Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will my friend yield to me for just a moment?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Republican leader for making his remarks concise. I do really appreciate the opportunity given to me by Senator Kennedy to manage the opposition to this amendment. The reason I feel very strongly about it is that this amendment is not about the Boy Scouts. My kids were Scouts. I will never forget that. They are really old now. I am a grandmother now. But I remember when they were in their uniforms. My kids were Scouts. This amendment is not about Scouts because the Supreme Court has already ruled that the Boy Scouts have the absolute right to take their programs into the public schools. That issue has been resolved. So I believe--and I am going to reserve my time, and I will explain why I have reached this conclusion--that this amendment is unnecessary; that it is gratuitous. It is hurtful to a group of people. It divides us again as a country. It brings in this Chamber an issue that divides us, that hurts people, and I believe--and Senator Murray is going to speak to us as a former school board member with a tremendous amount of authority on this--it is a slap at local control, something my friends on the other side of the aisle revere. So I hope in the course of this debate--and I know we go uphill when this comes up--we face the facts of what this is about. I hope, in the course of debate, people will look inside their hearts to decide what this amendment is really about. It is not about the Boy Scouts having the ability to meet in public schools. That has been determined. It is about hurting a whole group of people, a minority in this country, for absolutely no good reason. I hope people will have the courage to come to this Chamber, to speak out, to be heard, to lift up this debate, and that we will have a good vote against this amendment. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to my friend and colleague from Washington.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that be the order.

Mrs. BOXER. And then go to Senator Inhofe. Is that acceptable?

Mrs. BOXER. Perhaps I could make a quick unanimous consent request. I am going to speak for 2 minutes and then ask Senator Murray if she would really open the debate with about--how many minutes does the Senator need?

Mrs. BOXER. Senator Murray and I are hanging on your every word and we want to hear.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, may I ask my friend to yield for a moment. It is very difficult to hear the Senator. Would you be willing to hold your microphone because it is very difficult for us to hear your presentation.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. In fact, I decided not to do the sense of the Senate. We did the real thing. This Senate voted with about 60 votes to increase the funding for afterschool. We actually did a real amendment, not just a sense of the Senate, and for the first time in history this Senate actually voted to increase the funding. The reason I asked my friend to yield, if he would be willing to give me a minute of his time, I will pose a question. It has been a struggle, as he knows, because he has led the fight. When I came here, I joined him in this fight. We knew it did not take rocket science to understand that our kids are getting into trouble after school. We now have the exact percentages. That is why the police all over the country, as was pointed out, support this. We know it does help kids with their academic performance, although that is not the main reason we have afterschool. We know, as has been pointed out, there is an overwhelming number of applications for these grants. Now, finally, under President Clinton, we have seen this program go from $10 million to $600 million; and now with the amendment my friend helped me with, it is over $1 billion, and we will be able to help millions of kids. My question is, On the one hand, how can we vote to support real funding for this program and then turn around and vote to take it away and put it into some nebulous experiment which may turn out to be great--I have my problems with it--or may not? By the way, John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, my primary cosponsor, told a moving story about how he used to get in trouble as a kid. He had no place to go. He had a single mom. We take this stand, make a wonderful statement, and put real dollars behind it. Is it not the case we turn around and pull some of that money out; and isn't that just a contradiction in how we feel about afterschool?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we have been working for 7 or 8 weeks on this bill. What is wonderful about it is we have worked on it under the Republican leadership and now under the Democratic leadership. What we have done is quite extraordinary. We have truly made education a priority in this Nation. This chart lists all of the good things we have added to this bill over and above the Bush budget. Members from both sides of the aisle have added these amendments, whether afterschool, IDEA, title I, teacher quality. I don't even have time to go through the whole list in a minute. In our amendment, the Schumer-Boxer amendment, we are saying we should fund this bill. We should fund these programs. We should lift these kids up and deliver on the rhetoric and the promises we have made. It is a very simple amendment. I urge the support of Members.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER. I hope my colleagues will support the Schumer amendment. I thank my colleague from New York.