you that when a majority of both houses of Congress have voted against a particular measure, the conferees couldn't arbitrarily put it back in. Well, they did. In another example of this Congress's secret back room dealing, the conferees excluded the minority members, flagrantly ignored the will of the majority in the House and the Senate, and restored the very cost- sharing language both houses one month before had voted to reject. I believe adding this extraneous and objectionable provision was an egregious violation of the conference process. When cost sharing showed up in the FAA conference report, Congress, with bipartisan support, stopped the Department of Transportation from implementing the measure for one year by barring the use of 2004 appropriations for that purpose. The bill we are introducing today permanently repeals the mandatory cost-sharing requirements that the conferees reinserted into the FAA reauthorization bill after both the House and Senate had voted not to include them. I hope both houses of Congress will again do the right thing by passing our bill. All across America, small communities face ever-increasing hurdles to promoting their economic growth and development. Today, many rural areas lack access to interstate or even four-lane highways, railroads or broadband telecommunications. Business development in rural areas frequently hinges on the availability of scheduled air service. For small communities, commercial air service provides a critical link to the national and international transportation system. The Essential Air Service Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 34 states. EAS supports an additional 33 communities in Alaska. Because of increasing costs and the current financial turndown in the aviation industry, particularly among commuter airlines, about 28 additional communities have been forced into the EAS program since the terrorist attacks in 2001. In my State of New Mexico, five cities currently rely on EAS for their commercial air service. The communities are Clovis, Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and my hometown of Silver City. In each case commercial service is provided to Albuquerque, the State's business center and largest city. I believe this ill-conceived proposal requiring cities to pay to continue to have commercial air service could not come at a worse time for small communities already facing depressed economies and declining tax revenues. As I understand it, the mandatory cost-sharing requirements in the FAA reauthorization bill could affect communities in as many as 22 states. Based an analyses by my staff, the individual cities that may be affected are as follows: Alabama--Muscle Shoals; Arizona--Prescott, Kingman; Arkansas--Hot Springs, Harrison, Jonesboro; Colorado--Pueblo; Georgia--Athens; Iowa--Fort Dodge, Burlington; Kansas-- Salina; Kentucky--Owensboro; Maine--Augusta, Rockland; Michigan--Iron Mt.; Mississippi--Laurel; Nebraska--Norfolk; New Hampshire--Lebanon; New Mexico--Hobbs, Alamogordo, Clovis; New York--Saranac Lake, Watertown, Jamestown, Plattsburgh; Oklahoma--Ponca City, Enid; Pennsylvania-- Johnstown, Oil City, Bradford, Altoona; South Dakota-- Brookings, Watertown; Tennessee--Jackson; Texas--Victoria; Vermont--Rutland; Washington--Moses Lake. As I see it, the choice here is clear: If we do not preserve the Essential Air Service Program today, we could soon see the end of all commercial air service in rural areas. The EAS program provides vital resources that help link rural communities to the national and global aviation system. Our bill will preserve the essential air service program and help ensure affordable, reliable, and safe air service remains available in rural America. Congress is already on record opposing mandatory cost sharing. I hope all Senators will once again join us in opposing this attack on rural America. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with Senators Domenici, Murray, Jeffords, Cantwell, Akaka, Reed, Chafee, and Inouye entitled the ``Children's Health Equity Technical Amendments Act of 2003.'' Since the passage of the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, in 1997, a group of States that expanded coverage to children in Medicaid prior to the enactment of CHIP have been unfairly penalized for that expansion. States are not allowed to use the enhanced matching rate available to other States for children at similar levels of poverty under the act. As a result, a child in the States of New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania, because they were grandfathered in the original act or in Iowa, Montana, or a number of other States at 134 percent of poverty is eligible for an enhanced matching rate in CHIP but that has not been the case for States such as New Mexico, Vermont, Washington, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and a number of others, including Connecticut, Tennessee, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Maryland. As the health policy statement by the National Governors' Association reads, ``The Governors believe that it is critical that innovative states not be penalized for having expanded coverage to children before the enactment of S-CHIP, which provides enhanced funding to meet these goals. To this end, the Governors support providing additional funding flexibility to states that had already significantly expanded coverage of the majority of uninsured children in their states. For six years, our group of States have sought to have this inequity addressed. Early this year, I introduced the ``Children's Health Equity of 2003'' with Senators Jeffords, Murray, Leahy, and