Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Georgetown Fire Company. Founded in 1903, the Georgetown Fire Company is only one of fifteen Delaware fire companies to achieve a century or more of service a testament of the hard work and dedication of those who have been part of this venerable organization. Several fire companies in Delaware, particularly around rural communities, were formed in the wake of disasters. That was the case for nearby Milton, which founded its fire company in 1901. But residents and town leaders in Georgetown formed their own fire company before a major fire broke out. On April 11, 1903, the commissioners of the Town of Georgetown advised the town's people by posting in the local newspaper, The Sussex Journal, that there would be a meeting that evening for the purpose of creating a fire company. In this posting, they stated that the formation of a fire company would decrease the cost of fire insurance within the town. There were fourteen charter members of the Georgetown Fire Company. Until that day, the community had relied solely on so-called bucket brigades and a hand-drawn ladder wagon. Today, the fire company owns the most modern of technology and firefighting equipment, and what started off as a small squad of locals with minimal training has evolved into a company that today has almost 100 members, 50 of whom are active. The remaining members are life members, limited service members or honorary members, all of whom continue to help protect Georgetown. Originally located in the old fire hall building on The Circle in 1930, they moved to their new building on South Bedford Street in 1966. There, the doors are opened one evening each February for an annual fundraiser for the fire company, the legendary ``Oyster Eat,'' which attracts people from throughout the Delmarva peninsula and beyond. I rise today to recognize all the members of the Georgetown Fire Company, past and present, and their contributions to their beloved community. This is a historic event, especially for a non-profit organization based solely on volunteerism. I congratulate you all and thank you for your service to the people of Georgetown and to all of Southern Delaware.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, when I ran for the U.S. Senate, I promised Delawareans that I would work in a bipartisan fashion to provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit for our Nation's seniors. I pledged that I would seek consensus around what is right with competing Republican and Democratic plans. Along with my Democratic colleagues, I would support voluntary coverage that is available and affordable for all seniors. Along with my Republican colleagues, I would support choice and competition to constrain costs. And to the extent we found ourselves constrained by limited resources, I would seek to provide the greatest assistance to those with the greatest needs. The bill before us today achieves some of that vision. It is bipartisan. It will provide a benefit available to all seniors on a voluntary basis. It will harness market forces to strengthen the integrity of the Medicare Program for the future. And it will provide comprehensive health security to our most vulnerable, low-income seniors. Still, the bill we have before us today is not everything I would have hoped for. The overriding priority of the current majority here in Congress has been to make dramatic reductions in Federal revenues without corresponding reductions in Federal spending. As a result, there is insufficient money in the budget under which we are currently operating to provide the kind of comprehensive coverage that all seniors--not just low-income seniors--truly deserve. This is an unfortunate choice of priorities, I think, but it is the choice that this President and this Congress have made. Unfortunately, the consequences of the majority's misguided priorities are evident in this legislation. When Medicare was created, the idea was to provide seniors with health coverage that was similar to the coverage available to most working Americans through their employers. This is what seniors expect when we say that we are providing them with a Medicare prescription drug benefit. However, the majority has only set aside for this bill about half of what it would take, according to the Congressional Budget Office, to provide seniors a benefit comparable to standard employer-provided coverage. Thus, there is a very noticeable gap in this bill's coverage, reflective of a substantial hole in our Nation's budget. When seniors reach $4,500 in prescription drug costs, the coverage in this bill gives out. It does not kick back in until total spending reaches $5,800. It is widely acknowledged that this makes no sense. It makes no sense from an insurance perspective. It certainly is not reflective of the standard either in private employer-provided coverage or in the coverage provided to those of us who are fortunate enough to serve as Members of Congress. Nobody likes this gap in coverage. Nobody, so far as I can tell, defends it. However, because the root of problem is the majority's failure to set aside sufficient resources for this program, efforts to deal with the problem have only created new and potentially more serious difficulties. For example, the authors of this legislation have attempted to narrow the coverage gap by not allowing employer contributions to count towards the calculation of seniors' out-of-pocket spending in the gap. To see how this works, we need to understand how the coverage gap works. Once seniors reach $4,500 in total drug costs, they fall into the coverage gap. They then have to spend a certain amount of their own money--in the final bill reported out of the Finance Committee it is $1,300--before their coverage resumes, or they get out of the coverage gap. The effect of not allowing seniors to count payments made by their retiree health plans toward this out-of-pocket requirement is to ensure that seniors will remain in the gap longer and fewer will get out of it. This allows the level of spending at which the gap ends to be set at a lower level than would otherwise be possible for the same budgetary cost. The problem with this, however, is that it also provides an unintended incentive for employers to drop or scale back their retiree drug coverage. Thankfully, contributions from State prescription drug plans, like our Delaware Pharmacy Assistance Program, count toward the out-of- pocket requirement, which should encourage States to ``stay in the game.'' Employers, though, are effectively barred from wrapping their coverage around Medicare in the way that would be most beneficial for their retirees, which would be by filing Medicare's coverage gap. In the course of our consideration of this legislation here on the floor of the Senate, I have urged my colleagues to address these shortcomings in the bill, even if that means reconsidering the majority's budget plan and the resource allocation for this program. I supported an amendment by Senator Boxer to eliminate the gap in coverage. And I cosponsored an amendment offered by Senator Rockefeller to allow employer-provided coverage to wrap around the Medicare benefit and thus to eliminate the incentive for employers to drop coverage for their retirees. The majority has made clear, however, that they are unwilling to reorder their priorities or to emplore the possibility of finding the necessary resources elsewhere in the budget to fix what they acknowledge are shortcomings in this legislation. Thus, the rest of us are left to choose between a prescription drug benefit that provides some, but not all, of the assistance that seniors deserve, or no prescription drug benefit at all. Congress has been debating this issue for more than a decade. In many ways, it has been debating the issue since Medicare was first created back in 1965. I ran for the Senate in part because I was frustrated at the inability or unwillingness of the parties in Washington to come together to do what they could to solve problems and get things done. I am unwilling to walk away from the table this year with nothing for Delaware's seniors. They have waited too long and the need is too great. In light of the budgetary priorities of the Republican majority, I am also very concerned about our future prospects. Should we let the present opportunity pass us by? I am concerned that if we do not act to get started with prescription drug coverage this year, even the limited resources that now remain may go out the door for other purposes--most likely another round of top-heavy, upper bracket tax cuts. This is a first step. It is a downpayment. Just as I pledged when I ran for the Senate to work in a bipartisan fashion to get results, I pledge today to continue to work to build on these results. I continue to believe that we should provide our seniors with quality coverage without caps or gaps. I will work to ensure that filling the gap of coverage that exists in the present bill is given greater priority in future budgets than it was in this year's Republican budget. I also believe that it is a mistake to shun rather than welcome employer efforts to wrap around the new Medicare benefit, and I will work to rectify that mistake as we move toward implementation of this program over the next few years. Mr. President, it is often said that politics is the art of the possible. The bounds of the possible are a bit narrower now than they need, thanks to our Republican friends. But, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee has said, this may be the best bill that could be written under the constraints of the Republican budget. For that reason, I commend the authors of this legislation--Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus, among others--for their work. I urge my colleagues to support this compromise as an important, if limited, first step toward addressing what clearly is a pressing priority, not just for our elderly population, but for our Nation as a whole.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2003, legislation that makes the reforms necessary for the Postal Service to thrive in the 21st Century and to better serve the American people. The Postal Service has, for the most part, operated in the same manner for more than thirty years. In the early 1970s, Senator Stevens and others led the effort in the Senate to create the Postal Service out of the failing Post Office Department. At the time, the Post Office Department received about 20 percent of its revenue from taxpayer subsidies. The service it provided was suffering and there was little money available to expand. By all accounts, the product of Senator Stevens' labors, the Postal Reorganization Act signed into law by President Nixon in 1971, has been a phenomenal success. The Postal Service today receives virtually no taxpayer support and the service its hundreds of thousands of employees provide to every American, every day is second to none. More than thirty years later, the Postal Service now delivers to 141 million addresses each day and is the anchor of a $900 billion mailing industry. All that said, the Postal Service is clearly in need of modernization once again. When it started out in 1971, nobody had access to fax machines, cell phones and pagers and nobody imagined that we would ever enjoy conveniences like e-mail and electronic bill pay. After decades of success, electronic diversion of mail volume coupled with economic recession and terrorism have made for some rough going at the Postal Service in recent years. In 2001, as Postmaster General Potter assumed his position, the Postal Service was projecting its third consecutive year of deficits. They lost $199 million in fiscal year 2000 and $1.68 billion in fiscal year 2001. They were projecting losses of up to $4 billion in fiscal year 2002. Mail volume was falling, revenues were below projections and the Postal Service was estimating that it needed to spend $4 billion on security enhancements in order to prevent a repeat of the tragic anthrax attacks that took several lives. The Postal Service was also perilously close to its $15 billion debt ceiling and had been forced to raise rates three times in less than two years in order to pay for its operations, further eroding mail volume. In recent months, however, the Postal Service's short-term financial outlook has improved. Under General Potter's strong leadership, Postal Service management cut a total of $2.9 billion in costs fiscal year 2002. They did this mostly