Bill Bradley

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I am extremely pleased that today the Senate is acting to ensure the preservation of Sterling Forest, a nationally significant tract of land in the Highlands area of New York State on the New Jersey border. This bill authorizes $17.5 million for establishment of a Sterling Forest Reserve and designates the Palisades Interstate Park Commission [PIPC] to manage the new entity. The over 15,000 acres of Sterling Forest we protect today is the last link needed to form an unbroken chain of 100,000 acres of parks and protected lands in the New York-New Jersey region--one of the biggest parcels of protected land east of the Mississippi River. Not only do these lands contain a wide variety of wildlife and plants, but they also protect one-fourth of the drinking water for New Jersey and provide needed open space for about 20 million people in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan region. The land will be purchased from willing sellers through a unique partnership of State, Federal, and private interests and will be managed by the PIPC, a New York-New Jersey parks management body. Since the PIPC currently manages 23 other parks, visited by over 8 million people each year, we can be assured that the reserve will be well cared for. The Federal contribution authorized by this bill amounts to only a small portion of the total needed, but it is the crucial piece that makes the rest of the plan come together. Enactment of this bill also frees up $9 million for Sterling Forest land acquisition, contained in the recently-enacted Continuing resolution. Although located entirely in New York State, the area affected by the bill represents some of the most critical New Jersey watershed still left undeveloped and in private hands. It also contains the largest unbroken tract of forest land still remaining along the New York-New Jersey border. This 20-square-mile parcel represents a complete range of wildlife habitat, hills and wetlands, and is home to a large number of threatened and endangered species. The forest is crossed in the north by the Appalachian Trail, a unit of the National Park System, which is used heavily for hiking. Even better, this area provides a taste of the outdoors for a region where such experiences are at a premium. In fact, 1 in every 12 Americans lives within a 2-hour drive of its boundaries. Most important for New Jersey, though, are the billions of gallons of fresh, clean drinking water that flow from within its boundaries. The Monkville/Wanaque reservoirs, which draw from the Sterling Forest watershed, serve one in four New Jerseyites and many New Yorkers as well. To threaten this watershed is to threaten the health and livelihood of millions of Americans or force taxpayers to pay many times the cost of this land for expensive water treatment facilities.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to an extraordinary American and New Jerseyan. A hero of the imagination whose ingenuity and continuing output of technology profoundly changed the lives of people throughout the world. A genius who set a standard for American inventiveness that has keyed our progress as a nation. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure in my final floor statement to join my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, in introducing the Thomas A. Edison Commemorative Coin Act. In the spring of 1876, the young Thomas Alva Edison, not yet 30 years old, moved 15 of his workers to the small town of Menlo Park, NJ. This young man, who had decided to go into the ``invention business,'' did not see inventions as strokes of luck. Rather, Edison believed that inventions were the products of dedicated work and purpose. Mr. President, before he had reached 21 years of age, Edison was granted his first patent for a telegraphic vote-recording machine. He had developed this machine while he was reporting the votes of Congress over the press wires from his job as a telegraph operator. With this invention, at each rollcall Members of Congress would simply press a button at their seats, immediately registering the vote at the Speaker's desk, where votes were counted automatically. Already at this early age, Edison showed that he was ahead of his time. In response to his invention, the House declared that it was not ready for automated voting, and the Senate today continues to go by voice vote. For this, at the very least, it is suitable that Congress recognize Thomas Edison. At Menlo Park, Edison developed a string of remarkable new technologies that would shape human history. In 1876 he was instrumental in improving the telephone to reach marketability. In 1877, Edison sang ``Mary Had a Little Lamb'' and played it back to his astonished workers, having invented the first ``talking machine,'' or phonograph. On New Years' Eve in 1880, Edison illuminated Menlo Park at night with forty incandescent light bulbs, which he had developed 1 year earlier. In 1883, he extended the use of electricity to develop an electric railway that soon became the basis of an electric street car system. In 1891, he produced a Kinetoscope and 35 mm film using celluloid, two products which were the predecessors of all later motion-picture machines and film. Despite his achievements, Edison was a man who held that there was no such thing as genius, and his many failed trials and efforts inspired him to say that his success was ``99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.'' For Thomas Edison, inventing was a passion, and he demanded as much from those who worked with him. In authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Mint to produce a commemorative coin in his memory, it is my hope that we will never forget to acknowledge Edison's contributions and inventive spirit. Once the costs of the production of the coin are recovered, proceeds from the sale of this coin will fund the renovation and upkeep of seven sites in five different States dedicated to preserving Edison's work, including the Invention Factory in West Orange, NJ, and the Edison Memorial Tower in Edison, NJ. Mr. President, it is an honor for me to pay tribute to the Wizard of Menlo Park, whose inventions had a scope and effect which are truly awe-inspiring. We are duty-bound as a nation to preserve the memory of a man who developed technology that carried human speech and experience beyond time and space, and transformed night into day for millions of Americans. I hope my colleagues will join me in strong support of this legislation.