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, when the Senator from New Mexico tells these two Senators--who have a simple sense of the Senate that we agree only carries moral authority, doesn't tell them exactly what to do--we are overstepping our bounds, I have to say that is amazing to me because that is coming from my friend--I served with him on the Budget Committee for many years--who actually gave power to the chairmen of the committees to say what the appropriate level should be for military spending and ag expending. I do not see it. You will note, that committee did not stand up for education. They said we could have a piece of the extra $6 billion that may be lying around. All we are saying is, give education a chance to be fully funded.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I think this is really where the rubber meets the road. Are we serious about the work we have accomplished? I went over this in great detail. I don't know if the Chair can read this from his seat. I have listed all the bipartisan programs that we have added to this bill, beautiful programs such as IDEA, increasing funding, teacher quality, some of these my colleague worked very hard on himself, mental health programs, these were all added in a bipartisan fashion. It adds up here to $10 billion more than is in the Bush budget. We know that we even have done more. The Schumer-Boxer amendment is important because what we say is all of this hard work, all of this coming together, all of this bipartisanship, all of this work for the children of America should be funded. Very simply put, that is exactly what Senator Schumer and I are doing in this amendment. It is a sense of the Senate. What is the argument that the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, has lodged against the Schumer-Boxer amendment? First he looked at the Senator from New York, and I guess the Senator will remember, and he said: I hope the Senator from New York will relax and we will all have a happy afternoon. Then he went on to say: It is impossible to fund this. That is not a happy afternoon for any of us who care about kids. But I also want to say to my friend from New York, do not relax until every child in New York, every child in New Jersey, every child in California, every child in Mississippi, Louisiana and every other State has a good quality public education. I hope you will not listen to that advice. I hope you will stay focused, as you always do, on these issues and keep giving us these kinds of amendments so we make sure we mean what we say and we say what we mean. The Senator from New Mexico said some other things too. He said to the Senator from New York and to the Senator from California: You can't tell the Appropriations Committee what to do. That is ridiculous. And in your amendment you are saying, fund these programs to the extent of the authorization. We are not telling them what to do. We are passing a sense of the Senate. One, we are not telling them what to do. We are asking them to consider the sense of the Senate that these programs should be fully funded. I want to make another point and I wish the Senator from New Mexico was on the floor. His comments were really disingenuous. He was chairman of the Budget Committee when the Budget Committee came out with the budget. Do you know what he did? My friend from New York knows it well. He not only set the size of the tax cut, which the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over, but he also made that whole debate filibuster-proof. Did he tell us what to do? Oh, yes, he did. Did he also make sure that agriculture spending would be protected? He sure did. Do you know that the chairman of the Budget Committee had the authority to decide the increases in agriculture, not the Appropriations Committee, and do you know that the chairman of the Budget Committee--it is no longer Senator Domenici; it is now Senator Conrad, a sort of twist of fate--said that the chairman of the Budget Committee is now going to decide how much we are going to spend on the military. So when the Senator from New Mexico chastises the Senator from New York and the Senator from California and says----

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New York. As usual, he has really cut through a lot of the fussiness surrounding this debate and made the point clear. That is why I was so proud to team up with him. All we are saying in this amendment is, fund the programs you just voted to fund. It is as simple as that. And just so everybody understands it, I will explain it one more time. In every program that we put forward in the Federal Government, no matter what it is, you basically have an authorization, which is the nod. It says to the appropriators: It is OK to fund the military up to this amount; it is OK to fund education up to this amount, highways up to this amount. That is the authorization. The next step that makes it all a reality is the funding, the actual funding of those programs. That is called appropriations. So the Schumer-Boxer amendment simply says--and I am going to say it in his words because they come from the heart and soul of Brooklyn, NY--put your money where your mouth is. Everyone understands what that means. We can all give the greatest speeches coming out of our mouths--golden words, beautiful words. What does it mean if you do not back it up with reality, with substance, and, in this case, with funding? It doesn't mean anything for amendments to pass and then not to fund them. I guess the senatorial way to say it would be, fulfill your commitments that you made on this ESEA bill. That is all it says. We have been debating this for weeks. Senator Domenici's