by eliminating 23,000 positions, mostly through attrition. This included 800 management positions at postal headquarters in Washington and 2,000 administrative positions in regional offices. They also continued their drive to further automate their processing operations, most notably in the area of flats processing. They have continued their construction freeze and ended their self-imposed ban on post office closings, resulting in the closing of dozens of post offices across the country. Most dramatically, the Postal Service learned in 2002 that an unfunded pension liability they once believed was as high as $32 billion was actually $5 billion. My friend from Maine, Ms. Collins, and I responded with legislation, the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act, signed into law by President Bush last month, which cuts the amount the Postal Service must pay into the Civil Service Retirement System each year by nearly $3 billion. This will free up money for debt reduction and prevent the need for another rate increase until at least 2006. Aggressive cost cutting and the lower pension payment, then, have put off the emergency that would have come if the Postal Service had reached their debt limit. Cost cutting can only go so far, however, and will not solve the Postal Service's long-term problems. It could actually hurt service. The Postal Service continues to add about 1.7 million new delivery points each year, creating the need for thousands of new routes and thousands of new letter carriers to work them. In addition, faster- growing parts of the country will need new or expanded postal facilities in the coming years. Even if the economy recovers soon and the Postal Service begins to see volume and revenues improve, we will still need to make the fundamental reforms necessary to make the Postal Service as successful in the 21st Century as it was in the 20th Century. As more and more customers turn to electronic forms of communication, letter carriers are bringing fewer and fewer pieces of mail to each address they serve. The rate increases that will be needed to maintain the Postal Service's current infrastructure, finance retirement obligations to its current employees, pay for new letter carriers and build facilities in growing parts of the country will only further erode mail volume. The Postal Service has been trying to improve on its own. They are making progress, but there is only so much they can do on their own. That is where my bill comes in. First, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act begins the process of developing a modern rate system for pricing Postal Service products. The new rate system, to be developed by a strengthened Postal Rate Commission, re-named the Postal Regulatory Commission, would allow retained earnings, provide the Postal Service more flexibility in setting prices and streamline today's burdensome ratemaking process. It would also allow rates to be increased on an expedited basis during crises like a sharp spike in fuel prices and require that the Regulatory Commission develop a ``phased rate'' schedule whereby rate increases would be phased in gradually over a period of time. In addition, the new rate system authorized through my bill will allow the Postal Service to negotiate service agreements with individual mailers. The Postal Rate Commission recently approved a service agreement the Postal Service negotiated with Capital One, but the process for considering the agreement took almost a year and the Postal Service's authority to enter into agreements is not clearly spelled out in law. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act allows the Postal Service to enter into agreements if the revenue generated from them covers all costs attributable to the Postal Service and results in a greater contribution to the Postal Service's institutional costs. No agreement would be permitted if it resulted in higher rates for any other mailer or prohibited any similarly situated mailer from negotiating a similar agreement. Second, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires the Postal Regulatory Commission to set strong service standards for the Postal Service's Market Dominant products, a category made up mostly of those products, like First Class Mail, that are part of the postal monopoly. The Postal Service currently sets its own service standards, which allows them to pursue efforts like the elimination of Saturday delivery, a proposal floated two years ago. The new standards set by the Commission will aim to improve service and will be used by the Postal Service to establish performance goals and to rationalize their physical infrastructure. Once the standards are established, the Postal Service will recommend a list of facilities that can be closed or consolidated without hindering their ability to meet the standards. A new commission, called the Postal Network Modernization Commission, would then study the Postal Service's recommendations. The closings and consolidations recommended by this commission would be carried out, subject to approval by the President, unless Congress passed a resolution disapproving them. Third, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act ensures that the Postal Service competes fairly. The bill prohibits the Postal Service from issuing anti-competitive regulations and makes the State Department, instead of the Postal Service, responsible for setting U.S. foreign policy on mailing issues. It also subjects the Postal Service to State zoning, planning and land use laws, requires them to pay an assumed Federal income tax on products like packages and Express Mail that private firms also offer and requires that these products as a whole pay their share of the Postal Service's institutional costs. Fourth, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act improves Postal Service accountability, mostly by strengthening oversight. Qualifications for membership on the Regulatory Commission would be stronger than those for the Rate Commission so that Commissioners would have a background in finance or economics. Commissioners would also have the power to demand information from the Postal Service, including by subpoena, and have the power to punish them for violating rate and service regulations. In addition, the Commission will make an annual determination as to whether the Postal Service is in compliance with rate law and meeting service standards and will have the power to punish them for any transgressions. Finally, and most importantly, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act preserves universal service and forces the Postal Service to concentrate solely on what they do best--processing and delivering the mail to all Americans. The bill for the first time limits the Postal Service to providing ``postal services,'' meaning they would be prohibited from engaging in other lines of business, such as e-commerce, that draw time and resources away from letter and package delivery. It also explicitly preserves the requirement that the Postal Service ``bind the Nation together through the mail'' and serve all parts of the country, urban, suburban and rural, in a non- discriminatory fashion. Any service standards established by the Postal Regulatory Commission will continue to ensure delivery to every address, every day. In addition, the bill maintains the prohibition on closing post offices solely because they operate at a deficit, ensuring that rural and urban customers continue to enjoy full access to retail postal services. One thing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act does not do, is blame postal employees for the Postal Service's problems. The bill preserves collective bargaining and does nothing that would harm postal employees' pay or benefits. Another thing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act does not do is privatize or downsize the Postal Service. The bill preserves the Postal Service's monopoly along with its sole access to the mailbox. While it could result in the closing of some postal facilities, the process I have laid out in the bill is completely driven by the service standards established by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Nothing will be closed for the sake of being closed. Instead, the bill encourages the Postal Service to find ways to improve customer access to retail services through things like vending machines or post offices located in grocery stores or pharmacies. As my colleagues are aware, President Bush last year announced the creation of the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service, which is expected to release a set of postal reform proposals this summer that I hope will offer some fair, balanced recommendations. It is also my hope, however, that the President's Commission look to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act as a touchstone as they complete their work. The bill is the product of nearly a decade's worth of work on postal reform in the House of Representatives led by Congressman John McHugh from New York and is based in large part on legislation Congressman McHugh introduced towards the end of the 107th Congress. While I cannot claim that the McHugh bill had unanimous support, it did draw the support of most postal employees, much of the mailing industry and the Postal Service's Board of Governors. When Treasury Department Under Secretary Peter Fisher addressed the President's Commission at its first meeting, he stated that everything was on the table and that the Commission's findings were not predetermined. I know there is some concern that the Commission will recommend privatization, and that this was the idea from the beginning. I will admit that I initially shared these feelings but, based on what I have heard about the Commission's deliberations, they appear on track to develop a reasonable set of recommendations. That said, I urge them to take careful consideration of the work Congress has done on postal reform in the past. Radical reforms undertaken at a number of foreign posts in recent years should teach us a lesson about going too far. When the British deregulated Royal Mail, service began to suffer dramatically. When the New Zealand Post Office was privatized, universal service was eliminated and customers in rural areas were forced to pay for delivery. When Argentina privatized its Postal Authority, the new private entity went bankrupt even before the country's economic crisis began. We cannot afford to gamble with similar reforms at the Postal Service. I look forward to working with Chairman Collins, the Governmental Affairs Committee and all of my colleagues in passing comprehensive postal reform this year. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2003, legislation that makes the reforms necessary for the Postal Service to thrive in the 21st Century and to better serve the American people. The Postal Service has, for the most part, operated in the same manner for more than thirty years. In the early 1970s, Senator Stevens and others led the effort in the Senate to create the Postal Service out of the failing Post Office Department. At the time, the Post Office Department received about 20 percent of its revenue from taxpayer subsidies. The service it provided was suffering and there was little money available to expand. By all accounts, the product of Senator Stevens' labors, the Postal Reorganization Act signed into law by President Nixon in 1971, has been a phenomenal success. The Postal Service today receives virtually no taxpayer support and the service its hundreds of thousands of employees provide to every American, every day is second to none. More than thirty years later, the Postal Service now delivers to 141 million addresses each day and is the anchor of a $900 billion mailing industry. All that said, the Postal Service is clearly in need of modernization once again. When it started out in 1971, nobody had access to fax machines, cell phones and pagers and nobody imagined that we would ever enjoy conveniences like e-mail and electronic bill pay. After decades of success, electronic diversion of mail volume coupled with economic recession and terrorism have made for some rough going at the Postal Service in recent years. In 2001, as Postmaster General Potter assumed his position, the Postal Service was projecting its third consecutive year of deficits. They lost $199 million in fiscal year 2000 and $1.68 billion in fiscal year 2001. They were projecting losses of up to $4 billion in fiscal year 2002. Mail volume was falling, revenues were below projections and the Postal Service was estimating that it needed to spend $4 billion on security enhancements in order to prevent a repeat of the tragic anthrax attacks that took several lives. The Postal Service was also perilously close to its $15 billion debt ceiling and had been forced to raise rates three times in less than two years in order to pay for its operations, further eroding mail volume. In recent months, however, the Postal Service's short-term financial outlook has improved. Under General Potter's strong leadership, Postal Service management cut a total of $2.9 billion in costs fiscal year 2002. They did this mostly by eliminating 23,000 positions, mostly through attrition. This included 800 management positions at postal headquarters in Washington and 2,000 administrative positions in regional offices. They also continued their drive to further automate their processing operations, most notably in the area of flats processing. They have continued their construction freeze and ended their self-imposed ban on post office closings, resulting in the closing of dozens of post offices across the country. Most dramatically, the Postal Service learned in 2002 that an unfunded pension liability they once believed was as high as $32 billion was actually $5 billion. My friend from Maine, Ms. Collins, and I responded with legislation, the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act, signed into law by President Bush last month, which cuts the amount the Postal Service must pay into the Civil Service Retirement System each year by nearly $3 billion. This will free up money for debt reduction and prevent the need for another rate increase until at least 2006. Aggressive cost cutting and the lower pension payment, then, have put off the emergency that would have come if the Postal Service had reached their debt limit. Cost cutting can only go so far, however, and will not solve the Postal Service's long-term problems. It could actually hurt service. The Postal Service continues to add about 1.7 million new delivery points each year, creating the need for thousands of new routes and thousands of new letter carriers to work them. In addition, faster- growing parts of the country will need new or expanded postal facilities in the coming years. Even if the economy recovers soon and the Postal Service begins to see volume and revenues improve, we will still need to make the fundamental reforms necessary to make the Postal Service as successful in the 21st Century as it was in the 20th Century. As more and more customers turn to electronic forms of communication, letter carriers are bringing fewer and fewer pieces of mail to each address they serve. The rate increases that will be needed to maintain the Postal Service's current infrastructure, finance retirement obligations to its current employees, pay for new letter carriers and build facilities in growing parts of the country will only further erode mail volume. The Postal Service has been trying to improve on its own. They are making progress, but there is only so much they can do on their own. That is where my bill comes in. First, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act begins the process of developing a modern rate system for pricing Postal Service products. The new rate system, to be developed by a strengthened Postal Rate Commission, re-named the Postal Regulatory Commission, would allow retained earnings, provide the Postal Service more flexibility in setting prices and streamline today's burdensome ratemaking process. It would also allow rates to be increased on an expedited basis during crises like a sharp spike in fuel prices and require that the Regulatory Commission develop a ``phased rate'' schedule whereby rate increases would be phased in gradually over a period of time. In addition, the new rate system authorized through my bill will allow the Postal Service to negotiate service agreements with individual mailers. The Postal Rate Commission recently approved a service agreement the Postal Service negotiated with Capital One, but the process for considering the agreement took almost a year and the Postal Service's authority to enter into agreements is not clearly spelled out in law. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act allows the Postal Service to enter into agreements if the revenue generated from them covers all costs attributable to the Postal Service and results in a greater contribution to the Postal Service's institutional costs. No agreement would be permitted if it resulted in higher rates for any other mailer or prohibited any similarly situated mailer from negotiating a similar agreement. Second, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires the Postal Regulatory Commission to set strong service standards for the Postal Service's Market Dominant products, a category made up mostly of those products, like First Class Mail, that are part of the postal monopoly. The Postal Service currently sets its own service standards, which allows them to pursue efforts like the elimination of Saturday delivery, a proposal floated two years ago. The new standards set by the Commission will aim to improve service and will be used by the Postal Service to establish performance goals and to rationalize their physical infrastructure. Once the standards are established, the Postal Service will recommend a list of facilities that can be closed or consolidated without hindering their ability to meet the standards. A new commission, called the Postal Network Modernization Commission, would then study the Postal Service's recommendations. The closings and consolidations recommended by this commission would be carried out, subject to approval by the President, unless Congress passed a resolution disapproving them. Third, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act ensures that the Postal Service competes fairly. The bill prohibits the Postal Service from issuing anti-competitive regulations and makes the State Department, instead of the Postal Service, responsible for setting U.S. foreign policy on mailing issues. It also subjects the Postal Service to State zoning, planning and land use laws, requires them to pay an assumed Federal income tax on products like packages and Express Mail that private firms also offer and requires that these products as a whole pay their share of the Postal Service's institutional costs. Fourth, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act improves Postal Service accountability, mostly by strengthening oversight. Qualifications for membership on the Regulatory Commission would be stronger than those for the Rate Commission so that Commissioners would have a background in finance or economics. Commissioners would also have the power to demand information from the Postal Service, including by subpoena, and have the power to punish them for violating rate and service regulations. In addition, the Commission will make an annual determination as to whether the Postal Service is in compliance with rate law and meeting service standards and will have the power to punish them for any transgressions. Finally, and most importantly, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act preserves universal service and forces the Postal Service to concentrate solely on what they do best--processing and delivering the mail to all Americans. The bill for the first time limits the Postal Service to providing ``postal services,'' meaning they would be prohibited from engaging in other lines of business, such as e-commerce, that draw time and resources away from letter and package delivery. It also explicitly preserves the requirement that the Postal Service ``bind the Nation together through the mail'' and serve all parts of the country, urban, suburban and rural, in a non- discriminatory fashion. Any service standards established by the Postal Regulatory Commission will continue to ensure delivery to every address, every day. In addition, the bill maintains the prohibition on closing post offices solely because they operate at a deficit, ensuring that rural and urban customers continue to enjoy full access to retail postal services. One thing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act does not do, is blame postal employees for the Postal Service's problems. The bill preserves collective bargaining and does nothing that would harm postal employees' pay or benefits. Another thing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act does not do is privatize or downsize the Postal Service. The bill preserves the Postal Service's monopoly along with its sole access to the mailbox. While it could result in the closing of some postal facilities, the process I have laid out in the bill is completely driven by the service standards established by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Nothing will be closed for the sake of being closed. Instead, the bill encourages the Postal Service to find ways to improve customer access to retail services through things like vending machines or post offices located in grocery stores or pharmacies. As my colleagues are aware, President Bush last year announced the creation of the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service, which is expected to release a set of postal reform proposals this summer that I hope will offer some fair, balanced recommendations. It is also my hope, however, that the President's Commission look to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act as a touchstone as they complete their work. The bill is the product of nearly a decade's worth of work on postal reform in the House of Representatives led by Congressman John McHugh from New York and is based in large part on legislation Congressman McHugh introduced towards the end of the 107th Congress. While I cannot claim that the McHugh bill had unanimous support, it did draw the support of most postal employees, much of the mailing industry and the Postal Service's Board of Governors. When Treasury Department Under Secretary Peter Fisher addressed the President's Commission at its first meeting, he stated that everything was on the table and that the Commission's findings were not predetermined. I know there is some concern that the Commission will recommend privatization, and that this was the idea from the beginning. I will admit that I initially shared these feelings but, based on what I have heard about the Commission's deliberations, they appear on track to develop a reasonable set of recommendations. That said, I urge them to take careful consideration of the work Congress has done on postal reform in the past. Radical reforms undertaken at a number of foreign posts in recent years should teach us a lesson about going too far. When the British deregulated Royal Mail, service began to suffer dramatically. When the New Zealand Post Office was privatized, universal service was eliminated and customers in rural areas were forced to pay for delivery. When Argentina privatized its Postal Authority, the new private entity went bankrupt even before the country's economic crisis began. We cannot afford to gamble with similar reforms at the Postal Service. I look forward to working with Chairman Collins, the Governmental Affairs Committee and all of my colleagues in passing comprehensive postal reform this year. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the Asbestos Workers Local No. 42. The International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers and the Local 42 have fought for better working conditions, health protection, employee rights, and to garner better wages for their members. They should be recognized for the work that they do. The International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers Union dates back to the late 1800s and the emergence of steam power. The expanded use of steam power during this era had a profound effect on the industrial sector leading to better heated and more efficient factories and plants, improved working conditions, and the creation of thousands of new manufacturing jobs. The widespread use of steam power also created an entirely new industry--the insulation industry. Skilled insulation mechanics were needed to insulate steam boilers in an effort to conserve the precious energy being piped to residential and industrial facilities. The insulation mechanics who provided this craftsmanship worked almost totally without organized representation. By the end of the 19th century, a few localized associations attempted to look after the interests of their members in specific cities. The first attempt to form a national bond between insulators associations came in 1900, when the Salamander Association of New York sent out an appeal to related crafts in other cities to form a ``National Organization of Pipe and Boiler Covers.'' The initial appeal did spark interest, and 2 years later a much more decisive action was taken by the officers and members of the Pipe Cover's Union, of St. Louis, MO. The St. Louis group sent out an announcement that it had affiliated with the National Building Trades Council of America, and invited other pipe coverer unions and related trades to join with them in the pursuit of better working conditions, pay that was commensurate with their skills, and the strength that comes from unity. The first appeal of unity was sent to targeted cities where other asbestos workers already were enjoying the benefits of union affiliation such as New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. In all, seven local unions from around the Nation responded favorably, and the hard work of laying the foundation for an international union was begun. With the St. Louis union leading the way, the interested locals met for their first convention on July 7, 1903, in the city of St. Louis. The results of that inaugural convention were impressive; a constitution was drafted and approved; bylaws were adopted; the first president was elected, Thomas Kennedy from Chicago; and a formal name was adopted, the National Association of Heat, Frost and General Insulators and Asbestos Workers of America. On September 22, 1903, the American Federation of Labor issued an official charter designating the Asbestos Workers as a national union. The goals of the new International Union were spelled out in the charter: ``The object of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers shall be to assist its membership in securing employment, to defend their rights, and advance their interests as working men; and by education and cooperation raise them to that position in society to which they are justly entitled.'' Since that time, leaders of the International Union took this objective to grow this small group of local unions to over 120 local unions and a membership in excess of 20,000. On July 16, 1915, General President Joseph Mullaney organized and delivered Local Charter No. 42 to the Wilmington, DE, Asbestos Workers. Temporary officers were elected and on July 26, 1915, forty permanent officers were elected. Mr. R.E. Mahan was elected as president and N.K. Whaler was elected as secretary. Meetings were held at the Irish- American Hall on French Street every Monday. Local No. 42 began with just thirty members in 1915, with wages averaging $0.32 per hour. After World War II, the International Union's growth and prosperity was tempered by frightening new evidence that confirmed long-held suspicions by the International Union's leadership. Workers who were exposed to asbestos died in disproportionate numbers from cancer. Since this evidence was proven, the union has fought for passage of new safety and health laws to help protect its members as well as the public. The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the use of asbestos in the insulation industry in the United States. It has also been banned from use in many other products as well. The International Union continues to provide its members with education and training with the latest state-of-the-art work practices in the handling of any and all materials used in the industry. Since 1915, Local No. 42 has grown to include some 130 active members and approximately 100 retired members. Today, the president, Jeff Smith, helps lead the way in protecting asbestos workers' rights as well as their health. Through its long and proud history, the Asbestos Workers International Union and Local No. 42 have never shied away from adversity or allowed negative factors to impede the achievement of those admirable goals set out in the international charter of 1910. Through the determination and commitment of their leaders and members, the International Union and Local #42 continues to strive for employment opportunities, equality in the work place, continuing education, and the safety and well being of the membership.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend from Maine, Ms. Collins, in introducing the Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act of 2003, legislation that greatly improves the method currently used to distribute much-needed first responder aid. When my colleagues and I on the Governmental Affairs Committee worked last year under Senator Lieberman's leadership to create the Department of Homeland Security, we all hoped that what we were setting up would help the Federal Government be better able to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. As of March 1st of this year, we have in place the skeleton of an organization that aims to pull together under one roof information on threats and vulnerabilities and use that information to improve security and prepare first responders. As I've pointed out a number of times, however, no matter how well Secretary Ridge does his work on the Federal level, we will not be much safer than we were on September 10, 2001 unless our first responders are better prepared to do their work on the local level. While homeland security should certainly be a shared responsibility, it is vitally important that the Federal Government does its part to provide each State and its first responders with the assistance necessary to ensure that the citizens they serve are adequately protected. The Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act is an important step toward making this happen. Today, States, localities and first responders can receive Federal assistance from a number of different aid programs administered by several different agencies. All of the programs serve different purposes and require different applications. The Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act sets up a process to streamline these programs to allow them to work well together and avoid imposing redundant or duplicative requirements on applicants. The aim is not to eliminate programs, but to ensure that existing homeland security and homeland security-related grant programs are well coordinated and impose as small an administrative burden on applicants as possible. The Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act also creates a ``one-stop shop'' for grant information within the Department of Homeland Security by moving the Office of Domestic Preparedness, ODP, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with administering the current state homeland security grant program, from the Directorate for Border and Transportation Security to the Office for State and Local Government Coordination. In its new location, ODP will operate a ``clearinghouse'' for grant information that would offer services such as a toll-free hotline and a list of recommended first responder equipment. ODP will also maintain a compilation of ``best practices'' made up of successful homeland security programs from across the country and offer states technical assistance in developing the terrorism risk assessments that will be a part of the new State grant program. Most importantly, the Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act also makes key improvements to the formula for distributing first responder aid among the States. The new formula maintains the requirement that all money go to State governments and that 80 percent of that money be passed through to cities and localities. It also maintains the current small state minimum in which each State receives an equal share of 40 percent of funds made available for state grants. It makes a major improvement, however, by dividing the remaining 60 percent of the money among the states according to an analysis of potential threats in each State. The current formula for distributing first responder aid ignores the fact that Delaware, though small in population, is located in the Northeast midway between New York and Washington. It ignores the fact that Delaware is home to a major port, oil refineries and chemical plants. It ignores the fact that Delaware every day hosts scores of ships, trains and trucks on their way to destinations up and down the East Coast. It also ignores the fact that Delaware is home to the Dover Air Force Base, a facility that played a crucial role in the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I understand the need to give larger States, especially those with densely populated urban areas, enough resources to protect their larger populations. No State, however, should be less safe than its neighbors simply because it has a smaller population. The Federal Government should be working to bring every state and locality to the point where they are capable of responding effectively to any potential threat. I am concerned that the current formula, based mostly on population does not prepare all States adequately. The Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act still requires that population be taken into account when distributing first responder aid. However, it adds the requirement that the Secretary of Homeland Security also account for threats and risk to critical infrastructure identified in State risk assessments that would be submitted to the department as part of the grant application process. The bill also ensures that all localities within States get their fair share of money by requiring that local leaders be included in the planning and application process in each state and that the distribution method a given state will use once it receives its money is approved by the department before a check is cut. Finally, the Homeland Security Grant Enhancement Act gives states new flexibility in spending their first responder aid by incorporating provisions from S. 838, legislation Ms. Collins and I introduced in April. That bill allows States to apply for a waiver from the Department of Homeland Security so that they can move their first responder aid around between the four categories--equipment, training, exercises and planning--in which it is sent to them. This change will allow States to better meet needs identified in their State terrorism response plans. I applaud the Senator from Maine for her leadership on these important issues. I look forward to working with her and all of my colleagues in getting this important legislation passed and signed into law as soon as possible.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, an hour from now, we will have the opportunity to vote on an amendment pertaining to whether or not we go forward on the process called BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure Act. For the last 20 years, we have debated in the House and the Senate, and around the country, whether or not we should take a look at our military bases--Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine--to determine whether or not we have the right bases with the right mix of personnel with the appropriate aircraft, ships, and tanks, and decide whether the men, women, equipment, and materiel are where the bases are. We might have some bases that need to be closed, or perhaps we have some bases where we simply need to move men, women, equipment, and materiel to some other base where it makes more sense to maintain them. Over the last month or two, we have debated our budget at some length. Today we find ourselves in a deplorable situation with respect to our budget deficit. Two or three years ago, we enjoyed the largest surplus in our Nation's history. This year we are looking at what might be the largest budget deficit that we will have ever had. I, for one--and I know I have many colleagues who feel this way, too--do not worship at the altar of a balanced budget, but I sure care about getting closer to a more balanced budget. When I was Governor of Delaware, we cut taxes 7 out of 8 years. We also balanced the budget in 8 straight years. One of the things I found troubling about the tax cuts Congress just passed is that we do not come close to balancing the budget this year, next year, or for the next 10 years. That is a problem for our country. But we have taken the action that we are going to take with respect to taxes, and now, over the next several months, we will be turning to the 13 appropriations bills. About