Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, while we are talking about gun liability, I think a more important question for this body to be debating is the liability we are leaving the American workers with when, in fact, this body refuses to pass unemployment benefit extensions at a time when our economy is not recovering at the speed it takes to create new jobs. As our own newspaper in Washington State, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, said this past week: Everything is not fine in the job market. That is what many Americans are saying. That is what many people across the country are starting to debate when they talk about the issue of outsourcing. Everything is not fine in the job market. The President and his economic advisers issued a report, the Economic Report from the President of the United States, as to the growth we were supposed to expect in our economy in 2004. If my colleagues have a copy of that report and turn to page 98, they will see that the President and his economic advisers, when talking about growth in real GDP over the long term, predict that jobs for this year are going to grow by 2.6 million. That was great economic news to a lot of Americans who have been sitting around since December without Federal unemployment benefits, sending out resume after resume, only to find that they are competing with hundreds of other more qualified Americans for a very few jobs. What became more frustrating to those unemployed Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, many as a result of 9/11 and the impact of terrorist activities on our economy, such as in aviation, aerospace, and a general downturn, many of those Americans would rather have the paycheck than the unemployment check. But without jobs being created, they would like to have some assistance in making the mortgage payment, paying the rent, paying for health care, and taking care of their families. They were stunned when they found out that the President doesn't really stick by the 2.6 million number. Last week, the President and two Cabinet Secretaries, the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce, ventured to Washington State and refused to meet with unemployed workers there. We have had, for the better part of the last 2 years, an unemployment rate over 7 percent. We are a little bit below that right now, and we are concerned about stimulating the economy and from where job growth is going to come. When these two members of the President's Cabinet came to town and were asked about the President's economic forecast--asked whether they stick by the 2.6 million jobs that will be created, both of those Secretaries said: Those were assumptions based on economic models and the calculations have a margin of error. The American worker is not a rounding error on a statistician's desk. They are real people who are not getting the economic assistance they deserve. It is no surprise that other newspapers across the country have also noted this. The Atlanta Journal Constitution said: But the economic bounce has not yet been strong enough for cautious employers to get beyond squeezing more production from existing workers and taking the crucial step of hiring. This leaves millions of unemployed sinking further into debt and desperation. That points to what is going on here. The President is backing away from his economic numbers. People realize that job growth is not happening. Yet we refuse to pass an extension of unemployment benefits. Why is that so important? It is important to many Americans who would rather have that paycheck than an unemployment check, and it can provide a real stimulus because for every dollar in unemployment insurance, it generates $2 of economic stimulus into the local economy. We continue to see these projections versus reality. The President's economic advisers said in 2002 that we were only going to lose a few jobs. We ended up actually losing 1.4 million jobs. In 2003, they said we were going to grow the economy, 1.7 million. We ended up losing another almost 500,000 jobs. Now in 2004, they say we are going to grow 2.6 million jobs in what is left of this year. So far we have only gained 112,000 jobs. The economy is moving very slowly. We should not leave people out in the cold. That is exactly what we are doing by not passing Federal benefits on to those unemployed workers when they exhaust their State benefits. In fact, in December, we left out lots of workers: in Illinois, about 17,000 people; Texas, about 23,000; North Carolina, 10,000; Ohio, over 10,000; Pennsylvania, 17,000 people; Georgia, 14,000 people. At the end of December, when the benefit program expired at the State level, these people were no longer eligible for benefits at the Federal level because we curtailed the Federal program. What that means is that every month more and more people exhaust their State benefits as no jobs are found and thereby are denied Federal benefits. For example, for the first 6 months of this year, over 50,000 additional people from Washington State would be eligible, but won't receive help. On a national level, 2 million people would be eligible to receive Federal benefits. These numbers represent what happened to people in these States in December of 2003, when the other side of the aisle refused to grant the motion of seeking unanimous consent to pass unemployment benefits for American workers. Our colleagues in the House of Representatives who heard the message, probably when they went home over the recess and did their town meetings, listened to people across America and found out that this was a pretty big issue. People wanted to know, where am I going to find a job? Where is my spouse going to find a job? People were relying on loans from families just to make mortgage payments. So the House of Representatives came back from recess and actually passed unemployment benefit extensions because they got the message. We are still down in our economy. The key question is, How have we as a nation responded to these economic recessions in the past? How have previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican, responded to recessions? We know that in the early 1990s we had a recession. The first Bush administration and the Clinton administration became aggressive about unemployment benefits and had a very expansive program that was in place for a total of 27 months. During that time, we ended up creating 2.9 million new jobs, a very positive outcome. In this recession and recovery, which began in 2001, we have lost 2.4 million jobs. The difference between this recession and the last is that we have cut off the Federal benefit program. And yet, we haven't yet had a net creation of jobs. We started to slowly shirk the jobs deficit, with 112,000 jobs in January, but we have curtailed the program before we have seen real results. Why would we do that when we have previous experience, from two different administrations, that shows that continuing the program really does help stimulate the economy? That is what we want to do. That is why I am not surprised that other people around the country such as the Akron Beacon Journal said: The recovery has aptly been called jobless. Offer a bridge to a better time, and Congress won't simply aid those struggling to find work. The country as a whole will benefit. This is not solely about helping individuals who are unemployed. It is a stimulus to the economy. What happens if the 2 million people who will lose Federal benefits over the next 6 months can't make mortgage payments and end up defaulting on their home mortgages. How is that good for the U.S. economy? Or say, for example, individuals can't make health insurance payments and end up costing more in uncompensated health care? How is that good for America? I was not surprised when I saw in the San Jose Mercury News that the other side of the aisle had been accused of being of little interest or being silent on this issue. Basically, the San Jose Mercury News said: Despite a recent uptick in hiring across the country in 2004, they could bring more hardship for million of Americans out of work. A callous Congress is sitting behind as their hope for receiving extended unemployment benefits fades.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Oregon.

Ms. CANTWELL. I am happy to yield the Senator 3 minutes.

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes, I am. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, the point is, this administration and the other side of the aisle need to look at economic history when we have faced similar downturns and discuss what is the best way to alleviate this pain as we see our economy barely start to chug along. We have heard a lot about outsourcing in the last week or two. I am sure we have not heard the last of it. There are a lot of people who are concerned that we may never see that job growth that was even initially predicted in the President's economic report of which it has now backed off. So America has a very uncertain time ahead, but Americans know they have a program at the Federal level to which they are being denied access. What are the consequences? My colleagues need to read their e-mails. They need to read letters from their constituents. I read mine. When you know that money is there to help and assist them, when you know an economic plan and responsibility for our fiscal policy is something we should be concerned with every day, it just breaks your heart to understand the plight some of these people are going through. One laid-off worker from Camano Island said he cashed out every dime of his 401(k) savings plan with significant penalty. He doesn't know how he is going to make the mortgage payments, he is at such a desperate point. He is trying to figure out any way he can just to keep the lights on and keep food on the table. Another constituent wrote to me from Bothell, WA: I had to resort to selling my 20-year-old naval sword for grocery money. As a naval veteran, I can tell you that hurt a lot to do. A constituent from Steilacoom, WA, who has been unemployed and his wife worked at $17 an hour for a phone company and she was laid off, too, writes that they had to borrow from friends just to keep their kids in the house and make their house payment. Washingtonians are having a very hard time. I bet many Americans across this country are having a hard time. That is because we are not living up to our responsibility to pass this temporary unemployment benefit extension. We had this debate in December of 2003, and a lot of rankling about it, and we came back in January and ultimately did the right thing. In December of this year, when the program expired again, we came back and everybody wanted to sing how the economy was getting better. Now the administration will not stand by its own numbers of whether the economy is really getting better or not. The House of Representatives, albeit a difficult task, actually got an amendment on a different bill and actually passed an extension of unemployment benefits. They had the votes to, in a bipartisan way, pass the unemployment benefit extension, but we have not had the courage to do so. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to stand up and say that unemployment benefits are a priority and that they are a good way to deal with this economic situation, and that while we have curtailed this program at a much shorter time period when we have not had positive job growth--we are still in the negative numbers--this has been premature and that the smart thing to do now is, as the economy is barely starting to respond, the most prudent thing to do to stimulate the economy is not to take more money out of it. That is exactly what we are doing. We are taking more money out when we do not help provide the stimulus that unemployment benefits provide. So I think this is the best investment we could be making. My colleagues need to realize it is heartless to leave these Americans out in the cold without either a paycheck or an unemployment check. In the 1990s recession, even when there had been the start of job growth, the program was extended for 22 months. And even when we had recovered all the jobs that were lost and the economy had started to positive growth, this program was extended another year. So we are being very shortsighted. While we have lots of legislation to discuss, various issues about liability, we are saddling the American public with the biggest liability yet, and that is a bad economy and no help on unemployment. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote: At this sluggish pace, it will take the nation four years to recover the jobs it lost in nine months during the recession of 2001. So there are people saying obviously it is going to take us a while to recover. The L.A. Times recently wrote: More than 2 million jobs have been lost in the last three years. . . . Even in the best-case scenario, Bush will end this term with a net job loss. That hasn't happened to a president since Herbert Hoover at the beginning of the Depression. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have these articles printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am glad this debate has finally turned toward jobs. For the last 2 days we have been having a debate about what groups to exempt from liability. One of the groups we need to be talking about--because they have paid a heavy price for the liability of our economy--is the unemployed workers in America. Because we won't reinstate the federal unemployment benefits program, unemployed workers are being held liable for our economic recession. I am glad my colleagues are finally talking about jobs. We need to be questioning whether jobs are being created in this country. We need to ask whether we believe in the President's economic forecast for this year, in terms of the job growth he says is going to take place, or whether we don't believe those numbers and we want to do something about unemployment. In the past few weeks, we have heard much about the number of jobs that will be created this year. And we've also heard some backpedaling based on economic modeling, statistics and rounding errors. In the end, they say that the economy is going to grow by X number by the end of this year, and we don't have to worry about the unemployed. The bottom line, however, is that the economy isn't going to create enough jobs to put America back to work. And since this recession started in early 2001, millions of people have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and millions are still out of work. After the recession began in March of 2001, this country faced another blow: 9/ 11. In addition to the horrific personal losses resulting from that tragedy, our national economy and my own State's economy was gravely hit in a variety of sectors that caused huge job loss. And here we are today, still with 2.3 million fewer jobs than in January 2001. And yet, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to say the economy is recovering and we don't have to do anything about helping unemployed workers. Part of our job at the Federal level is to use the Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation program to help laid-off workers in times of economic decline. This program is funded by employer, and by extension employee contributions. They are paying into a Federal program that is supposed to help in downturns of our economy to keep people--with mortgage payments, hospital payments, health insurance-- going until they actually have an opportunity for jobs in the future. This has been a essential program. At the State level, a laid-off worker can get 26 weeks of help. But, during recessions that's often not enough to get back to work. So the Federal Government has said that in times of high unemployment, we're going to step in. After a laid-off worker has exhausted their state benefits, a Federal program will kick in that provides an additional 13 weeks of help. In some instances where States have really been hard hit by high unemployment, such as my state, which had for a time over 7.5 percent unemployment, there is an additional 13 weeks of help. But somehow this body has decided, after much debate, that we were not going to continue that program. In fact, in December of last year we tried numerous attempts to pass unemployment benefit extensions. We tried to get the other side of the aisle to agree that this was a necessary step. We were rebuffed by people saying the economy is going to get better, the economy is going to get better, so we don't need to do this. I found it amazing that people on the other side of the aisle, when we returned in January, were still asserting that in that debate: The economy is going to get better. Now the President and his Cabinet, who came to Washington State just this past week, are saying their original predictions on the economy aren't going to be as rosy as they predicted. The President's own economic report, in which they cite on page 98 a chart talking about growth and real GDP and productivity over the long term, basically said this year we were going to create 2.6 million jobs. That was a great forecast. Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said that that is an indication that the economy is going to grow, and we don't need to do unemployment benefit extensions. People will find jobs. The three Cabinet secretaries--the Secretaries of Treasury, Commerce, and Labor--who visited Washington State must have thought the picture was so rosy that they didn't need to meet with unemployed workers who wanted to share their plight. And yet, when they were asked about the President's economic numbers and the President's economic plan, they all backed off of those numbers. They all said the economy is not going to grow at that fast a rate. Those were just numbers. If they are just numbers and you don't really believe that is the growth rate, then let's go back to the business we are charged with-- helping out in times of high unemployment with Federal assistance. This program is paid for by employers and employees. Let's put back on the table the 13 weeks of Federal assistance and, in high unemployment States, an additional 13 weeks in Federal assistance. Let's not make a mistake. There are hundreds of thousands--in fact 760,000 people in America--who have exhausted all their state benefits and have no federal program to pick them up. And in addition to the 8.3 million people officially counted as unemployed, there are another 1.7 million who are actually no longer counted as in the ranks of the unemployed. If we count them, the national unemployment rate jumps from 5.6 percent to 6.7 percent. These people are out of work just the same as those who are counted, but yet they are not in the numbers. Many are discouraged workers. Many have exhausted their benefits. Let's take a look at the economic policies of the past two administrations. Let's look at what the first Bush and the Clinton administration decided to do when this country faced an economic downturn in the early 1990s. They decided that we should create a federal program for unemployment benefits to help people until they could get back to work. I have numbers of e-mails and letters from constituents in my State and other parts of the country. These constituents say that they have sent resumes to hundreds of companies and maybe only had two or three interviews. When they go to those interviews, they are competing with people who are three and four times more qualified for the job. These overly qualified people are willing to take that job because it is the only job that is out there. Thereby those individuals who are themselves qualified but not overqualified are left without employment. Let's compare the number of jobs that were created in the last recovery and this one. The bottom line is that in 1992 we started to see a recovery in jobs. In April of that year the economy started to create about 150,000 jobs per month. But, even so, we kept the Federal program going for 22 more months. In February of 1993, we finally closed the jobs deficit, and yet, we continued the program until 2.9 million new jobs had been created, above and beyond the jobs deficit. In the current recovery, we are simply not seeing that kind of growth. Last month, just 112,000 jobs were created. And yet, everybody is ready to say that 112,000 jobs signals our great return. We need to take a lesson from history: In the 1990s, when the economy started creating about 150,000 jobs, we continued the program for almost 2 more years. We certainly didn't cut it off as we did in December of 2003. In April of 1992, that administration was not heartless as to the plight of Americans being out of work. That administration recognized that even though the economy is starting to recover, it hadn't fully recovered. Under that Republican administration, they said let's go ahead and keep the Federal employment program going. So they extended it for another 22 months. In February 1993, when we basically had broke even for the jobs that had been lost, the Federal unemployment extension program was still extended another year. The past recession provided good economic evidence that extending unemployment benefits at the Federal level not only helped bridge the gap between the end of State benefits and finding a new job. It also provided economic stimulus. For every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, it generates $2 of stimulus to the economy. We found out in the 1990s that was a good economic plan, and two administrations, a Republican administration, the first George Bush, and a Democratic administration, Bill Clinton, found that this was great economic policy for our country. Yet today, the administration is simply being heartless. Somehow, even though the President has backpedaled on his own economic plan for the year and said he doesn't support the job growth projections-- somehow even though we have created only a minuscule number of jobs, 112,000 in January, the administration doesn't want to continue this program. I find that amazing. What else I find amazing is that even though we have $17 billion in the UI trust fund--$17 billion that does not have to be found, that does not have to be taken from another program; $17 billion that has been paid for by employers and employees, and is, in fact, designed to take care of employees during economic downturns-- we're not going to extend the program. As the program has been designed, it says these people can be eligible for Federal temporary assistance for 13 weeks and, if they are in a very high unemployment State, an additional 13 weeks. I want to point out that in the 1990s, not only did they extend that program for 27 months, much longer than we did in the current program, the program was also a richer program. The program was richer in that you actually had twice as many weeks of benefits. So the current program has fewer weeks of benefits, and it hasn't been in place for as long--it only lasted 22 months. I think people across America are getting the message. I know they are in Washington State. They were so disappointed when the Cabinet Secretaries showed up in town and said they wanted to do something about the hard economic times, and yet refused to meet with laid-off workers. Then the Secretaries Snow and Evans refused to back the President's jobs projections. Laid-off workers in my state said: If you guys do not believe in the economic numbers, we can tell you firsthand we do not believe in them because we have been on job interview after job interview and have sent resumes and the jobs are just not there. As the Seattle P.I. wrote in an editorial, everything is not fine in the job market. They clearly point out that we have a responsibility, and the one thing to do to alleviate the pain is to extend Federal unemployment benefits. I ask unanimous consent to print that editorial in the Record. Everything Is Not Fine in the Job Market Helping unemployed workers is the one thing the Bush administration could still do about the lousy jobs environment. Three-fourths of the way through his term, President Bush is pretending that everything is fine for workers. The administration has shown no interest in extending federal emergency unemployment assistance for workers whose benefits are expiring. The country has lost 2.3 million jobs. The recovery is pushing up CEOs' pay, ironically, in part because they are helping stock prices by holding down hiring. And the layoffs continue. Boeing said Friday it might cut 50 workers in Everett. The sale of AT&T Wireless Services will spark thousands of layoffs. Yesterday, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., visited workers and managers of a Seattle warehouse where the staff was laid off and the building put up for sale. As Cantwell notes, there are far more unemployed workers than new jobs. For good reason, the White House has jettisoned its own prediction of 2.6 million new jobs this year. The fury over outsourcing of jobs is much overstated, but it is fed by the weak economy. The export of some jobs underscores the need for helping unemployed workers through a transitional time until more jobs are created. The one way to alleviate the pain quickly is to extend federal unemployment benefits.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I will not be voting for S. 2061, a bill that imposes very low damage caps on noneconomic damages in cases involving obstetrical services. I cannot support the bill before us today because I do not believe it would be effective in reducing the very serious problem that we have with rising medical malpractice premiums for doctors and hospitals in my State of Washington. The fundamental premise of the bill is that by placing a very low cap on the amount persons injured in obstetrics cases could receive for noneconomic damages, insurers would respond by reducing premiums for physicians and hospitals. However, multiple studies have now shown that premiums for physicians in States that have already imposed limits on damages continue to increase. According to the Medical Liability Monitor, overall, premiums are 6.8 percent higher for OB/GYNs in States with caps than States without caps, and premium increases last year were slightly higher in States with caps on damages, than in States without them. That is why the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Tacoma News Tribune, The Everett Herald and the Bellingham Herald have all come out in opposition to $250,000 caps in the last 2 weeks. As the editorial board of the Spokane Spokesman wrote last June 4 about proposals to cap damages, ``No doctor would prescribe radical surgery based on anecdotes or conflicting data.'' In the process of educating myself about this issue over the past year, including meeting with hundreds of Washington State physicians and hospital administrators, touring 29 rural hospitals, and reviewing the claims history of Physicians Insurance, Washington State's leading provider of malpractice insurance, I have asked many of these individuals what they believed the cap on damages should be. The fact that I have received answers ranging from zero to $5 million illustrates the difficulty in determining what a damage limit should be without reference to specific facts. I believe that juries made up of Washington State residents are better positioned to make a determination of appropriate compensation after hearing the facts of an individual case, than are Senators trying to find a one-size-fits-all solution. Washington State has the third best tort system in the country according to the Chamber of Commerce. Our State has long banned punitive damages, and as a result, capping noneconomic damages, without the knowledge of the jury, could lead to very unfair results for Washington State residents. Imposing a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages is radical. The $250,000 cap is based on a California law that was enacted in 1975 and has never been adjusted for inflation. While I wish that it were not true, Washington residents are sometimes harmed by negligent care in the course of obstetrics cases, and they suffer genuine damages. Despite efforts to create an exception for the most serious and egregious cases, there is no exception in the bill