alternative to Schumer-Boxer essentially says: All this was wasted time. We are not going to fund all of this. We are just going to go back to the President's budget which shorts all of these programs. The next chart shows what we have voted to fund in this bill. By the way, I have not included everything, but Senator Collins will recognize this because she worked hard on some of these items. Senator Cochran will recognize it because he worked hard on this, as well as Senators Lincoln, Akaka, Mikulski, Reed, and Domenici. I worked with Senator Ensign. These are quite bipartisan. As a matter of fact, the first one, title I, full funding, is a Dodd-Collins amendment. So look at what we have done. The authorizing level we just passed for the current year is $15 billion, and the Bush budget is $9 billion. So there is a gap we need to fill. IDEA, which is for special education, the kids who need the help, it is funded at $8.8 billion for next year; the President's budget is $7.3 billion. There is a shortfall. Continuing the list: Teacher quality, $3 billion compared to $2.6 billion; the Boxer-Ensign bill on afterschool, $1.5 billion compared to $846 million; grants for enhanced testing, $200 million, a new program; math and science education, Dick Durbin's amendment, up $400 million; bilingual education, up, that was Lincoln Chafee; small programs, Thad Cochran, that is zero in the President's budget, $416 million here; economic education, $10 million, a new program; community technology, $100 million to zero; school libraries, $500 million to zero in the Bush budget; and mental health grants, I say to my friend, Senator Domenici, $50 million, a new program. He doesn't even say we ought to fund his own amendment. He says stick to the President's budget. He would not fund the program he brought here, and he worked with Senator Kennedy on it. It was done by unanimous consent. It was that popular. So here we have it in black and white. This is only $10.4 billion. I understand the difference now is $12.3 billion because after we made this chart, we approved some other programs. I say to the Senator from New York and to the Senator from Massachusetts and to Senator Collins, who is managing the floor for the Republicans: We have to do more than just say nice words. We have to do more than stand here and say ``our children are our future.'' How many of us have said that? Probably all of us at one time, that we care about them. We have to say more than just education is our priority. What we have to do is come behind those words with the resources. This bill is about reform. If you want results, you need the resources. It is kind of like the three R's. This next chart is the essence of the Schumer-Boxer amendment. On our side of the aisle what we are saying is--and we hope Republicans will join us--we want reform. We have proven that by this bill. We want resources. We have proven that by this amendment. And we expect results. We are going to hold people accountable for results. So far, our Republican friends support reform. But if they back the Domenici alternative to Schumer-Boxer, I think we can truly say they don't support resources and they cannot possibly expect results. Every one of these programs I have shown you has been brought to the Senate by various Senators. Now is the time when the rubber meets the road. Another saying, one we hear a lot: The rubber meets the road. How are you going to bring into effect these wonderful programs, such as teacher quality, title I, grants for enhanced testing, math and science, bilingual ed, small programs, economic education, community technology centers, school libraries, mental health clinics, afterschool programs, if you don't bring to the fore the resources? Or, said in a better way in the Schumer-Boxer amendment: It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should appropriate all funds authorized for elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 2002. To my colleagues who may be listening in their offices, if you vote against the Schumer-Boxer amendment, I have to say, I don't understand why you voted for this wonderful list of enhancements for our children. It just does not make sense. We are saying, you voted for the authorizing of these programs; now vote for the appropriations. As my colleague Senator Schumer has stated: Some Members feel so strongly about it, they did not even want to bring this bill to the floor until we had a meeting of the minds with our Republican friends and the President that these programs would be funded or at least some of them would be funded. I urge my colleagues to come together, Republicans and Democrats alike, and give the thumbs up to this bill. You all say you like it. President Bush has held meetings. He has had Congressman Miller on one side and Ted Kennedy on the other. That is great. Photo ops are great. We all love them. You show you are for the kids and then your budget falls $12 billion short next year of what we need to do to carry out all this important work we have done over weeks and weeks on this bill. I thank my colleague from New York. We have joined together, east coast, west coast. We hope all those in the middle will join us and defeat the Domenici amendment. If all we are going to do is appropriate the money in the President's budget, we can't really do this. The most important thing, regardless of what we do with Domenici, is to support the Schumer-Boxer amendment. That will show that we mean what we say and we say what we mean. And we should be a model to our children. I look up in the galleries and see a lot of kids here. They are watching us. We had better mean what we say.

