Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I commend my colleague and neighbor from Arkansas for offering this amendment which will fulfill the promise we have been making to the self-employed in America for a long time. Small business owners, farmers, and others have suffered. Their families have been denied health insurance because the Tax Code has unfairly discriminated against those who are self-employed. They say if you work for a large organization, if it is a taxable organization, it deducts all of the health insurance premiums paid by that organization. The recipient, the employee, does not have to report that health insurance as income. Therefore, there is an incentive to provide health care coverage. I have been involved in debate on health care coverage in this body almost since I came here. We have talked about how we can make sure that every American is covered. What the Senator from Arkansas is doing today in offering this amendment is saying now is the time, we are going to provide 100-percent deductibility for those who are self- employed. Over the years--and I will talk about it later--we have gradually moved up the deductibility. But when I go home and I talk to a group of farmers or small business owners who have come together to ask what the U.S. Government is doing for them or to them, I say: Well, if you can just hold off until the end of 2003 to get sick, we will allow you to have 100-percent deductibility. They say: Well, I want to ensure that neither I nor my family suffers an illness that requires us to get health care. And what the Senator from Arkansas is doing today is saying if we are going to debate a significant bill on health care that focuses on the patients, let us make sure we cover those who need to be covered. Access to health care is one of the greatest challenges we face. Yesterday I discussed a number of serious problems I have with the McCain-Kennedy bill. Today as we start the long and arduous process of actually working on the bill, as we should have in committee--we are going to have to mark up the bill in the Chamber--we all hold in our hearts the high goal, the high hope that we will pass patient protection legislation that works, that gets health care coverage, that provides the patients the protection from health care organizations, HMOs or insurance companies, that want to put their bottom line profits ahead of the well-being of patients. In its zeal, however, to provide patient protections, the McCain- Kennedy bill adds significantly to the cost of health care. The end result? More than 170 million Americans will pay more for health care. The lucky ones will pay more. The unlucky ones will actually lose their insurance. The CBO tells us that McCain-Kennedy increases costs on average by 4.2 percent. When you use the general rule of thumb that a 1- percentage-point increase in premiums means a loss of insurance for 300,000 people, this means the McCain-Kennedy bill will cost 1.25 million Americans their health care coverage. But we can be a little more specific. Yesterday I pointed out that we had had phone calls, faxes, letters from small businesses in Missouri telling us what they would do if they were subjected to the potential liabilities of the McCain-Kennedy bill. Yesterday we had 1,042 Missouri citizens who would stand to lose their coverage. Today I want to read a letter from a woman with a small convenience store in a rural part of Missouri. She says: About 2 years ago we started carrying a group health insurance plan for our employees. We currently have 6 employees and 4 dependents on this plan. We pay 100 percent of the employees costs and make payroll deductions for the dependents. None of our employees had any major illnesses or hospital stays in the previous year, but we had a 22 percent increase in our premiums anyway. This year one of our employees was diagnosed with breast cancer. She's had surgery and has completed chemotherapy. She now has to go through radiation therapy for 6 weeks and then reconstruction surgery. She told me that had she not had insurance she would have died because there was no way she could have afforded this treatment and surgery. She is 42 years old. I am very concerned about ever-increasing costs of health care, but I am personally afraid not to carry it. If expanded liability were to pass, we would definitely have to drop our group coverage because we could not financially put ourselves at risk if workers were allowed to sue their employers as well as HMOs, if they felt like they had been denied some coverage. So today, Mr. President, I give you an update on the numbers. It is now 1,287 people who will lose their health care coverage from the expanded liability of the McCain-Kennedy bill. I would point out that the woman who wrote me that letter is self- employed. She only gets to deduct a portion of her health care coverage. This amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas would increase to 100 percent the deductibility of her health care coverage. So it obviously would enhance her ability to continue to pay for herself and her family. But with the expanded liability of the McCain- Kennedy bill, there would be another 10 people denied health care coverage in Missouri. Apparently the proponents of this piece of legislation before us think that is worth it--enriching trial lawyers is important enough that they place a higher priority on them than on coverage for almost 1.3 million Americans. Is this a Patients' Bill of Rights or a lawyers' bill of rights? If we are going to do something, however, that threatens to reduce coverage, should we not at least do something that makes sense at the same time to try to increase coverage and access to health insurance? Apparently some on the other side would say no. With this bill, they say we are going to take coverage away from more than 1 million Americans but we are not going to do a single thing to help people who are not covered get the coverage they deserve. This first amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas tries to correct this callous approach. I am sure there will be a variety of attempts to increase access to coverage during this debate. This route focuses on the 21.6 million Americans who are self-employed or in families headed by a self-employed individual. On January 22 of this year I introduced S. 29, the Self-Employed Health Insurance Fairness Act of 2001. I am pleased that the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, is the lead cosponsor out of the 52 cosponsors who have joined this bill so far. Obviously, this is important to many Members of this body. During the time I have served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business--and now as its ranking member--one of my top priorities has been to ensure full deductibility of health insurance for the self- employed, and to provide it now. Today, while the self-employed can deduct 60 percent of their health insurance costs, they are still not on a level playing field with large businesses which can deduct 100 percent. While the self-employed are slated to have full deductibility in 2003, these small business owners and their families should not have to wait any longer to get sick. With only partial deductibility, it comes as no surprise that a quarter of the self-employed still do not have health insurance. In fact, 4.8 million Americans live in families headed by a self-employed individual, and those families include more than a million children who lack adequate health insurance coverage due at least in part to our failure to provide full deductibility for their health insurance costs. Coverage of these self-employed individuals and their children through the self-employed health insurance deduction will enable the private sector to address the health care needs of these individuals rather than an expensive and intrusive Government program. Full deductibility has been on the must-do list of the national small business groups for too long. I know the farm groups and the Farm Bureau and other groups have long argued for this. Last year when I convened the National Women's Small Business Summit in Kansas City, having full deductibility of health insurance for the self-employed was one of their top goals. I assured them at the time that we would bring this to the attention of our colleagues in this body, and I do so again today. In the 107th Congress we have a tremendous opportunity to see this goal achieved in a bipartisan manner to the benefit of all the country's self-employed individuals. We have had bipartisan support for this proposition in the past, and I expect we will do so today. For some of you who may not remember or may not have been here or probably have just forgotten, this battle has been going on in this body for a long time. In 1995, I offered an amendment to the Balanced Budget Act which would have increased the health insurance deduction to the self- employed to 50 percent. I thought this was a great start. Unfortunately, President Clinton vetoed it. In 1996, I worked with Senator Kassebaum to include in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act an increase in the self- employed health insurance deduction incrementally to 80 percent over 10 years. In 1997, provisions of my Home-Based Business Fairness Act were included in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 to finally increase the deduction to 100 percent, with full deductibility occurring in 2007. The Taxpayer Relief Act also accelerated the phase-in over then existing laws. In 1998, as part of the omnibus appropriations bill, I worked to see that the phase-in of 100-percent deductibility was accelerated from 2007 to 2003. We also succeeded in substantially increasing the deduction in the intervening years. Under that measure, the deduction was raised to 60 percent for 1999, 2000, and 2001, to 70 percent for 2002, and to 100 percent in 2003. These were increases of 10 to 20 percent. In 1999, I worked to include in the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act 100-percent deductibility