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, the Senate floor is a place where speeches are made, sometimes longer than they should be, sometimes shorter than they should be. I have made my share of speeches on the Senate floor in the last 18 years. But a Senator is also called upon to speak off the Senate floor in gatherings in his or her State and in sites across the country. I have often thought of the Senate speech as a form of communication, as a way of educating, as a way of leading. I have tried to do that on the Senate floor. In the last 2 years, we have had a number of restrictions that have made this kind of speech that I would give, which would be a very lengthy speech, more difficult in morning business as we have 10-minute time limits. For that reason, in the last 2 years I have given a number of speeches that have not been reflected in the Record but have been given at other forums across the country. I believe that these were speeches that I worked on as a Senator. These were speeches that I thought about as a Senator and delivered as a Senator. Therefore, I believe that it is important that I share them with the Senate and for the Record. I see the Chair twitching a little bit. He need not worry that I am going to deliver all these speeches at this moment. I would like to submit for the Record a speech called ``America's Challenge: Revitalizing Our National Community,'' ``After the Revolution: Rethinking U.S.-Russia Relations,'' ``Race Relations in America: The Best and Worst of Times,'' ``Harry Truman: Public Power and the New Economy,'' and the speech to the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts on the occasion of the Freedom of Speech Awards Gala Dinner. I ask unanimous consent that all of these speeches be printed in the Record and that they be my last official act as a U.S. Senator on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I always preferred moving to standing still. As a small forward with the New York Knicks, as U.S. Senator from New Jersey, I think I have had two of the best jobs in the world. Each kept me on the move, each offered a unique perspective on America, and in each there came a time to go. Tomorrow, the Senate will probably adjourn and in a few months I will be leaving the Senate. I believe that U.S. Senator is the best elective job in the world. I thank the people of New Jersey who gave me their votes and their trust; each of my three senatorial races drew me closer to them and forced me to grow in new and different ways. Election day is democracy's most intimate and important ritual. For all the polling and media and political strategy, I believe that there is an essence in any campaign that conveys the bond between the candidate and the electorate on that particular election day. Ultimately, it is the bond that determines the outcome. For nearly 17 years, almost 18 years now, my most memorable moments have come from the people that I have met. I thank those New Jerseyans who told me their stories through their letters and during our encounters along the shore, at commuter terminals and diners and town meetings and countless other settings. It is from the stories of people's lives that I have been moved and that I gained hesitancy about universal solutions. It is from their stories that I saw what a small role Government plays in most people's lives and, paradoxically, it is where I felt the impact of decisions taken here in Washington. I have received much more inspiration, insight, and good cheer than I could ever say. They reminded me daily of the resilience and the power of the human spirit. Their New Jersey stories gave me substance and emotion, and lent both substance and emotion to abstractions about democracy. Now each of their stories has become a part of my own story. I have tried to listen to those I serve while using judgment that I believe they elected me to exercise. Sometimes they vented their anger and frustration, and just by my listening, they seemed to feel better. I have included young New Jerseyans in my activities as a Senator because democratic participation must burst forth anew in each generation, like flowers in the spring. Unless the seeds are watered there will be no blossoms. I have paid attention to the religious community in my State because I believe the right policy always starts with the right values. I have respected those who disagreed with me, especially when they took time to write long letters detailing their disagreements. Flying north from Washington in a small plane as the Sun is setting, you reach a point where the sunlight on the Delaware River turns it into a metallic-looking band extending all the way up from Trenton to the Delaware Water Gap. And there, lying before you, is the New Jersey Peninsula, bordered on the west by the Delaware River and on the east by the Atlantic. New Jersey offers unexpected beauty, it gives surprising economic opportunity and reveals vital human diversity. I have achieved greater understanding of the world with all its mixture of religions and ethnicities by simply representing New Jersey. I have become deeply attached to the Jersey shore, to the mountains of the northwest, the flat farmland of the south, and even to certain places on the Garden State Parkway and the turnpike. These New Jersey places have rooted me and given my life a sense of permanence. It has been an honor to represent our State in the U.S. Senate. I was not in an elective body before coming to the Senate. I had no frame of reference. And in the early months, I remember sitting in the Cloakroom one night late around 2 a.m. and looking around at my fellow Senators in that Cloakroom. One was reading, and one was pacing, and one was telling a joke, and one was sitting quietly, and one was arguing. I thought to myself, ``This isn't a lot different than the Knicks locker room.'' In fact, it isn't. Both team play and successful legislating are about getting different people from different backgrounds with different personal agendas to come together and agree on a common objective, and then work toward it. During my time in the Senate, I have tried to balance the private interests and the public interests, the rights of property owners and the needs of society, the big players and the forgotten players. I haven't always pleased everyone, but I have tried to be consistent on the big issues, such as economy, race, America's role in the world. I have also tried to take the long view, often