Richard Bryan

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, within the next few days, I will cast my last vote as a U.S. Senator, and by the end of this year, I will conclude 36 years of public experience. Permit me to reflect for a moment on this experience and share with you some observations. The last decade of the 20th century has witnessed more change than any decade in human history. When I began my Senate service in January of 1989, the world was a very different place than it is today. The Soviet Union and the United States faced off in a cold war, a cold war that dominated global politics from the end of World War II. The ancient capitals of Eastern Europe were satellite appendages of the Soviet Union. There were two Germanys and a wall divided Berlin. The economic pundits were telling us that the Japanese economic model represented the wave of the future, and it was feared that America was in decline. All of that has changed. The Soviet Union has imploded. It no longer exists. Eastern Europe is no longer a series of satellite states of the Soviet Union, but nascent democracies are developing in most of eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall has come down. Germany is reunited. And once again, Berlin is the capital of that country. The Japanese economy for the past decade has remained largely stagnant. And here at home, America enjoys the longest economic expansion in the Nation's history. The way in which we live our day-to-day lives has experienced dramatic change as well, from the omnipresent cellular telephone to the advent of the Internet and the world of e-commerce. What about the Senate, this place where we spend our working hours. It has seen much change as well: The great debate that proceeded a resolution of support for operation Desert Storm was in the finest traditions of Webster and Calhoun--many have said that this was our finest bipartisan hour--the unpleasant duty of sitting in judgment of a fellow colleague and ultimately rendering the appropriate judgment; and the awesome responsibility of determining the fate of an American President, only the second Congress in our Nation's history to be so charged. There have been moments of inspiration as well. None of us will ever forget listening in those joint sessions of Congress to Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel share with us their struggle to achieve democracies in their own countries. The democratic spirit may be suppressed but never extinguished. In the history of the Senate, there have been 1,581 men and women who have served, only 23 of them from Nevada. It has been a great honor and privilege for me to be one of those and to represent the State of Nevada. How effectively I have discharged that responsibility awaits the verdict of history. As a youngster, I dreamed of serving as Governor of my own State. It was my life goal. Serving in the Senate of the United States is like adding a little frosting to that cake. I have thought often of my parents during these past 12 years. My father, like so many Nevadans of his generation, came from a poor family. His dream was to become a lawyer. But America was gripped in a great depression. This city and the patronage of Nevada's Congressman James Scrugham made it possible for him to achieve his goal. While attending law school in the Nation's Capital, he met my mother, a native Virginian. The following year, I was born in this city. So in a sense, I have been here before. I spoke about change a moment ago. The Senate today is a very different institution than it was a decade ago; I fear in many respects a diminished institution. Those of us who seek election to the Senate today frequently denigrate it and seek public favor by demeaning it. This has taken a toll on the public esteem in which we are all held. A media that is appropriately critical of our shortcomings is not always able to find its voice in telling the American public of its successes. We are more partisan, more polarized than we were a decade ago. And for some, compromise has become a nasty word, forgetting our own heritage, because the Senate itself is a product of the great compromise of our Constitution--a Senate with equal representation for each State, and a House of Representatives based on population. The role of money: Yes, it is fair to say that it has always been a factor in American politics, but today it has become too much of a dominant force. It consumes more of our time. It drives our schedule. It is a corrosive force that threatens to undermine public confidence in our institutions of government. I believe there is a direct correlation between the decline of citizen participation in government and voting, to the public perception that politics is all about money. Most Americans feel they are excluded from this process. Perhaps less visible to the public, the rules which have served this institution so well for decades and which govern the way in which we process legislation have broken down. There is much that I will miss: My colleagues, who represent a broad spectrum of political views, who bring their varied experience to the Senate, dedicated men and women who labor mightily on behalf of the constituents they represent, most especially my senior colleague with whom I have worked in this body, as well as the State legislature, and on issues affecting the State of Nevada for the last 37 years. My personal staff, both here in Washington and at home--I have simply loved our working relationship. It has been a joy for me to come to work each morning. I have appreciated their hard work, the long hours, the personal sacrifice. Nevadans have been well served by their dedication. Without their support, any success I might have had would not have been possible. The people who make our hectic lives a little more manageable--the elevator operators, the Capitol Police, the food servers, those who staff the Cloakrooms, our floor staff and many, many others. This building in which we work, so rich with the history of our country--there has not been a single day in the past 12 years that I have not felt a sense of awe when coming to work. And this city, with its magnificent cathedrals of governance that serve as the guardians of the American dream--I will miss that as well. My wife joins me this morning in the gallery of this great Chamber. Nothing I have been able to do, nothing I have been able to achieve, would have been possible without her support, her personal sacrifice, and those of our three children, Richard, Leslie, and Blair, who have all been a part of my life and a part of public service in my life. Whatever I have become, whatever I am, is largely because of their support of my efforts to pursue my own dreams and goals. I leave the Senate with a great sense of respect for this institution, which has been so much a part of my life for the past 12 years. It is troubled in many ways, as I have said. However, none of those problems is insurmountable. If we can resist the temptation to seek momentary partisan advantage, if we can restore civility in our public discourse as we debate the great issues and policy differences of our time, if we can apply the rules that govern the process by which we conduct the Senate's business fairly to all, and if we can work together for the common good, I am confident that the future of the Senate can be as bright as the past. Mr. President, I yield the floor for the last time.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks and those of Senator Reid, Senator Hollings be recognized for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, may I inquire as to whether it would be appropriate at this point to request to speak as in morning business for a period of time not to exceed 8 minutes.

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

Mr. BRYAN. I make that request.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, finally, let me conclude by saying that the administration has indicated the President may veto this legislation because of the heavy tilt toward managed care plans, the lack of accountability, and the lack of provisions that would directly help Medicare beneficiaries--our intended audience. I would support that veto. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I am now in my last days of serving the people of the State of Nevada as a U.S. Senator. It is a role in which I am proud and privileged to have had an opportunity to serve. I am also very proud of the opportunity I have had to serve as a member of the Finance Committee, the committee with jurisdiction over the Medicare program. Having said that, I am greatly troubled by this body's failure to take action on several fronts as it relates to Medicare. I am disappointed that we failed to act on Medicare coverage for prescription drugs as well as the proposed payment changes in the so- called BBA relief bill, a piece of legislation that deals with provider payment enhancements to those services and companies that provide service to Medicare patients. The impact of Medicare over the past 35 years cannot be overemphasized. Prior to enactment of Medicare in 1965, fewer than half the seniors in America had any kind of health care coverage at all. Today, as a result of Medicare's enactment, 99 percent do. As a result, health care for the Nation's seniors has been improved and the burden of health care costs for them has been greatly ameliorated. But a Medicare program without prescription drug coverage does not meet the promise we made to seniors in 1965. In 1965, the Medicare program roughly paralleled what was available in the private sector. Today, as all of us know, prescription drugs play such a vital role, a greatly enhanced role in terms of our own Medicare treatment. We had a historic opportunity this year to fulfill the promise of Medicare and to guarantee access to comprehensive prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries. Yet we have squandered it. There is no legitimate reason for the Republican leadership to have pushed meaningful prescription drug reform off for another year. The Finance Committee has spent the last 2 years considering prescription drugs. We have heard from experts on all sides of the issue. We have talked to our constituents. Many of us have worked diligently to put together legislation to provide a meaningful, comprehensive, affordable benefit for all Medicare beneficiaries. Yet the Finance Committee did not even hold a markup of a prescription drug benefit bill. By that I mean, for those who are not familiar with legislative language, we did not have the opportunity to vote on a Medicare bill in the Finance Committee, move it from the committee, and debate it on the floor. I consider it a great tragedy that could have made a difference in the lives of our seniors. Our inaction will consign some 227,000 Medicare beneficiaries in my own State of Nevada and 39 million beneficiaries nationally to yet another year of spending an ever- increasing share of their fixed incomes on medically necessary drugs or trying to stretch their prescriptions by taking them every other day instead of every day or sharing them with spouses and friends or, worse, even going without. We will be voting on the conference report to accompany the Agriculture appropriations bill this afternoon. The prescription drug importation provision is included in the conference report. I was pleased to join Senators Dorgan and Jeffords in their amendment in July. I believe this amendment is an important measure that can be helpful. There is no credible reason, no defensible basis that only drug manufacturers should be allowed to reimport prescription drugs. A well defined reimportation program could help to make drugs more affordable for American consumers. The majority of our seniors are often faced with the difficult choice of paying extremely high prices at retail outlets or forgoing medically necessary prescription drugs because they simply do not have the financial resources to pay for them. However, the best designed reimportation provision is not a sufficient answer to the millions of Medicare beneficiaries who lack prescription drug coverage. I hope my colleagues will not hide behind this provision when they are asked by their constituents why the Senate didn't approve a Medicare prescription drug benefit this year. Moreover, the important provision has been altered by the Republican leadership such that it is extremely questionable whether it will actually meet the goal Senators Dorgan and Jeffords and others desired--that of lowered prices. One very basic problem with the provision is that a ``sunset'' date was added so that the importation system would end 5 years after it goes into effect. In order to assure the safety of the drugs being imported, laboratory testing facilities would be required. Distribution systems would also clearly be needed. I have serious doubts that the private sector investment to carry out this program will materialize if it is known that the program will only be in operation for 5 years. Why spend the money to develop the infrastructure for such a short-lived program? There is also a serious labeling problem that gives manufacturers the ability to shut down the program. It is unquestionably and undeniably wrong that American citizens pay the highest prices for prescription drugs--particularly when many of these drugs are developed on American soil, by American companies who are receiving enormous tax breaks, patent protections and the benefit of billions of NIH research dollars. I have been hoping to offer a germane amendment to the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) legislation that would deny the export tax benefit to pharmaceutical manufacturers charging Americans at least 100 percent more than they charge foreign consumers for the same drug. This amendment, if