Mrs. BOXER. The Senator raises an important point. Now we have a situation where, instead of being able to apply for these funds, these local school districts--and I thought my colleagues on the other side loved local control--now have to go through the States. Am I correct, I ask my friend, this will take a piece off for administration? In other words, if they decide to say to a local district, OK, we will allow you to use some of this, they are going to take some money off the top. This is inefficient. I say to some colleagues who may be listening from their offices-- maybe a few are--if you are a fan of afterschool programs, if you think they are important, if you think they are a silver bullet that we have to keep our kids out of trouble, don't disrupt this program just when it is starting to reach kids. You have not done it with Head Start. You should not do it with afterschool. Isn't this a point that should be considered that the State will pull some money off the top for administration whereas under our normal program the money goes straight to the local districts?

Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Rhode Island and Senator Kennedy, thank you for your magnificent leadership on this issue of education. We all know life is complex and we all face problems every day in our lives. Our society has problems, not the least of which is that sometimes our kids go astray; they make the wrong turn and struggle and sometimes wind up in difficult situations. Whether it is turning to juvenile delinquency--and we all know that happens to some of our kids--whether it is not being able to handle the stresses of broken families, we know we have problems in our society. We also certainly know that there is no silver bullet. We wish there were one thing we could do that would be kind of a magic wand to fix all the problems we face, the problems our families face, the problems we face as individuals. Let's say someone came up to me and said: You only have one answer. What would be the most important thing we could do to stop problems in our society, be it crime, be it drugs, be it alcohol use, be it sexual abuse? Talk about the issues; we all know they are here. What would be the one thing, if you had to choose only one and that was it--you couldn't pick five, or four, or three, or two--I would say it would be a quality education for every single child starting from the earliest times. Why do I say that? It is because we know now that 90 percent of our brain capacity is set by age 3. So we know if we think all this starts later in life, we are wrong. If we can reach those children, particularly those children who may not have the support of a family structure, we can make a difference. Will it solve the problem? No. But I can say to you that it will solve most of the problems. I speak as someone who is an expert on public schools. Why? Because that is where I went. From kindergarten through college, I went to public schools. I am a first-generation American on my mother's side. My mother never graduated from high school. Here I am in the Senate. For those people who may not like my politics, they say: God, look at what the public schools did to us. But for the people who think I fight hard and do things, that I can go toe to toe with most people in this institution who went to the fanciest schools, they say: Hey, look. Look at what our public schools can do. That is why I strongly oppose the Gregg amendment. I think any effort in this Chamber to pull money away from our public schools before we know whether they are qualified, before we know that we are giving every child what he or she deserves to have, anything that pulls that money away from the public school system is absolutely wrong on its face. Well intentioned and the rest, it doesn't work. We know we can provide what our kids need if we put the resources behind the rhetoric. Senator Schumer and I will have an amendment later today which will say to our colleagues, if you believe in this, vote for the Schumer-Boxer amendment, which is going to say let's make sure there are appropriations to fund education to match the authorization in this bill. We are going to have a chance to vote on that. But I have to say this. The amendment of Senator Gregg provides for voucher demonstration programs in 10 cities and 3 States. Our teachers are telling us not to pull resources out. Our voters have told us in California: Don't pull resources out of the public schools and put them in the private schools. In California, people have voted. They had a couple of voucher initiatives. The last one, Proposition 38, they defeated by 70.7 percent of the vote. Let me repeat that. Californians voted 70 percent against a voucher experiment. I have to tell you that we don't vote 70 percent for anything. People always ask: How do you manage to represent a State such as California with 34 million people? I basically am honest in my answer. I say: I do my best. But on any given day, 30 percent of the people love me and 30 percent of the people hate me, and a third of the people have no idea who I am because there are 34 million people in that State. But 70 percent of them voted against vouchers. It pulled everyone together--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--because it is a very simple point. If you believe in the rhetoric of ``leave no child behind''--and our President uses it; I believe it--and, if it is real, then you don't leave them behind by pulling money out of the public schools and putting in these voucher initiatives which have a lot of problems. We have a lot of laws on the books that I think are important. We know in the public schools you can't discriminate against any child for any reason. Every child who walks through that door is precious