passing up an occasional headline, to make sure when I spoke I knew what I was talking about. Questions of structure, whether on taxes or trade or the environment, always interested me more than issues of marginal gain or questions of blame or strategies for partisan political advantage. I am saddened on occasion when the media and politicians ourselves convey that politics is mean, cheap and dirty; that what we hold in common as Americans is somehow less than what we harbor in our hearts and minds as individuals. I have never believed that. Commentators have remarked that so many Senators are leaving this year that somehow the Senate will have lost its moderate pragmatic center. I strongly disagree with that. Many talented Senators with distinguished records are leaving, but the Senate remains, and power in the Senate rests in the middle. Future Senators will be no less interested in exercising power than do those who are departing. Therefore, they will head to the center where knowing what you are talking about, listening carefully, seeking common ground are the winning attributes. The Senate does not reward extremes of either right or left. It rewards competence. It is not possible, though, to sum up my 18 years in the Senate in a few words, particularly when I recently took 427 pages to do it in a book. But above all, the Senate is a human institution, shaped by the talents and values and personalities of the Senators who are here at any one time. I owe much to those fellow Senators over the years, to mentors, such as Scoop Jackson and Russell Long, to my able New Jersey colleague and good friend, Frank Lautenberg, to Robert Byrd, to Pat Moynihan, to Jack Danforth, to Al Simpson, to Bill Cohen, to Dick Lugar, to Nancy Kassebaum, to Paul Sarbanes, to George Mitchell, to Wendell Ford, to Tom Eagleton, to David Pryor, to Howell Heflin, to Sam Nunn, and many, many others. Over the years, I have been lucky to be assisted by competent staff in ways that are important for a Senate office. I always regarded the newest intern in the mail room to be as relevant to the mission of representing the people of New Jersey as the most senior legislative aide. All of us were here for the same purpose. I gave my trust to many, many members of my staff during my 18 years, and they honored that trust. They represented me in countless meetings with other Senate and House staffers and appointees of four administrations. They always made sure I had the information I needed to be prepared, they amplified my voice, extended my reach, they knew my values, and used their own creativity to serve those same values. The nature of a good Senator-staff/staff-Senator relationship lies somewhere between the realms of family and team, with the mutual caring and sense of purpose that we expect respectively from each. I am grateful to those ``family'' members and ``teammates'' who have enriched my time in the Senate with their intelligence, humanity, sense of humor and, above all else, hard, hard work. We didn't win every battle with the bureaucracy on behalf of individual New Jerseyans, but we held our own and, in the process, gave Government a little more of a human face. We didn't adopt every amendment we wanted, but we were in the game, right there in the center, in the middle, where power is exercised and accomplishments accumulated in the U.S. Senate. By and large, and above all else, I believe those who served on my staff took public service seriously and believed they could make a difference in the life of our State and our Nation, and I believe we have. So, Mr. President, I am leaving the Senate, but I am not leaving public life. The quest for a decent life and good wages for all Americans is shaped by many influences that work on many levels. The imperative to engage the world flows through many channels; the fight for justice occurs in many places. I will continue to speak out and call it like I see it on race, on America's role in the world, on the economic plight of the middle class and the poor, and on the need for thoroughgoing reform that will remove special interest from elections and reduce their influence on Government. In the coming years, I will not lessen my efforts. To the contrary, I will increase them. So, as I leave the familiar surroundings of the U.S. Senate, I don't know what the future will bring, but I recall the words of Robert Frost: The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep; And miles to go before I sleep. I yield the floor. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the public career of a very special woman. The Honorable Lori Mooney will this month retire from public service having completed 19 years of faithful and distinguished service as the first publicly elected clerk of Atlantic County. Having been elected in 1977 as the first woman to serve in the position of county clerk, Lori Mooney made one promise at that time to the people of the county--to bring the operations of the office of the clerk into the 20th Century. To that end, she can take great pride in her achievements. She has managed, with the help of a highly professional, service-oriented staff, to raise the professional standards of the office from hand-written entries to the complete computerization of all records. She has consistently worked to meet the growing and changing needs of her county by recognizing the importance of easy, accessible service to the general public. From being the first to provide a satellite office in Atlantic City to her forward-looking efforts today in establishing a World Wide Web site and a ``County Connection'' at the Hamilton Mall, Lori has instinctively understood the dynamic of citizen contact and public outreach. She has truly incorporated and made real her own motto, ``Always At Your Service.'' Mr. President, as important as her work as county clerk has been, so too has Lori distinguished herself as a professional businesswoman having been the first woman appointed to the National Small Business Council for New Jersey by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966. And finally, her love and her energy on behalf of Democratic candidates both local and national make her one of the very few Democrats in the State to have been a delegate to the party's national convention six times. Mr. President, I offer my warmest and most sincere congratulations to one of New Jersey's most beloved public servants whose public career should stand as an inspiration to all who respect honesty, unquestioned integrity and sound judgement in public office.