I get the chance to offer it, and if approved, would have one of two positive effects for the American consumer and taxpayer: either, the price of prescription drugs would decrease, or if the manufacturer chooses to continue to exploit American consumers, at least the taxpayer would not be providing a tax benefit for doing so. The prices of prescription drugs could also be lowered through the simple measure of providing more information to purchasers of prescription drugs. I introduced the Consumer Awareness of Market-Based Drug Prices Act of 2000 because purchasers today do not have any meaningful price information--and there is no way competition can work without information on prices. I believe in the free market, but we have to let it work. The availability of real market-based price information is critical to the ability of employers and insurers to negotiate lower prices for their employees and enrollees. Under the current law, that information is denied to those who purchase prescription drugs on behalf of either their insureds or those who are part of their employee group. Not only does the lack of price information keep prices artificially high, but it affects the Federal budget. Drug manufacturers have been able to manipulate the average wholesale price, which is a meaningless statistic, but it results in billions of dollars of Medicare overpayments. My legislation would simply require the Secretary of HHS to make available to the public the market-based information on drug prices that she currently collects: the average manufacturer price for each drug, and the best price available in the market. These prices are already collected to implement the Medicaid prescription drug rebate system--so no new bureaucracy or administrative structures would be necessary. Legislation is necessary, however, because the Secretary is statutorily prohibited from disclosing this information. Our legislation would simply lift that prohibition and make that information available. A reimportation provision without the loopholes and the sunset provision could help to lower prices. There are also other ways to lower prices--by requiring manufacturers to treat American patients fairly if they want to receive generous tax benefits, and by disclosing prices--but we also must add an affordable, voluntary prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. Anything less is an empty promise to our seniors who often go without much-needed drugs, or pay astronomical prices for them. Earlier this year, I introduced the Medicare Outpatient Drug Act. Like the Vice President's proposal, this bill would provide prescription drugs as a defined, comprehensive and integral component of the Medicare program to ensure it is available and affordable for all beneficiaries. The drug benefit must be a part of the Medicare program--if it is not, there is no guarantee to our seniors and those Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities that it will be available, no guarantee that is will be affordable, no guarantee that it will provide catastrophic protection, and no guarantee that it will be around the following year. Only Medicare can ensure that it is guaranteed to be there, that it is affordable, that there is catastrophic protection, and that it will be there year after year. The Democrats offer Medicare beneficiaries choices: the Medicare benefit is a voluntary one. If a person has drug coverage through an employer or some other source, he or she can keep that coverage. The beneficiary can choose to receive the drug benefit as a part of the traditional fee-for-service program, or through a managed care plan. So there are three choices that are available here: either not to accept it, or to have either a fee-for-service program, or a managed care program. The GOP proposal, in Congress, and as promoted by Governor Bush, gives the choices to the insurers. The insurer can choose whether or not to offer prescription drug coverage--there is no requirement. The insurer can choose the level of the deductible, and the amount of the coinsurance the beneficiary must pay for each prescription. The insurer can choose whether or not to offer catastrophic coverage. The insurer can choose to limit those drugs that are covered to a select few--either by limiting the diseases that qualify for treatment, or by limiting the number of prescriptions that may be filled each month. The insurer can choose to keep the benefit the same from year to year, or the insurer can choose to change the benefit each year or to discontinue coverage. The Democrats have tried to pass a bill this year that would provide choices for beneficiaries, while our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have advocated a bill that would provide choices for insurers. Given the cost of a prescription drug benefit, it is critical that we spend those federal dollars in a way that will ensure that the benefit and the choices are going to the Medicare beneficiaries--not to the insurers. I am also deeply troubled by the way the majority leadership is allocating federal dollars in the ``BBA-relief'' bill. While members of the Finance Committee have not been allowed to participate in the development of this package, I understand that about $10 billion out of a total of $28 billion is to go to Medicare HMOs over the first 5 years. That is over one-third of the money in this package, when only 16 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare HMOs. The HMOs tell us that they need this level of funding to ``stabilize'' the market, and that without it they will have to withdraw from the program, or reduce benefits. But we know from the General Accounting Office that we are already overpaying the HMOs--by nearly $1,000 per enrollee. And yet, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not requiring any accountability on the part of the managed care plans in exchange for this huge influx of funding. They don't require them to stay in the market, and they don't require them to commit to a benefit package. Managed care plans should be provided a reasonable portion of the funds in this package. But the majority has provided funds for HMOs at the expense of reducing beneficiary cost-sharing for preventive benefits and outpatient visits, at the expense of expanding health options for legal immigrants, at the expense of patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, at the expense of uninsured children, and at the expense of persons with Alzheimer's disease. This is too great an expense. I have a letter signed by 23 senior groups opposing this large payment of funds to Medicare+Choice HMOs. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. The Senator is correct, and I thank him for bringing this to the attention of the Senate.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, again, let me urge the NBA and the Philadelphia 76ers to step forward and be heard. They will say: Look, we cannot control Mr. Iverson's conduct. That may be true. But they have an obligation, a responsibility to speak out and to condemn such conduct, even if they are unable to control it. So far, either they have, by silence, acquiesced, or they have to acknowledge that they find nothing wrong with the CD. I find that both troubling and tragic if that is the standard we are to follow. Again, the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers, and their coach ought to speak out loud and clear and indicate this is not the kind of conduct they expect from one of their star athletes and to be as critical of it as I know Americans are in general. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I believe some of our other colleagues have reserved time.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, this morning's Washington Post features an article entitled ``Iverson's Bad Rap Is Well-Deserved.'' It is a story about one of the Nation's high-profile National Basketball Association stars who is about to release a rap CD that encourages gun violence, degrades women, and blatantly bashes people because of their sexual orientation. The National Basketball Association, the Philadelphia 76ers, his team, Mr. Iverson's record label, his coach, and every fairminded person should condemn this kind of so-called entertainment for the trash that it is. Clearly, these are not the kind of messages that one of the NBA's leading and most talented players should be sending to tens of thousands of kids who watch him play and may idolize him. I fully respect Mr. Iverson's first amendment rights, but clearly the message he is sending encourages violence and implicitly condones it, hardly the kind of conduct one would expect from a celebrity whose conduct is admired by many of the Nation's youth. What makes this particularly objectionable is the fact that Mr. Iverson and many of his other incredibly talented colleagues in the NBA are specifically marketed by the NBA itself as superheroes to our kids. The NBA is ultimately in a business to make money, and that is fine. They use their stars to promote their teams. But one would hope the NBA would exercise good judgment in choosing the athletes they select to promote because many of these athletes use their stardom to, again, promote themselves and to use that same kind of marketing appeal. And when the message, as in this case from Mr. Iverson, is both hateful and dangerous and is absorbed by all too many of our Nation's youth, it is a vicious cycle that the NBA should end immediately. The NBA has the power to pick and choose which athletes they are going to market and promote. They should exercise sound judgment and discretion before encouraging this kind of promotion and the reprehensible message it sends. A few weeks ago I joined with many of our colleagues, both in committee and on the floor, in condemning some of the media produced in Hollywood, some of the videos, some of the violence that so often invades the Nation's television audience. We should also condemn this kind of conduct as well. When the NBA promotes these questionable athletes, they assist them in their quest to become wealthy media darlings, and that only helps other media outlets such as record companies and movie studios to exploit their now already famous personalities. In fact, Mr. Iverson's record company is apparently planning to use the NBA's very well publicized All-Star weekend to release the uncensored--and one could only conclude even more objectionable--version of his soon-to-be-released CD. Again, it is ultimately going to have to be up to the NBA as to who they promote and market and who they do not. But they need to realize if they continue to promote and market athletes who use their league- endorsed celebrity to promote or incite violence or the degradation of more than half the Nation's population, they will continue to bear a great deal of responsibility for the consequences of these actions. I find it somewhat incredible that the Philadelphia 76ers' own coach has said, according to the Washington Post article, that he does not have a problem with Mr. Iverson's CD. That is nothing more than a cheap copout, and the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers, and his coach should immediately condemn this outrageous, dangerous, and hateful message. Let me give an example of one of the lyrics that is on this CD. Mr. Iverson says on his CD if someone is ``man enough to pull a gun/Be man enough to squeeze it.'' In addition, he also advocates the murder of gay men on his new CD. I am told that a wire report has been circulated this afternoon indicating that Mr. Iverson has apologized to gay men and to women for the hateful language contained in his CD. I call upon Mr. Iverson to do more than that; to ask, as a responsible American, as a role model, which he styles himself to be: Let's not issue this CD. Let's recall it. That would be the kind of conduct we should ask and expect of Mr. Iverson. There are many athletes in America who do provide the kind of role model all Americans can endorse--the Cal Ripkens and the Tiger Woods in the World. These are the kind of people who send a very positive message about the value of the work ethic and the commitment to standards. All of us admire that kind of conduct. If Mr. Iverson is deemed to be a role model for America's youth, I suggest that the youth of America is in serious trouble. Michael Wilbon also had a very interesting response to this subject in the Post this morning. I commend it to my colleagues as well. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, if I may respond to the excessively generous comments of my chairman, my colleague, and my friend, the reality is that working with him has been a pleasure. Without his cooperation and, obviously, trying to work in a bipartisan way to process this piece of legislation and other things we have done since the two of us have been privileged to serve as chairman and vice chairman, we would not be here today with this bill. I acknowledge his leadership. The good citizens of Alabama have a fine Member here and a person with whom I have been privileged to work for the last 12 years I have been in the Senate, and most especially this last year when we have served in our respective roles on the Intelligence Committee. I thank him publicly.