in 2000. Unfortunately, former President Clinton vetoed that bill. Had he not done so, the self-employed in America would be enjoying full deductibility of health insurance costs today. In 2000, I worked to provide immediate full deductibility in the minimum wage tax package, the Patients' Bill of Rights legislation, and the yearend small business tax package. There is no surprise to say that the veto threats from the Clinton administration derailed those bills, and, once again, the self-employed were denied full deductibility. This year, the Finance Committee, on a bipartisan basis, was good enough to provide immediate full deductibility in the package that was brought to the Senate floor and which passed the full Senate. Thank you, leaders of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus. Unfortunately, I must tell you that the provision was removed in the conference and did not pass into law with the rest of the President's tax cut package. The bottom line, immediate full deductibility for the self-employed has overwhelming bipartisan support. It was passed by the Senate Finance Committee and the full Senate multiple times in the past. As my colleague from Arkansas has pointed out, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the amendment is expected to cost $214 million in 2002 and $641 million in 2003. As a result, the 5- and 10-year costs of the amendment is really only the first 2 years when we get to 100-percent deductibility, and that total cost is $855 million. That is within the budget parameters that we adopted and under which we operate. In summary, let me say that after waiting for too long we now have another chance to see that self-employed Americans get health insurance by passing this important provision. Our chance to pass it is on a bill that desperately needs to deal with the problem of insurance coverage and insurance access. As we look to protect patients, we must be expanding--not limiting-- access to care. We will have further amendments that deal with some of the problems that could substantially limit access to care, could drive out small businesses--such as the small businesses that have already told me that, without change in the liability provisions of the McCain- Kennedy bill, they will have to cut off health care to 1,287 Missouri citizens. This is just the beginning, good friends. Wait until you start hearing from small businesses in your State that I believe will tell you they will not be able to continue to provide health care coverage for their employees if they are going to be subjected to liability whenever there is a problem with their health insurance coverage. We believe more than 1 million Americans will lose their coverage as a result of the increased costs and the expanded liability of the McCain-Kennedy bill. This amendment offered by my good friend and colleague from Arkansas is our chance to mitigate that approach by trying to help more Americans get coverage. I urge my colleagues to support the Hutchinson-Bond amendment. I believe it is a most important step for us to take as we begin debate on this bill and work to see that more and not less Americans get the health insurance coverage we want to see all of them have.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Hutchinson, for making this the first amendment. My thanks to the Senator from New Hampshire for explaining very carefully. We can talk about the procedure we want, but very simply stated, this has been agreed to by the Finance Committee before. This is a bill that will have tax-related provisions in it. This is a bill that already does. We have heard from both the Senator from Arizona, one of the principal sponsors, and the Senator from New Hampshire, how we assure that this bill is not blue-slipped. I urge colleagues to support this amendment regardless of the procedural basis on which it is challenged. The underlying purpose is to assure every self-employed businessperson in this Nation and their families that they will get full deductibility of health care. We want to do something good for patients. This is a first step. I urge my colleagues to support the Hutchinson-Bond amendment and help take a positive step to begin what will be a very important and significant debate on how we protect patients. Cut through the procedure. The question before my colleagues is: Do you want to see self-employed individuals have full deductibility for health care?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we have not included the distinguished Senator from South Carolina as a cosponsor of the bill. We know his heart is with us. We are sorry his vote is not with us. I think you will find before this bill is over with that there will be many issues in the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, and what we should be talking about on this bill is making sure that we protect patients, we protect Americans who must have health care coverage. This bill goes in the wrong direction. We will have an opportunity for all Senators to express themselves on whether they believe the self- employed and their families deserve to have 100-percent deductibility. I hope we will have the same bipartisan support, maybe with one exception that we have had in the past because the self-employed, the farmers, the truck drivers, the daycare operators, the mom-and-pop operations, the 21.2 million Americans who own small businesses who are taxed under individual rates will have full benefits. Again, the principle is very important. I don't think the American people are going to care much about procedure when this bill really turns into a bill with significant Finance Committee implications. We ought to take a look at what is going to make a difference to the self- employed, and the Hutchinson-Bond amendment will help us get coverage to many who are now not covered. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we are now debating the crucial issue of patients' rights. For better or worse, we have a health care system that increasingly uses managed care to organize and deliver services. Over the next week or two or more, we are here to debate what we need to do to protect patients and to restore balance to our new system dominated by managed care companies, whether insurance companies or HMOs. Let's be clear; patients need protections. For a variety of reasons-- bad customer service, bad incentives that lead to a conflict between care and the bottom line, and simple carelessness and neglect--too many patients have been mistreated by their health care insurance companies. That is why every State in the Nation has acted on this measure to provide protections because we have seen this mistreatment range from the heartbreaking to the mundane. We have all heard the rare but tragic horror stories in which a managed care company denies desperately needed care, sometimes with catastrophic results for the patient. Many of us have actually experienced the all too common phenomenon, nuisances of being forced to make phone call after phone call to get routine care authorized or having to wait longer than should be necessary to get an appointment with a doctor in a limited network of managed care providers. That is why I voted in the past for comprehensive managed care reform bills that will deal with the federally regulated plans. This is why I have confidence that I will again vote for a good patient protection bill at the end of this debate. We have heard some statements on the floor--I think maybe we ought to bring a little reality to it--saying we have to pass this bill right away. This bill is a moving target; it is a shell game, trying to figure out which version is the latest version, what version is the operative version. It did not go through the committee. People talked about maybe we want to compromise some of it. Normally the compromise, working out of these details, happens in committee. That is why we send a committee markup to the floor. We did not do it this time. So we are going to have to do the committee's work in this Chamber. But when I hear people talk about how there are 50,000 people being denied insurance, we hear about tragedies that happen every day, some say if we wait a day longer or a week longer, more patients are going to get denied care--just a little bit of reality. The effective date of the McCain-Kennedy bill is October of 2002. That is October of 2002, a year and a quarter from now. So while it is important that we deal with this bill, it is important that we not pass a bad bill. We have the time, and we must take the time, to make sure what we do is a good product. Legislating is a difficult job. It inevitably involves striking a balance between competing goals. In this debate, that tradeoff is between specific patient protections and the costs those protections will impose on an already strained health care system. Mr. President, 43 million Americans lack health insurance coverage. That is an important fact to remember and one we have to keep in mind as we deal with assuring that patients are protected. Even if Congress does nothing here, that number is almost certain to go up, perhaps dramatically, in the wake of health care costs that are shooting up 13 percent this year, following a year in which they rose by 12 percent. That is more than a 26-percent increase in just 2 years, a rate that is not sustainable. I might add, in the next year or two cost increases are expected to rise by about the same amount. The goal of managed care, of HMOs and others, is to assure health care but to maintain some limit on the cost because anybody who has studied economics 101 knows if costs are totally unreasonable, you are not going to get the service. That service in this case is the vitally important service of health care coverage. Employers, particularly small businesses, make a valiant effort to struggle through and provide health care insurance to their employees. I have talked to and listened to an awful lot of small businesspeople and their employees who are concerned about this particular bill as well as health care