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to support S. 1505, the Accountable Pipeline Safety and Partnership Act of 1996. My interest in the pipeline safety issue dates back to the explosion and fire at Edison, NJ in 1994. In reaction to that tragedy, which set fire to eight apartment houses and cost one life, I introduced the Comprehensive One-Call Notification Act, S. 164, cosponsored by Senators Spector, Lautenberg and Exon. The purpose of that bill was to improve state-wide notification systems to protect natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines from being damaged during excavations, the cause of the Edison accident. In S. 1505, the Commerce Committee has wisely chosen to strengthen State one-call programs, and has provided new authorization for grants to States to establish one-call notification systems consistent with standards which assure at least a minimally acceptable level of protection from accidents. These grants, which were also a feature of S. 164, will assist States in developing the kinds of one-call systems needed to prevent future Edisons from happening. While I would have preferred a stronger and more comprehensive set of requirements, the bill is an important first step toward the goal of implementing strong, comprehensive one-call systems nationwide. S. 1505 also includes new language broadening public education programs carried out by natural gas pipeline owners to include the use of one-call systems. Finally, I was pleased to join with Senator Lautenberg in proposing additional provisions which are the subject of a manager's amendment to S. 1505. These include a survey and risk assessment by the Department of Transportation of the effectiveness of remotely-controlled valves which shut off the flow of natural gas in the event of a pipeline rupture. Once the survey and assessment are completed, the Secretary of Transportation shall issue standards for their use if he or she finds them technically and economically feasible. The manager's amendment also includes measures to promote public awareness of pipeline location. Pipeline owners or operators must provide municipalities where pipelines are located with facility maps to prevent accidents and respond to pipeline emergencies. In addition, the Secretary of Transportation must survey existing public education plans to determine which components are most effective at accident prevention. After analyzing the results of the survey, the Secretary may promulgate nationwide regulations, if necessary, to ensure the safest feasible pipeline public education system. The bill and these amendments, taken together, represent a considerable improvement over current practices for accident prevention. I hope they can be enacted this year, and prevent another Edison accident.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Madam President, the first point to make is that this issue should not be coming before us today. No State in the United States has passed a law that recognizes same-sex marriages. To the contrary, 15 States have passed laws prohibiting them. I wish I did not have to deal with this issue. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I feel I'm on ground full of quicksand. But, as a Senator, one is asked to vote to decide, so that is what I am doing today. My views on gay issues have evolved over the years. I have always been opposed to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity. Then I came to see that the same concerns about discrimination have to also apply to sexual orientation, if I were to carry the logic of civil rights to its natural conclusion. But the countervailing thought in a society as diverse as ours is that opponents of gay rights have rooted their opposition to religion. Many opponents assert that God has not ordained homosexuality. These individuals sometimes use the power of Scripture to perpetuate the idea that homosexuality is a choice, and if you choose it, similar to choosing anything that Scripture prohibits, you are guilty of flaunting your dismissal of God's will and strictures. These individuals also sometimes use Scripture to perpetuate blatant discrimination, hiding behind Scripture to cover up an underlying intolerance. Madam President, I believe that homosexuality is not a choice. Homosexual behavior, on occasion, might be a choice. But having a homosexual orientation and being a gay is not a choice. I believe that it is more similar to being born with red hair than it is to choosing to tell a lie. The latter requires a decision; the former just is. You can cover up the former, but underneath the dyes and wigs the hair is still red. At the same time, I believe there is no denying the fact that large numbers of Americans have deeply held religious beliefs about homosexuality and marriage. Even in questions of discrimination against gays, there is a conflict between religious faith and rights. Madam President, I have resolved that conflict in my own mind by saying that in things secular rights shall prevail, be dominant. I believe, for example, that there should be no discrimination against gays in housing and employment, and that is why I have been a long supporter of gay rights in these areas, with the proviso that religious institutions that would see these antidiscrimination laws as interfering with their freedom of religion are exempted. ENDA, in my view, does that. It achieves the balance between ending discrimination against gays and respecting freedom of religion. The issue of gay marriage, in my view, does not achieve that balance. I believe marriage is, first of all, a predominantly religious institution. For example, it is one of the sacraments of the Christian faith, but it is also, in our society, a secular institution. Therefore, it is fraught with a degree of ambiguity. In all cases, it has been a state that exists between a man and a woman. In no country in the world, in no religion that I know of, does the state of marriage exist between two people of the same sex. Therefore, when we contemplate giving state sanction to same-sex marriages, we need to proceed cautiously. At the same time there are many partners of same-sex relationships who have loving and committed relationships over many years. The question arises, how do we acknowledge the existence of these committed relationships--the partner's desire to be at the bedside of his or her dying partner or to see that a partner receives the benefits that accrue to a