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I thank the leader. I specifically thank the chairman, Senator Shelby. We have worked to put this authorization bill together. It could not have happened but for his cooperation and the cooperation of a number of others of our colleagues on the Intelligence Committee. I thank them for their cooperation, the chairman in particular. I thank the majority leader and Senator Daschle as well. Again, I acknowledge the leadership of my chairman. He has been most helpful in working through this bill. I thank him, the majority leader, and our colleagues. My remarks will echo many of the points made by the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Shelby. Those who are not familiar with the workings of the Intelligence Committee may find it odd that members from different parties have such agreement on the substance of this legislation. Most of my colleagues, however, know that the committee has a long tradition of bipartisanship and I am proud to say that under Senator Shelby's leadership we have upheld that tradition. We have confronted difficult policy issues and budget choices, and the chairman has gone out of his way to ensure that the committee addressed these in a fair and nonpartisan way. I appreciate the courtesies he has shown me as vice chairman. I think we have produced a good bill that focuses on several critical areas of intelligence policy. This important legislation authorizes the activities of the U.S. intelligence community and seeks to ensure that this critical function will continue to serve our national security interests into the 21st century. The community faces momentous challenges from both the proliferation of threats facing America and from the rapid pace of technological change occurring throughout society. How we respond to these challenges today will affect our ability to protect American interests in the years ahead. Some have argued that the end of the cold war should have significantly reduced our need for a robust intelligence collection capability. In fact, the opposite is true. The bipolar world of the Soviet-United States confrontation provided a certain stability with a clear threat and a single principal adversary on which to focus. We now face a world with growing transnational threats of weapons proliferation, terrorism, and international crime and narcotics trafficking, and multiple regional conflicts which create instability and threaten U.S. interests. While we, of course, must continue to closely monitor Russia, which still possesses the singular capability to destroy our country, these emerging threats demand increasing attention and resources. A decade after the collapse of Soviet communism, the intelligence community continues its difficult transition, from an organization which confronted one threat to one which now must focus on a variety of threats, each unique in its potential to harm the United States. At the same time, the community has been buffeted by the information revolution, which provides tremendous opportunity for intelligence collection, but threatens to overwhelm our ability to process and disseminate information. These twin challenges--new and qualitatively different threats, coupled with an information and technological explosion--threaten the community's ability to serve as an early warning system for our country and a force multiplier for our armed services. Unfortunately, the intelligence community has often been too slow to confront these challenge and to adapt to these new realities. To make this transition will require the following: First, the intelligence community must get its budget in order. Although I believe the community probably needs additional resources, the Congress first must be convinced that existing resources are being used effectively. Second, the various intelligence agencies must begin to function ore corporately--as a community, rather than as separate entities, all with different and often conflicting priorities. This has been a topic of debate for some time. And yet, the passage of time does not seem to have brought us much closer to this objective. Third, the intelligence community must do a better job of setting priorities. That means making hard decisions about what it will not do. Resources are stretched thin, often because community leadership has been unable to say no. The result is that agencies like the National Security Agency are starved for recapitalization funds necessary to keep pace with technological changes. Fourth, the community must streamline its bureaucracy, eliminating unnecessary layers of management, particularly those that separate the collector of intelligence from the analyzer of that intelligence. Finally, the community must revamp its information technology backbone so that agencies can easily and effectively communicate with one another. These steps will not be easy but are essential if the intelligence community is to stay relevant in today's world. Good intelligence is more important than ever. As we deal with calls for military intervention in far flung locales, intelligence becomes a force multiplier. We rely on the intelligence community to keep us informed of developing crises, to describe the situation prior to any U.S. intervention, to help with force protection when U.S. personnel are on the ground, and to analyze foreign leadership intentions. Solid intelligence allows U.S. policymakers and military commanders to make and implement informed decisions. Maintaining our intelligence capability is difficult and sometimes expensive but absolutely essential to national security. The committee has identified a few areas that we think are priorities that need additional attention. One area of particular concern is the need to recapitalize the National Security Agency to assure our ability to collect signals intelligence. Collecting and deciphering the communications of America's adversaries provides senior policymakers with a unique source of sensitive information. In 1998, and again this year, the committee asked a group of highly qualified technical experts to review NSA operations. The Technical Advisory Group's conclusions were unsettling. They identified significant shortcomings which have resulted from the sustained budget decline of the past decade. With limited available resources the NSA has maintained its day-to-day readiness but has not invested in needed modernization. Consequently, NSA's technological infrastructure and human resources are struggling to meet emerging challenges. The NSA historically has led the way in development and use of cutting edge technology. This innovative spirit has helped keep the United States a step ahead of those whose interests are hostile to our own. Unfortunately, rather than leading the way, the NSA now struggles to keep pace with communications and computing advances. There is, however, some reason for optimism. The current Director of NSA, General Hayden, has developed a strategy for recovery. He has undertaken an aggressive and ambitious modernization effort, including dramatic organizational changes and innovative business practices. These changes and the rebuilding of NSA's infrastructure will, however, require significant additional resources. The committee decided that this situation demands immediate attention, but the intelligence budget faces the same constrained fiscal situation as other areas of the Federal budget. We have, therefore, realigned priorities within existing resources in order to reverse this downward trend. This was not an easy process and we were forced to make some painful tradeoffs, but ensuring the future of the NSA is the committee's top priority. We cannot stand by and allow the United States to lose this capability. We have taken prudent steps in this legislation to make sure NSA will continue to be the premier signals intelligence organization in the world. The bill also attempts to address an imbalance that has concerned the committee for some time. We have argued that our ability to collect intelligence far exceeds our ability to analyze and disseminate finished intelligence to the end user. We spend a tremendous amount of the budget developing and fielding satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and all manner of other senors and collection platforms. These programs are important but too often new sensors are put into place without sufficient thought to how we will process and distribute the additional data. No matter how good a satellite is at collecting raw intelligence, it is useless if that intelligence never makes it into the hands of a competent analyst and then on to an end user. This imbalance has been particularly acute at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. At the request of Congress, NIMA has identified projected processing shortfalls associated with its future sensor acquisition plans. NIMA also outlined a three phase modernization to address these shortfalls. Unfortunately, the future year funding profile creates a situation that will force the intelligence community to either cut deeply into other programs or abandon the modernization. The committee has rejected that approach and has realigned priorities in order to avoid this budgetary squeeze in the out years. It makes no sense to purchase expensive collection platforms when the rest of the system cannot handle the amount of intelligence produced. Beyond the questions of resource allocation, this legislation also address several policy issues, including the problem of serious security breakdowns at the State Department. Over the course of the last 2\1/2\ years the Department has been beset by seemingly inexplicable security compromises, the latest being the disappearance of a laptop computer in January of this year. This incident, still unexplained, follows closely on the heels of the discovery of a Russian listening device planted in a seventh floor conference room. Subsequently we learned that there was no escort requirement for foreign visitors, including Russians, to the State Department. Finally, I must mention the 1998 tweed jacket incident. In this case an unidentified man wearing a tweed jacket entered the Secretary of State's office suite unchallenged by State Department employees and removed classified documents. No one knows who he was. The only conclusion that I can draw is that the State Department culture does not place a priority on security. Despite Secretary Albright's efforts to correct procedural deficiencies and to emphasize the need for better security, we have not seen much progress. The authorization bill contains a provision requiring all elements of the State Department to be certified as in compliance with regulations for the handling of Sensitive Compartmented Information. This is the most highly classified information and is controlled by the Director of Central Intelligence. If a component of the State Department is not in compliance with the applicable regulations, then that office will no longer be allowed to retain or store this sensitive information. It is unfortunate that this provision is necessary, but we must make it clear to individuals who handle classified material that we are serious about enforcing security rules. A broader but related area of concern is the ability of the U.S. Intelligence community to meet the counterintelligence threats of the 21st Century with current structures and programs. We can no longer worry only about the intelligence services of adversaries such as the old Soviet Union, North Korea, or Cuba. We must deal with ever more sophisticated terrorist organizations and international crime syndicates capable of launching their own intelligence and counterintelligence efforts. We also face challenges from friendly states seeking access to economic data and advanced U.S. technology. All of these changes argue for a major retooling of a U.S. counterintelligence apparatus designed for the cold war. The Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense have undertaken an effort, referred to as CI-21, to design the structures and policies that we will need to cope with cutting edge technology and with the emergence of threats from nontraditional sources. I have been encouraged by the early progress made on the CI-21 effort. We have chosen not to include legislative provisions in the bill with the hope that the agencies involved will reach agreement and finalize the CI-21 plan. The report accompanying the bill strongly encourages them to do so and I reiterate that encouragement. One provision in the bill that has created a bit of controversy is the section that closes a gap in existing law related to the unauthorized disclosure of classified material. This provision will make it a felony for a U.S. government official to knowingly pass classified material to someone who is not authorized to receive it. I say that this provision closes a gap because many categories of classified information are covered by existing statutes. This includes nuclear weapons data and defense information. Unfortunately much sensitive intelligence information does not fall into one of the existing definitions. Disclosure of this information could compromise sensitive sources and in some cases endanger peoples lives. The provision in the bill has been carefully crafted to avoid first amendment concerns and the chairman and I will offer a technical amendment incorporating suggestions made by the Attorney General. It is my understanding that she supports the provision as amended. Another provision which merits further explanation is the section dealing with treaty implementing legislation. This language provides that future criminal laws enacted to implement treaties will not apply to intelligence activities unless those activities are specifically named in the legislation. On its face this could be interpreted as exempting our intelligence community from the law regardless of the nature of the activity. In fact, this only applies to activities which are otherwise lawful and authorized. Intelligence activities are subject to an extensive set of statutes, regulations and presidential directives. These rules try to balance our need for intelligence to protect our national security with the American sense of values and ethical behavior. Intelligence gathering--spying--is an inherently deceitful activity. To protect our military forces, thwart terrorist acts, or dismantle drug trafficking