Ms. Cantwell and we worked successfully to get a compromise worked out for inclusion in S. 312 by Senators Rockefeller, and Chafee. This compromise extended expiring CHIP allotments only for fiscal years 1998 through 2001 in order to meet budgetary caps. The compromise allowed States to be able to use up to 20 percent of our State's CHIP allotments to pay for Medicaid eligible children about 150 percent of poverty that were part of our State's expansions prior to the enactment of CHIP. That language was maintained in conference and included in H.R. 2854 that was signed by the President as Public Law 108-74. Unfortunately, a slight change was made in the conference language that excluded New Mexico and Hawaii, Maryland, and Rhode Island needed specific changes so an additional bill was passed, H.R. 3288, and signed into law as Public Law 108-107, on November 17, 2003. This second bill included language from legislation that I introduced with Senator Domenici, S. 1547, to address the problem caused to New Mexico by the conference committee's change. Unfortunately, one major problem with the compromise was that it would allow the 10 States flexibility with its CHIP funds for allotments between 1998 and 2001 and not in the future. Therefore, the inequity continues with CHIP allotments last year, this year, and into the future. This legislation would address that problem and ensure that all future allotments give these 11 States the flexibility to use up to 20 percent of our CHIP allotments to pay for health care services of children above 150 percent of poverty in our respective state Medicaid programs. This rather technical issue has real and negative consequences in States such as New Mexico. In fact, due to the CHIP inequity, New Mexico has been allocated $266 million from CHIP between fiscal years 1998 and 2002, and yet, has only been able to spend slightly over $26 million as of the end of last fiscal year. In other words, New Mexico has been allowed to spend less than 10 percent of its federal CHIP allocations. With the passage of H.R. 2854 and H.R. 3288, that situations will improve somewhat. Unfortunately, the change was not made permanent and does not apply to future CHIP allotments. This legislation would correct this problem. It is important to note that this initiative includes strong maintenance of effort language as well as incentives for our State to conduct outreach and enrollment efforts and program simplification to find and enroll uninsured kids because we feel strongly that they must receive the health coverage for which they are eligible. The bill does not take money from other States's CHIP allotments. It simple allows our States to spend our States' specific CHIP allotments from the Federal government on our uninsured children--just as other States across the country are doing. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BINGAMAN

Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, throughout the conflict in Iraq, our brave soldiers have carried out their duties with strength, with honor, and with courage. They have never faltered in their service to this nation or the world. That is why I am so troubled that some of our servicemembers and their families believe that current Department of Defense policies may be failing them, with grievous consequences. That is why I rise today to submit a Sense of the Senate Resolution that asks for reconsideration of the policies surrounding the current smallpox and anthrax immunization programs. Specifically it asks the Secretary of Defense to reconsider the mandatory nature of its smallpox and anthrax vaccine immunization programs pending the development of new and better vaccines that are currently under development; reconsider adverse actions taken against servicemembers on the basis of refusal to take the smallpox or anthrax vaccines; and reevaluate, with the intelligence community, the current threat of anthrax and smallpox attacks on our troops, in an effort to reflect current operational realities when considering the continuation of a mandatory vaccination program. It also urges the Department of Veterans Affairs to assess these adverse events being reported with respect to the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, research causal relationships, and estimate a future cost to the Department of Veterans Affairs to treat these conditions. Vaccines are an important factor in ensuring protection of our nation's military personnel from health threats--both natural or from biological weapons--in overseas conflicts. However, the current smallpox and anthrax vaccines have real and serious consequences that must be weighed against the potential benefits. This is why the President has made development of a modern anthrax vaccine a national priority in his last two State of the Union addresses and why the Institute of Medicine urged the government to do so in March 2002. What are the consequences of a policy that makes it mandatory that military personnel get the anthrax and smallpox vaccines? First, there are a growing number of adverse events reported in conjunction with these two vaccines, which is in sharp contrast to other vaccines. Second, there is a morale problem in the military associated with the mandatory nature of requiring military personnel to take these shots that has a serious negative impact on the recruitment and retention of our military personnel. Third, the long-term consequences of the vaccine programs for the health and well-being of our military personnel and our veterans is in question and should be addressed. Ensuring the health and well-being of our military