before the Senate for even the worst cases. Noneconomic damages compensate patients for real injuries including the loss of fertility, loss of a child, or loss of a spouse, as well as for excruciating pain and permanent and severe disfigurement. Caps on noneconomic damages disproportionately affect women and children because they lack the work history to make economic damages very meaningful. That is not to say that we do not have a very serious problem in our State. Individual physicians have experienced premium increases of up to 75 percent and hospitals have suffered even greater increases. Increases have hit specialists, including obstetricians, particularly hard. This adds to pressure already being felt by physicians and hospitals in our State as a result of our abysmal Medicare reimbursement rate. Washington currently ranks 41st in the Nation and receives only $4,303 per beneficiary. Physician practices are small businesses, and many of our hospitals are nonprofit entities. They cannot be expected to absorb these huge increases without help. That is why I support many measures that would actually help deal with the problem of rising insurance costs. I believe that we should be exploring the creation of best practices for physicians, which, if followed, would protect physicians from law suits. I also believe that specialized malpractice courts could be a useful tool in curbing abuses of the system. I also support legislation introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin. Unlike S. 2061, which relies on damage caps to reduce future premiums, the Graham-Durbin bill provides tax credits to physicians and hospitals to help offset the increases in malpractice insurance. It would also create a medical mistake database, repeal the current law that prevents Federal regulators from examining whether the insurance industry is engaging in anticompetitive behavior and price manipulation to artificially inflate premiums, and impose stricter standards to demonstrate that a malpractice case has merit before it proceeds. I am committed to finding solutions to these problems to ensure that Washingtonians continue to have access to quality affordable care throughout every city and county in our State. The bill on the floor unfortunately is not part of that solution. Hopefully, the debate doesn't stop today and these other alternatives will be considered.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the 2.4 million jobs that have been lost in this country. As we discuss investment in infrastructure, we need to keep in mind that investment in human infrastructure is just as appropriate. There are families out there who are continuing to struggle to put food on the table, make sure they can take care of their mortgage payment, and make sure they can take care of individual hospital and insurance needs. I ask my colleagues to put themselves in the position of working men and women who have lost their jobs and now have no means to take care of their family needs. We have been before this body dozens of times now in the last several months asking for an extension of unemployment benefits because the economy has not truly recovered--certainly has not recovered from the 2.4 million jobs that have been lost. Yet dozens of times my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have objected. They have objected to this extension because they say we are in fine economic shape. I will bet you that families trying to figure out how they meet those mortgage payments would disagree with the kind of shape my colleagues think the economy is in. In fact, in December, 90,000 people per week started exhausting their unemployment benefits and had no Federal program to pick them up. That is \1/2\ million people who have gone without aid since the program stopped accepting new applicants. Put yourself in that position and understand that if unemployment benefits are not extended--and the economy grows at a very slow pace--by the end of the year, 2 million people will be cut off from this program. For people without a paycheck or an unemployment check, that means their families will continue to be forced to make very tough decisions. A recent poll showed that over one-half of the unemployed adults found they had to postpone medical treatment or cut back on food. One in four has had to actually move out of their house because of the cuts in unemployment extension programs. More than one-third have had trouble paying gas or electric bills. I am sure in my State the number would be more than one-third, given our high energy rates. My amendment reinstates the Federal Insurance Unemployment Benefit Program and provides 13 additional weeks of benefits to all States, carrying us through June. My colleagues ask, Why should we do this? The economy is recovering. If we look at the facts and figures and compared them to the last time we had a recession, this point where we are in our economy is still very disappointing. Last Friday, economists came out, for example, with a report on our job growth and said it was ``well below market expectations,'' and confirmed that jobs in the markets in the United States are still weak. While the economy created about 110,000 jobs last month--and that is a step in the right direction--it is a pretty small step in the direction we need to go. My State of Washington, obviously, has faced a lot of downturn because of Boeing, because of high tech, and because many workers throughout the State have been laid off as subsidiaries to those large corporations and interests. I hear colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying once the economy starts to recover, that is when we need to cut off unemployment benefits because people can still find jobs. The point is during the 1990s, we had an extension of unemployment benefits to take care of the downturn we were facing in the economy, both started by the first Bush administration and then by the Clinton administration, to help take care of unemployment problems. During that time period in the early 1990s recession, we were offering unemployment benefits for a 27-month period of time. During that 27-month period of time, we actually saw an increase in 2.9 million jobs. The program worked well as the economy continued to rebound and add more jobs. In the 1990s, under two administrations, a Republican and a Democrat, we said, let's extend unemployment benefits for 27 months. The net result was 2.9 million jobs were created and we curtailed the benefit program. We have had this recession and downturn and we have only been going for 22 months of this program. We have only been giving people who have been affected by this downturn in our economy 22 months of unemployment extension. During that same period we have actually seen a net loss of 2.4 million jobs. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say when the economy picks up, we should curtail this program. What they should really ask is how many jobs have we created during this time period, and are Americans finding jobs? If they are not finding jobs, how can we cut them off from unemployment benefits that are actually a stimulus to the economy in helping to pay the mortgage payments, covering health insurance, keeping families in their home, and not deterring us from economic growth? Every dollar spent on unemployment insurance generates an additional $2 into local economies. Let's look at it a little differently during this time period of unemployment benefits. The line on this chart during 2002 continues to go down into the red. This is where we are thinking about cutting off unemployment benefits. Yet we have had no job growth. Juxtaposed to what we did in the 1990s, we continued to increase the unemployment benefits as the economy grew and we did a better match of keeping Americans with some paycheck or unemployment check, thereby keeping our economy at a more steady rate. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, it is time to stop denying working Americans who have lost their jobs, through no fault of their own, from some sort of help and assistance when they can actually find no jobs. I will point out a few of my constituents who have written to me. One from Camano Island said he cashed out every dime of his 401 saving plan, with significant penalties, and does not know how he will make his mortgage payment, does not know what he is going to do, as the benefits are expiring. Another constituent from Everett, WA, in the manufacturing area, applied for over 200 jobs and received 4 interviews in the last year. They are trying to find opportunities but they do not exist. Another technology worker from Seattle has 25 years' experience and has been laid off since 2001 and is unable to find a job. Another worker from Seattle was working at a print company and over 500 people were laid off in 2 years as their company was sold overseas to a multinational company. In his individual situation he has tried to cover both the health insurance for himself and his wife. Unfortunately, he had some very severe health problems and had to get a kidney from his wife and ended up with some severe health problems and he does not know how he will address those problems in the future because of these benefits being curtailed and his inability to cover health insurance. Many people in my State ask what we are going to do about these unemployment benefits and whether we are going to remember the working men and women in our State who have continued to deal with this issue. There are many constituents who ask, what will it take to get the other side of the aisle to own up to the responsibility that there are not jobs being created at a fast enough pace to put Americans back to work. Our past bipartisan efforts by two administrations, a Republican and a Democratic, did far better in addressing this issue than we are doing today. I ask my colleagues to support a temporary emergency employment compensation program through June. It is the only responsible thing to do, to recognize that men and women of this country would rather have a job than an unemployment check. Without a check and without opportunities for jobs, we are doing neither them nor our economy any service. We need to do the responsible thing and put them back to work. That is why I am asking my colleagues to do the fair thing and expand this program through June with 13 weeks going to each State. Until then, we will not have the necessary tools to help Americans. Let's help them with the unemployment benefits and put them back to work. I ask unanimous consent we lay aside the pending amendment and consider this amendment.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, let me be clear to my colleagues what just happened in the Senate. That is, that for about the dozenth time now, the Senate is not going to consider unemployment benefit extensions. We are not going to consider whether working men and women in this country who have been unemployed, through no fault of their own, but a general downturn in the economy, many who have been impacted by September 11, many who have been impacted by the recession hit by many companies that have been impacted by September 11, are not going to get our help in the extension of this program, that if these same men and women happened to have been unemployed in the 1990s, their plight would have been different. They would have gotten help from the administration. They would have gotten help from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. So what we have done today is continue to say to unemployed Americans, while the economy is just barely beginning to produce jobs, we expect you now to move out of your house, deal with not being able to cover health insurance, not being able to meet your family obligations, while we continue to struggle to find jobs in this country. I think it is irresponsible. I think my colleagues should make sure we have a vote on this amendment. We will continue, on this side of the aisle, to offer this amendment until we get a vote on it. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL. I move the pending amendment be set aside and that this amendment be considered.