organizations, we gather information through surreptitious means. We either convince people to betray their country or cause, or we use intrusive technical means to find out what people are doing or saying. This may make some people uncomfortable, but it is absolutely essential to protecting American interests. Treaties that proscribe certain kinds of behavior should not inadvertently restrict these intelligence activities. If the Congress intends to apply treaty implementing legislation to intelligence activities, then we should say so explicitly. We want to be precise and ensure that intelligence operatives in the field understand what we expect of them. Ambiguity and uncertainty are more likely to create problems. This provision will put the burden on Congress to make the determination of which treaty restrictions we want to apply to intelligence activities. I have served on the Intelligence Committee for almost 8 years now and I have had the privilege of serving as vice chairman since January. During that time I have made a few observations that I would like to share. Since I am leaving the committee and the Senate at the end of this year, I have no vested interest other than my continuing belief in the importance of the committee's work conducting oversight of the intelligence community. My experience leads me to the conclusion that excessive turnover is seriously hampering the effectiveness of the Intelligence Committee--a committee the Senate relies upon and points to in reassuring the American people that the intelligence community is being appropriately monitored by their elected representatives. Because of the 8-year limitation, member turn-over can be, and often is dramatic. For example, when the 107th Congress convenes next January, 5 of the 7 currently serving Democrats will have departed the committee. At the end of the 107th Congress, 5 of the 8 currently serving Republicans will leave the committee. Over time, this brain drain diminishes the committee's ability to discharge its responsibilities. For example, in 1994 the committee dealt with the Aldrich Ames espionage case, arguably the most devastating counterintelligence failure of the cold war. The committee produced a report extremely critical of the CIA in this case and of the way the CIA and FBI dealt with counterintelligence in general. The Ames debacle led to a major restructuring of our national counterintelligence system with significant legislative input. Yet today, there is only one member on the majority side who served on the committee during that period, and at the end of this year there will be no members on the Democratic side. This lack of corporate memory greatly reduces the committee's effectiveness. This committee deals with sensitive and complex issues, and much of the committee's business involves the technical agencies such as the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. To understand these issues a Senator must invest significant time to committee briefings and hearings. There is no outside source to go to stay abreast of developments in the intelligence community. Just about the time members are beginning to understand these issues they are forced to rotate off the committee. This makes no sense. The rationale behind the term limits was two fold. First, it was feared that the intelligence community could over time co-opt permanently serving members. In fact, new members who have little experience with the workings of the intelligence community are more dependent on information provided by the intelligence agencies. SSCI members are no more likely to be co-opted by the intelligence community than the members of other authorizing committees are likely to be co- opted by the Departments and agencies they oversee. The second reason term limits were enacted stemmed from the understandable view that the SSCI would benefit from a flow of fresh ideas that new members would bring. But because of naturally occurring turnover, new members have regularly joined the committee, irrespective of term limits. Since the SSCI was created 24 years ago, approximately sixty Senators have served on the committee. Members have served an average of just over 5 years-- and approximately 60 percent of committee members have served on the committee less than 8 years. This historical record confirms that vacancies will continue to occur regularly on the SSCI, thus allowing the new faces and fresh ideas. At the same time, however, members who have a long-term interest in the area of intelligence should continue to serve and develop expertise. My second observation relates to the committee's authority but also to a larger issue that is the question of declassifying the top line number for the intelligence budget. It is difficult to conduct a thorough and rationale debate concerning intelligence policy without mentioning how much money we spend on our intelligence system. Declassifying the top line budget would allow for a healthy debate within the Congress about the priority we place on intelligence. I would provide greater visibility and openness to average Americans, whose tax dollars fund these programs. Disclosure of the overall budget would provide these benefits without damaging U.S. national security. DCI Tenet declassified the budget numbers for top past budgets with no adverse effects, but has declined to continue this practice. I hope that the Congress and the next administration will revisit this issue and left this unnecessary veil of secrecy. Finally, Mr. President, I want to thank the staff of the Intelligence Committee for the work they do and for the support they have given me as vice chairman. The committee is staffed by professionals dedicated to ensuring that the intelligence community enhances U.S. national security and does so in strict compliance with the intent of Congress. The staff is unique in the Senate in that the vast majority are nonpartisan and go about their business without regard to any political agenda. The four members of the staff with partisan affiliations, the staff directors and their deputies, approach their work with same spirit of bipartisanship that always has been a hallmark of the committee. Let me single our Bill Duhnke and Joan Grimson, the majority staff director and deputy for their excellent cooperation and the courtesy they have extended this year. I should note that Joan is not here today because she is off on maternity leave. I extend my congratulations to her and her husband on the birth of their first child, Jacqueline Anna. I also thank Melvin Dubee, my deputy minority staff director. Melvin brings a wealth of experience to the job, and it has been reflected in the sound advice I have come to depend on him to provide. Vicki Divoll, who joined the committee staff as counsel in January, also has been invaluable to me during the preparation of this legislation and in dealing with other legal issues. Finally, I would have been lost as vice chairman without the guidance and advice of Al Cumming, the minority staff director. Al kept me well informed and helped me focus on issues that will have a lasting impact on the functioning of the intelligence community. The staff has done superb work on this legislation.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the Prescription Drug Price Anti-Discrimination Act and I commend my colleague, Senator Levin, for his leadership on this initiative. This bill would require drug manufacturers to treat American patients fairly--a manufacturer must have a policy in place that states that it does not discriminate against U.S. wholesalers by charging them more than it charges foreign wholesalers. If the company does not have this policy in place, then a 10 percent discriminatory profits tax would be imposed. The reason for this bill is abundantly clear: American patients are being charged significantly higher prices than are patients in foreign countries for the exact same drugs. Is there any reason why our citizens--44 million of whom are uninsured and faced with paying these high prices--should be forced to make the choice between going without much-needed prescription drugs or paying 50, 100, or even 300 percent more for their drugs than do citizens in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia? Of course there isn't. Today, patients without drug coverage in the United States are not treated fairly by U.S. manufacturers. I was shocked to discover the enormous price disparities that exist for some of the most commonly used drugs. For example, Prevacid, which is used to treat ulcers, is 282 percent more expensive in the United States than in Great Britain. Claritin is used to treat all allergies--as we all know thanks to frequent television commercials--and is 308 percent more expensive when purchased by American patients than when purchased by Australian patients. And Prozac, which can help millions of Americans suffering from depression, is out of reach to many as it is 177 percent more expensive in the United States than in Australia. Our Medicare beneficiaries deserve a prescription drug benefit, and all of our citizens deserve the assurance that U.S. manufacturers will not charge them significantly more than they charge foreign patients. This bill will not harm the drug industry. They can choose to accept the tax penalty, or they can lower prices to American consumers to the levels they charge foreign consumers. Either way, they will remain a very profitable industry: Fortune magazine recently again rated the pharmaceutical industry as the most profitable industry in terms of return on revenues, return on assets, and return on equity. Drug companies enjoy huge tax benefits relative to other industries: their effective tax rate was 40 percent lower than that of all other U.S. industries between 1993-1996. Compared to certain industries, the drug industry's effective tax rate was even lower--for example, it was 47 percent lower than that for wholesale and retail trade. Additionally, higher drug prices for American patients simply aren't justified in the face of soaring marketing and advertising budgets: the industry spent almost $2 billion in 1999 on direct-to-consumer advertising, and more than $11 billion on marketing and promotion to physicians. I don't have an argument with large profits--but American patients should not be charged more than patients in other countries for the same drugs. Moreover, American taxpayers should not be forced to underwrite highly profitable corporations that exploit American consumers. Although many of us are still hopeful that we can pass a meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit before the close of this Congress, at the very least we should require fair pricing for American patients. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr President, the Speaker of the House of the Nevada State Assembly is one of Nevada's treasures and he happens to be a very close personal friend of mine. I have been privileged to know Joe Dini since I first served with him in the state assembly during the 1969 legislative session and I continue to value his friendship. Joe Dini was born and raised in the small town of Yerington, NV, he attended the University of Nevada and returned to the community of his birth to work along side his father in the family business. In 1966 he was elected to the Nevada State Assembly, the first of his 17 terms; a record unrivaled since our state entered the union in 1864. As a legislator, he has become the legislature's leading authority on western water issues. He served on the Western States Water Council and chaired the Water Policy Committee of the Council of State Governments- West. In 1973, he was selected by his colleagues to serve a Speaker Pro Tempore and the following session, in 1975, as Majority Leader. During his long and distinguished tenure, the State of Nevada has undergone dramatic changes. The state's population has increased by more than five fold. Nevada has become more urban and most of the state's population growth has been in Southern Nevada which now accounts for two-thirds of the state's population. Not only is Joe Dini the longest serving member of the Assembly, but he has also been elected by his peers as the Speaker of the Nevada State Assembly an unprecedented eight times. Another record unparalleled in our state's history. This extraordinary accomplishment is even more remarkable when one considers that rural Nevada, Joe Dini's political base, today represents just 15 percent of the state's over all population. He is a Nevada treasure, the likes of which we will surely not see again. Now in the twilight of his career of public service, he is being showered with the honors and recognition he so richly deserves. As with so many of us who have pursued a life of public service, Joe's family, his wife and his children have sacrificed much to make his service possible. Nevadans owe a debt of gratitude to Joe Dini's family as well. I am pleased to join with Joe's many friends in paying my respect, to my friend--the much loved and respected, and Pizen Switch's number one citizen, Joe Dini.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, this legislation would plunge the dagger into the back of Nevada's principal industry and would accomplish no useful purpose. Ninety-eight percent of the sports betting in America is conducted illegally outside of the State of Nevada. There is no logical way in which you can conclude that by eliminating sports betting that occurs in my own State, that is licensed, that is regulated--you have to be 21 years of age --you address a legitimate problem, which is illegal gambling on college campuses. It is misdirected, it is ill-conceived, and it would be the dream of every illegal bookie in America if this legislation passes. I am pleased to join with my colleague in objecting to this legislation.