personnel before, during and after serving our country should always be a top priority of our nation. The major potential benefit of any vaccine would be force protection. Unfortunately, there are major questions that arise with this argument concerning the anthrax and smallpox vaccines. First, even if there was a threat, such a threat against our troops in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has been significantly diminished. Second, there are other mechanisms to address any potential exposure, including post-exposure vaccination and antibiotics. This was the effective treatment used in the Senate after the anthrax exposure in 2001. Third, we do not even know if the anthrax vaccine works at all on inhalation anthrax or weaponized anthrax, so the vaccine may be completely ineffective anyway. For our brave men and women serving in harm's way, all too often the first threat they face is not when their boots hit the ground in Baghdad, Iraq, or Kandahar, Afghanistan--the first threat many servicemembers believe they face may be in line at the home station when they receive their anthrax and smallpox vaccinations. There is a growing number of disturbing reports about how some of our servicemembers have contracted health problems shortly after receiving the anthrax and smallpox vaccines. These illnesses include mysterious pneumonia-like illnesses, heart problems, blood clots, and other medical conditions that have stricken otherwise young, healthy, and strong military personnel. It has even resulted in death. This is not entirely surprising, in light of the fact that the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, has identified a number of adverse reactions associated with these two vaccines. With respect to the anthrax vaccine alone, in 2002 the FDA required the anthrax vaccine product label be revised and it now includes approximately 40 serious adverse events. As it reads, ``Approximately 6% of the reported events were listed as serious. Serious adverse events include those that result in death, hospitalization, permanent disability or are life- threatening.'' The FDA also raised the rate of systemic reactions by up to 175 times over the previous 1999 product label, from 0.2 percent to 5-35 percent Meanwhile, in light of adverse events that exceed those for other vaccines and other concerns about the smallpox vaccine, both the Institute of Medicine and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently issued recommendations calling for a pause in the Federal Government's smallpox vaccination program. Meanwhile, both CBS News and UPI have identified a growing number of deaths and severe illnesses that they claim point to the anthrax and smallpox vaccines. These include the deaths of Army SP4 Joshua Neusche, Army SGT Michael Tosto, LTC Anthony Sherman, Army SP4 Rachel Lacy, Army SP4 Zeferino Colunga, Army SP4 Cory Hubbell, Army SP4 Levi Kinchen, Army SSG Richard Eaton, Jr., Army PVT Matthew Bush, Army SSG David Loyd, and Army SP4 William Jeffries. Eight of these 11 Army personnel were under the age of 25. As Dr. Jeffrey Sartin, and infectious disease doctor at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, WI, said, ``I would say that the number of cases among young healthy troops would seem to be unusual.'' The numbers of those with adverse health events is significantly higher. There have been around 700 adverse events reported in just the first 6 months of this year and this is as part of a reporting system that has been found to significantly under-report adverse events. In addition, there are the reports of problems at both Ft. Stewart and Ft. Knox with respect to sick and injured soldiers who have been waiting weeks and sometimes months for medical treatment. Senators Leahy and Bond should be commended for drawing attention to those problems and getting the military to move to address it. What remains disturbing is that many of those who are ill and on ``medical hold'' were never deployed. At Ft. Stewart, Senators Bond and Leahy found that one-third of the 650 soldiers awaiting medical care and follow-up evaluations were not physically qualified for deployment and therefore never deployed overseas. At Ft. Knox, according to a UPI story, 369 of the 422 soldiers at Ft. Knox did not deploy to Operation Iraqi Freedom because of their illnesses. This includes, according to the story, ``strange clusters of heart problems and breathing problems, as did soldiers at Ft. Stewart and other locations.'' These are health problems that are often cited as adverse events accompanying the anthrax and smallpox vaccines. Once again, there is a surprising number of such cases in what are otherwise a strong, healthy, and young group of people. We certainly do not know whether these cases have been caused by the anthrax or smallpox vaccines at this point. In fact, these personnel desperately await any medical treatment and that must be addressed. While the military works to address that problem, they should also reconsider the mandatory nature of the anthrax and smallpox vaccines, as they may be contributing heavily to the problem. In the case of Army SP4 Rachel Lacy, who loved her country and volunteered to deploy to the Persian Gulf, she was ordered to take the anthrax vaccine and did so without objection. Within days, she started to suffer pneumonia and flu-like symptoms. Within weeks, she was dead. The coroner listed ``post-vaccine'' problems on the death certificate for Rachel Lacy and said, ``it's just very suspicious in my mind . . . that she's healthy, gets the vaccinations and then dies a couple weeks later.'' The Army is, according to published