costs in general. As costs go up, fewer and fewer small businesses will provide care. In our employer-based health care system, 75 percent of Americans with insurance get all or some of that coverage through an employer. We have to be careful. We have to be careful to ensure that we do not drive, particularly small businesses, out of the business of providing good health care coverage for their employees. This is the dilemma. It is really the crux of what we will be talking about over the next several weeks: Which patient protections are worthwhile and when is the price of lost coverage too high? Let me emphasize that. What is the cost in terms of health care coverage to increasing the cost of health care protection? After all, a pro-patient protection bill that takes away a family's health insurance does not provide any protection at all. If they lose their coverage, we have done exactly what we should not have done, and that is to deny them any coverage. With all this in mind--the importance of patient protections, the danger of rising costs--what should we support? In the past I voted for, and I will vote for again, a strong Patients' Bill of Rights that contains basic, reasonable, commonsense patient protection. This includes guaranteed access to emergency room care. Americans should not have to worry their insurance company will not pay for necessary emergency care or even for care that reasonably seems to be an emergency. I have gone to the emergency room with problems that looked very serious and after treatment found out, although they were a problem, they needed care but they were not a critical emergency. But those should be covered. Second, a guarantee that patients get all information on treatment options. Doctors and patients need to be able to discuss openly all possible treatment options without gag rules. Third, a right to a quick, independent, and expert appeal process. There must be an appeal to a medical expert outside of the HMO to guarantee the HMO is not focusing too much on its bottom line and not enough on the patient's bottom. The appeal must be quick so patients get care when they need it, strong managed protections for our children, such as the ones I included in Healthy Kids 2000 legislation 2 years ago. These include the right for a child to go see a pediatrician without being forced to see a nonpediatrician gatekeeper. Pediatricians are not specialists to whom children need to be referred. They should be a child's first line of care. Next, the right for a child to see a specialist with pediatric expertise, including going to children's hospitals when necessary. Children are different from adults. Their care is different. Doctors who primarily treat adults are not always prepared to interpret and attend the unique needs of children. A sick child needs to go to somebody who specializes in taking care of sick children. The right to have a pediatric expert review a child's case when appealing an HMO decision. Again, even an experienced medical practitioner who deals only with adults may not have the ability, the expertise, and the training to make a decision about what kind of care a child needs. Let me tell you a few things about what I do not support in the patient protection debate. Unfortunately, I must put at the top of the list of what I cannot support the McCain-Kennedy bill. The McCain- Kennedy bill contains some good provisions--all of them do. There are good provisions in all of these bills. But the McCain-Kennedy bill is overzealous; it goes much too far towards creating a litigation-heavy, costly new world of health care. I will take the opportunity in the following days and weeks to go into detail on some of the glaring problems presented by the McCain- Kennedy bill and the profound threat this legislation poses to continued health care coverage for millions of Americans. For now, let me begin by highlighting the major flaws in this significantly flawed bill. Problem No. 1, the McCain bill will dramatically increase health care costs and will take away the health insurance of more than a million Americans. The new costs this bill imposes will be paid by everybody who has health insurance. The lucky ones will just pay more. The unlucky ones will lose their coverage. That price is simply too high. Next, the cost of this bill will hit small businesses and small business employees particularly hard. Without the clout of larger companies, small businesses right now face higher prices and have more difficult administrative hurdles when they try to buy health care. While this makes it far more difficult for small businesses to provide health care, millions of small companies try to find a way and do it anyway. I fear that will dramatically change if the McCain-Kennedy bill passes. Since late last week when it was announced that we would be debating the McCain-Kennedy bill, my office has been inundated with letters, calls, and faxes from small businesses in Missouri. The message has been unanimous. Missouri's small businesses are struggling to provide health care despite high costs. They fear what the Kennedy-McCain bill will do to their ability to pay for health care. Many say they will drop their coverage if McCain-Kennedy passes. This is not just a phenomenon related to my State. This is what we in the Committee on Small Business are hearing from across the country. Let me read excerpts from one of the many letters I have received. I will not use his name, but I want to give you a flavor by telling about the important parts of the letter. He says: I am writing this letter in regard to Senator Kennedy's Patients' Bill of Rights, S. 283. My family owns a small agriculture business selling certain kinds of farm equipment and lawn equipment with a fully staffed sales, parts, and service department. I offer health care coverage to my employees and paid 100 percent on the premiums until about 5 years ago when our health care costs got too high to continue. So I went to 50 percent on both the employees and their dependents, thus helping our business but strapping my employees with added costs to raise their families. This year our health insurance went up 34 percent. Last year, it was only 24 percent. But where is this going to stop? How am I, as a business owner who has 23 families depending on me for their livelihood, supposed to make a profit in order to pay them a livable wage and benefit package in a severely depressed agriculture economy while our liberal Government leaders are trying to further increase my expenses? If these costs escalate much further, I anticipate that I will have to drop my health plan altogether, especially if I am to be held responsible for medical court cases. I will, at a minimum, drop my group health coverage and think very long and hard about closing down and counting my interest and rent checks instead of continuing to run this business. We need relief from Government regulations that are sucking all the profits out of our organizations causing us to employ one person to do nothing but Government paperwork. We need to eliminate the death tax or inheritance tax. Please just say no to Kennedy care disasters. From time to time during the debate on this bill I will read from other letters from Missouri businesses to remind us of the real-world impact of this legislation. On this chart, I have an up to the minute count of the employees of Missouri's small businesses that would, as I understand, lose their health care coverage if McCain-Kennedy passes. These are letters from small businesses in Missouri that say that, as of this date, if Kennedy-McCain passes, they will drop their health care plan. Our running total on the number of employees who will lose health care if this bill is signed into law right now is 1,042. That may not seem to be a lot, but that is a tremendous burden on those employees and their families. These are real people. These are the ones who will be totally unprotected if we pass the McCain-Kennedy legislation. Rest assured that I will seek opportunities during this debate to find ways to shield small businesses and employees from the most outrageous aspects of this legislation. I don't think anybody intended to cause health care coverage to be dropped. That was certainly not my understanding of the objective of this bill, but sometimes what we do here in Washington has unintended consequences. Very often the unintended consequences are far greater than the beneficial consequences. Cost-benefit is something we neglect too often. I intend to make sure my colleagues focus on the costs as well as the benefits. A second problem of the McCain-Kennedy bill is that it focuses too much on lawsuits and trial attorneys by encouraging endless litigation. Lawsuits are an avenue for retrospective blame and incrimination after someone claims they are harmed. Lawsuits in no way contribute to high- quality care. Instead of turning health care over to lawyers, the focus should be on making sure patients get the care when they need it before any harm occurs. When you are sick, you want to see a doctor--not a lawyer. When I hear about all of these protections from subsequent lawsuits, I am not very interested in leaving my heirs with a bunch of lawsuit claims against a bunch of defendants if I am gone. I want to have a bill that makes sure that I can get the kind of care I need when I am really sick. That is what I think the American people have a right to ask. A third problem of this bill is that it nationalizes the regulation of health care. State governments have traditionally overseen health care and health insurance, and, as I mentioned, every State in the Nation has done something in this area. They have tried different ways. Many of them have done good jobs. I believe it was Justice Douglas who said ours is a laboratory where States perform experiments to see which legislation works best. The States have been out there doing it. In fact, as I said, every State has passed some type of State level patient protection act. Now the McCain-Kennedy bill comes along and threatens to impose a