and important and equal to every other child, regardless if they have a disability, regardless of their gender, and regardless of their national origin. The fact is, in this amendment we are going to have exceptions. Private schools can say they don't want any more girls; they just want to have boys; they can just say no, or vice versa. They can say they don't want any more boys and just take girls. There can be discrimination because that is the essence, frankly, of a private school. If they want to do that, fine. But just do not take the money. You do what you want but don't take taxpayer money. Don't pull it away from the public schools. I admire a lot of private schools. I have a lot of them in my State. They give scholarships to needy children. They get a tax break, if they are a profit-making school, for doing that. I support that tax break. Scholarships for needy kids are the way to go, if private schools want to make sure their student body is diverse and interesting and helps kids. But to pull hard-earned taxpayer dollars away and put them into the private schools isn't the way to go. We know that just a few kids will benefit. Even the question of how much they will benefit has been looked at. Let's say you are lucky enough to have enough money so a $2,000 voucher can help you pay for the rest of the tuition. Sometimes the tuition is $8,000, $10,000, or $12,000. There is no reliable research that shows voucher programs actually improve the education of our children or that voucher students outperform their public school peers. In fact, the policy analysis of a California education group reported that Proposition 38, the voucher initiative in our State, would cost more and affect fewer students in proven education reform. What do I mean by that? It has been proven that smaller class size really helps student performance. Again, it is kind of a no-brainer thing. If a teacher can pay attention to fewer kids, she or he is going to do a better job. It costs much less to put that reform in place than to have a voucher initiative in our State. Now we are reducing class size. We are seeing results. We are seeing great results. That is the track on which we should stay. Someday when we have quality education for every public school child--where 95 percent of our kids go, by the way--I am willing to look at other ways to help other kids in private schools. I may always be biased against it because I believe in public schools. I think it makes our country different from every other country. It gives every kid a chance at the American dream. But I will look at it once I know every child has a quality education. We know they don't have quality education in every school district in this country. The purpose of this underlying bill is to make sure we give every child a quality education. Let's talk about Michigan. Michigan had a vote on vouchers. They voted it down 68-31. What are we doing here? We are reinventing a voucher plan that has already been voted down in California by more than 70 percent of the vote and by 69 percent of the vote in Michigan. Once again, voters are expressing their concern that we are pulling money away from public schools. Let me say that one independent Princeton researcher found that when students in Milwaukee's public schools program were given extra resources to reduce class size, they actually outperformed those kids who were on the voucher. Let me reiterate. There is an independent study that showed that kids in Wisconsin, who had the advantage of smaller class size, outperformed other students who had vouchers in reading, and they did as well as those students in math. The drain on the public school system in Milwaukee is evident. According to the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the voucher initiative took $22 million away from the public schools. Why would we do that? We know vouchers don't guarantee equal access. In Milwaukee, 40 percent of the kids who sought to participate in the voucher program could not find schools that would take them. They could be particularly harmful to a student who is not the ``cream of the crop.'' Suppose the student is disabled, has limited English, or suppose they are homeless. A private school is going to look twice, scratch its head, and say: Maybe not. That goes against the American dream, which is, again, an equal chance for every child, regardless of their circumstance. I think this amendment is an important amendment. I hope it will be defeated because the underlying bill is really about reform--reform of our public schools. By pulling funds away, we hurt that reform effort. I had a successful amendment that I offered to this bill, cosponsored by my Republican colleague, John Ensign. It was about after school. We want to make sure kids after school do not get into trouble. We know, if we look at the charts, what happens. The FBI charts show, for sure, that is when kids get in trouble. This was a bipartisan amendment. It passed with a very healthy majority. But I do not want to see us now turn around and take money away from that effort for after school and away from the effort of smaller class size and all the other things we are trying to do in this bill. I do not want to see that happen. I see my colleague from New York is in the Chamber. She has worked so hard on this bill and has dedicated her life to kids. I am very excited she is going to be partaking of this debate this morning. To sum up my argument, it is this: Our public schools are what make our country different from most other countries because they give us all a shot at the American dream. Are the public schools perfect? No, they are not. Do we have to hold them accountable? Yes, we do. Do we need to make improvements? Yes, we do. Do we need to invest in the children in those schools? Yes, we do. Do we need to demand results? Yes, we do. But if we pull those dollars away from the public schools and we put them into the private schools, where 5 percent of the children go, we are making a huge mistake. My voters in California have shown that on several occasions. Voters in Michigan have shown that. They want to see us fix up our public schools first, make them work first. Then maybe we will have the luxury to look outside the system. We should demand the most from our kids, the most from our teachers, the most from our principals, the most from our school districts, the most from our Governors. But when we expect that, we should provide the resources, we should not pull them away from the public schools. Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill that addresses an emerging ecological crisis in California that quite literally threatens to change the face of my State, and perhaps others. California's beloved oak trees are in grave peril. Thousands of black oak, coastal live oak, tan and Shreve's oak trees, among the most familiar and best loved features of California's landscape are dying from a newly discovered disease known as Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, SODS. Caused by an exotic species of the Phytophthora fungus, the fungus responsible for the Irish potato famine, SODS first struck a small number of tan oaks in Marin County in 1995. Now the disease has spread to other oak species from Big Sur in the south to Humboldt County in the north. In Marin, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, desperate local officials are predicting oak mortality rates of 70 to 90 percent unless the deadly fungus is eradicated or its spread is arrested. The loss of trees is fast approaching epidemic proportions, with tens of thousands of dead trees appearing in thousands of acres of forests, parks, and gardens. As the trees die, enormous expanses of forest, some adjacent to residential areas, are subject to extreme fire hazards. Residents who built their homes around or among oak trees are in particular danger. Sudden Oak Death Syndrome is already having serious economic and environmental impacts. Both Oregon and Canada have imposed quarantines on the importation of oak products and some nursery stock from California. According to the U.S. Forest Service, removal of dead trees can cost $2,000 or more apiece, and loss of oaks can reduce property values by 3 percent or more. In Marin County alone, tree removal and additional fire fighting needs are expected to cost over $6 million. Nor is the spread of the Phytophthora fungus limited to oak trees. The fungus has also been found on rhododendron plants in California nurseries, on bay and madrone trees, and on wild huckleberry plants. Due to genetic similarities, this fungus potentially endangers Red and Pin oak trees on the East coast as well as the Northeast's lucrative commercial blueberry and cranberry industries. If left unchecked, SODS could also cause a broad and severe ecological crisis, with major damage to biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water supplies, forest productivity, and hillside stability. California's oak woodlands provide shelter, habitat and food to over 300 wildlife species. They reduce soil erosion. They help moderate extremes in temperature. And, they aid with nutrient cycling, which ensures that organic matter is broken down and made available for use by other living organisms. Very little is known about this new species of Phytophthora fungus. Scientists are struggling to better understand Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, how the disease is transmitted, and what the best treatment options might be. The U.S. Forest Service, the University of California, the State Departments of Forestry and Fire Protection, and County Agricultural Commissioners have created an Oak Mortality Task Force in an attempt to half SODS's frightening march across California and into adjoining states. The Task Force has established a series of objectives leading to the elimination of SODS, but very little can be accomplished without adequate support for ongoing research, monitoring, treatment and education. In September of last year, I called on the Department of Agriculture, USDA, to provide financial assistance and to create its own task force to work with California's Oak Mortality Task Force. Outgoing Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman answered the call by releasing $2.1 million in emergency funding and establishing a top-flight task force under the direction of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS. This was a good first step, but it was just that. That is why I am introducing today the Sudden Oak Death Syndrome Control Act of 2001. This legislation would authorize over $14 million each year for the next five years in critically needed funding to fight the SODS epidemic. Combined with the efforts of state and local officials, this legislation will help to prevent the dire predictions from becoming a terrible reality. This bill is endorsed by the California Oak Mortality Task Force, the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the Trust for Public Land, California Releaf, and the International Society of Arboriculturists, Western Chapter. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am introducing today a bill that addresses an emerging ecological crisis in California that quite literally threatens to change the face of my State, and perhaps others. California's beloved oak trees are in grave peril. Thousands of black oak, coastal live oak, tan and Shreve's oak trees, among the most familiar and best loved features of California's landscape are dying from a newly discovered disease known as Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, SODS. Caused by an exotic species of the Phytophthora fungus, the fungus responsible for the Irish potato famine, SODS first struck a small number of tan oaks in Marin County in 1995. Now the disease has spread to other oak species from Big Sur in the south to Humboldt County in the north. In Marin, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, desperate local officials are predicting oak mortality rates of 70 to 90 percent unless the deadly fungus is eradicated or its spread is arrested. The loss of trees is fast approaching epidemic proportions, with tens of thousands of dead trees appearing in thousands of acres of forests, parks, and gardens. As the trees die, enormous expanses of forest, some adjacent to residential areas, are subject to extreme fire hazards. Residents who built their homes around or among oak trees are in particular danger. Sudden Oak Death Syndrome is already having serious economic and environmental impacts. Both Oregon and Canada have imposed quarantines on the importation of oak products and some nursery stock from California. According to the U.S. Forest Service, removal of dead trees can cost $2,000 or more apiece, and loss of oaks can reduce property values by 3 percent or more. In Marin County alone, tree removal and additional fire fighting needs are expected to cost over $6 million. Nor is the spread of the Phytophthora fungus limited to oak trees. The fungus has also been found on rhododendron plants in California nurseries, on bay and madrone trees, and on wild huckleberry plants. Due to genetic similarities, this fungus potentially endangers Red and Pin oak trees on the East coast as well as the Northeast's lucrative commercial blueberry and cranberry industries. If left unchecked, SODS could also cause a broad and severe ecological crisis, with major damage to biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water supplies, forest productivity, and hillside stability. California's oak woodlands provide shelter, habitat and food to over 300 wildlife species. They reduce soil erosion. They help moderate extremes in temperature. And, they aid with nutrient cycling, which ensures that organic matter is broken down and made available for use by other living organisms. Very little is known about this new species of Phytophthora fungus. Scientists are struggling to better understand Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, how the disease is transmitted, and what the best treatment options might be. The U.S. Forest Service, the University of California, the State Departments of Forestry and Fire Protection, and County Agricultural Commissioners have created an Oak Mortality Task Force in an attempt to half SODS's frightening march across California and into adjoining states. The Task Force has established a series of objectives leading to the elimination of SODS, but very little can be accomplished without adequate support for ongoing research, monitoring, treatment and education. In September of last year, I called on the Department of Agriculture, USDA, to provide financial assistance and to create its own task force to work with California's Oak Mortality Task Force. Outgoing Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman answered the call by releasing $2.1 million in emergency funding and establishing a top-flight task force under the direction of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS. This was a good first step, but it was just that. That is why I am introducing today the Sudden Oak Death Syndrome Control Act of 2001. This legislation would authorize over $14 million each year for the next five years in critically needed funding to fight the SODS epidemic. Combined with the efforts of state and local officials, this legislation will help to prevent the dire predictions from becoming a terrible reality. This bill is endorsed by the California Oak Mortality Task Force, the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the Trust for Public Land, California Releaf, and the International Society of Arboriculturists, Western Chapter. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER. If I could ask just this question, is it not a fact in your amendment what you are merely saying--frankly, I think it is a pretty weak excuse for being critical; it is a pretty modest amendment--the Senator is saying that the government has to send a letter indicating, in fact, that the kids are being treated pretty comparably, whether they are born in an urban area, rural area, or suburban area. Whatever area they are in, whatever they look like is immaterial, just that they are getting a comparable education. If the Government doesn't send such a letter, as I read this legislation, only 1 percent or so of administrative funds will be withheld because we want to hold the States accountable to each child. Am I correct in that synopsis?

Mrs. BOXER. First, I thank both of my colleagues, Senators Dodd and Biden. I will clarify a few of the key points. The Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, said Senator Dodd and Senator Biden were introducing an entirely new concept and throwing this bill away from the direction it was heading. Then the Senator from Delaware showed that the word ``comparable,'' which Senator Gregg said was a new word in this debate, is already in the law, and we expect comparability within school districts or the States lose some of their Federal funding. Am I not correct on that point?

Mrs. BOXER. If I can follow up to finish, and taking it another step, it seems to me the current law is pretty darned tough, saying the districts lose all title I funding if we don't have this comparability within a school district. I say to my two friends who have offered----