survivor of a long and loving relationship? One might point out that the only way we can do that now is through marriage. There ought to be another way, and I am prepared to look for that other way, but I do not see marriage as flexible enough an institution to accept such redefinition at this time. Too many people in too many places of too many faiths see it as the state that exists between a man and a woman, and they see same-sex marriages as an incomprehensible trespass. Madam President, that is what this bill is all about. That is what the so-called DOMA legislation is all about. It says marriage should not be redefined to include individuals of the same sex because marriage with all its religious connotations is different from a secular desire to get housing or a good job. So, Madam President, in trying to balance the religious and historical idea of marriage with the need for extending rights, I say that rights should extend up to but not include recognition of same-sex marriages. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRADLEY. I ask unanimous consent to continue until my speech is finished.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to inclusion of language in the VA-HUD fiscal year 1997 Appropriations Committee Report barring the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] from using Fair Housing Initiatives Program [FHIP] funds to enforce the Fair Housing Act against insurance redlining. The language in this report is intended to deny the protection of a basic civil rights law to people subject to discrimination by a particular industry. Because insurance redlining is a reality in America, efforts to eliminate such discrimination should be aggressively undertaken. Sadly, by attempting to strip HUD of its enforcement authority, this funding restriction will allow such discrimination to flourish. In September 1995, language prohibiting HUD from investigating insurance-related discrimination complaints was placed in the 1996 VA- HUD Appropriations bill. This language was removed before a vote on the Senate floor due to opposition from a number of Senators. Now, the committee seeks to accomplish through the back door what the Senate refused to sanction last year. Mr. President, insurance redlining is a serious problem in this country. Recently, the National Fair Housing Alliance conducted a 3- year investigation--partially funded with $800,000 from a HUD grant awarded when Jack Kemp was HUD Secretary--using white and minority testers posing as middle-class homeowners seeking property insurance coverage. The test covered nine major cities and targeted Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide Insurance. The homes selected were of comparable value, size, age, style, construction, and were located in middle-class neighborhoods. The investigation uncovered the fact that discrimination against African American and Latino neighborhoods occurred more than 50 percent of the time. Astoundingly, in Chicago, Latino testers ran into problems in more than 95 percent of the attempts to obtain insurance; in Toledo, African Americans experienced discrimination by State Farm 85 percent of the time. While white testers encountered no problems obtaining insurance quotations and favorable rates, African American and Latino testers encountered the following problems: Failure by insurance agents to return repeated phone calls; Failure to provide quote information; Giving pre-conditions for providing quotes (inspection of property, credit rating checks); Failure to provide replacement cost coverage to homes of Blacks and Latinos; and Charging more money to Blacks and Latinos, while providing less coverage. Mr. President, the results of this investigation are profoundly disturbing. Insurance redlining directly affects the ability of African Americans, Asians and Hispanics to purchase a home, because the denial of insurance results in the denial of a mortgage loan, which in turn results in the inability to purchase a home. Property insurance discrimination is illegal under the Fair Housing Act. As this country moves toward its stated ideal of a colorblind society, the effort of the committee to strip HUD of its enforcement authority and remove a whole category of discrimination--insurance redlining--from the reach of the law is not supported by judicial decisions or the language of the Fair Housing Act. Mr. President, the report claims that HUD's assertion of authority regarding property insurance contradicts the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945. However, Federal fair housing laws enforce civil rights protections which do not threaten or regulate the business of providing insurance. Thus, the report's argument that enforcement of civil rights protections undermines State insurance regulation is inaccurate, and more importantly, elevates a business practice over the enforcement of fundamental civil rights. The report further claims that the Fair Housing Act does not directly mention homeowners insurance, and therefore does not apply to the provision of homeowners insurance. However, section 3604 of the Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to ``discriminate against any person in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling or in the provision of services * * * in connection therewith. * * *'' Based on the language of section 3604, Federal courts have held that homeowners insurance discrimination is within the purview of the Fair Housing Act. Indeed, in February of this year, the Supreme Court refused to entertain an appeal from a decision holding that the Fair Housing Act covers insurance. Mr. President, under Secretary Cisneros, HUD has been an active participant in enforcing the Fair Housing Act and ensuring that property insurance discrimination ceases. The insurance industry has been fighting in court to restrict HUD's authority to enforce insurance redlining. The industry has not been successful in the judicial arena in its efforts to stop HUD's enforcement activities. Thus, the industry has now turned to Congress to restrain stepped-up Federal fair lending enforcement efforts. This effort failed last year, and there exists no legal justification for the committee to now restrict FHIP funds in the investigation of homeowners insurance redlining. It is this Senator's view, and I believe that of many others, that this report language does not and should not reflect the view of the Senate, and that HUD should not treat this language as having the force of law.