one-size- fits-all scheme that will do away with most or all of the tried and tested State law reforms. Some of them may be better than others. We will not know if we pass the McCain-Kennedy bill that eliminates all the State options. Even worse, it will turn over much of the new Federal regulation of insurance to the Health Care Financing Administration, one of the most heavyhanded, unresponsive, arrogant bureaucracies in all of Washington. I have spoken in this Chamber before about the Health Care Financing Administration. A couple of years ago, the Health Care Financing Administration was overzealous in its effort to cut the cost of home health care. Instead of saving the $16 billion that Congress asked it to save, it is on the path to saving $60 billion by shutting down health care provided in homes. As chairman of the Committee on Small Business, I was contacted by many small entities providing home health care services. I set up the hearing. I invited the representatives of these home health care agencies who believed they were being unfairly treated by HCFA to come to Washington. A number of my colleagues wanted to testify. I invited HCFA to come and listen to their comments and provide their response. It seems reasonable, doesn't it? You have a Government bureaucracy that is the subject of all kinds of outrage. You let the people come in and tell what they see as the problem. Then you give the bureaucracy an opportunity to respond, to tell their side of the story. Do you know what HCFA said? They didn't want to sit around and listen to the complaints of those they regulate. They would be happy to testify if they could testify along with other Senators. I forgot to check to see how many States elected the officials of HCFA to serve in the Senate. The best I can tell, none. This is the agency that would tell State governments what kinds of health care provisions they could have. I don't think so. That is not the way we need to go. Finally, in what I think is a major oversight in the Kennedy-McCain bill, it doesn't do a single thing to help Americans get access to health coverage. At the same time, it is threatening coverage from millions of Americans. If we are going to do harm, we ought to be prepared to help. That is why I intend to continue with my effort of introducing an amendment that will immediately allow self-employed Americans, including the 34.8 million uninsured Americans in families headed by a self-employed individual, to fully deduct their health insurance expenses. Patients need protection through a Patients' Bill of Rights. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The right way limits itself to commonsense reforms that help patients get care when they need it. The wrong way--the McCain-Kennedy way--encourages endless litigation, nationalizes health care oversight, and takes away insurance coverage from more than 1 million Americans. There are some people who say this bill is a lawyers' bill of rights, not a Patients' Bill of Rights. What is wrong with the right to sue? The McCain-Kennedy bill is a trial lawyer's dream that will raise health care costs, subject our health care system to frivolous lawsuits, and will make trial attorneys rich. Despite Democratic insistence, this will put employers at risk of being sued. The so- called cap on damages in the McCain-Kennedy bill is practically worthless because it applies only in one area and leaves a variety of other types of damages uncapped. There are no caps on attorneys' fees and the outrageous contingency fees many trial lawyers force on their clients. What types of lawsuits should we allow? Because of the destructive capacity of plaintiffs' attorneys, we must be extremely cautious with any new lawsuits. I realize there are some situations where we need to expand the right to sue, but first everything must flow through an appeals process through which a patient can go outside the HMO to get an expert's second opinion. Before we resort to lawsuits--which can't provide care--we must ask patients to complete this appeals process because it can result in a patient getting care. And that is what we should be talking about. But if a health insurer doesn't comply with a independent expert decision that a patient should get care, on it acts in bad faith or extreme negligence by denying care that the independent expert says is needed, the patient should be allowed to sue for damages. The McCain-Kennedy bill limits punitive damages--although they call it a ``civil assessment'' to $5 million in the new Federal lawsuits their bill will allow. But economic and noneconomic damages in Federal lawsuits are still uncapped. It won't be hard for trial lawyers to find ways to milk these alternative types of uncapped damages for all they are worth. At the State level, the McCain-Kennedy bill does nothing to impose caps on damages, even for punitive damages. While some States have their own damage caps for malpractice lawsuits, in many States these caps won't apply to the new lawsuits and the new Federalization of State health insurance regulation permitted under the McCain-Kennedy bill. Bottom line--the caps in the McCain-Kennedy bill barely provide even a fig leaf of protection for those who will be sued. The State-level health care liability system that exists for doctors has failed. It dramatically increases costs through defensive medicine. It encourages doctors to quit the profession. And not only does it not encourage quality care, it hinders quality care by creating a code of silence that prevents health professionals from talking about how to systematically avoid medical mistakes. Studies show that most people who get negligently harmed in health care do not get compensated, and those that are compensated are often not harmed. Again, studies show that whether or not a patient was negligently harmed has almost no connection to whether they get compensated. The American tort system is like a lottery in which most patients lose, a handful of patients win big on a random basis, and trial lawyers strike it rich by raking off the top of each lawsuit. This is a huge flaw in the system to which the Kennedy-McCain bill will subject us even more. Some supporters of the McCain-Kennedy bill claim their bill exempts employers from the new lawsuits permitted by the bill. That is a great line. My colleagues pointed out, on page 144 it says: This ``does not authorize a cause of action against an employer or other plan sponsor maintaining the plan . . .'' That is the good news. The bad news comes in the next paragraph. It says: (B) Certain Causes of Action Permitted. Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), a cause of action may arise against an employer or other plan sponsor . . .'' And then it lists the exceptions. It goes down this page, goes down this page, goes down this page, goes down this page, and comes over to this page. Those are the exceptions. That is what happens to you if you are an employer. That is why, with four pages of exceptions, a lot of employers of small businesses in my State and around the country are simply going to have to get out of the business of providing health care. It scares the heck out of them, and it should. As we heard from small businesses, this is their concern. They want good health care for their employees, but they cannot afford to stay in business and expose themselves to the lottery of a tort system out of control. If employers are so well protected, why are they scared? Well, simply, they are not exempt. If the right to sue is so great, why not provide all employees the right to sue--Federal Government workers, seniors in Medicare, all of the other causes? We look at it, and it is probably too expensive for the Federal Government. Think of what it is for the patients who are employees of small businesses. If they lose their health care coverage, it does little good for them to know that maybe--just maybe--they would have had the right to sue. We are having the right debate, but the McCain-Kennedy bill is the wrong solution. I urge my colleagues to take a look at this seriously flawed legislation and to help us improve it. If we succeed in making substantial changes, I hope we will pass a dramatically different bill that represents a more reasonable and affordable approach. I thank the Chair and yield the floor to my distinguished colleague from Tennessee.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to introduce the Small Business Liability Protection Act of 2001. This bill will provide a lifeline for the thousands of small business owners threatened by lawsuits and litigation under the broken Superfund liability system. Joining me in introducing this legislation are Senators Reid, Smith, Kerry, Warner, Chafee, Cleland, Landrieu, Ensign, and Wyden. The bill is simple. All this bill does is protect those who contributed very small amounts of waste, or waste no different than common household garbage, to a Superfund site. The bill will also speed up the process for handling those little fish with a limited ability to pay towards a Superfund site's cleanup. The exact same version of this bill passed the House unanimously in May and I am proud to have similar bipartisan support for this Senate version. We have members from both the Environment Committee and the Small Business Committee supporting this bill at introduction and I encourage all my colleagues to join our effort. My bill will not let polluters off the hook. This common-sense proposal will make the Superfund program a little more reasonable and workable. With this legislation, we can begin to provide some relief to small business owners who are held hostage by potential Superfund liability. For years now, members from both sides of the aisle have said that the Superfund program is broken, it doesn't work, it must be reformed. Unfortunately we haven't gotten past the rhetoric to fix the problem. Instead of making changes that will produce results that are better for the taxpayers, better for the environment, and more efficient for everyone involved--government agencies, Federal