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce 2 pieces of electricity legislation--simple, common-sense bills that enjoy the bipartisan support of a majority of United States Senators. First, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues Senators Clinton, Jeffords and Feingold the Electric Reliability Act of 2004. This legislation would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority to devise a system of mandatory and enforceable standards for the reliable operation of our nation's electricity grid. My distinguished friends from Wisconsin and Vermont, Senators Feingold and Jeffords, and I are also today introducing a second bill: the Electricity Needs Rules and Oversight Now (ENRON) Act, which would put in place a blanket ban on manipulative practices in our nation's electricity markets. Enactment of these bills is long overdue. And in both cases, their provisions have passed the United States Senate within the past eight months. They represent crucial steps forward in the effort to modernize our nation's electricity grid and reform the rules by which it is operated. Quite simply, these provisions are too important to be held captive to the majority's effort to pass H.R. 6-- the energy bill conference report. Resembling a patchwork quilt of special interest hand-outs-- rather than a policy that would help this nation achieve energy independence--H.R. 6 capsized under its own pork-laden weight on this very floor, a mere two months ago. Rather than holding good energy policy hostage for the bad--as those who seek to resurrect that 1,700-page legislative monstrosity have said they intend--I believe this body can and must make necessary progress in upgrading our electricity grid and protecting our nation's consumers. That's what the two bills I'm introducing today are intended to do. As surely my colleagues recall, much of the Northeast and Midwest last August suffered a massive power outage, affecting 50 million consumers from New York to Michigan. Clearly, the biggest blackout in our nation's history has underscored the need for mandatory and enforceable reliability standards--as envisioned in the Electric Reliability Act of 2004. To date, the system has operated under a set of voluntary guidelines, with no concrete penalties for those who break the rules and jeopardize the reliable energy service that is the foundation of our nation's economy. While the August 2003 blackout was certainly a potent reminder, the call for reliability legislation dates back at least another five years. In 1997, both a Task Force established by the Clinton Administration's Department of Energy and a blue ribbon panel formed by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) determined that reliability rules for our nation's electric system had to be made mandatory and enforceable. These conclusions resulted, in part, from an August 1996 blackout in the Western Interconnection, where the short-circuit of two overloaded transmission lines near Portland, Oregon, caused a sweeping outage that knocked out power for up to 16 hours in ten states. The blackout affected 7.5 million consumers from Idaho to California, resulting in the automatic shut-down of 15 large thermal nuclear generating plants in California and the southwest--compromising the West's energy supply for several days, even after power had mostly been restored to end- users. As outlined in Economic Impacts of Infrastructure Failures, a 1997 report submitted to the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, the blackout was estimated to exact between $1 billion and $4 billion in direct and indirect costs to utilities, industry and consumers. The report also detailed the risks the outage posed to public health and safety, including an exponential increase in traffic accidents, hospitals forced to rely on emergency back-up power generation, and the grounding of more than 2,000 airline passengers. While it took time to develop consensus, the Senate recognized the human and economic stakes associated with the reliable operation of the electricity grid. Stand-alone legislation very similar to what I've introduced today passed this body in June 2000, when this chamber was under Republican control. And even as the majority has twice changed hands since then, the United States Senate has twice passed the very provisions included in the Electric Reliability Act of 2004 as part of comprehensive energy legislation--most recently, this past summer. Likewise, the Senate has previously passed the provisions contained in the ENRON Act, which Senator Feingold and I are introducing today. Offered under the agreement that last July cleared the way for Senate Leadership to replace the then-pending Republican energy bill with the 107th Congress' Daschle-Bingaman legislation, the ENRON Act was adopted as an amendment to the Senate's Fiscal Year 2004 Agriculture Appropriations bill, on a strong, bipartisan vote of 57-40. The ENRON Act is simple in concept. In the face of overwhelming evidence that Enron and other unscrupulous energy companies brazenly manipulated western energy markets during the crisis of 2000-2001, it would amend the Federal Power Act to put in place a blanket ban on such activities. It has been estimated that the western energy crisis cost the region's consumers and businesses $35 billion in domestic economic product--in other words, a 1.5 percent decline in productivity and a total loss of 589,000 jobs. After experiencing a devastating blow that exacerbated the already-crippling national recession, consumers in my state--who continue to pay the price for the unethical gamesmanship of these companies--know that our economy simply cannot abide another Enron. Thus, the ENRON Act is based on language included in the Securities Exchange Act--in existence since 1934. This bill would make it illegal for any company to ``use or employ . . . any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance'' to circumvent FERC rules and regulations on market manipulation. Further, it would specify that electricity rates resulting from manipulative practices are simply not lawful. In other words, when companies are known to have gouged consumers--in some cases, even admitting as much--those same consumers should not be stuck with the inflated energy bills that result. As Congress and various Federal agencies have over the past few years sought to piece together the events that led to the western energy crisis--the most devastating energy market meltdown in our Nation's history--a number of agencies and officials have weighed in on the issue of market manipulation. In addition to simple common sense, their statements underscore the need for the ENRON Act. For example: FERC in March 2003 issued its Final Report on Price Manipulation in Western Markets. The voluminous FERC report found that: ``Enron's corporate culture fostered a disregard for the American energy customer; the success of the company's trading strategies, while temporary, demonstrates the need for explicit prohibitions on harmful and fraudulent market behavior and for aggressive market monitoring and enforcement.'' The General Accounting Office (GAO) in August 2003 issued a report entitled Additional Actions Would Help Ensure that FERC's Oversight and Enforcement Capability is Comprehensive and Systematic. Among GAO's observations: ``The heads of [FERC's] market monitoring units told us they recognize the difficulty of defining just and reasonable prices. They also said that they believe FERC has made some progress in doing so. However, they generally believed that FERC had not yet gone far enough.'' GAO further concluded that: ``we recommend that the Chairman of FERC more clearly define [the Commissions] role in overseeing the Nation's energy markets by . . . explicitly [describing FERC's] activities relative to carrying out the agency's statutory requirements to ensure just and reasonable prices and to preventing market manipulation.'' Republican FERC Commissioner Joe Kelliher wrote the following in a November 5 letter to me, just prior to his confirmation: ``Markets subject to manipulation cannot operate properly and there is an urgent need to proscribe manipulation of electricity markets. You have correctly noted there is no express prohibition of market manipulation in the Federal Power Act and have proposed legislation to establish an express prohibition. This is a critical point. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission only has the tools that Congress chooses to give it, and Congress has never given the Commission express authority to prohibit market manipulation. I believe the time has come for Congress to take that step.'' In the same letter, Kelliher goes on to note that, ``This is not to say that the Commission cannot take steps to prevent market manipulation under its existing legal authority . . . Since there would likely be legal challenges to any such effort to proscribe manipulative practices, it would be helpful for Congress to give the Commissioner clear authority to prohibit market manipulation . . . I support the goals of your amendment'' [to the Agriculture Appropriations bill, which contains the same provisions as the ENRON Act] ``and believe it would go far towards effectively prohibiting manipulation of electricity markets.'' Recent events have clearly demonstrated the need for both the Electric Reliability Act of 2004, as well as the ENRON Act. On the other hand, the case is far less compelling for many of the provisions found in the H.R. 6 conference report. It's not just unpersuasive to argue that a 21st Century energy policy must include: liability protections for manufacturers of the groundwater pollutant MTBE; the weakening of landmark environmental laws such as the Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts; and billions of dollars worth of subsidies, most infamously, taxpayer-backed bonds for construction of an energy efficient mall including a Hooters restaurant, it's absurd. When the Senate last July agreed to send a comprehensive energy bill to conference with the House, few anticipated that we would get back a grab-bag of corporate give-aways so bloated that editorial pages from every corner of this Nation, from Yakima to Pensacola; Texarkana to Honolulu, would call on this body to put H.R. 6 out of its misery. Nor did many of us believe that common-sense legislation such as the ENRON Act--with broad, bipartisan support in the Senate--would be so quickly jettisoned by the conference report's authors. Make no mistake: many of us in this chamber emphatically believe that we need an energy policy that will liberate this country from its dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil and position our businesses to compete in the emerging global market for clean energy technologies. But to paraphrase my distinguished colleague from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, who has been a great leader on these issues, this Nation needs an energy bill, but certainly not this energy bill. So today, we are introducing the Electric Reliability Act of 2004 and the ENRON Act, because it's time for this body to put the public interest ahead of the special interests poised to profit so handsomely from the passage of the energy bill conference report. We should take up and pass these individual pieces of legislation, which would mark a substantial achievement in the effort to upgrade the reliability of our Nation's grid and insulate our economy from the disastrous impacts of latter-day Enrons. In last night's State of the Union speech, President Bush observed that ``consumers and businesses need reliable supplies of energy to make our economy run.'' I could not agree more. He also urged Congress to ``pass legislation to modernize our electricity system, promote conservation, and make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy.'' Nowhere in his address did President Bush mention tax breaks for Hooters; I did not hear him invoke rollback of environmental laws on behalf of polluters; nor did he cite the need to put in place protections for corporate looters such as Enron--all those provisions that have become the hallmark of the energy bill conference report. So I ask my colleagues to recognize that we can make measurable progress this year on the objectives the President has outlined. But that will happen not by holding good energy policy hostage for bad energy policy, as the authors of H.R. 6 would have it. Rather, it will happen when we agree to set aside the H.R. 6 conference report and pass common-sense, consensus-based energy policy. And both the Electric Reliability and ENRON Acts fit this description. I ask my colleagues to support these bills.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce 2 pieces of electricity legislation--simple, common-sense bills that enjoy the bipartisan support of a majority of United States Senators. First, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues Senators Clinton, Jeffords and Feingold the Electric Reliability Act of 2004. This legislation would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority to devise a system of mandatory and enforceable standards for the reliable operation of our nation's electricity grid. My distinguished friends from Wisconsin and Vermont, Senators Feingold and Jeffords, and I are also today introducing a second bill: the Electricity Needs Rules and Oversight Now (ENRON) Act, which would put in place a blanket ban on manipulative practices in our nation's electricity markets. Enactment of these bills is long overdue. And in both cases, their provisions have passed the United States Senate within the past eight months. They represent crucial steps forward in the effort to modernize our nation's electricity grid and reform the rules by which it is operated. Quite simply, these provisions are too important to be held captive to the majority's effort to pass H.R. 6-- the energy bill conference report. Resembling a patchwork quilt of special interest hand-outs-- rather than a policy that would help this nation achieve energy independence--H.R. 6 capsized under its own pork-laden weight on this very floor, a mere two months ago. Rather than holding good energy policy hostage for the bad--as those who seek to resurrect that 1,700-page legislative monstrosity have said they intend--I believe this body can and must make necessary progress in upgrading our electricity grid and protecting our nation's consumers. That's what the two bills I'm introducing today are intended to do. As surely my colleagues recall, much of the Northeast and Midwest last August suffered a massive power outage, affecting 50 million consumers from New York to Michigan. Clearly, the biggest blackout in our nation's history has underscored the need for mandatory and enforceable reliability standards--as envisioned in the Electric Reliability Act of 2004. To date, the system has operated under a set of voluntary guidelines, with no concrete penalties for those who break the rules and jeopardize the reliable energy service that is the foundation of our nation's economy. While the August 2003 blackout was certainly a potent reminder, the call for reliability legislation dates back at least another five years. In 1997, both a Task Force established by the Clinton Administration's Department of Energy and a blue ribbon panel formed by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) determined that reliability rules for our nation's electric system had to be made mandatory and enforceable. These conclusions resulted, in part, from an August 1996 blackout in the Western Interconnection, where the short-circuit of two overloaded transmission lines near Portland, Oregon, caused a sweeping outage that knocked out power for up to 16 hours in ten states. The blackout affected 7.5 million consumers from Idaho to California, resulting in the automatic shut-down of 15 large thermal nuclear generating plants in California and the southwest--compromising the West's energy supply for several days, even after power had mostly been restored to end- users. As outlined in Economic Impacts of Infrastructure Failures, a 