Mr. BRADLEY

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I strongly support the amendment of the distinguished Senator; the amendment to my amendment. I hope we adopt it unanimously by a large, overwhelming vote, and hopefully we will be able to move forward. It is an amendment that would confirm that insurers have to allow 48 hours for delivery of a child by a mother in the hospital, 96 hours for cesarean section. The Senator's changes are merited and important. It is a pleasure to work with him. I look forward to the 5:35 hour so that we can vote. Maybe we can move sooner. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BRADLEY. The answer to the question is yes, 28 States have passed laws that require insurers to provide 48 hours for a delivery, coverage for 48 hours for delivery. As the Senator has pointed out, there are a few gaps there. One is the ERISA problem; the other is the problem of the hospital that is across a State line in a State that is uncovered. Then there is the New Jersey problem. I guess some other State law might have that problem, but in New Jersey the State passed a law that said that the State requirement of 48 hours would apply to only those insurance companies that were headquartered in New Jersey. So you could be headquartered in another State and you would not be covered. This could get at that issue as well.

Mr. BRADLEY. I say to the Senator that in the first amendment is language that does allow some flexibility, and I think it would be in the first amendment. I think Kaiser Permanente endorsed both the first- and the second-degree amendments.

Mr. BRADLEY. I think I can answer. Essentially, the differences between the first- and second-degree amendments are minimal. The only difference relates to a deletion of the sentence that essentially is inconsequential but was confusing, and the second-degree amendment adds a sentence that gives some flexibility to health plans.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I say to the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, yes, the Senator is correct. For example, we have had on the floor today the Senator from Delaware speaking. One of the largest employers in his State is DuPont. And we had the Senator from Minnesota speaking. One of the larger employers in his State is 3M. Each has what is known as a self-ensured ERISA plan. And under a State law, in Minnesota or Delaware, as each of the Senators has testified today on the floor, it could not reach those plans in requiring them to allow 48 hours for delivery. Only this Federal law would achieve that objective.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BRADLEY. Of these cosponsors, 19 are Republican. So this is a bipartisan amendment and a bipartisan bill. What the bill does is very simple. It says that insurers are required to allow 48 hours, up to 48 hours, for a woman in the hospital after giving birth and requires insurers to allow up to 96 hours if that birth is a Caesarean section. If the mother and her doctor choose to leave the hospital in less than 24 hours, less than 48 hours, she is permitted to do so. There is nothing in this bill that says that she cannot leave earlier. Followup care will be provided if she leaves earlier. Mr. President, why is this amendment needed? Why are we offering this amendment? The answer is because all of us, I am sure, have received reports of women in our respective States being required to leave a hospital prior to 48 hours, in some cases prior to 24 hours. In California, for example, in 1994, for 1 in 6 babies that were born, the mother had to leave the hospital in less than 24 hours. That is for 90,000 births. The problem here is that some illnesses do not develop until the second day. If the mother were in the hospital, they would be able to detect it and deal with it. A good example is jaundice, which does not really develop until the second day. Heart defects are another. What happens is that the mother is pushed out of the hospital. She goes home after 12, 14 hours, 16 hours, 26 hours. In the second day jaundice is detected, or worse, a heart defect, and the mother is rushed back to the hospital at a much greater cost. In New Hampshire, for example, there was the study that showed that women who leave the hospital in less than 48 hours have a 50-percent increased risk of readmission to the hospital, a 70-percent increase in risk to be readmitted at the emergency room. So in the long run, by saying that someone has to leave in 24 hours, you are really saying it is going to cost more, it is going to cost more because the readmission and the treating of the more serious illness could have been avoided had she been in the hospital when it was first detected. So, Mr. President, the need here is very clear. It is kind of common sense. I mean, my distinguished cosponsor on this bill, Senator Frist, refers to a safe haven of time, 48 hours. That is why it is needed. Who supports this amendment and this bill? It is supported by the American Medical Association. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports this. The College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports this. In fact, the Academy of Pediatrics, their recommended guideline is 48 hours. Gynecologists and obstetricians, 48 hours is the guideline they set. That is how we arrived at this number. Why 48 hours? Because the doctors in question recommended that. The obstetricians and gynecologists stated that, if we keep the 24-hour limit, ``it could be the equivalent of a large uncontrolled, uninformed experiment on women and babies.'' We all want to reduce health care costs. We can do so without jeopardizing the health of mothers and their newborns. Again, who makes the decision? That is really the question here. We believe that the person who makes the decision should be the doctor and the mother, that the decision should not be made by an accountant in a distant office seeking cost savings and forcing women out of hospitals within 12 to 14 hours after they have given birth to their child. This is the basic question: Who makes the decision? We have stories all across the land of doctors who have been put under great financial pressure to discharge in 24 hours or less or they will be dropped from health plans. So, Mr. President, this is needed because there is a clear health problem with women who are discharged too early. The 48-hour and 96- hour for Caesarean section limits were set pursuant to the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. A number of States have already acted on this. Twenty-eight States have passed laws requiring a 48-hour limit. Why, then, do we need a national law, people ask. You need a national law obviously