bureaucrats, and Congress have protected this troubled and inefficient program from meaning reform. As Washington has played politics with the Superfund program, innocent Main Street small business owners across the nation, the engine of our economy, continue to be unfairly pulled into Superfund's legal quagmire. We now have the opportunity to put all of that behind us and move forward with bipartisan, common-sense reform. Let's put a human face on this: recently, just across the Missouri border--in Quincy, Illinois--160 small business owners were asked to pay the EPA more than $3 million for garbage legally hauled to a dump more than 20 years ago. The situation in Quincy is just one example of the very real, ongoing Superfund legal threat to small business owners across the nation. We all know that Superfund was created to clean up the Nation's most- hazardous waste sites. Superfund was not created to have small business owners sued for simply throwing out their trash! These small business owners are faced with so many challenges already, that the thousands of dollars in penalties and lawsuits leave them with no choice but to mortgage their businesses, their employees and their future to pay for the bills of a broken government program. How many times will we tell ourselves that this unacceptable situation must be fixed before we act? Small business owners literally cannot afford to wait around while we delay action on the common-sense fixes required to protect them and our environment. Is this legislation everything I would like to see. No. But this bill does move us in the direction we need to go to ensure cleanup, fairness, and progress in reforming the Superfund program. In recognition of our small businesses around the country, I introduce this bill and look forward to ensuring speedy adoption of this long overdue legislation.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to introduce the Small Business Liability Protection Act of 2001. This bill will provide a lifeline for the thousands of small business owners threatened by lawsuits and litigation under the broken Superfund liability system. Joining me in introducing this legislation are Senators Reid, Smith, Kerry, Warner, Chafee, Cleland, Landrieu, Ensign, and Wyden. The bill is simple. All this bill does is protect those who contributed very small amounts of waste, or waste no different than common household garbage, to a Superfund site. The bill will also speed up the process for handling those little fish with a limited ability to pay towards a Superfund site's cleanup. The exact same version of this bill passed the House unanimously in May and I am proud to have similar bipartisan support for this Senate version. We have members from both the Environment Committee and the Small Business Committee supporting this bill at introduction and I encourage all my colleagues to join our effort. My bill will not let polluters off the hook. This common-sense proposal will make the Superfund program a little more reasonable and workable. With this legislation, we can begin to provide some relief to small business owners who are held hostage by potential Superfund liability. For years now, members from both sides of the aisle have said that the Superfund program is broken, it doesn't work, it must be reformed. Unfortunately we haven't gotten past the rhetoric to fix the problem. Instead of making changes that will produce results that are better for the taxpayers, better for the environment, and more efficient for everyone involved--government agencies, Federal bureaucrats, and Congress have protected this troubled and inefficient program from meaning reform. As Washington has played politics with the Superfund program, innocent Main Street small business owners across the nation, the engine of our economy, continue to be unfairly pulled into Superfund's legal quagmire. We now have the opportunity to put all of that behind us and move forward with bipartisan, common-sense reform. Let's put a human face on this: recently, just across the Missouri border--in Quincy, Illinois--160 small business owners were asked to pay the EPA more than $3 million for garbage legally hauled to a dump more than 20 years ago. The situation in Quincy is just one example of the very real, ongoing Superfund legal threat to small business owners across the nation. We all know that Superfund was created to clean up the Nation's most- hazardous waste sites. Superfund was not created to have small business owners sued for simply throwing out their trash! These small business owners are faced with so many challenges already, that the thousands of dollars in penalties and lawsuits leave them with no choice but to mortgage their businesses, their employees and their future to pay for the bills of a broken government program. How many times will we tell ourselves that this unacceptable situation must be fixed before we act? Small business owners literally cannot afford to wait around while we delay action on the common-sense fixes required to protect them and our environment. Is this legislation everything I would like to see. No. But this bill does move us in the direction we need to go to ensure cleanup, fairness, and progress in reforming the Superfund program. In recognition of our small businesses around the country, I introduce this bill and look forward to ensuring speedy adoption of this long overdue legislation.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the acting manager. I thank the Chair. I want to talk about an amendment that I introduced some time ago and which we will vote on later this afternoon. The amendment itself is not very difficult and not very complex. It doesn't have a major change. But it represents a watershed development in education. Parents for a long time have marveled at how fast their children learn when they are very young and how they pick up things--not just things off the floor but how they learn language and how they learn many other things. Research has verified what all of us have known instinctively for a long time--that the first years of life are absolutely crucial in the development of a child's intelligence, habits, and the entire approach to life. The early years have a significant bearing on development and especially on the learning of each child. Infant brain development occurs very rapidly. The sensations and experiences of this time go a very long way towards shaping the baby's mind in a way that has a long- lasting impact on all aspects of the child's life. You can think, if you have been a parent, or if you are parents, about how fast they learn in the first 3 years. A baby learns to walk, to talk, and to interact with others. As a matter of fact, an astounding figure I heard was that half a child's mature intelligence is developed by 3 years of age. During those first 3 years that a child learns, it absorbs so much that it is half of what he or she is going to know for the rest of their life. The early months of growth, understanding, reasoning, and learning can never be brought back or redone again. Once they are gone, they are gone. The early years of a child's development are not just rehearsal. That is the whole show. That is the opening act. That sets the stage and the pace of their entire life's path. Parents and families are key to the early development of a child. Through the amendment that I offer today, we seek to focus on support of parents and family education for young children. This amendment provides a clarification to title VI, part A of the substitute. It simply states that early childhood and early childhood parent education are eligible for funding and that early childhood means zero, or birth, to 5 years of age. The amendment is no new money, and it doesn't authorize any new program. People think learning begins at kindergarten. By kindergarten children are halfway through their learning process in their entire life. Who best to teach that child in the first 3 formative years than the parents? We must focus on the early years of a child's life as well as on the years of formal schooling. We can emphasize and champion this early involvement. My amendment proposes to do just that by supporting successful early childhood programs and initiatives that are working at local and State levels throughout this country. We spend so much time talking about how to improve our public schools, which we must do, and this bill attempts to do that. We talk about improving school performance for students, reducing violence in schools, and all of that we must do. But I think we can reduce the amount of time we spend trying to fix, repair, and cure these problems if we get the job done right at the first stage. A key to this successful prevention is parental involvement at the time most essential in the child's development. The organization, which in my State of Missouri has been doing an outstanding job--and it is being done nationwide--is something called Parents as Teachers. I will refer to it as PAT. It is an early childhood education program and family support program designed to empower all parents, regardless of their income levels, to give their child the best possible start in life. PAT is now in all 50 States and 6 foreign countries. My involvement with Parents as Teachers began in 1979. Then commissioner of elementary and secondary education, Arthur Mallory, who worked for me the previous term when I had been Governor, came to talk to me about a very interesting and challenging program they had begun based on the work of some of the researchers and scholars who had looked at the Head Start Program. He said they were finding out that what a parent does in those first 3 years was vitally important as they stimulate the child's learning intelligence. Curiosity is the basis of it. That was 1979. I started talking about that and ran a successful campaign for Governor in 1980. In 1981, our first son was born. You talk about an old dog trying to learn new tricks. I had just bought a new car, and they gave me a manual about that thick of what to do with the new car. We came