Mr. BRYAN. I request to be included for an additional minute.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, in a very few hours we will, each of us, be returning to our respective States for the summer recess. Most of us will have town hall meetings or other fora in which we will have a chance to interact with our constituents. Much that occurs on this floor, although very important, does not connect with the American people. Some of it seems pretty esoteric, pretty dry stuff. I am going to be discussing this afternoon an issue that does connect with the American people. Whether you live in Maine or California or Washington State or Florida or, as I do, the great State of Nevada--and which I am privileged to represent--people are talking about the price of prescription drugs. The reason for that is that the marvels of modern medicine have made it possible, through prescription drugs, to address a number of the maladies that affect all of us as part of humankind. The cost of those prescription drugs are literally going through the ceiling. I will comment more specifically upon that in a moment. For literally millions of people in this country, the cost of prescription drugs has been so prohibitive that medications that would address a medical problem that those individuals face are simply beyond the pale. So for many, it is fair to say, the choice is a Hobson's choice. Do they eat in the evening, or do they take the prescription medication that has been prescribed by their physician? It would be my fondest hope and expectation, before this Congress adjourns sine die-- that is, at the end of this legislative year--that we could enact prescription drug legislation. That would be my No. 1 priority. But I think all of us recognize there are some things we can do as part of whatever plan we might subscribe to, and Senator Graham and I this afternoon are offering a piece of legislation entitled the Consumer Awareness of Market-Based Drug Prices Act of 2000. This is a piece of legislation that deals with the price of drugs. We know what the cost is, but we are talking about the price. We have a lot of information on the cost. We know, for example, that we are spending on drugs in this country, prescription medications--in the last available year, 1999--almost $122 billion. We also know quite a bit about how much we in the Federal Government are spending for prescription drugs. For example, the States and the Federal Government spent $17 billion in fiscal year 1999 for drugs, just under the Medicaid program alone. Those costs are going to escalate rather dramatically. What is missing, however, is some critically important information--information that would be important to consumers and those who negotiate on behalf of consumers, because what we don't know, what we don't have much information about is drug prices. The reason for that is some statutory prohibitions I am going to talk about and which this legislation specifically addresses. So the questions are: What do consumers know about drug prices today? What do employers who purchase prescription drugs on behalf of their employees know about prices? What do health plans negotiating on behalf of their enrollees know about prices? What do physicians who prescribe drugs for their patients know about prices? The answer is simply, very, very little; almost nothing. What little is known is essentially worthless information. We have the average wholesale price, but this is a truly meaningless figure. During the course of my discussion this afternoon on the floor of the Senate, we are going to be talking about three kinds of prices: The average wholesale price, average manufacturer price, and the best price. Just talking about the average wholesale price, that is a public list price set by manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry; that is neither average nor wholesale and is a price set by the pharmaceutical companies. The best analogy I can give you is that it would be analogous to the price that appears as the sticker price on the window of a new car. Nobody pays that price. It really is not very helpful in terms of what you need to know when negotiating to purchase a car. And now there are a number of web sites and publications and manuals--a whole host of things that tell consumers this is what the manufacturer paid, these are the hold-backs by the dealers, these are the discounts and the commissions; here is the price on which you want to focus your attention. You can get that information if you are purchasing an automobile, and you can get that information when you purchase a whole host of other things. But that information is not available if you are talking about finding out the price of prescription drugs, and that is because of some statutory limitations. It is somewhat analogous to the statement Sir Winston Churchill made in 1939 in describing the Soviet Union. He went on to say: ``A riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma.'' That is a pretty fair characterization of what we know about the prices of prescription medications as sold by the manufacturer. There are many different approaches as we deal with this prescription drug issue and want to extend it as either part of Medicare or some alternative approach. I have been privileged to serve on the Finance Committee, which has been the vortex for this debate and discussion. I listened closely to my colleagues wax eloquently on the subject of prescription drugs, and, whether you are to the left or to the right of the political spectrum, or whether you consider yourself in the mainstream, a moderate, all of us worship at the shrine of competition. Everybody says what we need to do is to inject more competition into the system. I happen to subscribe to that because I do believe that by allowing the synergy of the free marketplace to work, it will be the most efficient and the most cost-effective way to deliver services. But there is an impediment to the operation of the free marketplace. What does the free marketplace need to work? How do we ensure competition? Well, some of you may recall that course from school, Econ. 201; that is what it was called at the University of Nevada where I was enrolled. Basic economic theory dictates that the availability of real market-based information is critical to a free market and that price transparency is necessary. That is precisely what we do not have in this system we have created today. The market today lacks market-based price information. A market simply cannot work without the availability of that price information. I emphasize the availability of that information. The information that is available to the public verges on the absurd. There is a complete void of useful information about prices. So, in effect, the employers and health plans negotiating on behalf of consumers are negotiating in the dark. They are at a serious disadvantage. It is as if they are blindfolded going into that negotiating arena. They don't know where the end of the tunnel is. They do not know what the real prices are. So one can fairly ask, how can even the most conscientious, effective employer or health plan operator negotiate good prices on behalf of consumers if they don't have the most basic information about market prices? They undoubtedly pay higher prices than they otherwise would, and ultimately these higher prices are translated into higher prices to the consumers; they are passed on. That is the nature of the system. So what type of price information would be available, or should be available, that would be useful and helpful information? The average manufacturer price for a drug would be a useful thing for purchasers to know; that is, the average price at which a manufacturer sold a particular drug. That is what is actually paid for retail drugs. By law, by act of Congress, that is kept confidential, and that is one of the changes this legislation seeks to accomplish. That is confidential. You can't get that information. The average price actually paid to a manufacturer by a wholesaler is supposed to be similar to the average manufacturer's price, but, in point of fact, it diverges widely. The average wholesale price, to refresh your memory, is a list price that is meaningless, a price assigned by the pharmaceutical industry. In theory, these prices should be tracking; in point of fact, they widely diverge. So it is the average manufactured price, the price that is actually paid, that is what we really want to know, and that is what we don't know. The other price we don't know, and also by law is kept confidential, is the best price. That is the lowest price available to the private sector for a particular medication--whether it be Mevacor, Claritin, or any one of the other medications so many of us use today. That information is not available. So the average wholesale price--an utterly meaningless number, a fiction, if you will--is available. The average manufacturer price is not; nor is the best price. Knowledge about the average manufacturer price and the best price would certainly enable us to have lower prices for health plans, lower prices for employers, and lower prices for the consumers. But the public is denied this information. Let me emphasize--because a number of you might be thinking: There we go again with a vast new bureaucracy to collect this data with all of the burdens that are imposed upon the free market and the limitations that would be generated. My friends, that is not the case because under the law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services currently collects the average manufacturer price and the best price. In other words, we have this information. It is not something we don't know about, or we have to create some new mechanism to gather. We have that information. It is there. But we are precluded by law from sharing that information with those who negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to negotiate the best possible price for employees, members of health plans, or other organizations that provide prescription drugs to their clients, patient customer base--however you characterize it. There is good information. All purchasers could use it to benefit those for whom they negotiate. It is clear that we need to increase the level of knowledge consumers have about drug prices in today's marketplace. Transparency--that is the ability to see what these prices are and promote the fair market-- will lower prices. That is why my colleague, Senator Graham, and I are introducing this legislation. We are not talking about mandating negotiated prices. We are simply talking about making the data that is collected available to those who are negotiating for prescription drugs. It would simply require the Secretary, who already collects this information, to provide the average manufacturer price of drugs and the best price available in the market. These prices are collected to implement the Medicare prescription drug rebate system. The rebates are based on those prices. But because Medicaid is prohibited by law from disclosing the average manufacturer price, or the best price, the market doesn't get the advantage of this information, and we are prohibited from knowing the price that Medicaid pays for each drug. Let me say say parenthetically that it is generally agreed that the price Medicaid pays is in point of fact the best price. So this would be a very relevant piece of information. We can't say for sure even with respect to a federally funded program what we are spending on a particular drug. We don't know what Medicaid pays for Claritin, Mevacor, or Prilosec. We just do not know that. We know the total price we are paying for drugs generally, and what we are spending for drugs. But we do not know what we are paying for them separately. This information needs to be made available because making price information available will help purchasers and consumers alike. Today, anyone can get on the Internet to find the lowest price available for a given airline flight. I think the question needs to be asked: Why shouldn't the public have access to price information on something that is so critical and that may be necessary to save one's life, or to prevent the onset of some debilitating disease, or to ameliorate its impact, the information with respect to the average manufacturer price and the best price? The bottom line is today there are no sources of good price information for consumers and purchasers, thus keeping prices artificially higher than they would otherwise be. The legislation which we introduce today would be extremely helpful in correcting this. The market-based price information this bill would provide would help all purchasers, employers, and pharmacy benefit managers who are at a disadvantage without true price information. Employers are struggling with increasing premiums. In large part, premiums are increasing because of rising drug expenditures. And, yet, employers don't have the information they need to assess whether the premium increases are appropriate. The answer to that is because without knowing the prices and the rebates that the pharmacy benefit managers are negotiating, they are not able to determine if the pharmacy benefit managers are passing along the rebates to them in the form of lower costs and lower premiums. Further, neither the PBMs nor the employers know if the drug companies are being candid with them. When they try to negotiate lower prices with the manufacturer, they are told, no, we can't give you that price because it is lower than the best price. The employers and the PBMs have no way of knowing in point of fact whether it is true. The battleground is really a negotiation of what these prices are. That is the information we don't know. In effect, those who negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry go into that combat with one arm tied behind their backs and blindfolded as to what the average manufacturer price and the best price is. Let me say that this piece of legislation is going to provoke an outcry. You don't have to have a degree from Oxford. You don't have to have a Ph.D. from some of our most distinguished institutions in America. Who would one think would dislike this information? My friends, the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know. Undoubtedly, the provision that is in the law today was crafted for their benefit. It certainly was not crafted for the benefit of employer groups, or health care providers who negotiate pharmaceutical benefits. It certainly was not put in to protect consumers. It is not in their best interests. I am sure we are going to have a predictable outcry that some horrendous draconian thing will occur if we make these prices available. My view is that transparency is essential. Make the prices available, and let this free marketplace that we all talk about that