a year ago, when we were discussing military spending, we had the opportunity to decide whether or not we wanted to take another close look at our military base structure, largely in this country but also outside this country, to see if we have it right: if we have the bases, the personnel, the weaponry, and the military equipment where we need it in the 21st century. There is some reason to believe we do not. The wars we have just fought in Iraq and Afghanistan were different from the one in which I served in southeast Asia. Subsequently, the wars of the 21st century--I hope there are none, but history would suggest that there probably will be--those wars are going to be different from the ones we had in the last century. Our military leadership tells us in this administration, just as they did in the last administration, and as they did during the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations, that from time to time we need to look at our base structure and determine whether or not it is appropriate for the threats we face. I, for one, believe it is time to take another look at where we have our bases, how they are structured, and how they are manned. To the extent we find bases that ought to be closed, for they simply do not have the personnel to support or the missions to demand that kind of infrastructure, then we ought to have the political courage, as difficult as it is, to close them. We have a whole lot at stake in my State. The largest employer in the central and southern part of my State is Dover Air Force Base. It is a great base, with a great reputation. We would like to think they are immune from the threat BRAC might pose, but I suppose one never knows. We have worked hard, and people on the base work hard, to make sure they will never be on a short list for BRAC. I spent about 5 years on active duty and another 18 years in the Reserves as a naval flight officer. I have been stationed at any number of bases which, frankly, ought to be closed, if one looks at the people who were assigned to a particular base. Large bases with plenty of hangar space, plenty of space in the exchange and the other parts of the base, but not many people. I have been on other bases where they may have had the people who were stationed there but they did not have the support, whether it was the child development centers, schools, or other services for families. This is not a bad time, as we face the threats of this century to our country, to look at the kind of military we are trying to shape. Much is said of this administration's effort, led by Secretary Rumsfeld, to reshape and reform our military. Actually, a lot of the changes were undertaken in the last administration under the leadership of President Clinton and his Department of Defense Secretaries. We want a military that is leaner in terms of personnel. We want a military that is better trained, better equipped, and better uses technology. We want a military that is able to deploy more quickly to trouble spots around the world. The threat we face, as we all know, is different today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. A lot different. That also suggests to me this is a good time to slow down, to take stock, to assess where we have our men and women and materiels stationed around this country and the world and ask ourselves, does this allocation make sense? In many cases, it will; in some cases, it will not. When we talk about budget deficits and bemoan the fact we have this huge budget deficit today, I don't want to hear from the administration, well, there is one thing we could have done to help whittle down that budget deficit a little bit without threatening our ability to defend ourselves or express our strength and extend our military strength around the world. I don't want it said that we undid what we agreed to do a year or two ago. I hope when we vote in less than an hour that we will support the position we took last year, we will let this commission be formed, we will let them do their work, and we will provide plenty of input to the commission as they do their work in our respective States, and in the end have an opportunity for an up- or-down vote on whether or not the status quo is just fine--I think it is not--or whether some changes are needed. Fair, reasonable, pragmatic changes are needed. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, It is with a heavy heart that I request a few moments today to reflect on the life of Army SP Ryan P. Long. In life, Ryan epitomized the best of our country's brave men and women who fought to free the Iraqi people. He exhibited unwavering courage, dutiful service to his country, and above all else, honor. In the way he lived his life--and how we remember him--Ryan reminds each of us how good we can be. Following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great- grandfather, Ryan joined the Army in September of 1999. He was stationed at Fort Benning, GA with the A Company 3rd Battalion-75th Ranger Regiment and was assigned to a special operations unit working in Iraq. He was on his third overseas deployment with the Ranger battalion. A lifelong resident of Seaford, DE, Ryan's passing has deeply affected the Sussex County community. Ryan was a remarkable and well- respected young man. His friends and family remember him as an honorable man with a free spirit. Ryan attended Seaford Elementary School and was a 1999 graduate of Seaford High School. Fun-loving and outgoing, he played on the soccer and golf teams and served as vice- commander of the Navy Junior ROTC program at Seaford High School. He was also actively involved in his Catholic church. In addition, Ryan enjoyed riding his motorcycles, snowboarding, and listening to music. I rise today to commemorate Ryan, to celebrate his life, and to offer his family our support. Ryan dedicated his life to serving our country and gave his life defending its values. In Memoriam of Marine Sergeant Brian McGinnis Mr. President, I would like to set aside a few moments today to reflect on the life of Marine Sgt Brian McGinnis. Brian epitomized the best of our country's brave men and women who fought to free Iraq and to secure a new democracy in the Middle East. He exhibited unwavering courage, dutiful service to his country, and above all else, honor. In the way he lived his life--and how we remember him--Brian reminds each of us how good we can be. A Delawarean who dreamed of becoming a marine from a young age, he wrote on his application to Caravel Academy that he wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and become a Navy pilot. Brian's dream came true in 1998 in many respects when he joined the Marines. He subsequently was assigned to Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 169 based out of Marine Corps Air Station at Camp Pendleton, CA. Raised in St. Georges, DE, and in neighboring New Jersey, Brian attended Caravel Academy and graduated from William Penn High School in 1997. There he was a star wrestler and football player. It was at William Penn that he met his wife of 4 years, Megan Mahoney McGinnis. Megan describes her husband as a great person with a good heart--``the best there was!'' I rise today to commemorate Brian, to celebrate his life, and to offer his family our support and our deepest sympathy on their tragic loss.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I express my gratitude to Senator Feingold and join with him and Senators Cantwell and Feinstein in offering this amendment today. The budget enforcement requirements first established in the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 were important factors in the successful bipartisan effort over the course of the 1990s to bring our Federal budget deficit under control. At a time now when our deficit is again growing rapidly, it is most unfortunate that these budgetary constraints have been allowed to lapse. One of the most important of the 1990 controls was the so-called pay- go law. The pay-go law requires the Congress to live under the same constraints as most typical American families. American families--at least most of us--understand very well that if they want to spend more lavishly, they must find some way to bring in more income. Similarly, if one parent decides to leave the workforce to stay at home, then the family must find a way to make do with less. Put simply, pay-go required that we acknowledge these same simple realities of life. It required the Congress come up with the revenues to pay for any new entitlement spending or else find ways to accommodate that new spending by tightening our belts somewhere else. It required that should Congress decide to reduce the revenues we use to pay for Federal spending, either we have to cut the spending those revenues financed or else find new revenues to pay for that same spending. The purpose of pay-go is to prevent Congress and the President from running up the bill on our Nation's credit card, which is exactly what we are doing today, to the tune of nearly $1 trillion. The pay-go law expired last fall, as Senator Feingold has said, as did the discretionary spending caps that were also part of the successful formula that brought the deficit under control by the end of the 1990s. A related pay-go rule that we had here in the Senate was extended until this April 15. It was then replaced with new rules that are widely acknowledged to be weak and porous. The statutory pay-go requirement--the legally binding requirement--has not been renewed at all. This is a serious mistake. We cannot undo today all the actions over the last 2 years that have led us to the point we are, but here we are preparing to raise the ceiling on the Federal debt by nearly $1 trillion. Today alone, we will pay $1 billion in interest on our national debt--not on debt service, not on principal payment--just on interest, $1 billion today alone. By this time next year, some 20 cents of every revenue dollar we collect for the Federal Treasury will go to pay just for interest alone--20 cents of every dollar just to pay for interest alone. While we cannot today retrace the steps that we need to, to ensure that all those wrongs will be righted, we can take a step to ensure that we will not be back here in a few months or a year to charge lavishly on the Nation's credit card once again. Senators Feingold, Cantwell, Feinstein, and myself are proposing a first step in that direction--restoring one of the most important constraints that helped instill fiscal discipline in this place in the 1990s. I hope our colleagues will join us and support this amendment. I thank the Senator from Wisconsin for his leadership and for yielding time to me.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, on the issue the Senator raises in relation to the bankruptcy legislation, I make a point of clarification. This is an issue I care about as much as the Senator from Alabama. The language that died, after having been reported out to the conference committee, was language that said when a person commits a violent act for which they are convicted and fined, they cannot discharge that fine in a court of bankruptcy. It does not say anything about abortion. It does not say anything about abortion clinics. It says if you have been convicted of a violent act, you cannot go to a court of bankruptcy and discharge that claim for which you have been convicted and fined. That is what it said.

Mr. CARPER. I just wanted to make that clear.