home from the hospital with a new baby. They gave us a supply of diapers and told us to be sure to use a child's seat. I said that is a little bit mistaken as to the emphasis we ought to put on preparing children and making sure that parents are ready for the challenge of raising a child. We had, fortunately, access to many initiatives that had been developed in this program, The program was not statewide at the time. It was, in fact, in the initial stages. The scholars, including Dr. Burton White, had written several thoughtful books. We read those books. We learned from them what was supposed to be happening. The interesting thing was it made it a lot easier for us to work with our son to understand what he was doing. I recommended it to the Missouri General Assembly. They did not pass it in 1981. They didn't pass it in 1982. They did not pass it in 1983. But being stubborn, I came back in 1984, and we pointed out to them that this not only prepared the child for learning--my director of corrections came before the committee giving testimony on the bill and said this was the most important thing we could do for the long-term future of our State: reduce the population of our corrections system by getting parents involved and making sure that children were off to a good learning start; making sure that parents were responsible for their children. In 1982, I set up something called the Children's Trust Fund Commission to help reduce child abuse. We had 25 eminent children's leaders from the ministry, education, and health around the State who studied how to prevent child abuse. They came back in 1984 with the unanimous recommendation to adopt Parents as Teachers to help the families know how to deal with the challenges of raising a child. I have always had a theory that if you have a toddler in your house, at some point if that toddler doesn't drive you absolutely nuts, either, A, the toddler is not normal, or, B, you are not normal. Parents as Teachers can teach how you can constructively use that curiosity, that enthusiasm, and that burgeoning intelligence and shift it in the right direction. Fortunately, after a bit of cajoling, a little wheeling and dealing, and a few side deals that I will not mention here, the Missouri General Assembly adopted Parents as Teaches as the statewide program in 1984. It has gone statewide. Each year it is a voluntary participation program, available in all 500-plus school districts in Missouri. And 150,000 families, with 200,000 children, participate in the program. Now the program is working throughout the country. The State of Tennessee has 20 program sites, Massachusetts has 7 program sites, Nevada has 13 program sites, Mississippi has 32 program sites, South Dakota has 20 Parents as Teachers Program sites; our neighbors in Kansas have 222 program sites; Illinois has 132 program sites. As I said, PAT is a voluntary participation program. It is tailored to empower parents to know how to deal constructively with their children. Sometimes it is included as part of Even Start, another title 1 program. PAT and Head Start in Missouri have a great partnership to ensure that all children get off to a great start. Some said at the beginning, why, this is a good program for people on Medicaid or people on TANF, and other programs. And that is true. But it is a program that works for every family, the so-called ``successful'' family, with two working parents--two professionals, working full time, who never have enough time for their families. But with this program they know how to use that time constructively. As a father, I never looked forward to playing the typical father role, which is where somebody says: If you don't behave, when your father gets home, you're really going to get it. I did not intend to be a father so I could be the one to bring out the hairbrush. There was a paddle when I got home. But Parents as Teachers taught me what I could do constructively to help my child be more curious and begin the learning process. Studies and reports have shown that PAT children at age 3 are significantly more advanced than the comparison children in language, problem solving, and social development. Often, through participation in PAT, learning problems or developmental delays or disabilities are identified and treated early. This is one of the great things. They have screening in the program, and they identify minor hearing defects which can, if not corrected, put a child behind as much as a year by the time that child reaches first grade. I had an eyesight problem when I was little. It wasn't identified until I was in the sixth grade. It was too late to help it then. Each year the program has been in effect, they have identified that eye problem; they have been able to correct it because they identified it before the child reached 2 years of age. Some people, when opposing Parents as Teachers, say it is subversive; that the Government is trying to come in and take over the children. The Government is not trying to come in and take over the children. But there is a subversive element that I have learned; that is, once you teach a parent how to do a better job with the child's learning intelligence, you get that parent hooked on the child's education. A parent goes in thinking: Gee, this will help me control my child. The parent comes out being involved, supporting and participating in the child's education. And most people will tell you that the most important thing a parent can do is to stay involved with the child's education. We all know we can have all the programs in the world and can provide all the funding possible, but one of the main ingredients on which we must focus to assure a child's success in school is parental involvement. Earlier this year I received a copy of a report from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The report was entitled ``School Entry Assessment Project.'' Some of the findings really piqued my interest. The findings of the report are as follows: No. 1, when Parents as Teachers is combined with any other prekindergarten experience for high-poverty children, the children score above average on all scales when they enter kindergarten. No. 2, the highest performing children participate in PAT and preschool or center care. Among children who participate in PAT and attend preschool, both minority and nonminority children score above average. Children in both high-poverty and low-poverty schools who participate in PAT and attend preschool score above average when they enter kindergarten. No. 3, among children whose care and education are solely home-based, those whose families participate in PAT score significantly higher. No. 4, special needs children who participate in PAT and preschool, in addition to an early childhood special education program, are rated by teachers as being similar in preparation to the average child. Finally, Head Start children who also participate in PAT and other preschool activities score at average or above when they enter kindergarten. These findings sum it all up. PAT works. PAT works for children raised in households of all income levels. PAT works for children who are homeschooled, children who have special needs. My amendment, which I urge my colleagues to support, makes certain that priority is given to programs such as PAT and other early childhood and parent education programs. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I would be honored.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize one of the greatest air-superiority Wings in the Nation and its great leaders. On June 9th, 2001 Colonel Michael G. Brandt assumes command of the 131st Fighter Wing, Lambert Field, Missouri from Colonel Bob Edmonds. This Wing has tremendous aviation history and has 1,300 citizen-airmen who are dedicated and committed to service of their Nation. The 131st Fighter Wing's mission is to achieve and maintain air superiority with the F-15 Eagle--the finest air superiority plane in the world today. The Wing has been called into service to battle the ``Great Flood'' of 1993 and has deployed to Incirlik, Turkey in support of Operation Northern Watch. The Wing has also supported Aerospace Expeditionary Force Operations, deploying to Southeast Asia and Europe to support Operation Southern Watch. The accomplishments of the leadership and the men and women of this Wing have maintained the great heritage of Lambert Field, and kept it one of the finest Wings in the Nation. Colonel Edmonds will relinquish command of the 131st to Colonel Brandt. Colonel Edmonds graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1979 as a distinguished graduate and the top cadet in the Civil Engineering major. He was selected for a Guggenheim Fellowship at Columbia University and graduated in 1980 with a Master of Science Degree in Civil Engineering. Colonel Edmonds completed Undergraduate Pilot Training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi, as a distinguished graduate, and was selected to fly the F-15 Eagle. He has served in numerous flying positions, both as an instructor pilot and a commander, and led 45 combat missions with the 53rd Tactical Fighter Squadron during Operation Desert Storm. Colonel Edmonds deserves our utmost thanks too for his tremendous leadership of the 131st. The men and women of the unit and the community will be forever grateful for his contributions and patriotism. We will soon be seeing Colonel Edmonds on a much more regular basis, as he will be walking the halls of Congress as the Chief of Senate Legislative Affairs. His tremendous success will certainly follow him there and I know we all look forward to working with him in that capacity. Assuming command of the 131st is certainly a highlight in Colonel Brandt's career. He graduated from Officer Candidate School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas over 30 years ago. Since then, his career flourished as he piloted the F-4, becoming a Veteran of conflicts from Vietnam to Operation Northern Watch. He is also a graduate of the legendary U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School. Colonel Brandt joined the Missouri National Guard over 20 years ago. During that time he served in every capacity of Operations. He was the Squadron Commander of the 101st Fighter Squadron and the Operations Group Commander and Vice Wing Commander of the 131st Fighter Wing. His dedication and talents were recognized along the way and as a reward he was given ever increasing responsibility. He will now receive the ultimate reward, command of the 131st. There is no doubt he is the best choice to command the 131st. His exemplary record and knowledge of the Missouri National Guard, the Wing, and the community make him the right leader, ready to provide ``Air Superiority--Anywhere, Anytime.'' I am sure my colleagues will join me in thanking both Colonel Edmonds and Colonel Brandt for their service to this great Nation and extend our best wishes for continued success.