for the other States that have not passed it, but even if all of them passed it, you would still have many in a State that would be unaffected by the State law. For example, we need a Federal law to get at the so-called ERISA plans, the self-insured plans, the plans of large companies like Boeing, IBM, 3M, Dupont, and others. They would not be affected by a State law because they are self-insuring ERISA, controlled by Federal law. There is also another problem, at least in my State of New Jersey. There is a State law that says you have 48 hours, but the law says the State has no authority to regulate insurance companies that are headquartered in a different State, Mr. President. So there are large numbers of people who are not covered then, of course, in States like Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York. You might have a 48-hour law in a particular State, but you might have a hospital in another State, and when you gave birth to the child in a hospital in another State, you would not be covered by the 48 hours and you would be pushed out of the hospital in 24 hours. That, not coincidentally, would have been the case in my own family when our daughter was born. The birth was delivered across the line in New York--24 hours, you are out. We need this national law in order to make sure women have 48 hours to stay in a hospital. There are some places, for example, in Kansas, 40 percent of the companies--only 40 percent--would be subject to regulation under just a State law. In some States, 75 percent of the women are uncovered because State laws do not and cannot reach them as they are now written. Now, Mr. President, this is an issue that came to my attention because I had several letters from women who had been subjected to this rigid 24-hour-and-you're-out policy. Drive-through deliveries is what they are called. There was an article about it, after this came to my attention, in Good Housekeeping magazine, and someone, the author of the article, put a little box in the article that said if you care about this issue, write to Senator Bradley. Mr. President, I have received, since that article appeared about a year and a half ago, more mail than I have received on any one issue, with the exception of interest and dividend withholding, in my entire 18 years. I received over 85,000 pieces of mail from women and families of women in this country who have been pushed out of the hospital in less than 24 hours. Now, I do not intend to read a long list of these letters--85,000 is a long time. We want to move this amendment as quickly as possible. Let me share two with you. The McCloskeys, who live outside Philadelphia, write: Our daughter Shannon was discharged from the hospital approximately 27 hours after birth. After only 8 hours at home, she went into seizures and we had to rush her back to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with streptococcus. The timing of our arrival at the hospital was critical, and we feared for her life. The doctor told us that if we had arrived at the hospital 15 minutes later, she would have been dead. Linda Dunn of Knoxville, TN, writes: We almost lost my grandson, Brantley, because of an early hospital release. Brantley was one month premature and was born via a Caesarean section. In spite of this, he was released with his mother only 36 hours after the birth. Within 20 minutes of arriving home, Brantley choked, quit breathing, and was rushed to Children's Hospital in Knoxville, where he was placed in neonatal intensive care and noted as having ``a serious, life-threatening episode.'' The frightening part of the scenario was that if I had not been trained in infant resuscitation at my prior job, the baby would simply be dead. Mr. President, if the baby were in the hospital, the baby would not have been even risking death. In the first 48 hours when some baby started to turn sort of a greenish color and jaundiced, it would be recognized and dealt with immediately. You are a first-time mother and you have a child, you are forced out of the hospital, you do not know quite what to do and you arrive home with the baby. In the first 24 hours you have a life-threatening health problem; you do not have anybody to turn to. Mr. President, that is why we need this bill. I might also say that there were people who say you will not get any support from the insurance industry or HMO's, that they are the bad guys here. Mr. President, that is not necessarily so. We have letters of endorsement for this bill from one of the largest HMO's in the country, Kaiser Permanente. We have an endorsement from the HIP plan of New York-New Jersey. Mr. President, this bill has 52 cosponsors, 33 who are Democrat, 19 who are Republican. This passed out of the Labor and Human Resources Committee 14 to 2. In the House, the leader on this legislation is a Republican, Gerald Solomon, with George Miller as his No. 1 helper in this effort. They have over 150 cosponsors. It is time to do this amendment. It is time to do it now. I hope we will pass it on this bill and that we will send it to conference and hopefully the conference will hold this amendment, say to those hundreds of thousands of women out there who are going to give birth in the next 6 months that you are not going to be rushed out of the hospital. You will have a little time to take care of the health problem of your child if it should develop. You will have a little time to gather yourself after an exhausting delivery. You will have a little time to get you and your baby off to a right start, a healthy start, because the U.S. Senate saw fit on this bill at this time to say that 48 hours is not too much to require an insurance company to give you after giving birth.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I welcome the second-degree amendment by the distinguished Senator from Tennessee. I do think he clarifies my own intent in the original amendment. I believe that it is important. It adds to the purpose of the original amendment. Mr. President, the amendment I have offered and that has been second- degreed by the distinguished Senator from Tennessee I think is a very important amendment. His is offered on behalf of himself and me. I offered mine on behalf of myself and him, as well as the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Kassebaum, the ranking member Senator Kennedy, Senator DeWine, Senator Murray. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all 52 cosponsors of this amendment be listed in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, this is an amendment that deals with the Newborns Act. It is an attempt to require at least 48 hours for a childbirth. Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.