1997 report submitted to the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, the blackout was estimated to exact between $1 billion and $4 billion in direct and indirect costs to utilities, industry and consumers. The report also detailed the risks the outage posed to public health and safety, including an exponential increase in traffic accidents, hospitals forced to rely on emergency back-up power generation, and the grounding of more than 2,000 airline passengers. While it took time to develop consensus, the Senate recognized the human and economic stakes associated with the reliable operation of the electricity grid. Stand-alone legislation very similar to what I've introduced today passed this body in June 2000, when this chamber was under Republican control. And even as the majority has twice changed hands since then, the United States Senate has twice passed the very provisions included in the Electric Reliability Act of 2004 as part of comprehensive energy legislation--most recently, this past summer. Likewise, the Senate has previously passed the provisions contained in the ENRON Act, which Senator Feingold and I are introducing today. Offered under the agreement that last July cleared the way for Senate Leadership to replace the then-pending Republican energy bill with the 107th Congress' Daschle-Bingaman legislation, the ENRON Act was adopted as an amendment to the Senate's Fiscal Year 2004 Agriculture Appropriations bill, on a strong, bipartisan vote of 57-40. The ENRON Act is simple in concept. In the face of overwhelming evidence that Enron and other unscrupulous energy companies brazenly manipulated western energy markets during the crisis of 2000-2001, it would amend the Federal Power Act to put in place a blanket ban on such activities. It has been estimated that the western energy crisis cost the region's consumers and businesses $35 billion in domestic economic product--in other words, a 1.5 percent decline in productivity and a total loss of 589,000 jobs. After experiencing a devastating blow that exacerbated the already-crippling national recession, consumers in my state--who continue to pay the price for the unethical gamesmanship of these companies--know that our economy simply cannot abide another Enron. Thus, the ENRON Act is based on language included in the Securities Exchange Act--in existence since 1934. This bill would make it illegal for any company to ``use or employ . . . any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance'' to circumvent FERC rules and regulations on market manipulation. Further, it would specify that electricity rates resulting from manipulative practices are simply not lawful. In other words, when companies are known to have gouged consumers--in some cases, even admitting as much--those same consumers should not be stuck with the inflated energy bills that result. As Congress and various Federal agencies have over the past few years sought to piece together the events that led to the western energy crisis--the most devastating energy market meltdown in our Nation's history--a number of agencies and officials have weighed in on the issue of market manipulation. In addition to simple common sense, their statements underscore the need for the ENRON Act. For example: FERC in March 2003 issued its Final Report on Price Manipulation in Western Markets. The voluminous FERC report found that: ``Enron's corporate culture fostered a disregard for the American energy customer; the success of the company's trading strategies, while temporary, demonstrates the need for explicit prohibitions on harmful and fraudulent market behavior and for aggressive market monitoring and enforcement.'' The General Accounting Office (GAO) in August 2003 issued a report entitled Additional Actions Would Help Ensure that FERC's Oversight and Enforcement Capability is Comprehensive and Systematic. Among GAO's observations: ``The heads of [FERC's] market monitoring units told us they recognize the difficulty of defining just and reasonable prices. They also said that they believe FERC has made some progress in doing so. However, they generally believed that FERC had not yet gone far enough.'' GAO further concluded that: ``we recommend that the Chairman of FERC more clearly define [the Commissions] role in overseeing the Nation's energy markets by . . . explicitly [describing FERC's] activities relative to carrying out the agency's statutory requirements to ensure just and reasonable prices and to preventing market manipulation.'' Republican FERC Commissioner Joe Kelliher wrote the following in a November 5 letter to me, just prior to his confirmation: ``Markets subject to manipulation cannot operate properly and there is an urgent need to proscribe manipulation of electricity markets. You have correctly noted there is no express prohibition of market manipulation in the Federal Power Act and have proposed legislation to establish an express prohibition. This is a critical point. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission only has the tools that Congress chooses to give it, and Congress has never given the Commission express authority to prohibit market manipulation. I believe the time has come for Congress to take that step.'' In the same letter, Kelliher goes on to note that, ``This is not to say that the Commission cannot take steps to prevent market manipulation under its existing legal authority . . . Since there would likely be legal challenges to any such effort to proscribe manipulative practices, it would be helpful for Congress to give the Commissioner clear authority to prohibit market manipulation . . . I support the goals of your amendment'' [to the Agriculture Appropriations bill, which contains the same provisions as the ENRON Act] ``and believe it would go far towards effectively prohibiting manipulation of electricity markets.'' Recent events have clearly demonstrated the need for both the Electric Reliability Act of 2004, as well as the ENRON Act. On the other hand, the case is far less compelling for many of the provisions found in the H.R. 6 conference report. It's not just unpersuasive to argue that a 21st Century energy policy must include: liability protections for manufacturers of the groundwater pollutant MTBE; the weakening of landmark environmental laws such as the Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts; and billions of dollars worth of subsidies, most infamously, taxpayer-backed bonds for construction of an energy efficient mall including a Hooters restaurant, it's absurd. When the Senate last July agreed to send a comprehensive energy bill to conference with the House, few anticipated that we would get back a grab-bag of corporate give-aways so bloated that editorial pages from every corner of this Nation, from Yakima to Pensacola; Texarkana to Honolulu, would call on this body to put H.R. 6 out of its misery. Nor did many of us believe that common-sense legislation such as the ENRON Act--with broad, bipartisan support in the Senate--would be so quickly jettisoned by the conference report's authors. Make no mistake: many of us in this chamber emphatically believe that we need an energy policy that will liberate this country from its dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil and position our businesses to compete in the emerging global market for clean energy technologies. But to paraphrase my distinguished colleague from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, who has been a great leader on these issues, this Nation needs an energy bill, but certainly not this energy bill. So today, we are introducing the Electric Reliability Act of 2004 and the ENRON Act, because it's time for this body to put the public interest ahead of the special interests poised to profit so handsomely from the passage of the energy bill conference report. We should take up and pass these individual pieces of legislation, which would mark a substantial achievement in the effort to upgrade the reliability of our Nation's grid and insulate our economy from the disastrous impacts of latter-day Enrons. In last night's State of the Union speech, President Bush observed that ``consumers and businesses need reliable supplies of energy to make our economy run.'' I could not agree more. He also urged Congress to ``pass legislation to modernize our electricity system, promote conservation, and make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy.'' Nowhere in his address did President Bush mention tax breaks for Hooters; I did not hear him invoke rollback of environmental laws on behalf of polluters; nor did he cite the need to put in place protections for corporate looters such as Enron--all those provisions that have become the hallmark of the energy bill conference report. So I ask my colleagues to recognize that we can make measurable progress this year on the objectives the President has outlined. But that will happen not by holding good energy policy hostage for bad energy policy, as the authors of H.R. 6 would have it. Rather, it will happen when we agree to set aside the H.R. 6 conference report and pass common-sense, consensus-based energy policy. And both the Electric Reliability and ENRON Acts fit this description. I ask my colleagues to support these bills.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise to echo the comments of the Senator from Michigan. I think it critically important that Congress not adjourn for the year without addressing unemployment benefits for Americans who, unfortunately, have been out of work for some time now. The Senator from Michigan is very conscious of the fact that his State, with 7.6 percent unemployment, has not seen much economic relief in this jobless recovery. I can tell him that the State of Washington has seen very little relief, as we are at 7 percent unemployment rate. The States around us--Oregon is at 7.6 percent unemployment; Alaska is at 7.3 percent unemployment--also continue to suffer. The Pacific Northwest has been very hard hit by the downturn in our economy. While some people would like to say that is part of the process, I would argue that losing jobs in the aerospace industry after 9/11--35,000 jobs just at Boeing alone--is no fault of individual workers. I guarantee you, individual workers in my State would rather have a paycheck than an unemployment check. But if they are not getting an unemployment check, if they do not have the ability to take care of mortgage payments and other bills, it affects our overall economy. That is why for a long period of time, not only have people believed that those who pay into unemployment benefits should get a package for taking care of them during downturns in our economy but they also think unemployment benefits are a great stimulus for an economy that is sagging. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to refuse to bring up an extension of unemployment benefits. That means by that December 31 of this year, some 90,000 unemployed people per week will exhaust their regular benefits. That means in the first 6 months of 2004 there may be as many as 2 million people affected by this loss of benefits. This issue is so important to me because we were in this same situation last year. This side of the aisle said, given that this country has lost so many jobs, we must do something to take care of laid off workers. We must extend the Federal unemployment benefits program. We were successful in convincing the Senate, with Senator Nickles' help, to pass a bill out of the Senate extending unemployment benefits, but the Republicans in the House refused to take up the measure and people in my State were without unemployment benefits at the end of the year. If somehow my colleagues think that people didn't make very tough decisions because we left them without any guarantee that the program would continue, they did. I had constituents who took money out of their pension plans--at a 30 percent penalty--at the end of December to live on because they thought their benefits had been exhausted. They were forced to trade off long-term security for short-term economic need, only because the Federal Government did not stand up and do its job. We had a similar situation in the 1990s in which we had high unemployment. What did we do to act responsibly? For 30 months, the Federal program offered to unemployed Americans a richer benefit than we are offering today--20 weeks in the 1990s, compared to 13 weeks today. Well, guess what was different in the 1990s. During that time period, 2.9 million net jobs were created. Since this recession started, we've lost 2.4 million jobs. The 1990s recession covered both a Republican administration--the first Bush administration--and a Democratic administration. Both those administrations committed--for 30 months, and with a richer Federal program of 20 weeks--to take care of Americans until this economy recovered. As the economy recovered and 2.9 million new jobs were added, then we ended the program. How do our actions today compare to that recession? Well, we have only had 22 months of this program, so it has not lasted as long as the previous program of Federal unemployment benefits. It has been 8 months shorter. The benefits are less, only 13 weeks instead of 20. So it is not as rich a program. The bottom line is what has happened to our jobs during the time period. In this time period, instead of adding 2.9 million jobs, we have actually lost 2.4 million jobs. So if the argument is that it's time to stop the Federal extension program when new jobs have been created and Americans are going back to work, then obviously 22 months has not been enough. People are not going back to work. We have lost 2.4 million jobs. If somebody thinks it is time to cut off this program, they are dead wrong. To do this, going into the holiday season, is just like giving American workers a lump of coal in their stocking. It's like saying, no, thank you, for the hard work you have provided to American companies in the past and for paying into the unemployment insurance system. It is totally irresponsible for us, as a legislative body, to pass all of these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, do all of these programs for special interests, give subsidies, and then leave American workers without the benefit program that was designed to help them in economic downturns. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. We have had a Republican administration and a Democratic administration--the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration--who said this is a great policy, but somehow this policy is now falling on deaf ears. During the 1990s, when we ran this program for 30 months at richer benefits, we had an improvement in the unemployment rate of 1.2 percent before we ended the program. It was yet another sign, in addition to the 2.9 million net jobs added that it was time to end the program. As I said earlier, we have lost 2.4 million jobs during this time period and the unemployment rate has improved less than 1 percent--only .4 percent. So we do not have the data, we do not have the evidence that things are getting better. And yet somehow now, even though we cannot demonstrate that things are really getting better for workers, some people on the other side of the aisle want to hedge their bets and say, too bad for you. And they want to say this at the end of the year the holiday season, when people are making some of their most important financial decisions and expenditures. I think it is outrageous. It is outrageous that this body is so cold hearted to the hard-working men and women of America. Let's remember how we got into this situation. Through no fault of their own, and in particular for New York and Washington State, resulting from the unfortunate circumstances of 9/11 and downturns of specific industries as a result of that--laid-off workers are being left high and dry. Somehow we want to put American workers out in the cold just because a very tragic event happened to us at the national level? We do not want to say to those companies and to those individuals, we understand the hard economic times they have fallen on? That is what the Federal unemployment extension program is about. There are additional reasons we are crazy not to extend this program. One is that we have yet to see the economic results we want. Unemployment insurance is an economic stimulus. For every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, it generates $2.15 of economic stimulus. I argue that one of the best economic stimulus programs we have had in the last 22 months has likely been Federal unemployment benefits. These benefits have allowed millions of Americans to make their house payments, to pay their medical bills, to pay for the various essentials they need to do to exist. And that is what they are basically doing. They are just getting by. They are just getting by until new jobs are created. I say to the administration: Where are all of these new jobs? The bottom line is still 2.4 million jobs lost. If the administration wants to curtail this economic program, at least stand up and be as responsive as the last two administrations were and create the new jobs. In that recession, 2.9 million jobs were created and so, of course, Americans could go back to work and, of course, they could get off the Federal program. We have a big challenge before us. And although this bill does not directly address this, we must recognize that parts of our economy are retooling. Parts of our economy are demanding a more creative approach to jobs that are lost as industries are transitioning. It will take almost 2 years to regain the jobs we have lost. Why not prop up our economy by adding needed stimulus? Why not give American workers a return on a program they paid into, and why not honor them by admitting they would rather have job creation than unemployment checks and get about going back to stimulating our economy with real job creation? None of that is happening. We are all now about ready to adjourn to some date uncertain. I do not know if it is January or a sooner time, but America was listening last year. At the holiday season, as December 31 rolled around, Americans were furious that this program was being curtailed. People made very serious decisions. Why make them live through those circumstances again and then come back in January or February? After we have all made it clear this was a program that was much needed, why not do the responsible thing now and pass these unemployment benefits. I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1839 and that the Senate then proceed to the immediate consideration of that legislation; that the Cantwell amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that the bill, as amended, be read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table without intervening action or debate.

Ms. CANTWELL. I do not know how many more objections we are going to hear before we give American workers their right to unemployment benefits. We need to own up to the fact that this body cannot pass tax cuts for the wealthiest, incentivize other programs, and then not take care of our obligation to workers in America--all of whom would, in the end, certainly rather have a paycheck. I hope this body will come to its senses, address this very important issue, and not leave any Americans at the end of the year without the resources to pay their bills and without helping them be an effective part of our economy. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. In this article, I will read the paragraph: With Congress poised for final action on a major Medicare bill this week, some of the fiercest debate is focused on a section of the bill that prohibits the government from negotiating lower drug prices for the 40 million people on Medicare. That particular article goes on to talk about the fact that we are switching over to insurance companies when we could have a benefit under Medicare and when Medicare could provide those cost savings as a big market. Now, some people say: Gee, we don't want to set price controls because that will somehow artificially impact pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies are not the people who need the financing and the access to capital. It is the biotech industry. Washington State happens to be home to many biotech companies. They need access to capital. It is one of the actual advantages of what I would call economic advantage that the United States has in making pharmaceutical drugs; the fact that our access to the capital system allows these biotech companies to do years and years of research and then maybe 10 to 15 years later actually getting a drug produced. So they need access to the capital market. Once those drugs are created, we need to do something about controlling the costs of those drugs. This section of the bill, again referring to the New York Times article, says: The provision epitomizes much of the bill, which relies on insurance companies and private health plans to manage the drug benefit. They could negotiate with drug companies, but the government, with much greater purchasing power, would be forbidden to do so. I have great concerns about what is the basic hamstringing of this proposal as it relates to prescription drug benefits when the key opportunity before us would be to put this benefit under Medicare and capitalize on those savings. Mr. President, that is why I had supported earlier legislation and find it very difficult to support this legislation. I am going to talk about why, besides this particular provision, we are hampering ourselves from having other price controls in this legislation. I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as we start this new benefit, we must be cognizant of what kind of cost measures we can do to make sure we continue to provide this for our citizens. Before I get to that, I want to mention, I have great concerns about the retiree benefit plans under this proposal. We have about 49,000 retirees in Washington State who might end up losing their coverage under this bill in the future. They have good, solid insurance coverage plans that I don't think are too generous, but under this proposal they might go away. There is a certain percentage of the population under this proposal that actually will start paying a variety of premiums based on income, and while some people think that might be a good idea, really these people have been in this program--it has been a program based on a payroll tax into the Medicare trust fund--they have paid into the trust fund expecting to get reliable health insurance coverage back. Now they are going to be paying aggressively on their premiums. About 51,000 residents in Washington State are going to wake up very much surprised to find that as a result of trying to provide a drug benefit package to the country, all of a sudden they are paying more on their Medicare Part B program. I know my phone is ringing very much against this legislation, but I don't know if those 51,000 people realize it is actually their premium rates that are going to go up. Third, I think the legislation, as it relates to low-income seniors, is another area where we are leaving seniors basically worse off than they are today. My State covers 150 percent of the poverty level under Medicaid with a prescription drug benefit. The lowest income seniors in America are now going to have to pay a copayment. One of the reasons we created the program at 100 percent of poverty for people on Medicaid is so they can get access to prescription drugs because they couldn't afford a program to pay for prescription drugs. We are taking the poorest of our population and now demanding that they have a copayment, too. The asset test--I am sure some of my colleagues will talk about that--for those at 150 percent of the poverty level, which is basically incomes of about $13,000 per individual or $18,000 for a family of two, that the asset test is going to be $6,000 for the individual or $9,000 for a couple, that means after that, you are not going to benefit from the program in the same way. Basically, you are limiting the opportunity for this section of low- income individuals to benefit from what would be a more profitable way of dealing with a prescription drug benefit and giving them, not hampering them, saying you qualify but limiting them on the asset test. In Washington State, for those individuals below 150 percent of poverty level, they are going to be worse off under this legislation. I hope this legislation is not a death knell for those who are living with cancer because according to the CBO estimates, this bill could basically cut $11.5 billion over the next 10 years for cancer care communities because of the reimbursement rate for cancer care. Basically, we are making cuts to programs, and I have heard from facilities, oncologists, and cancer patients all across the State that they are very upset with this legislation and the reduction in reimbursements for cancer patients. This is another group of people who will be worse off if this legislation passes. As I said, my primary concern with this legislation is it does very little to rein in the cost of prescription drugs. Talking to my constituents, yes, they would like to see a prescription drug benefit, but they don't want to be worse off than they are today. Even without the benefit, they expect the Senate to do something about controlling prescription drug costs. What have we done? I see my colleague from Michigan on the Senate floor. She had a great proposal that we failed to execute that basically said: Why not cap the advertising dollars of the pharmaceutical companies to the dollars that are involved in research and development; that way, they are doing research and development on new drugs. They are not overspending, overadvertising to America, or at least not getting a tax benefit for overadvertising and trying to drive up the consumption of drugs. We have done nothing about that. My colleague from New York and others have tried to address the issue of what has become evergreening of patents where drug companies actually change the name or some feature of the product just so they can continue to have a patent control and generic drugs, cheaper drugs, cannot come to the market. This bill actually deals with some aspect of that, but the aspect I was very concerned about is oftentimes you have big pharmaceutical companies buying a generic drug company right before the generic drug company produces the product. That ought to be investigated by the Department of Justice as an antitrust violation and to make sure we are not allowing such collusive activities to happen, thereby raising the overall price of prescription drugs. A provision that would have benefited us the most and was critically important--again, as we see insurance companies, basically, in charge of prescription drug benefits--is we had a great opportunity in an amendment I offered with several of my colleagues to control the costs as it was put forth by pharmacy benefit managers. In traveling around Washington State, actually a summer ago, it became very clear to me that a great deal of purchasing of pharmaceutical drugs for individual plans were done by pharmacy benefit managers. They are the middlemen in this process, and pharmacy benefit managers often negotiate huge savings for various employee groups, companies, and organizations. Yet it is unclear what happens to the negotiated discount. Is it passed on to the individuals within the beneficiaries of that plan? Is it basically profit by the pharmacy benefit managers? What happens to that money? In fact, we have had instances in this country where pharmaceutical companies and the pharmacy benefit managing company are owned by the same entity. Thereby the middleman is basically helping to negotiate and sell a higher price for the pharmaceutical company. Most of those companies have gotten out of that. Certainly my amendment would have prohibited pharmaceutical companies and benefit managers from working together under the same ownership. But a recent September 9, 2003 study by Loyola University Chicago Law School found that the cost to taxpayers for this inherent conflict of pharmacy benefit managers is in the range of somewhere between $14 