Mr. CARPER. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CARPER. I just want 1 minute, if I could.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today I recognize Sonide Blanchard and Jeffrey Lawson for being selected as two of the Nation's top youth volunteers in the eighth annual Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. This is an extraordinary honor. More than 24,000 young people across the country were considered for this recognition this year. The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, created by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals, NASSP, constitutes America's largest youth recognition program based exclusively on volunteerism. The awards are designed to emphasize the importance that our Nation places on service to others and to encourage young Americans of all backgrounds to contribute to their communities. Sonide Blanchard of Seaford and Jeffery Lawson of Newark have been selected as Delaware's top youth volunteers for 2003. As State Honorees, each received a $1,000 award, an engraved silver medallion and a trip to Washington, DC from May 3, 2003 to May 6, 2003 for the program's national recognition events. I am proud that they represented the State of Delaware. Seventeen-year-old Sonide, a senior at Seaford High School, devotes a significant amount of her time to tutoring Haitian students in the English as a Second Language, ESL, program at her school. She also serves as a translator for both students and adults. When she was younger, Sonide began translating for her mother and realized how much that helped her. She soon was translating for people throughout the Haitian community. ``I feel that I am helping the community rise, and I am helping the Haitian people adapt to a new culture,'' she said. Later, she was inspired by her French teacher not only to translate, but to tutor other students as well. She now spends 2 hours a day working with ESL students to help them succeed in school despite their limited English skills. Dedication and a strong sense of responsibility have been key to her accomplishments. Jeffrey Lawson, a 13-year-old seventh grader at St. Edmonds Academy in Wilmington, is a peer mentor to second-grade children who are in special education. He also volunteers with the Delaware Special Olympics. While attending elementary school, Jeffrey volunteered in a special education class by reading books to students and giving up his recess time to mentor the children. After Jeffrey transferred to a private school, he missed the kids with whom he had worked and decided to go back and volunteer. Jeffrey was able to volunteer 20 days last year. ``Volunteering is important because it teaches kindness and good citizenship,'' said Jeffrey. He receives much of his inspiration from the children he mentors. Today, I rise to congratulate Sonide and Jeffrey. These two youngsters are fine examples of community spirit and leadership. They serve as role models not only to their peers, but to all of us, as well as to the people they've touched through community service.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I thank the assistant Democratic leader. Mr. President, in considering the military priorities of our country, we are addressing one of the most important challenges facing our Nation and its Government. That challenge is to transform America's military to meet the threats of this century the 21st century, and to do so in an environment of increasingly severe budgetary constraints. The spectrum of potential conflict in which America could find itself engaged over the coming years is practically limitless. From fighting major regional powers to pursuing shadowy bands of terrorists, the missions our military must be ready to perform are many, and they are varied. Unfortunately, the resources available to us in preparing to meet these challenges are not without limit. What was the largest surplus in the history of this Government just 2 short years ago has given way to the largest deficit in our Nation's history. And this has happened at a time when the demands on the Federal budget are growing and will continue to grow. Recent reports out of Iraq indicate that the task of post-war reconstruction will be neither easy nor cheap. Recent events in Saudi Arabia and Morocco indicate that the war on terrorism may still be in its infancy. There are also domestic priorities that demand attention. The bipartisan education reform initiative passed in the first year of the President's term has yet to be fully funded. There is a growing recognition that our health care system is fraying at the seams. And the baby boomers, my generation, are marching toward retirement. When they get there, it will place unprecedented strains on Social Security and Medicare. Our present course is not sustainable. We will soon be asked to raise the ceiling on the national debt by nearly $1 trillion. At the same time, the administration is projecting that within 5 years funding for defense will rise to more than 20 percent above cold-war levels. Even at that high level, moreover, it is doubtful that the defense budget could accommodate the full cost of the administration's plans as they currently stand. This is our dilemma. We cannot afford to forego military transformation. The threats to our security are simply too great. But neither can we afford to proceed without consideration to cost. After all, it is our quality of life that the military is charged with defending. It is that same quality of life that will eventually begin to erode in the absence of a sense of fiscal balance. What I want to talk about for a few minutes this evening is one of the central components of military transformation. I want to talk both about its importance and about some of the choices we can make to address our security requirements in this area in a cost-effective manner. Strategic airlift will be one of the cornerstones of successful military transformation. The imperative to transform our military is driven by the necessity to project force faster, with greater precision, and over greater distances. As President Bush stated in his commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy in May 2001, America's future force will be ``defined less by size and more by mobility and swiftness.'' In the wake of the cold war, the United States has closed two-thirds of its forward operating bases. Yet the four services are all in the process of speeding up the timeframe in which they expect to deploy troops and equipment to the far corners of the globe. The Army's stated goal, for example, is to deploy an Interim Brigade Combat Team--complete with 3,500 personnel, 327 armored vehicles, 600 wheeled vehicles, air defense weapons, artillery, and engineering equipment--anywhere in the world within 96 hours. Airlift is the only means to accomplish this objective. In March 2001, the Joint Chiefs of Staff completed a review of our Nation's strategic airlift requirement. This study was completed before September 11 and all that has flowed from that terrible day. Still, the conclusion of that study was that the Nation's airlift requirement had risen 10 percent sine the last study was conducted just 5 years before. Many believe that the changed security environment post-September 11 has actually increased our strategic airlift requirement still farther. We are requesting, as part of this bill, that a new review of the strategic airlift requirement going forward be conducted. We expect that what we will find is that the airlift requirement is higher than the 54.5 million ton miles per day specified before September 11. Regardless of whether the requirement has risen or not, however, the fact remains that our present capacity falls short of the requirement as it was spelled out just 2 years ago. The question we must answer, therefore, is how will we maintain and how will we build a strategic airlift fleet that will meet the relevant requirement and do so without busting our budget even more. In other words, how do we provide cost- effective strategic airlift for the 21st century? Some of the Air Force have launched a campaign to retire more than half of the Air Force's C-5 fleet over the next few years, specifically those that date back to the 1970s, the C-5As. Maintenance problems, particularly engine problems, have plagued the C-5As for years. The solution for some in the Air Force is to simply get rid of them and to rely primarily on the procurement of new aircraft to meet our growing strategic airlift requirement. In order to meet the new, higher requirement for strategic airlift in the 21st century, we will certainly need to purchase new aircraft. The Air Force is currently in the process of purchasing some 180 new C-17s. I support this purchase. The C-17 is an excellent aircraft, and we are excited that a squadron of 12 C-17 cargo aircraft will be stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware beginning in 2008. Having said that, sending more than half of our Nation's C-5 fleet to the ``boneyard'' makes no sense. The C-5 is, and will continue to be, the workhorse of American airlift. The C-5 completed nearly 5,000 sorties during the recent Iraq war and delivered nearly half of the cargo and troops into combat. Moreover, a balance of C-5s and C-17s offers the Air Force an advantageous mix of complementary capabilities. The C-5 can carry more, and can carry farther. The C-17 is more maneuverable on the ground. During the war in Afghanistan, much of the cargo was flown from the continental United States to Europe in large loads aboard C-5s. The cargo was then broken down into smaller loads and flown into theatre by C-17s. As a former naval flight officer who has known firsthand the frustration of naval aircraft that had a propensity to break down, I can empathize with the frustration that some in the Air Force feel with respect to the C-5As chronically low mission-capable rates. But scrapping the entire platform is not the answer. The wings and the fuselages of both the C-5As and the C-5Bs have useful lives--listen to this--of another 30 to 40 years. For the cost of purchasing a single new C-17 cargo aircraft, three C-5s can be outfitted with reliable new engines, modern hydraulics systems, and landing gear components, plus a new avionics package and radios that will bring C-5 cockpits into the 21st century. All of these upgrades are off the shelf. They are readily available, and they are capable of bringing the mission capable rates of the C-5s in line with those of the C-17s. Given the fact that one C-5 can haul 80 percent more cargo than one C-17, the same dollar invested in modernizing C-5s produces more than five times the airlift capacity of the same dollar invested in the purchase of new C-17 aircraft. A strategic airlift fleet with a full complement of C-5s and C-17s offers the best of all worlds. Retaining the enormous cargo capacity of our C-5s, both As and Bs, will make it easier to achieve the full airlift requirement of our Armed Forces in the 21st century. Maintaining a healthy balance of C-5s and C-17s will offer the Air Force maximal operational flexibility. And taking full advantage of the cost savings that comes from modernizing, as opposed to scrapping, the C-5As will free-up resources to meet other Air Force priorities and reduce our Federal deficit over the long run. Choices that are more cost-effective by ratios of 5-to-1 are precisely the kinds of choices we ought to be interested in making as we seek to transform our military without burying our children in red ink. I want to take a moment, in closing, to thank a number of members of the Armed Services Committee. I particularly thank Senators Warner, Levin, Kennedy, and Talent for the work they have done to ensure that we continue to capitalize on the contribution that the C-5 can make to cost-effective strategic airlift in the 21st century. Besides calling on the Air Mobility Command to look again at our Nation's airlift requirement, this bill keeps C-5 modernization on track. In particular, it specifies that 18 C-5Bs and 12 C-5As will be revamped with modern avionics in fiscal year 2004. This is a win--a win for our fighting men and women, and it is a win for the American taxpayer.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, early this morning the train I was traveling on from Wilmington to Washington experienced mechanical difficulties causing us to arrive at Union Station more than one-half hour late. As a result, I missed maybe my second or third vote in the U.S. Senate. I missed the vote on the Resolution of Ratification of the NATO expansion treaty. Had I been here I would have voted yes. I ask unanimous consent the Record reflect my reasons for missing the vote and how I would have voted had I been here.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Reserving the right to object, if the Senator will defer for just a moment? I ask unanimous consent to make a brief statement, maybe 1 minute.