has produced such an extraordinary standard of living for us be the envy of the world. Nobody is suggesting that the free market could not, nor would, in my judgment, provide some of the dynamics that would help to keep the costs down. Let an honest negotiating process occur. The lack of market-based information has an effect on the Federal budget--not only for consumers in terms of the medications they pay for but all taxpayers. Whether in Congress--and I profoundly hope we will in fact--makes that prescription drug benefit a part of Medicare, or a subsequent Congress, this is an idea whose time has come. It will occur. It may not occur in my time. I leave at the end of this year. But it is going to occur. There are dramatic cost implications. Without the benefit of this information, it will be very difficult indeed. Let's just talk for a moment in terms of prices, information that is made available, and the generic formulas that we use for reimbursement. Although the average wholesale price is not a true market measure price--this is set by the industry--it is used to determine Medicare reimbursement for the few drugs that are currently covered by Medicare. The prescription Medicare benefit is very limited. I would like to see the Medicare prescription benefit extended through Medicare as an option, as we have a voluntary option under Part B. I don't want anybody to be confused, but there are some drugs that are covered in concert with the physician's prescriptions. The average wholesale price minus 5 percent--what is wrong with that? What is wrong with that is this average wholesale price is a fix. It means nothing. It is the price that the drug companies get together and tell us is the average wholesale price. Yet that is the reimbursement mechanism that is used for Medicare. Medicaid, which is a program, as we all know, that involves participation by the Federal and the State governments and made available to the poorest of our citizens, represents a rather substantial cost to the taxpayer. My recollection is that cost is in the neighborhood of about $17 billion a year. Here is how that formula worked. This is the Medicaid benefit: The average wholesale price minus 10 percent. Remember, this is a price set by the pharmaceutical industry; it is not a market-driven price. Multiply that times the units--whatever the number of prescriptions, say an allergy drug or a drug for elevated cholesterol level--times 15.1 percent of the average manufacturer price. This is the one we are precluded from knowing. Or take the average manufacturer price, minus the best price. This information we don't know, and we should be able to get this information. What can happen with respect to the Medicare reimbursements--because the physicians who prescribe this medication get the average wholesale price minus 5 percent, we do not know what the physicians are actually paying the pharmaceutical industry for the drugs. According to the Justice Department, the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, and our colleague in the other body who chairs the Commerce Committee, the average wholesale price has been manipulated in order to reap greater Medicare reimbursements. The way that works, the doctor prescribes something covered by Medicare and reimburses the average wholesale price minus 5 percent. In point of fact, your physician may be paying much, much less to the pharmaceutical industry. So the spread is the physician's profit, and there is potential for abuse. I am not suggesting in any way that a physician should not be compensated for his care. I am proud to say my son is a physician, a cardiologist. But you ought not to be able to manipulate the wholesale price--which is this fiction we have talked about--and then allow the physician to seek payment from the pharmaceutical industry at a price that is substantially less than what Medicare is paying. That gouges the American taxpayer. That is the issue that concerns us. As I have indicated, drug companies have artificially inflated this average wholesale price, which results in these inflated Medicare reimbursements to physicians, and the manufacturer then in turn provides the discounts, and the physicians can keep the difference. If the average wholesale price of the drug is $100, minus 5 percent would be $95, and if the physician actually only pays $50, the physician is getting $45 as part of that spread. That is much less than he is actually paying. Medicare, conversely, is reimbursing the physician at a far greater price than the physician is actually paying for that medication. The need for better information has never been greater. Medicare drug benefit is critical and should be enacted this year. I truly hope it will be. Accurate market-based price information will ensure the best use of the taxpayer dollars financing this benefit and the lowest possible beneficiary coinsurance; that is, the amount, the coinsurance, the beneficiary has to pay. This should be an easy call. Transparency promotes a fair market. We are all for that, I believe. Price information leads to price competition. I think we are all for that. That competition leads to lower prices for employers, for health plans, and for consumers. I think we are all for that. So at a time when drug prices are increasing at two to three times the rate of the overall rate of inflation, referred to as the Consumer Price Index, at a time when the same drugs prescribed by veterinarians, for use by pets--the identical medication--are priced lower than the same drug prescribed by prescriptions for doctors' use for people, at a time when the primary information consumers have about prescription drugs is through the $2 billion annually spent by the industry on direct-to-consumer advertising, and those ads never mention price --these are the things we are bombarded with on television; we see full pages in the leading newspapers in the country--at a time when Americans are traveling to foreign countries--to Canada and Mexico, in particular--to obtain lower prices, why shouldn't we be doing whatever we can to encourage competition in the United States and to lower the price of drugs sold in this country? I think it is a no-brainer. I think we should set the market forces in action. We simply need to allow the public to have access to readily available market-based information. This is commonsense, easy-to- understand, easy-to-implement legislation. We should pass it this year. There is no new bureaucracy created. We can have the information at HHS. All this legislation would do is require it be made available. The potential benefits are enormous. It will be interesting to see how this debate unfolds on this legislation because my colleagues have not heard the last of me on this issue. This makes a lot of sense, whether we do or do not succeed this year in extending a prescription benefit as part of Medicare. We ought to do it. We can do it. We should do it. I hope my colleagues will join me in a bipartisan effort to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, in a very few hours we will, each of us, be returning to our respective States for the summer recess. Most of us will have town hall meetings or other fora in which we will have a chance to interact with our constituents. Much that occurs on this floor, although very important, does not connect with the American people. Some of it seems pretty esoteric, pretty dry stuff. I am going to be discussing this afternoon an issue that does connect with the American people. Whether you live in Maine or California or Washington State or Florida or, as I do, the great State of Nevada--and which I am privileged to represent--people are talking about the price of prescription drugs. The reason for that is that the marvels of modern medicine have made it possible, through prescription drugs, to address a number of the maladies that affect all of us as part of humankind. The cost of those prescription drugs are literally going through the ceiling. I will comment more specifically upon that in a moment. For literally millions of people in this country, the cost of prescription drugs has been so prohibitive that medications that would address a medical problem that those individuals face are simply beyond the pale. So for many, it is fair to say, the choice is a Hobson's choice. Do they eat in the evening, or do they take the prescription medication that has been prescribed by their physician? It would be my fondest hope and expectation, before this Congress adjourns sine die-- that is, at the end of this legislative year--that we could enact prescription drug legislation. That would be my No. 1 priority. But I think all of us recognize there are some things we can do as part of whatever plan we might subscribe to, and Senator Graham and I this afternoon are offering a piece of legislation entitled the Consumer Awareness of Market-Based Drug Prices Act of 2000. This is a piece of legislation that deals with the price of drugs. We know what the cost is, but we are talking about the price. We have a lot of information on the cost. We know, for example, that we are spending on drugs in this country, prescription medications--in the last available year, 1999--almost $122 billion. We also know quite a bit about how much we in the Federal Government are spending for prescription drugs. For example, the States and the Federal Government spent $17 billion in fiscal year 1999 for drugs, just under the Medicaid program alone. Those costs are going to escalate rather dramatically. What is missing, however, is some critically important information--information that would be important to consumers and those who negotiate on behalf of consumers, because what we don't know, what we don't have much information about is drug prices. The reason for that is some statutory prohibitions I am going to talk about and which this legislation specifically addresses. So the questions are: What do consumers know about drug prices today? What do employers who purchase prescription drugs on behalf of their employees know about prices? What do health plans negotiating on behalf of their enrollees know about prices? What do physicians who prescribe drugs for their patients know about prices? The answer is simply, very, very little; almost nothing. What little is known is essentially worthless information. We have the average wholesale price, but this is a truly meaningless figure. During the course of my discussion this afternoon on the floor of the Senate, we are going to be talking about three kinds of prices: The average wholesale price, average manufacturer price, and the best price. Just talking about the average wholesale price, that is a public list price set by manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry; that is neither average nor wholesale and is a price set by the pharmaceutical companies. The best analogy I can give you is that it would be analogous to the price that appears as the sticker price on the window of a new car. Nobody pays that price. It really is not very helpful in terms of what you need to know when negotiating to purchase a car. And now there are a number of web sites and publications and manuals--a whole host of things that tell consumers this is what the manufacturer paid, these are the hold-backs by the dealers, these are the discounts and the commissions; here is the price on which you want to focus your attention. You can get that information if you are purchasing an automobile, and you can get that information when you purchase a whole host of other things. But that information is not available if you are talking about finding out the price of prescription drugs, and that is because of some statutory limitations. It is somewhat analogous to the statement Sir Winston Churchill made in 1939 in describing the Soviet Union. He went on to say: ``A riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma.'' That is a pretty fair characterization of what we know about the prices of prescription medications as sold by the manufacturer. There are many different approaches as we deal with this prescription drug issue and want to extend it as either part of Medicare or some alternative approach. I have been privileged to serve on the Finance Committee, which has been the vortex for this debate and discussion. I listened closely to my colleagues wax eloquently on the subject of prescription drugs, and, whether you are to the left or to the right of the political spectrum, or whether you consider yourself in the mainstream, a moderate, all of us worship at the shrine of competition. Everybody says what we need to do is to inject more competition into the system. I happen to subscribe to that because I do believe that by allowing the synergy of the free marketplace to work, it will be the most efficient and the most cost-effective way to deliver services. But there is an impediment to the operation of the free marketplace. What does the free marketplace need to work? How do we ensure competition? Well, some of you may recall that course from school, Econ. 201; that is what it was called at the University of Nevada where I was enrolled. Basic economic theory dictates that the availability of real market-based information is critical to a free market and that price transparency is necessary. That is precisely what we do not have in this system we have created today. The market today lacks market-based price information. A market simply cannot work without the availability of that price information. I emphasize the availability of that information. The information that is available to the public verges on the absurd. There is a complete void of useful information about prices. So, in effect, the employers and health plans negotiating on behalf of consumers are negotiating in the dark. They are at a serious disadvantage. It is as if they are blindfolded going into that negotiating arena. They don't know where the end of the tunnel is. They do not know what the real prices are. So one can fairly ask, how can even the most conscientious, effective employer or health plan operator negotiate good prices on behalf of consumers if they don't have the most basic information about market prices? They undoubtedly pay higher prices than they otherwise would, and ultimately these higher prices are translated into higher prices to the consumers; they are passed on. That is the nature of the system. So what type of price information would be available, or should be available, that would be useful and helpful information? The average manufacturer price for a drug would be a useful thing for purchasers to know; that is, the average price at which a manufacturer sold a particular drug. That is what is actually paid for retail drugs. By law, by act of Congress, that is kept confidential, and that is one of the changes this legislation seeks to accomplish. That is