billion and $29 billion over the next 10 years. I think that is quite considerable. To me, putting HMOs in charge of the prescription drug benefit is like putting Enron in charge of our energy policy. Thank God we were able to make some comment and statements that we are not going to have that energy policy of the free market without rules and transparency which basically drove up the cost of energy pricing. But that is what we have here because basically we are saying Government can't do anything to control the prices. But now we are going to throw this into the private sector, and it is unclear what rules they are going to use to control the prices. The one amendment that was in this legislation saying that pharmacy benefit managers had to come clean about the drug benefits they negotiated with pharmaceutical companies, and what percentage of those dollars they were passing on to consumers--that got thrown out of the legislation. So a key aspect of this bill, which would have said let's provide transparency, let's give money back to seniors, let's make sure consumers are getting the savings that are being passed on by being in a big market and having market leverage--those things are gone. I believe our Attorney General of the United States ought to investigate. I don't see why the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, that then sell through a PBM, can't list the top volume of 50 drugs they have sold and the difference between the prices they received at the pharmacy level and what discounts were realized. They don't have to give all of their pricing information. They don't have to overexpose what I think would be private corporate information that allows them to be competitive. But the Department of Justice ought to be able to investigate collusive activity that is ripping off seniors in America, when somebody negotiates huge discounts based on volume but then doesn't pass those discounts on to consumers. So, as I said, this is a key part of the legislation that was left out. I hope whatever happens with the outcome of this legislation, that my colleagues will think about how we need to rein in pharmacy benefit managers in the future and make sure they are passing on savings to consumers. As I said, I think this private delivery model we are talking about for Medicare gives too much control over to the insurance agencies and other organizations and doesn't give a guarantee to seniors. This bill provides no limits on the premiums that drug-only plans can charge. Seniors need a comprehensive benefit that covers their total prescription benefit needs. Why tease them with a program that we are somehow going to cover their prescription benefits and then not control the price, have it in the private sector, and then have the private sector dictate to them: Here is the very limited number of drugs that are going to be provided. Thirty percent of Washington State seniors enrolled in the prescription drug benefit under this program would fall into what is the donut hole. Easily some 122,000 people in my State could fall into the donut hole. Again, another percentage of the population that I don't think are--you might not say they are better off. It depends on whether they have a drug benefit now. But they are certainly not going to get anything from this legislation and they are going to be far more confused about why this cliff starts at a certain level. Again, my colleagues, I am sure, have talked about the economic impact of this legislation. I would go back, saying we should start with a prescription drug benefit. When my colleague, the Senator from Michigan, and I first came into this Congress, when we had a huge surplus, that was the time we should have put forth a prescription drug benefit that would have been a more comprehensive package and started this process. But we didn't do that. So what my constituents are telling me, and these are even constituents living in the rural part of Washington State who might think their physicians will get a higher reimbursement rate or their hospitals will get a higher rate, they will know Washington will still fall behind on the overall Medicare reimbursement rate, falling from 41 in the Nation in reimbursement rate to 45. They will know either the lowest-income seniors who are going to fall out of the program and have to have copayments--that is, they are already under a plan that they don't have copayments on--or there will be some of these seniors who basically end up having to pay more than they are paying today. As we debate this legislation and look forward to whether, as I said, the vote is tonight or tomorrow, I think we need to talk about whether we are going to trust the American people in their trust of Medicare; whether we are going to say we are going to let the Medicare market carry the weight that it has already carried. Actually, even if we said, Here is the limit of how much we could provide given our budget deficit, I would say: Fine, continue to let Medicare provide for those individuals. As we give more resources as a nation, let's build that up. But don't fool America by somehow thinking you are going to turn this over to private insurance companies and HMOs and somehow they are magically going to come up with the money to make this benefit program work. What Americans want is security in their prescription drug benefits. They don't think that privatization will work. They don't think we are doing enough to control costs. I suggest to my colleagues that we need to go back and work this bill to provide both--the certainty to seniors, in a program that they have believed in for many years, and a Congress that will stand up and fight the ever increasing cost of prescription drugs. I yield the floor to my colleague from Michigan.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise at this late hour to add my voice in opposition to the legislation that I believe we will be voting on later tonight or early tomorrow morning and to basically explain that I think under this bill, my constituents in Washington State, who would benefit from a prescription drug benefit, or are currently benefiting from something, will be worse off after this legislation than if we did nothing at all. That is the important point for us to discuss today. Going home to Washington State over the summer, and in September and in October, the voices of Washingtonians basically said we would like to see a prescription drug benefit. Actually, first, they said we would like to see a reduction in the cost of prescription drugs, whether you have a benefit or not. Those who have insurance now are seeing increases in the rates of prescription drugs and cannot afford the continual increase in pricing. I am going to talk about that in a minute. They also said that if you can get a prescription drug benefit, go ahead, but certainly don't do harm by passing something that puts seniors worse off than they currently are. While I voted for the bill that came out of the Senate, I think this conference report is far off from where we need to go. My colleague from Virginia, who just spoke, talked about the physician reimbursement rate and hospital reimbursement rate, for which I applaud the committee. I point out that the reimbursement rate for Medicare patients that is still within this framework of a national average has Washington State at the very low end. In fact, I think we went from 41st in the Nation to 45th in the reimbursement rate. As a place where we want people to come and provide health care benefits, they are certainly not incentivized under this legislation to want to come to Washington when they can practice in other regions and make more money. I think some of the failures of this bill far outweigh the strengths of the legislation. I may come at this differently than my colleagues who want to, as I say, privatize Medicare. I certainly believe we have made a promise since 1965 that we would provide a universal benefit of Medicare, provide basic care to our seniors. I think this bill is a failure to expand on that and put a prescription drug under Medicare. When the Harvard School of Public Health did a study in June of 2002, they asked people: If you retired and you had a choice to get a benefit under the Medicare health insurance program or from a private plan, such as a PPO or HMO, which would you choose? And 63 percent said they wanted a program under Medicare. Only 19 percent said they wanted a plan under a private provider, a PPO or HMO organization. So I think the public is clear that they have said they trust Medicare. In fact, I found great pleasure recently when the Seattle Post- Intelligencer characterized this debate, I thought, in an editorial cartoon that was really right on the spot: Two constituents obviously are saying to each other, honey, see, the Republicans--what they promised is that we would get out of the faceless control of the Government bureaucrats on Medicare. Unbeknownst to the couple, they are sitting in the faceless hands of insurance company executives. I think that is fundamentally what is wrong with this legislation, that while we have had a trusted system for many years and an increase in the cost of prescription drugs going from maybe 5 percent of your health care costs at the time Medicare was introduced to now something like 25 percent of your health care costs, Medicare prescription drug benefits should just be part of basic care under Medicare. Instead, we are saying we are going to subsidize insurance companies to somehow provide a prescription drug benefit for you. I think what we are going to find is that it is going to have disastrous results. There are a lot of things in this legislation about which I think people in the State of Washington are concerned. Obviously, this particular debate, as the New York Times called it today, is really a debate--I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record, entitled ``Medicare Debate Turns to Pricing of Drug Benefits.''

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. This bill hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. But one thing is clear: Members are going to be held accountable for whose side they are on. The energy policy of this administration has fleeced Northwest ratepayers from essential dollars and now this bill promulgates that policy further by giving in to special interests. This bill should fail.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we have had a healthy debate on this issue and in a few minutes we will probably have one of the closest votes this body has seen in a while. But I want to make one point clear this morning. This vote is about whose side you are on: Whether you are on the side of ratepayers and consumers in making sure we have a national energy policy that works or whether you are going to give in to the special interests who are at this very moment trying to put last-minute deals on the table, ripening other bills with projects that will convince Members to switch over at the last minute instead of standing up for the public. When the Vice President started this effort, he said, ``We are going to have a national energy policy,'' quoting from his report that a lot of people took pride in, thinking that somehow this administration was going to play a leadership role in an energy policy for the 21st century. In that report, the Vice President said: It envisions a comprehensive long-term strategy that uses leading edge technology to produce an integrated energy, environmental, and economic policy to achieve a 21st century quality of life, enhanced by renewable energy and a clean environment. We must modernize conservation, modernize our infrastructure, increase energy supply, including renewables, accelerate the protection and improvement of our environment, and increase greater energy security. That is what the Vice President's goal and objectives were. Unfortunately, this bill cannot defy gravity. It is so weighted down with special interest pork subsidies and things that Americans are going to be shocked to see that this bill needs to fail. We have all heard about the subsidies in the wrong place, $23 billion in incentives, mostly going to the fossil fuel industry. We have heard about the exemptions for Texas. Here it is that we are trying to come up with an electricity title that somehow makes everybody else more responsible and accountable with electricity, but we are going to exempt Texas. Also, the overturning of various environmental laws--why is it that every other business in America, whether a high-tech firm or a farmer, has to comply with environmental laws, but somehow we are going to let new construction of oil, gas, and coal out of the mandates of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and some of our rules on public lands? As I said yesterday, one of the biggest tragedies of this bill is the missed opportunity for jobs. We could have gotten language in this bill that would have provided for a natural gas pipeline out of Alaska that would have benefited many in this country as far as job creation is concerned. It would have benefited many of us in the Northwest in getting off our overreliance on hydro energy. We missed an opportunity in planning for the hydrogen economy; 750,000 jobs could have been created in the next 10 years by having a vision. Not just one line in a State of the Union speech about a hydrogen car, but instead a plan with specifics and incentives so the United States could be a world leader in the hydrogen fuel economy. That is not what is in this bill. I woke up this morning to read in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer online an article that was entitled ``The Energy Bill, It Would Be A Hoot, If It Wasn't So Sad.'' In that article it says : Vice President Dick Cheney, whose secretive energy task force crafted much of the energy bill in consultation with industry executives, is coming to our Washington next month for a GOP fundraiser. I would advise the Vice President not to come and talk about his energy policy in the Northwest. Curiously, the Senate yesterday debated the energy bill and its subsidies in a virtual media blackout.