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions recently released a new report titled ``All Children Need Children's Hospitals'' that explores how essential children's hospitals are to the health of all children. The report highlights the fact that--whether they ever enter a children's hospital or not--all children benefit from the far-reaching work of children's hospitals. In the clinical care area, freestanding children's hospitals--which make up less than 1 percent of all hospitals--treat a disproportionately large share of children with highly specialized or complex conditions. For example, 46 percent of children with cancer, 45 percent of the children with cystic fibrosis, and 52 percent of children needing heart or lung transplants are cared for by these hospitals. In their own communities, these percentages jump even higher. In addition to providing the most specialized and medically advanced care available, children's hospitals deliver preventive and primary care as well. They are the safety net hospital and community provider for low-income children. For example, across the Nation, more than 8 million outpatient visits and 1.6 million emergency room visits are made to children's hospitals and their community clinics annually. At Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, over 200,000 outpatient visits and more than 70,000 emergency/urgent care visits occurred in 2000. Medicaid accounts for more than 45 percent of the inpatient days at children's hospitals, which devote nearly half of their care to low- income children. In fact, a children's hospital, on average, provides 10 times as much inpatient care to low-income children as any other urban hospital. For all these children, the doctors, nurses and health professionals at children's hospitals take a family-centered approach to health care. Parents are considered partners in the care and treatment of their children. Children are made to feel comfortable and safe--feelings reinforced by in-room accommodations for families and age-appropriate patient rooms and playrooms. Doctors, pediatric nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, dentists, and child life specialists are among the health professionals taught by children's hospitals to put families first. Children's hospitals train a substantial number of our children's doctors. The freestanding children's hospitals--again, which comprise less than 1 percent of all hospitals--train 30 percent of all pediatricians, half of all pediatric specialists, and a substantial majority of pediatric researchers. Their teaching programs are essential to the future of the pediatric workforce and to the future of children's health care. The promise of biomedical research cannot be realized for children without researchers at the bench. The medical research and breakthrough discoveries conducted at children's hospitals benefit all children, preventing illnesses as well as advancing treatment. Children's hospitals have been the sites of many historic firsts, such as the discovery of polio vaccine. Children's hospitals have led the way in fetal surgery, transplants, advancements in cardiac treatment, and in the care of more common conditions such as asthma. Their contributions to cancer research have led to great progress in curing childhood cancers that were untreatable just a few decades ago. Together with pediatric departments of university medical centers, children's hospitals account for 30 percent of all NIH-funded pediatric research; and they train the great majority of future pediatric researchers. Virtually all children's hospitals participate in clinical trials or health services research. Research moves from bench to bedside rapidly at children's hospitals, allowing new discoveries to transform more children's lives for the better. And these discoveries not only benefit children, but adults as well. The answers to many costly and painful health problems that affect adults like diabetes and obesity, can often be found in childhood. And many of the principles discovered in the study and treatment of children diseases, such as cancer, have also been applicable to adults. Finally, children's hospitals' mission to improve the health of children throughout the nation doesn't stop at the hospital door. By developing innovative programs like ``SAFE KIDS,'' children's hospitals focus community attention on children's health issues, improving child health through prevention as well as cutting-edge care. They work with schools and communities to provide valuable services to children with special health care needs and children facing abuse. I understand that children's hospitals are for all children, perhaps better than most, because I have learned that from my children's hospitals at home. Missouri is blessed with top-notch children's hospitals. Their doors are open to any child in need of care. Their efforts in advocacy and community work are directed to the health care needs of all children. Their missions in education and research reach all children as well. Children are different. They are not small adults. And no institution knows this better than a children's hospital. They provide the highest quality medical care, day after day, to children from all parts of the country, from the most distant rural areas to the closest inner city neighborhoods. They are essential to the health and health care of children today and tomorrow.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from consideration of S. Res. 90, and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BOND. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I understand S. 964, introduced earlier today by Senators Kennedy, Akaka, and others, is at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent, following the remarks of Senator Torricelli, the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until the tax reconciliation conference report is received from the House of Representatives. It is anticipated the Senate will be able to begin consideration of the tax reconciliation conference report shortly after convening. As a reminder, there are up to 10 hours for debate on the conference report. Therefore, a vote is expected to occur late morning or tomorrow afternoon.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 26. I further ask unanimous consent that on Saturday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then begin a period of morning business with Senators speaking for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without any intervening action.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 139 received from the House.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, the nomination just confirmed, No. 145, Stephen Brauer to be Ambassador to Belgium, is a great personal pleasure for me. Stephen Brauer has been a terrific leader in the St. Louis community. He is a man who distinguished himself in Vietnam and won the Vietnam medal, who has served as honorary counsel to Belgium and has done business throughout Europe. He will be a great representative for the people of the United States. We wish him well as he goes to prepare for the visit of President Bush on June 13.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nominations en bloc: Nos. 79, 80, 81, 82, 99, 100, 101, 135 through 154, 156, 157, 160, 167, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk; and reported by the Commerce Committee, Timothy Muris, PN267. I also ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of the nomination of Donald Findlay, PN372, and the Senate proceed to its consideration. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nominations be printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a very important matter of national security. Today many thousands of Americans are spread across the globe defending our national interest and those of our close friends and allies. While risking their lives to keep America safe, American soldiers sailors, airmen and marines are not as ready for combat as they should be. History has taught us that the more prepared we are for war, the less likely potential enemies will be to risk war in pursuit of their own national objectives. Our ability to prevail in war is, therefore, one of the most critical elements of our deterrence strategy. That is why I rise today to introduce legislation that I believe will help us improve the combat readiness of our armed forces. Doing so will strengthen America's standing and security in the world and contribute to global stability. In recent years the topic of military readiness has received far more words than deeds. In all candor, we have talked this issue to death without being able to deliver for the troops who need our help. I think I know why. Words are far cheaper than the actions needed to restore a sharp edge to our combat forces. We know that we have problem with military readiness. It seems that every time we peel back the cheery assessments and closely examine the issue, we find that our military readiness is worse than advertised. Let me offer just a few examples. Today, the readiness level of too many of our aviation combat units is being maintained through