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, this May, more than 1,200 students from across the United States will visit Washington, D.C. to compete in the national finals of the We the People... The Citizen and the Constitution program. It is the most extensive educational program in the country developed specifically to educate young people about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I am proud to announce that a class from Smyrna High School will represent the State of Delaware in this national event. These students, with the leadership of their teacher Marc Deisem, have worked diligently to reach the national finals. Through their experience, they have gained a deep knowledge and understanding of the fundamental principles and values of our constitutional democracy. This 3-day national competition is modeled after hearings in the United States Congress. The hearings consist of oral presentations by high school students before a panel of adult judges on constitutional topics. The students' testimony is followed by a period of questioning by the judges who probe their depth of understanding and ability to apply their knowledge. Administered by the Center for Civic Education, the We the People... program has provided curricular materials at upper elementary, middle and high school levels for more than 26.5 million students nationwide. The program affords students a working knowledge of our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the principles of democratic government. It is inspiring to see these young people advocate the principles of our Government. These principles identify us as a people and bind us together as a Nation. It is important for our next generation to understand the values and principles that serve as the foundation in our ongoing effort to preserve and realize the promise of democracy. These students from Smyrna High School are currently conducting research and preparing for their upcoming participation in the national competition in Washington, DC. I wish these young ``constitutional experts'' the best of luck at the We the People... national finals. They represent the future of our State and Nation, and they give us cause for great hope as we look to the future.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Lincoln and Senator Hutchison for making sure we had this opportunity again today to remember those who are serving and their families who are here supporting them and pulling for them and praying for them. The video from the other side of the world--the visual images from the other side of the world over the last 24 hours are extraordinary to us all and, for the most part, they are encouraging. While many of us are troubled by the scenes of looting that occurred in parts of Baghdad yesterday, we will remember for many years the scene of the jubilation where people were realizing a time of oppression in their lives was coming to an end when the prospect for greater personal freedoms and liberties was denied. I know not everybody in this country and in this body supported the notion of our engaging in an armed conflict with Iraq at this time. We all, regardless of how we felt as we approached the day of decision, celebrate how well and effectively our men and women have served in that conflict. We regret the loss of life in that conflict. I want to talk about two young men from my State for whom the last respects will be paid this Saturday as we lay them to rest. Before I do that, I was privileged to be Governor of Delaware for 8 years. One of the things I liked most about being Governor was, as an old Navy officer, they let me be chief of the Delaware Army National Guard. In the last several months, we have had the opportunity to send off unit after unit within the Delaware National Guard, to be mobilized and, in many cases, deployed and, in some cases, closer to home and, in other cases, to be sent to the other side of the world. I want to mention some of the work those men and women are doing. Some of them fly C-130 aircraft, which are part of the air bridge between America and the Middle East. The beginning of the air bridge, in many cases, is a C-5-- we fly those out of Dover Air Force Base--which is the largest cargo aircraft in the world. They are being flown today by active-duty personnel and by the Reservists, and they fly very much as one team, one unit, literally as a wonderful, coordinated, combined team. At the very end of the air bridge is, in many cases, the C-130s. They are flown by members of the Air National Guard out of Delaware, Alaska, Arkansas, Texas, and other States. Those men and women who are flying those, or maintaining those aircraft, or serving as military police, whether in this country or in the Middle East, and those people who are using heavy equipment, those who are providing health care--a number of those people come from my State of Delaware. They are male, female, officers, and enlisted. In many cases, they have left behind a spouse, children, their families, in order to serve us and, in some cases, they are doing so at great economic disadvantage to their families and, in some cases, at considerable danger to themselves. We are grateful for their service. We are proud of each one of them. I say today to their family members--those who are tending the home fires and making sure the families stay together and the kids are going to school and are getting fed and clothed and all--a real special thank you for your willingness to share with us at a challenging time in our Nation your sons, daughters, husbands, wives, moms, and dads. At the Dover Air Force Base, we traditionally carry a lot of the materiel and men and women who need to go around the world in support of our military actions. During the Afghanistan war, roughly 30 percent of the equipment that moved into Afghanistan in support of that conflict came through Dover Air Force Base and flew out on C-5s from there. We are continuing to carry a large part of the strategic airlift burden from Dover and places like Travis and other Air Force bases around the country. There is another unit stationed at the Dover Air Force Base that gets probably even more attention these days than do the C-5 aircraft, and that unit is the mortuary. We hear almost every day of the remains of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, that are being returned to America and to their loved ones. En route to their loved ones, those remains come through the Dover Air Force Base and the mortuary there. I visited there last month and also in the past. While the people who work there get precious little recognition for the work they do, they do some of the toughest work of anybody in this country--military or civilian. I stand here today and take my hat off to those men and women. Some are active duty, some Reservists, and others have volunteered for the service. But there is no more emotionally demanding and draining work that you or I could do for our service men and women and their families. I really want to express my gratitude--and, I know, that of every Member of this body--for the work going on there at this moment. Among the bodies that have been returned to their loved ones through that Air Force base in Dover through the mortuary are two young men, one 21 years of age from Seaford, DE, Army Ranger SP Ryan Long. Another is a young marine sergeant from New Castle, DE, who grew up in New Jersey and came to Delaware when he went to high school and married his high school sweetheart. He perished last week at the age of 23 on the other side of the world. His name is Brian McGinnis. As our Presiding Officer knows, one of the toughest tasks we do as Senators is to call families of those who have died and try to convey to them our anguish, grief, and our sympathy, and offer whatever we can to be supportive and encouraging in this tough time. As a father of two young boys myself, 13 and 14, I cannot imagine the difficulty of living with the loss of your child. Life prepares us to know that some day our grandparents will pass away, and eventually our parents, and maybe our siblings, and maybe even a spouse; but there is little in this life to prepare us to know that we are going to lose a child. In this case, the Long family and the McGinnis family have lost their sons. They will be laid to rest this Saturday in the First State, Delaware. I wish to mention the service of each of them. Ryan Long comes from a family that has served in our military for generations. He is fourth generation. While at Seaford High School, he was vice commander of the junior Navy ROTC unit. He ended up joining the Army and became a ranger. He was at a checkpoint barely a week ago in an area northwest of Baghdad. A car driven by a woman went through that checkpoint. Out of that car emerged another woman who appeared to be pregnant. She came out of the car screaming, and three Army personnel approached the car. The car exploded, and the driver, the woman who had fled from the car, and our three Army personnel, including Ryan Long, were killed. The soldiers approached that car believing there was a problem and attempted to extend a helping hand. For that, they lost their lives. I am sorry to say that the Ryan family has lost their son. To Rudy and Donna Long--I had the privilege of speaking with the dad who is a retired major--we extend our heartfelt sympathy. Seaford is the home of the first nylon plant ever built. It is the first ever built in the world. Ryan used to play golf at the Seaford Nylon DuPont Country Club. He played on the golf team at school and did a lot of other activities in the community before he enlisted in the Army. In the northern part of our State, there is a beautiful little town called New Castle. It has the largest high school in our State, the William Penn High School. Brian McGinnis went to William Penn High School, having grown up in New Jersey earlier in his life. At that school, Brian met a gal named Megan. He did not just meet her, he married her after school. He leaves behind a widow, a dad who lives in New Jersey, Bill Mcginnis, and a mom, Mildred Williams, who now lives in Port Charlotte, FL. Brian was flying a helicopter. The helicopter, as we have seen too often in this war--any aircraft, whether fixed wing or rotary--crashed. He was aboard the helicopter, a Huey, and his life was lost. He will be buried this Saturday in New Castle, DE. I send to his dad with whom I have spoken, to his mom, and to Megan, his bride, our sympathies. My office, my staff is doing whatever we can to be of help and support to them. We remember them today. We feel their anguish. Our hope is time will heal some of that pain. Again, we stand ready to provide whatever assistance and comfort we can throughout our State of Delaware to help the two families who have lost their loved ones. I close with a comment on the war itself. Many of us have said the toughest part of the war lies ahead. There is still fighting to take place in other parts of the country that are not under allied control. The tough part of the war does lie ahead. It is not just keeping the peace and restoring order in places such as Baghdad and to stop the looting, but it is helping to build a democratic institution within a country where there are disparate groups--Shiites, Sunnis, and the Kurds in the North. There is a history of distrust and hatred. We need to help put to bed those generations of mistrust. That is not going to be an easy job. It is not a job we and the Brits should assume. This is a job which others should join in fulfilling, tackling, and also paying. We should welcome their involvement. Mr. President, I yield back whatever time I have not consumed.