confidential. You can't get that information. The average price actually paid to a manufacturer by a wholesaler is supposed to be similar to the average manufacturer's price, but, in point of fact, it diverges widely. The average wholesale price, to refresh your memory, is a list price that is meaningless, a price assigned by the pharmaceutical industry. In theory, these prices should be tracking; in point of fact, they widely diverge. So it is the average manufactured price, the price that is actually paid, that is what we really want to know, and that is what we don't know. The other price we don't know, and also by law is kept confidential, is the best price. That is the lowest price available to the private sector for a particular medication--whether it be Mevacor, Claritin, or any one of the other medications so many of us use today. That information is not available. So the average wholesale price--an utterly meaningless number, a fiction, if you will--is available. The average manufacturer price is not; nor is the best price. Knowledge about the average manufacturer price and the best price would certainly enable us to have lower prices for health plans, lower prices for employers, and lower prices for the consumers. But the public is denied this information. Let me emphasize--because a number of you might be thinking: There we go again with a vast new bureaucracy to collect this data with all of the burdens that are imposed upon the free market and the limitations that would be generated. My friends, that is not the case because under the law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services currently collects the average manufacturer price and the best price. In other words, we have this information. It is not something we don't know about, or we have to create some new mechanism to gather. We have that information. It is there. But we are precluded by law from sharing that information with those who negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to negotiate the best possible price for employees, members of health plans, or other organizations that provide prescription drugs to their clients, patient customer base--however you characterize it. There is good information. All purchasers could use it to benefit those for whom they negotiate. It is clear that we need to increase the level of knowledge consumers have about drug prices in today's marketplace. Transparency--that is the ability to see what these prices are and promote the fair market-- will lower prices. That is why my colleague, Senator Graham, and I are introducing this legislation. We are not talking about mandating negotiated prices. We are simply talking about making the data that is collected available to those who are negotiating for prescription drugs. It would simply require the Secretary, who already collects this information, to provide the average manufacturer price of drugs and the best price available in the market. These prices are collected to implement the Medicare prescription drug rebate system. The rebates are based on those prices. But because Medicaid is prohibited by law from disclosing the average manufacturer price, or the best price, the market doesn't get the advantage of this information, and we are prohibited from knowing the price that Medicaid pays for each drug. Let me say say parenthetically that it is generally agreed that the price Medicaid pays is in point of fact the best price. So this would be a very relevant piece of information. We can't say for sure even with respect to a federally funded program what we are spending on a particular drug. We don't know what Medicaid pays for Claritin, Mevacor, or Prilosec. We just do not know that. We know the total price we are paying for drugs generally, and what we are spending for drugs. But we do not know what we are paying for them separately. This information needs to be made available because making price information available will help purchasers and consumers alike. Today, anyone can get on the Internet to find the lowest price available for a given airline flight. I think the question needs to be asked: Why shouldn't the public have access to price information on something that is so critical and that may be necessary to save one's life, or to prevent the onset of some debilitating disease, or to ameliorate its impact, the information with respect to the average manufacturer price and the best price? The bottom line is today there are no sources of good price information for consumers and purchasers, thus keeping prices artificially higher than they would otherwise be. The legislation which we introduce today would be extremely helpful in correcting this. The market-based price information this bill would provide would help all purchasers, employers, and pharmacy benefit managers who are at a disadvantage without true price information. Employers are struggling with increasing premiums. In large part, premiums are increasing because of rising drug expenditures. And, yet, employers don't have the information they need to assess whether the premium increases are appropriate. The answer to that is because without knowing the prices and the rebates that the pharmacy benefit managers are negotiating, they are not able to determine if the pharmacy benefit managers are passing along the rebates to them in the form of lower costs and lower premiums. Further, neither the PBMs nor the employers know if the drug companies are being candid with them. When they try to negotiate lower prices with the manufacturer, they are told, no, we can't give you that price because it is lower than the best price. The employers and the PBMs have no way of knowing in point of fact whether it is true. The battleground is really a negotiation of what these prices are. That is the information we don't know. In effect, those who negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry go into that combat with one arm tied behind their backs and blindfolded as to what the average manufacturer price and the best price is. Let me say that this piece of legislation is going to provoke an outcry. You don't have to have a degree from Oxford. You don't have to have a Ph.D. from some of our most distinguished institutions in America. Who would one think would dislike this information? My friends, the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want you to know. Undoubtedly, the provision that is in the law today was crafted for their benefit. It certainly was not crafted for the benefit of employer groups, or health care providers who negotiate pharmaceutical benefits. It certainly was not put in to protect consumers. It is not in their best interests. I am sure we are going to have a predictable outcry that some horrendous draconian thing will occur if we make these prices available. My view is that transparency is essential. Make the prices available, and let this free marketplace that we all talk about that has produced such an extraordinary standard of living for us be the envy of the world. Nobody is suggesting that the free market could not, nor would, in my judgment, provide some of the dynamics that would help to keep the costs down. Let an honest negotiating process occur. The lack of market-based information has an effect on the Federal budget--not only for consumers in terms of the medications they pay for but all taxpayers. Whether in Congress--and I profoundly hope we will in fact--makes that prescription drug benefit a part of Medicare, or a subsequent Congress, this is an idea whose time has come. It will occur. It may not occur in my time. I leave at the end of this year. But it is going to occur. There are dramatic cost implications. Without the benefit of this information, it will be very difficult indeed. Let's just talk for a moment in terms of prices, information that is made available, and the generic formulas that we use for reimbursement. Although the average wholesale price is not a true market measure price--this is set by the industry--it is used to determine Medicare reimbursement for the few drugs that are currently covered by Medicare. The prescription Medicare benefit is very limited. I would like to see the Medicare prescription benefit extended through Medicare as an option, as we have a voluntary option under Part B. I don't want anybody to be confused, but there are some drugs that are covered in concert with the physician's prescriptions. The average wholesale price minus 5 percent--what is wrong with that? What is wrong with that is this average wholesale price is a fix. It means nothing. It is the price that the drug companies get together and tell us is the average wholesale price. Yet that is the reimbursement mechanism that is used for Medicare. Medicaid, which is a program, as we all know, that involves participation by the Federal and the State governments and made available to the poorest of our citizens, represents a rather substantial cost to the taxpayer. My recollection is that cost is in the neighborhood of about $17 billion a year. Here is how that formula worked. This is the Medicaid benefit: The average wholesale price minus 10 percent. Remember, this is a price set by the pharmaceutical industry; it is not a market-driven price. Multiply that times the units--whatever the number of prescriptions, say an allergy drug or a drug for elevated cholesterol level--times 15.1 percent of the average manufacturer price. This is the one we are precluded from knowing. Or take the average manufacturer price, minus the best price. This information we don't know, and we should be able to get this information. What can happen with respect to the Medicare reimbursements--because the physicians who prescribe this medication get the average wholesale price minus 5 percent, we do not know what the physicians are actually paying the pharmaceutical industry for the drugs. According to the Justice Department, the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, and our colleague in the other body who chairs the Commerce Committee, the average wholesale price has been manipulated in order to reap greater Medicare reimbursements. The way that works, the doctor prescribes something covered by Medicare and reimburses the average wholesale price minus 5 percent. In point of fact, your physician may be paying much, much less to the pharmaceutical industry. So the spread is the physician's profit, and there is potential for abuse. I am not suggesting in any way that a physician should not be compensated for his care. I am proud to say my son is a physician, a cardiologist. But you ought not to be able to manipulate the wholesale price--which is this fiction we have talked about--and then allow the physician to seek payment from the pharmaceutical industry at a price that is substantially less than what Medicare is paying. That gouges the American taxpayer. That is the issue that concerns us. As I have indicated, drug companies have artificially inflated this average wholesale price, which results in these inflated Medicare reimbursements to physicians, and the manufacturer then in turn provides the discounts, and the physicians can keep the difference. If the average wholesale price of the drug is $100, minus 5 percent would be $95, and if the physician actually only pays $50, the physician is getting $45 as part of that spread. That is much less than he is actually paying. Medicare, conversely, is reimbursing the physician at a far greater price than the physician is actually paying for that medication. The need for better information has never been greater. Medicare drug benefit is critical and should be enacted this year. I truly hope it will be. Accurate market-based price information will ensure the best use of the taxpayer dollars financing this benefit and the lowest possible beneficiary coinsurance; that is, the amount, the coinsurance, the beneficiary has to pay. This should be an easy call. Transparency promotes a fair market. We are all for that, I believe. Price information leads to price competition. I think we are all for that. That competition leads to lower prices for employers, for health plans, and for consumers. I think we are all for that. So at a time when drug prices are increasing at two to three times the rate of the overall rate of inflation, referred to as the Consumer Price Index, at a time when the same drugs prescribed by veterinarians, for use by pets--the identical medication--are priced lower than the same drug prescribed by prescriptions for doctors' use for people, at a time when the primary information consumers have about prescription drugs is through the $2 billion annually spent by the industry on direct-to-consumer advertising, and those ads never mention price --these are the things we are bombarded with on television; we see full pages in the leading newspapers in the country--at a time when Americans are traveling to foreign countries--to Canada and Mexico, in particular--to obtain lower prices, why shouldn't we be doing whatever we can to encourage competition in the United States and to lower the price of drugs sold in this country? I think it is a no-brainer. I think we should set the market forces in action. We simply need to allow the public to have access to readily available market-based information. This is commonsense, easy-to- understand, easy-to-implement legislation. We should pass it this year. There is no new bureaucracy created. We can have the information at HHS. All this legislation would do is require it be made available. The potential benefits are enormous. It will be interesting to see how this debate unfolds on this legislation because my colleagues have not heard the last of me on this issue. This makes a lot of sense, whether we do or do not succeed this year in extending a prescription benefit as part of Medicare. We ought to do it. We can do it. We should do it. I hope my colleagues will join me in a bipartisan effort to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. I will just acknowledge his very generous comments. I appreciate that. Let me respond in turn. I have been privileged and honored to serve in that committee with him as chairman. We have worked on many, many issues, not only the athletic issues which we have addressed, but both of our respective jurisdictions are going to enjoy expanded air service as a result of his leadership, providing nonstop service to the Nation's Capital from our respective States. So I assure him my comments are in no way intended to be personal to him. It is a difference of opinion. The Senator from Arizona, who is a tenacious advocate and fearless defender of his own State, can understand the Senator from Nevada obviously has serious concerns. They are honest differences of opinion with the Senator from Arizona. I wanted to state that for the Record. Again, I thank him for his very generous comments.