cannibalization. One plane is striped of parts to keep others flying. The only problem with that is the practice actually accelerates the destruction of our combat readiness. A recent Navy investigation stated ``current readiness levels are being achieved through extensive cannibalization and the rates are increasing in every community we visited.'' In other words, we have a bunch of hangar queens that have been robbed of parts and are not able to fly to provide the practice or to carry out the missions for which they were intended. Because of a shortage in money, our fliers are going into harm's way with outdated electronic intelligence files. The Navy E-2C Hawkeyes carry intelligence files that, in some case, are between 5 and 9 years old. The electronic intelligence files aboard the EA-6B Prowler planes, our jammers, are updated only on a 2-to-6-year cycle. The missiles we use to kill enemy radars are not being updated with new electronic intelligence parametric files. The Army's Third Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart Georgia was recently dropped to the second lowest readiness rating. Just over a year ago, two other Army divisions, the 10th Mountain and First Mechanized Division were briefly dropped to the lowest readiness rating--meaning they were unready for war. These are three of the Army's ten active duty divisions. The Marine Corps cannot replace its antiquated equipment because it has to steal money from its modernization account to keep its combat edge sharp. Sadly, there is an endless parade of anecdotal evidence. And too often, the anecdotal reports that leak to the press are far more accurate indictors of the true state of military readiness than the Pentagon's own internal reporting system. The evidence strongly suggests we have not kept faith with our troops who risk their lives for us. And that is our top obligation--to keep up our part of the social compact with our servicemen and women, in exchange for their willingness to risk their lives we promise to equip and train our troops so they may quickly prevail in combat with as few casualties as possible. While we know all to well the problem we face, we have yet to build a national consensus of the solution. And make no mistake, that is what a problem of this scale requires--a national consensus. To do that, we need an objective assessment of military readiness conducted by non-partisan, military experts. It would measure the current state of our U.S. military readiness and also examine the effectiveness of the Pentagon's current readiness reporting system. Much like the CIA required an outside panel of ``Team B'' experts during the 1970s, I believe the Pentagon desperately needs an outside group of experts to look at the readiness books. I believe that this review will help senior Pentagon officials obtain the most accurate picture possible of the true state of military readiness today. Such a measurement will also help Congress build a baseline understanding of military readiness that we must have if we are to begin funding the military's operations and maintenance accounts at a sufficient level. Let me just say this: Secretary Rumsfeld's decision to reexamine our national military strategy, force structure and procurement strategy is the right thing to do. Indeed, it is long overdue and I commend the administration for its commitment to this effort. This is very important, but we cannot overlook combat readiness as the most critical index of our Nation's ability to defend itself, our interests and our allies' interests. Strategic competitors pay close attention to reports of deteriorating U.S. military readiness and we must not embolden them by ignoring these reports ourselves. Many military experts have also contended that many of the military's readiness problems would disappear if the Pentagon dropped its plans to fight and win two major regional wars at one time. However, some say that the Nation's ability to wage major wars on two fronts acts as an important deterrent to potentially hostile states like North Korea. Secretary Rumsfelds' review coupled with a military readiness review panel should enable us for once to answer effectively and address these issues--to come up with the right balance and solutions for our troops and for our Nation. The readiness system is intended to pinpoint war-fighting deficiencies in every unit's equipment, transportation system, personnel and training. By many accounts this system is arcane and inflexible and does not accurately depict the true state of readiness. It is time we reviewed this system and developed means to keep it the predictive and useful tool it was designed and intended to be. While we await the results of Secretary Rumsfeld's reviews, we already know that we have a persistent readiness problem that exacerbates other problems within the U.S. military, like manpower levels and morale. In a monthly readiness report the defense department sent to Congress in March, there was a list of ``strategic concerns'' about military readiness. This report indicated that despite some leveling off of declines in wartime preparedness, there is still an uphill battle to be fought to ensure U.S. Forces are ready for major operations. This report states that aviation readiness remains challenged by ``reduced aircraft mission-capable rates, parts shortages, and technical surprises and maintenance issues.'' Readiness involves very many distinct issues. First, it's making sure that we're providing the resources needed to maintain readiness. Second, it's making sure that we are gathering the right data and information so that we've got true pictures of readiness. Third, it's dealing quickly and effectively with readiness issues when they're detected. Several weeks ago I released an article describing the legislation I am proposing here. As a result, I have received numerous letters from constituents reiterating the need for this review board and citing examples of why it should be done. One letter was sent by a women who has a daughter and two friends who are serving on various Navy bases. In her letter she describes a situation where there are not enough spare parts to go around. Nothing new--except this effects her personally and causes her to worry constantly about her family and friends because they are spread too thin and lack the spare parts to do their job, thereby endangering them needlessly. At the end of the cold war, force structure and personnel end strength were drastically cut in all the services. At the same time, the Nation discovered that the post-cold war world is a complex, dangerous place. As a result, deployments for contingency operations, peacekeeping missions, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and counter-terrorism operations increased dramatically and our dependence on the armed services for their deployments continues to grow. While our military forces got smaller, they did not become more ready for combat. In fact, our peak military readiness was reached immediately following Desert Storm in 1991 and has slowly and steadily declined since. And that is inexcusable for a superpower. We have a responsibility to our citizens and to countless millions around the world whose physical safety and economic and political stability is guaranteed because of our military strength. The world looks to us, and so as I review this military readiness problem and search for a solution I am guided by the simple notion that our strength guarantees global peace. Our military strength provides the foundation for the global economy and provides the economic and political stability for so many parts of the world. This understanding must guide our efforts as we seek to rebuild our military to prevail in our next war. Our own history during this century has shown us that when we try to judge our military by its cost-efficiency during peacetime we invite disaster. This happened at the outset of the Second World War in North Africa. And we saw it again when Task Force Smith was shredded by the North Koreans in 1950. How may times must we relearn the lesson that the only true measure of military effectiveness is performance in wartime? I commend to my colleagues a brilliant editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Mark Helprin. He writes of the myopic view of peacetime civilians charged with budgeting their militaries. ``God save the American soldier from those who believe that his life can be protected and his mission accomplished on the cheap,'' wrote Mr. Helprin. ``For what they perceive as extravagance is always less costly in lives and treasure than the long drawn-out wars it deters or shortens with quick victories.'' I should explain that the bill I have introduced establishes a commission to be appointed by the Secretary of Defense with the concurrence of the chairs and ranking members of the authorizing appropriations committees to look at the issues of readiness and to be sure that they report to the Congress and to the United States, No. 1, on the status of readiness and, No. 2, on the reliability, or lack thereof, in the system set up to determine readiness. I respect the great work being done by the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. I have spoken with the chair and ranking members. We want to be a supplement to and a sounding board, perhaps, to provide a louder microphone or megaphone for the information determined in that Readiness Subcommittee. I hope my colleagues will look at this measure and join me in sponsoring it. I am pleased to ask unanimous consent that the distinguished occupant of the chair, the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Roberts, be listed as a cosponsor. I invite other colleagues who have an interest in this to look at it and join with me. I hope and trust we can have a strong bipartisan effort to achieve something which should be the goal and the objective of all of us. I ask unanimous consent that two articles be printed in the Record.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes for the purpose of introducing legislation.