reports, conducting an investigation of the 100 or more soldiers that have gotten pneumonia in Iraq and southwestern Asia. Of those 100, 2 have died and another 13 have had to be put on respirators. According to a story published in both the New York Times and Washington Post on November 19, 2003, as part of that investigation, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the Armed Services Epidemiology Board said the evidence ``strongly favors'' the belief that vaccines led to the death of Rachel Lacy. It was an important admission and yet the military immediately said its vaccination policies would ``not be changed.'' Rachel's father, Moses Lacy, has asked, ``Let's stop this, re- evaluate what we're doing, re-evaluate the risks.'' That is a reasonable request and our nation's servicemembers and families deserve it. We owe it to the Lacy family and to all our military personnel and their families. As a result of the concerns of servicemembers and their families that these vaccines are having on their health and well-being, it must also be noted that the anthrax and smallpox vaccines are having serious consequences for our nation's military readiness. In September 2002, the General Accounting Office reported that 69 percent of trained and experienced pilots and aircrew members in the Guard and Reserve reported that the anthrax shot was the major influence in their decision to change their military status in 2002, including leaving the military entirely. Responding to the serious recruitment and retention problems caused by the mandatory anthrax vaccine policy, in February 2000, my colleague and then Presidential candidate John McCain called for a moratorium of this policy. Unfortunately, the safety concerns Senator McCain noted then have not been resolved. The military continues to deny problems with the vaccine while simultaneously operating a clinic at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to treat the illnesses caused by the vaccine. Instead of reconsidering its policy, the DOD has, instead, aggressively moved against those who have refused the vaccines. After his testimony before the House Government Reform Committee, Major Sonnie Bates, the highest ranking officer to refuse the anthrax vaccination, was charged under article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Department of Defense moved to court-martial him. After accusations of reprisal came from the Congress, the Department of Defense backed down and discharged Major Bates. There is also the case of Air Force Captain John Buck, M.D. He was court-martialed for refusing the anthrax vaccine in a trial in which the judge refused to allow the jury to hear the doctor's views on its safety and efficacy. After he was convicted, fined $21,000, and denied a promotion he had earned, Dr. Buck deployed to the Indian Ocean after September 11th to support U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. He was awarded a medal for his service in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and subsequently given an honorable discharge. In fact, the military has court-martialed soldiers throughout the military for refusing the anthrax vaccine, including a case this spring in New York of Private Rhonda Hazley who refused the vaccine because she was breast-feeding her child. One of the things this resolution asks is for the Department of Defense to reconsider adverse actions taken against servicemembers on the basis of refusal to take the smallpox or anthrax vaccines. The court-martialing of a woman that refused these vaccines because she was breast-feeding is particularly disturbing. It is important to note that the FDA revised the product label for the anthrax vaccine from ``a possible risk'' to a ``known risk'' to pregnant women because of ``positive evidence of human fetal risk based on adverse reaction data from investigational or marketing experience or studies in humans.'' While Private Hazley was no longer pregnant, the FDA does believe the ``pregnancy and lactation are a clinical continuum.'' Once again, the risks of the vaccine would appear to far outweigh the benefit to a mother and mechanic in the Army. The DOD's actions in such cases have created a climate of distrust and fear within the ranks of the military. This comply or be discharged or prosecuted policy is of great concern to our brave young men and women in uniform, and in the case of Private Hazley, to her child. Again, due to this policy, many soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to reevaluate their commitment to the military. The military has argued that we need a mandatory program with respect to our nation's military personnel as part of ensuring force protection. However, I understand that our allies--both the British and Australians--have not made the anthrax vaccines mandatory in the Iraqi Freedom Operation. As those two nations weighed the potential consequences of requiring all military personnel to get the vaccines versus any potential benefit, they came down on the side of making the vaccine voluntary. In the case of the British military, more than half the armed forces personnel deployed in the Gulf have refused to be vaccinated against anthrax. The British Ministry of Defense spokesman said that this policy would remain voluntary ``in accordance with long-standing medical practice.'' Of interest, British army units that would be responsible for dealing with suspect chemical and biological sites are given the smallpox vaccine but still are not required to get the anthrax vaccine. For those that have agreed to accept the anthrax vaccine among British troops, they are reporting a