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

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BRADLEY. I withhold. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. I yield myself 9 minutes. Mr. President, this conference report on welfare reform is a politician's dream, a poor person's nightmare, and a continuing source of anger and frustration for the taxpaying public that wants real welfare reform. First, what about the politician's dream? Welfare, AFDC, $15 billion out of a $1.5 trillion budget has been a political football in this country for generations; in some cases, a racialized political football, as politician after politician created in the mind of the public the idea that black women had children so they could collect $64 per month for that third child in New Jersey. This bill allows those politicians, those Federal politicians, to end welfare and claim they will end poverty and illegitimacy and mind-numbing bureaucracy with one stroke. You can send a signal to multiple constituencies under this welfare reform bill. Mr. President, this bill is a poor person's nightmare. The Urban Institute says, as a result of this bill, there will be 2.6 million more people in America living in poverty, 1.1 million more children living in poverty, and they will be living 20 percent deeper in poverty. The gap between their income and the poverty level will be 20 percent lower. We say to send it back to the States and they can take care of it. Mr. President, you have an economic downturn in the States, and they have a fixed amount of this money in a block grant. There is nothing that prevents them from cutting this poor person's grant more, cutting benefits, saying you cannot go beyond 3 years, 2 years, 1 year. There are no requirements that we put in this bill. It is a poor person's nightmare. Mr. President, it is a continuing source of anger and frustration for our taxpaying public that wants real welfare reform. When the public hears ``end welfare as we know it,'' they think ``end welfare.'' When people hear that people are going to have to work for welfare, they believe what politicians say--beware. If you believe what politicians say in this bill, that you have to work for welfare, imagine how surprised those individuals who have believed the politicians' rhetoric about work and welfare, imagine how surprised they are going to be when they find out that States can pay about a $50 bounty per person instead of putting money up to put people to work. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that most States will simply ignore the request to put people to work and instead pay the 5 percent, $50 penalty for the failure to meet the work requirements. It will pay them to do that. Just taking one example, the biggest city, New York City, which operates the largest work program in this country. Only 32,000 welfare recipients are in it out of 850,000 New Yorkers on welfare. The reason? Not because they do not want to do it--lack of money to create jobs. The mayor of New York City said that to meet the work requirements in the bill, the city would need $100 million more than it will receive in this block grant. It can't do it, and so it will pay less, pay the $50 bounty per person, to get out from under that work requirement. The politicians who claim the bill will put people to work will suddenly discover a lot of people are not working. Imagine, there are those who think this bill will promote marriage. This bill will not promote marriage at all. This bill will not promote two-parent families. This bill will not promote reward for marriage. This bill will not promote reward for work or penalties for additional children. This bill will not change the face of the bureaucrat that sits in his or her State office listening coldly to whatever is said, responding in a way that is at least insensitive and often demeaning. This bill will not change that. Imagine you are a taxpaying citizen in a State that has tough economic times. The State will have a lot more people on welfare, and their block grant may not cover them. The only way you are going to get more is by raising taxes. Imagine how you would feel when a State three or four States over from you is in good times and it gets its block grant and only has to deploy 80 percent to welfare and can use the rest to give its citizens tax cuts. That is why you need a national program, not a program of block grants. For those who believe in this remarkable federalism, anybody who thinks the State legislatures in Trenton, Albany, Sacramento, or wherever, are going to be more sensitive to issues related to people who are poor or to children who are poor than national legislators, I have a bridge I would like to sell you shortly after I finish speaking. Mr. President, why is this bill such a mistake, in addition to the points that I have made? Well, when I left a small town on the banks of the Mississippi in Missouri, outside St. Louis, and went to college in New Jersey--a decision that changed my life--in St. Louis, 13 percent of the kids born that year were born to single parents. In 1994, 63 percent were born to single parents, and 85 percent of the black children were born to single parents. If we were honest about this, Mr. President, we would admit that no one knows what will change this around. No one knows what combination of incentives and penalties and values will begin to change this. That is why what we need is a Federal commitment and State experimentation, with a lot of different kinds of combinations of programs. Then maybe we can get the mix that will break this rising number of children in this country born into single-parent homes. But what this bill creates is State chaos, not State experimentation. What this bill does is simply pass the buck from Federal politicians to State politicians; one group of politicians take the pot of money and give it to another group. Let us have a baseline. What is the illegitimacy rate in cities in this country? What is the poverty rate? What is the unemployment rate? What is the violence or crime rate? In 5 years, let us see whether this bill has miraculously changed all those statistics for the better because, deep down, that is the claim of this kind of legislation, built on generations of using this issue as a code word for a lot of other things in American politics. Mr. President, welfare was not the cause of these rising illegitimacy rates, and so-called welfare reform in this bill will not be the solution. The silver lining--if there is a silver lining in this bill-- is the child support enforcement provisions. They are the provisions that say that if you father a child, you have an obligation to support that child. I strongly support those parts of this bill. But, Mr. President, I regret to say that the rest of this bill is sorely lacking. I admit that it is a politician's dream, a message to multiple constituencies. But it is a poor person's nightmare, and it is a source of continuing anger and frustration for the taxpaying public that wants real welfare reform and will not get it in this bill.