Mr. BRYAN. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, the NCAA has threatened for years to deny NCAA-sponsored tournament press credentials to newspapers that publish lines, but they have never done so. These hollow threats are further evidence of the futility of this exercise. Secondly, we have been told that this legislation, while admittedly no panacea, will ``send a message'' to students and others that sports gambling is illegal. Again, there is a complete absence of any empirical evidence or fact-based testimony that America's college students, or adults for that matter, will heed such a so-called ``message.'' By this logic, we should reinstate Prohibition on serving alcohol to adults over the age of 21 to ``send a message'' to minors about drinking and to reduce binge drinking by underage students on college campuses. The absurdity of such an approach is self-evident, and it applies with equal force to this legislation. The real message that this legislation will send is that shirking responsibility and pointing fingers at others is the appropriate manner in which to handle a serious national problem. Everyone should agree that a problem so pervasive on college campuses should be addressed comprehensively and with a serious commitment from the NCAA and its member institutions, including federal requirements enshrined in appropriate legislation. While we heard considerable rhetoric at our Commerce Committee hearing concerning what the NCAA intends to do about illegal gambling on college campuses, there was very little testimony concerning what concrete steps at NCAA has taken to date. For example, the chairman of the NCAA's executive committee testified that during the ten years he has served as president of his university, he could not recall a single case of a student being expelled or otherwise disciplined for illegal gambling, even though he acknowledged there are illegal student bookies on his campus. We are repeatedly told by the sponsors of this legislation that the NCAA has plans to set up its anti-gambling initiatives. The facts belie the accuracy of those assurances. For example, the NCAA's total operating revenue for 1998-99 was $283 million. Within the overall budget, there was a line item for ``sports agents and gambling'' that equaled $64,000. Similarly, the line item for 1999-2000 is $139,000 out of revenue of $303 million. Only three of nearly 300 NCAA employees are assigned to gambling issues, and those persons have other responsibilities in addition to illegal sports gambling. The NCAA's own presentations to the NGISC and in other venues indicate that there are many other important steps that should be taken, beyond what this legislation would do, to address the problem of illegal gambling on college campuses. The NCAA and its members have failed to follow through on the very steps they recommended to the commission just one year ago. For example, much was made at our hearing about the NCAA's use of a new public service announcement during the telecast of the men's basketball tournament. There was little evidence that this PSA was shown either frequently or during times of maximum audience exposure. Furthermore, there is no indication that the NCAA followed the recommendation of the NGISC and specifics PSA commitments be written into the NCAA's television contracts. A $6 billion, 11-year deal for the television rights to the men's ``March Madness'' basketball tournament was signed by the NCAA with CBS Sports after the NGISC made this recommendation in its Final Report. There is a serious need for a combination of enforcement, education, and counseling initiatives to address illegal gambling by high school and college students. Unfortunately, the Commerce Committee took no testimony from those individuals on campus, in our states, and at the Federal level who are charged with enforcing the laws that already make this activity illegal. Similarly, we heard very little from professionals whose job it is to educate students about the dangers of gambling abuse and to counsel those who suffer from such problems. Finally, while this bill directly impacts Nevada, let me suggest to my colleagues we should be alarmed by the precedent that would be established if this bill becomes law. For over 200 years the Federal Government has deferred to the State to determine the scope and type of gaming that should be permitted within their borders. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act preempted that authority as it relates to sports wagering, but only prospectively. If Congress sees fit to overturn Nevada's sports wagering statutes that have been on the books for many decades, it sets a dangerous precedent that should be cause for concern for the other 47 States with some form of legal gaming operations. We all agree as to the serious nature of the problem. Unfortunately, the legislative proposal will do nothing to address that issue. As I have said during my testimony before the Commerce Committee, this legislation is an illegal bookie's dream. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, earlier today, the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Brownback, took to the floor and argued on behalf of a piece of legislation that would affect only my State and affect it in a very profound and negative way. The ostensible purpose of the legislation I think all of us can agree upon. I wish to put the discussion in context as I see it. We are talking about the illegal wagering on college sports, particularly wagering by underage college students, including student athletes. I think there is no disagreement that there is a serious problem and one that we recognize ought to be addressed in a very serious way. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) testified before the Commerce Committee, as they did before the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), that there are illegal student bookies on virtually every college campus in the country, including some individuals with links to organized crime. I do not disagree with that assessment. The matter is so serious that some students have actually been threatened with bodily harm to collect gambling debts owed to illegal student bookies. I do not disagree with that assessment. The NCAA has known at least since the three-part investigative series published by Sports Illustrated in 1995 that the illegal gambling problem on America's college campuses was widespread and growing. A recent University of Michigan survey found that nearly half of all male student-athletes nationwide--45 percent--gambled illegally on college and professional sports. A nationwide survey of NCAA Division I male basketball and football student-athletes conducted for the NCAA by a University of Cincinnati research team found that over one-fourth gambled in college sports. Sadly, a small number in each survey gambled on games in which they played. They were wrong. Beyond the broader issue of the extent to which student-athletes, and students generally, gamble on sports illegally, there are the troubling cases of improper influence being exerted on student-athletes by those who seek financial gain from placing sports wagers on ``fixed'' games. This reprehensible conduct has reared its ugly head on occasion since at least the 1940s, particularly in the context of college basketball. While the NCAA's recent rhetoric leaves the impression that such ``point-shaving'' or ``fixing'' of games is rampant, we can be thankful that the record belies the rhetoric. The two recent scandals of this type (those at Northwestern University and Arizona State University) took place over five years ago in the mid-1990s. The integrity of virtually all those who compete in college athletics is verified by the fact that there were a handful of such scandals in the 1990s out of the thousands of games played. While not a single sports bribery scandal should be tolerated, we need to know why they occur and by what means. The record is clear for those student-athletes who have violated the trust of their teammates and school by engaging in illegal sports wagering. As a result of their illegal wagering, they put themselves in debt to the point where they committed heinous acts of betrayal to pay off those debts to illegal bookies. If merely passing laws prohibiting unregulated sports gambling were enough to stop it, the practice would not be so widespread today. Sports gambling has been illegal for decades in almost every state, and Congress acted in 1992 to prevent states from adding sports-based games to their state lotteries. The same statute, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, also prohibits persons from engaging in sports-based wagering schemes, contests, and sweepstakes. Similarly, wagering on sports of any kind, college or professional, is already a violation of NCAA bylaw 10.3. A review of the NCAA's publicly available computer database of rules infractions cases indicates that, as of 1998 (the last year for which cases are posted), enforcement of bylaw 10.3 is infrequent and spotty at best. The database reveals that the NCAA brought only 23 enforcement actions against student-athletes from 1996 to 1998, even though the University of Michigan and University of Cincinnati studies indicate that thousands of violations occurred. In some of the 23 cases, the violations centered on such routine practices as students wagering team jerseys with each other. In the face of organized student bookmaking operations with links to organized crime handling large sums of cash wagers, such an enforcement ``strategy'' is at best misplaced. Against this backdrop of a serious national problem with illegal sports gambling, the legislation to which I referred, S. 2340, takes the very peculiar approach of targeting the only place in America where sports wagering is legal, regulated, policed, taxed, and confined to adults over age 21--the State of Nevada. Furthermore, the facts are that legal wagering in Nevada amounts to only about one percent of all sports gambling nationwide, 99 percent of which is already illegal. The NGISC estimated that illegal sports wagering in the United States ranged from $80 billion to $380 billion annually. In contrast, legal sports wagering in the State of Nevada last year totaled approximately $2.5 billion, with roughly a third of that amount bet on college sporting events. The central question then, which supporters of the legislation fail to answer adequately, is how does preventing adult tourists and conventioneers from placing sports wagers in Nevada affect what happens on and off college campuses in the other 49 states. Each of the attempted answers to this central question is completely unpersuasive. First, the central premise underlying this legislation is that eliminating the small amount of legal sports wagering in Nevada will cause newspapers across the country not to publish betting lines or point spreads, thereby curbing illegal gambling activity. This notion is further evidenced by the committee report accompanying S. 2340, the Amateur Sports Integrity Act, which states that ``. . . point spreads are generated for no other reason than to facilitate betting on college sports.'' It is important to note that neither the Commerce Committee nor the NGISC took testimony from newspapers to determine if in fact they would cease publishing betting lines if sports gambling were made illegal in Nevada. Similarly, no testimony was taken to determine whether illegal sports wagering would be reduced even if newspapers ceased publishing this information. I made the point at the time of the hearing on S. 2340 that it's not too much to ask that such due diligence be conducted before a legal industry and its employees are legislated out of existence Just recently the Newspaper Association of America broke their silence and shared their thoughts on this legislative proposal, and, not surprisingly, they completely refuted the primary argument put forth by the sponsors of this amendment. I'd like to share with my colleagues the content of their letter to the House Judiciary Committee. This is a letter, dated June 7 of this year, addressed to the chairman and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. Let me read the operative provisions: If Congress prohibits gambling on college sports, NAS believes newspapers will continue to have an interest in publishing point spreads on college games, since point spreads appear to be useful, if not valuable, to newspaper readers who have no intention of betting on games. That is a pretty clear statement that this association, representing America's newspapers, believes, notwithstanding any legislative prohibition, that newspapers in America will continue to publish these point spreads on games. The letter goes on to point out: According to a national Harris Poll survey of 1,024 respondents conducted during April 7-12, 70 percent of respondents who read or look at point spreads on college sports do so to obtain information about a favorite college team and to increase their knowledge about an upcoming sporting event. Only 11 percent of the respondents said that they read or look at point spreads on college sports to place a bet with a bookmaker. NAA believes that publication of point spreads provides useful information to millions of newspaper readers, of whom 96 percent are 21 and over (MRI Spring 2000 Study). Second, pointing the spotlight on published point spreads in newspapers fails to acknowledge that an individual can obtain point spreads on college games through many different sources. These sources include sports talk shows on radio and television, magazines, toll-free telephone services and the Internet. Illegal bookies on college campuses and in the general population will continue to set the betting lines independent of any published point spread. Anyone who is intent on placing bets on games can and will obtain point spreads, even if they are not published in the newspaper. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. I thank the distinguished occupant of the chair. Mr. President, I wish to change the focus of the discussion on the floor from the previous colloquy between the senior Senator from Nevada and the senior Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. BRYAN

Mr. BRYAN. Might I inquire, is there any more time remaining on my side?

Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, this amendment would reduce the amount of money in a program that loses the American taxpayers a great deal of money--some $2 billion over the period of 1992 to 1997--and transfers $15 million into a program to help prevent forest fires in those areas which interface with the urban base. So we have State and local governments and the Forest Service all needing more money for planting. This is totally different from the amendment the distinguished Senator from New Mexico offered which deals with reducing fuels that cause fires--a totally separate issue. This one is a winner for the American taxpayer, and it is a winner for the other people who live in those areas that can be affected by forest fires. I urge the adoption of the amendment.