large number of adverse events. According to a report by the British National Gulf Veterans and Families' Association, they anticipate adverse reaction among ``at least 6,000 new cases as a result of the Iraq conflict--about 30 percent of the 22,000 troops who had the anthrax vaccination.'' In addition to the policy of our allies that military personnel should be able to make their own decisions regarding the anthrax vaccine, another reason they have made the vaccine voluntary is that we do not even know whether the anthrax vaccine is effective against inhalation or weaponized anthrax. Furthermore, even if we had truly thought there was strong evidence that the Iraqi government had and was preparing to use biological weapons such as anthrax against the United States military, the report by Weapons Inspector David Kay in September indicates that threat has been found to be lacking or non-existent. There appears to be little evidence available that Al Qaeda or Saddam have the capability to deliver anthrax or smallpox against our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even if there was such a threat, it is likely extremely small at this point. Again, if nothing else, this change in the threat to our troops requires an immediate reevaluation of DOD vaccination policy. Even if you still think there is some potential benefit of these vaccinations, it must be further weighed against whether there is another mechanism available that would have the same effect. We in the Senate, for example, know very well that the treatment of anthrax exposure via antibiotics works very well. The Senate was faced with the choice of having those exposed undergo a course of antibiotics versus getting the anthrax vaccine and the vast majority of those exposed to anthrax choose to take the antibiotic treatment rather than volunteer to take the anthrax vaccine. In fact, the current Majority Leader, Senator Frist, said at the time the anthrax vaccine was offered to Senate employees potentially exposed to anthrax, ``I do not recommend widespread inoculation for people with the vaccine in the Hart Building. There are too many side effects and if there is limited chance of exposure the side effects would far outweigh any potential advantage.'' Again, in weighing the potential benefit of the vaccine versus the option of antibiotics, the vast majority decided in support of the latter option. Our military personnel certainly deserve the option that many Senate personnel chose for themselves and what it seems the Secretary of Defense chose for himself when he acknowledged on October 25, 2001--in the midst of the anthrax attacks--that he was not taking the anthrax vaccine. When the President was running for our Nation's highest office, he said with respect to questions posed to him in the September 2000 issue of U.S. Medicine, ``The Defense Department's Anthrax Immunization Program has raised numerous health concerns and caused fear among the individuals whose lives it touches. I don't feel the current administration's anthrax immunization program has taken into account the effect of this program on the soldiers in our military and their families. Under my administration, soldiers and their families will be taken into consideration.'' Some of our nation's servicemembers and their families believe that the current policy of this Administration does not adequately take soldiers and their families into consideration. They believe we are, in fact, failing to ensure the health and well-being of our military personnel and we must do better. Before closing, I would like to particularly note the long-standing work by Congressman Christopher Shays on this issue. In a report issued by the House Committee on Government Reform in April 2000, the report states, ``many members of the armed services do not share that faith [that the DOD places in the anthrax vaccine]. They do not believe merely suggestive evidence of vaccine efficacy outweighs their concerns over the lack of evidence of long term vaccine safety. Nor do they trust DOD has learned the lessons of part military medical mistakes: atomic testing, Agent Orange, Persian Gulf war drugs, and vaccines. Heavy handed, one-sided informational materials only fuel suspicions the program understates adverse reaction risks in order to magnify the relative, admittedly marginal, benefits of the vaccine.'' Many of the findings by Congressman Shays, such as the concerns by military servicemembers are even more valid today with the introduction of the smallpox vaccine to the list of vaccines required by the military. Consequently, I urge the passage of this Sense of the Senate urging the Department of Defense to reconsider the mandatory nature of its smallpox and anthrax vaccination programs and to minimize the use of these vaccines pending the current development of new and better vaccines. I also plan to introduce legislation early next year, as the Institute of Medicine recommended back in 1999, to establish a National Center for Military Deployment Health Research. Our nation's servicemembers deserve our best efforts to assure their health and well-being. As the IOM said in making the recommendation to establish a National Center for Military Deployment Health Research, ``Veterans' organizations were instrumental in developing the idea for a national center for the study of war-related illness and postdeployment health issues, and these organizations continue to support the national center concept.'' We owe this to our nation's servicemembers and veterans and I look forward to working with them over the coming months in the development of that long-needed legislation.