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today along with Senators Lincoln Chafee and Judd Gregg, I am introducing comprehensive legislation to reduce harmful emissions from our Nation's power plants. Developed after extensive input from electric generators who would be affected by such legislation, leaders in the environmental community, and State and local regulators who will enforce any new requirements, the Clean Air Planning Act is a balanced approach to a difficult challenge. The Clean Air Planning Act takes a market-based approach that would aggressively reduce electric power generators' emissions of sulfur dioxide, SO2, by 80 percent, nitrogen oxides, NOX, by 69 percent, mercury by 80 percent, and return carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions to 2001 levels within a decade. It provides planning and regulatory certainty to electric generators who would be required to achieve these regulations. The negative public health and environmental impacts of SO2, NOX and mercury emissions have been well documented. While there is bipartisan agreement that emissions of these three pollutants from power plants need further control, there is disagreement over how much and how fast. The bill includes a flexible trading system that allows for attainment of the caps in the most efficient manner and updates the new source review program to help encourage emission reductions to occur. There is also a growing consensus that greenhouse gases such as CO2 emissions from power plants are contributing to climate change. The time has come to set up mechanisms that will address these emissions without impeding economic growth. The Clean Air Planning Act establishes modest goal of capping CO2 emissions from electrical generators at 2001 levels by 2013. Generators could meet that goal with a flexible system that allows both trading between generators and earning credits through off-system reductions of greenhouse gases. Today, America's power plants will emit over 6 million tons of harmful emissions. They will also power the world's most productive economy. Reducing emissions while retaining affordable electricity is the goal of the Clean Air Planning Act, and I urge others to join in this effort. In the months ahead, this clean air bill and others will be compared and debated. Opponents and supporters will be heard, but at the outset I believe we should agree on a set of guiding principles. Four is better than three: A comprehensive four-emission strategy that includes carbon reductions provides regulatory certainty and offers the greatest environmental and economic benefits. Markets work: Cape and trade based emission standards provide the maximum incentive to achieve cleaner power. Stairs are better than cliffs: Prompt but gradual reductions through multi-phase or declining caps are more desirable than single phased cuts. Eliminate redundancy: Existing regulatory programs will need some modernization in light of tight emission caps. Clean air is a basic right all Americans deserve. The responsibility to ensure that right falls to Congress and the President. By putting our differences aside and focusing on the challenge at hand the result will be healthy citizens breathing clean air, a vibrant economy with abundant affordable electricity, and a model for the rest of the world to follow. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today along with Senators Lincoln Chafee and Judd Gregg, I am introducing comprehensive legislation to reduce harmful emissions from our Nation's power plants. Developed after extensive input from electric generators who would be affected by such legislation, leaders in the environmental community, and State and local regulators who will enforce any new requirements, the Clean Air Planning Act is a balanced approach to a difficult challenge. The Clean Air Planning Act takes a market-based approach that would aggressively reduce electric power generators' emissions of sulfur dioxide, SO2, by 80 percent, nitrogen oxides, NOX, by 69 percent, mercury by 80 percent, and return carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions to 2001 levels within a decade. It provides planning and regulatory certainty to electric generators who would be required to achieve these regulations. The negative public health and environmental impacts of SO2, NOX and mercury emissions have been well documented. While there is bipartisan agreement that emissions of these three pollutants from power plants need further control, there is disagreement over how much and how fast. The bill includes a flexible trading system that allows for attainment of the caps in the most efficient manner and updates the new source review program to help encourage emission reductions to occur. There is also a growing consensus that greenhouse gases such as CO2 emissions from power plants are contributing to climate change. The time has come to set up mechanisms that will address these emissions without impeding economic growth. The Clean Air Planning Act establishes modest goal of capping CO2 emissions from electrical generators at 2001 levels by 2013. Generators could meet that goal with a flexible system that allows both trading between generators and earning credits through off-system reductions of greenhouse gases. Today, America's power plants will emit over 6 million tons of harmful emissions. They will also power the world's most productive economy. Reducing emissions while retaining affordable electricity is the goal of the Clean Air Planning Act, and I urge others to join in this effort. In the months ahead, this clean air bill and others will be compared and debated. Opponents and supporters will be heard, but at the outset I believe we should agree on a set of guiding principles. Four is better than three: A comprehensive four-emission strategy that includes carbon reductions provides regulatory certainty and offers the greatest environmental and economic benefits. Markets work: Cape and trade based emission standards provide the maximum incentive to achieve cleaner power. Stairs are better than cliffs: Prompt but gradual reductions through multi-phase or declining caps are more desirable than single phased cuts. Eliminate redundancy: Existing regulatory programs will need some modernization in light of tight emission caps. Clean air is a basic right all Americans deserve. The responsibility to ensure that right falls to Congress and the President. By putting our differences aside and focusing on the challenge at hand the result will be healthy citizens breathing clean air, a vibrant economy with abundant affordable electricity, and a model for the rest of the world to follow. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Little Sisters of the Poor in caring for the elderly in Delaware. Since their opening in 1903, the Little Sisters have touched the lives of thousands of people. Sharing their homes and hearts, they have cared for the elderly in the spirit of humble service. The Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor has aided and given comfort to the impoverished elderly worldwide for over 163 years. This organization, which has spread its loving arms to over 30 countries worldwide, was founded by a group of caring women who were led by Jeanne Jugan. After taking in an elderly blind woman in 1839, Jeanne and two other women purchased a home where the poor could take shelter. Over the years, Jeanne took the place of the elderly women on the streets and began a campaign of soliciting in order to raise funds. By 1879, her ranks had grown to include 2,400 Little Sisters, and her beliefs and thoughtful nature had spread throughout Europe. Although Jeanne Jugan passed away later that year, she succeeded in inspiring and improving the lives of thousands of needy people. Over the 163 years that the congregation has existed, the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor has opened 242 homes that presently serve 22,000 residents. Their tireless efforts to bring comfort to those who need a shoulder to lean on shows that the Little Sisters not only represents the values of America but also the unremitting concern for one's neighbor. The Little Sisters have faithfully served the people of Delaware for the last century. Opening St. Joseph's Home for the Aged on Fourth and Bancroft in Wilmington in 1903, the Little Sisters became a beloved and well-known part of the community. In 1978, the Jeanne Jugan residence opened in Newark, where the Little Sisters continue their work to this day, providing the highest possible level of care for their residents. The non-denominational home cares for low-income individuals of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. The Little Sisters have provided care for over 4,700 people during their time in Delaware. Blessed by the generosity of the community in which they serve, the Sisters continue to work towards their mission of humble service to the elderly among us. I rise today to commemorate all the work that has been done by the Little Sisters of the Poor in aiding the elderly. What began in 1839 as an effort to gather funds for a poor blind woman in France has become an international community of compassionate individuals who have chosen to give their lives in the attempt to improve the well being of the elderly.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, just an hour or so ago, barely 50 feet out this door, many remaining members of the Delaware Army and National Guard were gathered. Coincidentally, it was a day that had long been scheduled for them to be on the Hill. National Guard associations from all over the country have converged on Washington, DC. In the last several weeks, many of their colleagues in the Army and National Guard have since deployed to the Middle East, to the area around Iraq, and some to Iraq. On Sunday night, at a National Guard headquarters hangar in Wilmington, DE, at the airport we said goodbye to almost 100 of the members of the 166th Military Airlift Command as they set off to join their colleagues and their aircraft on the other side of the world. They are the maintainers of the C-130s which are part of the air bridge from the United States to Iraq. It starts here with a very large C-5 aircraft and includes the C-17s, and at the end of the delivery system, the end of the air bridge, the C-130s, the smaller sort of rangers. The maintainers, the members of the 166th who have gone to join their colleagues, are the folks who make sure the landing gear works, the radio works, the hydraulic works, the avionics systems work. Without them we would not have C-130s that function, and without C-130s we would not have the kind of air bridge that we need to be successful in this war. I was privileged to be there to salute them and send them on their way, as were our former Governor, former commander in chief of the Delaware National Guard, Mike Castle, our Congressman, and our Governor, our current commander in chief of the Delaware National Guard, Ruth Ann Minner. I was privileged to be their commander in chief for much of the last decade when I served as Governor of Delaware. As we said goodbye to the men and women of the 166th, we also had important words for the families of those who stayed behind, the wives and the husbands, the children, the parents of those whose loved ones are climbing on to that C-5 and getting prepared to fly thousands of miles from home. In some cases--and I say this as one who deployed on several occasions as a naval flight officer in the Navy back during the Vietnam war--the deployment is tougher not on the one being deployed but on the ones who stay behind. To those families we owe a lot because they have shared their loved ones with us, and in many cases they put their families in difficult straits at a tough time. We voted today on several amendments to the budget resolution which are designed to lighten the load a little bit for those who are being deployed, particularly those who are being put into a hazardous place to perform their duties. I am grateful for that and would express on behalf of not just the families of the 166th whose loved ones deployed this Sunday but on behalf all the members of the Delaware National Guard who are now serving in this war, thank you on their behalf and on behalf of their families for thinking of them, for remembering them along with the other Guard and Reserve men and women who are being called to active duty around this country. During the time I served on active duty in Southeast Asia, we would from time to time receive a Reserve air crew that came in usually from the west coast, but flying their P-3 aircraft for 3 years hunting for Red October, tracking Soviet nuclear submarines, but also flying low- level missions along the coast of Vietnam and Cambodia. In those days, back in the early 1970s, when we had a tough and dangerous job to do, we would never turn it over to a reserve air crew. The Active-Duty crews would take care of that, and we would be careful to send the Reserve air crews on a job where they could not get in trouble or could not get hurt. That was 30-some years ago. Today it is such a different world. We have guards men and women, activated, deployed, reservists called to active duty who are serving alongside full-time soldiers, sailors, and airmen. They are doing the very same jobs, dangerous jobs, tough dirty jobs in some cases, and to them we owe an enormous debt of gratitude. A closing word to my friend Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota whose son is over in Iraq, and I am sure a matter of great concern to him and to Barbara, his wife, a concern that is shared by literally tens of thousands of families across this country. I say a special prayer for Brooks and for the Johnson family, and remember them and all who have been deployed and serve our Nation at this tough and challenging time. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER

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