Ms. CANTWELL. I ask for an additional 30 seconds.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Alaska for bringing up an important issue of jobs in this bill, because clearly one of the key components that we in the Northwest are interested in is that this bill might move us forward on an energy policy that would create jobs and diversify Northwest power. When we ran into a drought in 2000 and ended up having to go out on the spot market and buy electricity, we certainly were gouged by some manipulated contracts. But one of the things that could provide us some long-term relief in the near term from future droughts and overreliance on the hydrosystem would be a natural gas pipeline from Alaska down to the continental United States which would help us in diversifying and protecting against such incidents in the future. But let us be clear. This bill doesn't get the job done. The Alaska pipeline that we have all talked about as it relates to natural gas doesn't have the framework within this legislation to move forward. I commend the Senator from Alaska for focusing on job issues. I agree with her that an energy policy must accomplish two things. It must set a policy for us to get off our dependence on foreign oil and again for America to have an advantage in job creation as we move on a 21st century energy policy. But this bill does nothing to help us diversify in the short term on natural gas that is available to us in Canada and Alaska. It does very little to help us in the future with the hydrogen fuel economy which, it is estimated, could create 750,000 jobs over the next 10 years. That is not just the kind of activity that would make us a leader in the United States; it is the kind of activity that would make us a global leader in the energy system of the future. I will take a few minutes to talk about where we are with the Energy bill and where we have been because yesterday I spent quite a bit of time talking about the overall aspects of the bill. Something of great concern to me, being a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I wanted to make sure, given the fact this bill has been drafted mostly in secret, starting with the Vice President's energy task force. That left many Americans out of the process of understanding what the administration's energy proposal would be, which led to a conference report that was done in secret by the Republican Party. Yesterday I needed to spend my time talking about the various aspects of this bill in a comprehensive way that would give my colleagues a perspective of someone from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee who has dealt with some of the challenges and problems. Clearly, this 2003 Energy bill is becoming known as the bill about Hooters, polluters, and about the looting of America that has happened, particularly on the west coast, particularly in my State. Americans are trying to understand this. I have had phone calls to my office: I don't understand. I understand conservation, I understand renewable energy, I understand incentivizing. What does Hooters have to do with an energy policy? In this legislation we have included green bond projects; that is, we would help in the public financing of proposals to various developers in Colorado, New York, Iowa, and Louisiana, with $2 billion in private bonds to build energy-efficient developments. I am for energy efficiency, but last I heard Hooters had its own airline, was doing quite well and probably could borrow any money it needed to invest in energy efficiency. I have small businesses all over the State of Washington that got smacked with the energy crisis. They had to conserve; they had to shut down. Employees were coming up with all sorts of creativity: nobody got to borrow money from the Federal Government that would allow them to have a line item in a bill that said specifically, this project is for you. Broad tax credits for conservation programs in which all companies can apply for some of the incentives to get America to conserve-- because conservation is a great program, particularly in times of less supply--is a very good idea. But that is not what Hooters got. This particular project, and the three others mentioned in this legislation, specifically include a line item for particular projects. What qualifies them? I find it very hard to explain to my constituents. I know there is a daiquiri bar in and an energy efficient bowling alley and a movie theater and everything else as part of this Hooters restaurant development. But I don't understand why they should get some sort of line item for bonds, for money that needs to be borrowed for fuel efficiency when everyone else in the country has had to do their own jobs, to turn out the lights and conserve. What is so special about this particular restaurant? As far as the polluters, obviously, my colleagues have done a great job talking about the MTBE provision and the fact that people who have been involved with that product are seeking relief from being liable for cleanup. I have heard from elected officials all over the State of Washington that they do not want to be the deep pocket. Cities have asked: Why is it that you are going to let these particular polluters in this bill off the hook and stick us with the cleanup cost of this particular product? It is very unfair that that is the approach we would take. My colleague, the Senator from Illinois, and everyone else has been very articulate on that issue. I am also amazed, as we look at the other aspects of the bill, particularly relating to clean water and the Clean Water Act. Why would my colleagues would want to say, under the Clean Water Act, this is legislation that would somehow say to any coal-producing, oil, or gas company producer in the future under this bill, the 2003 Energy bill, that you do not have to comply with clean water runoff standards. Why should they be exempt? I cannot understand that. You build a shopping center. Guess what. You have to comply with runoff standards from the Clean Water Act. If you build a hotel, you have to comply with getting a runoff permit and saying how you are going to deal with runoff. Why? Because there are two sources of pollution. We have the source point pollution and then we have pollution that occurs from the runoff. We want to control that. We are demanding every other business in America has to get a permit when they go through development to deal with runoff, to make sure we have clean water. But somehow we are going to allow certain types of industries in the Energy bill, particularly oil, gas, and coal, to be exempt? What kind of policy is that? The most famous person on this chart is Ken Lay. Why is he the most famous person on this chart to people in Washington State? My constituents want to know why, when they have been gouged with higher energy prices, why this man is not in jail. I don't have a very good answer. This bill is about pollution. It is about special deals. It is about allowing a part of our country to be looted, to allow special interests to stick their hands in the pockets of ratepayers. That is what I will focus on tonight. This bill takes a drastic step backward. While complex to understand, it is critically important for my colleagues to know they cannot take the drastic steps in this measure that will overturn 70 years of case law, protecting consumers with just and reasonable rates. I talked a little bit about the Clean Water Act. I don't know that I have to go over that again, but I ask my colleagues, why make every other business in America comply with the Clean Water Act? There are probably lots of other industries in the country; yet they have to comply--if they want to develop--with runoff standards. Yet we will let oil, gas, and coal companies off the hook. They do not have to get a permit anymore. What is the price gouging that has gone on in this legislation? It is significant, and I will talk about that price gouging because it is very important to understand. I see my colleague from Florida, and I agreed to yield him some time. Would the Senator like that time now?

Ms. CANTWELL. How much time does the Senator from Florida need?

Ms. CANTWELL. Enron is actually suing consumers across America. They are suing consumers in my State, in Washington, in Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, in the Midwest, in the East. The States on this map, those are States in which Enron is saying to utilities and to consumers and ratepayers: I am taking you to court to make sure you continue to pay on manipulated contracts because really you are going to be the deep pocket for these energy prices. It is just plain wrong. It is plain wrong that that is what America is dealing with and that this particular bill does nothing about it. Since the beginning of these contracts in my area, I have probably paid $700 on my own energy bill--$700 more than I would have paid if we would have had normal rates. Here is a check from me. It is not really my bank. It obviously doesn't have my bank number on there. But that is what I am going to next pay to Enron because of the fact that my utility can't get out of those manipulated contracts. My utility can't get out of those contracts. That is what everyone in Snohomish is going to have to pay, $370 more, even though we have already paid $796 more since the crisis began. There is another example of a woman in Snohomish County, where I live, who was trying to take care of her mother. Basically, she got laid off from Boeing. She got a utility bill for $605, nearly double the last bill she had. Her mother got a bill for $747. Her mother is on a fixed income. She only has $1,500 a month from Social Security, and she is supposed to pay 747 of those dollars out to Enron to foot the bill for manipulated contracts. And this body can't do any better than to condone those contracts and further protect them under this bill? It is amazing. It is truly amazing. So where are we on this problem and this issue? Just look at what ratepayers in my region have had to pay since 2001. The total my ratepayers have had to pay is $1.5 billion, over and above the amount they otherwise would have had to pay in the Northwest, all because they are stuck with long-term Enron contracts. It is unfair. It is unjust. It certainly isn't reasonable. What is the problem with this legislation in front of us? Again, you would say: That is an issue of manipulated contracts. You ought to go to court. You should figure out what the court has to say about those contracts. Actually, many of my constituents did go to court. Snohomish County PUD went to court. Enron turned around and countersued. Basically, the court said: You don't have standing here because this isn't a decision before our courts. You have to go to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They are the people who oversee these issues. So when they went to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, they said: There is market manipulation, but we are not going to do anything about it. And, frankly, it is a problem, but our report only is going to demonstrate that there was manipulation and we are not going to do anything. So what we have had to do is really push on the fact that the Federal Power Act says there should be just and reasonable rates. This bill further amends the Power Act, and it basically says that these contracts should stand. It basically gives the contracts sanctity. It goes one step further than 70 years of case law and says: Even though the Power Act requires just and reasonable rates, we are going to guarantee these contracts. And FERC and the courts don't have to reform them ever, unless somehow someone can prove that a failure to do so is somehow contrary to the public interest. We are setting a whole new legal standard in this bill. We are failing to correct the Enron manipulations. We are failing to give direction in a key area of consumer protection. Not only that, we are changing 70 years of case law and saying it is OK to manipulate contracts. It is time to defeat this bill which supports Hooters, polluters, and the Enron looters that are gouging American ratepayers. I yield the floor.