Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, if the chairman will yield, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for handling this amendment in this fashion. It is an important amendment. We have moved it before. We are doing so very well in the area of adoption, both domestically and internationally, at this moment. This is a great facilitator. We thank the chairman for its consideration in this fashion.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4114

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, if the Senator now plans to close, I don't believe we have anything else to say on this issue, and I yield back the remainder for his closing statement.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on an amendment I am offering with Senators Inhofe and Frist to H.R. 5037, the ``Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act. H.R. 5037 passed the House a couple of weeks ago by an overwhelming margin--408 to 3. It was conceived in response to hateful, intolerant demonstrations taking place at the funeral services of deceased servicemembers of the global war on terror. The fringe group responsible for these demonstrations believes that 2,752 of our Nation's finest have lost their lives in defense of America because, unbelievably, God is exacting His revenge on the United States for its permissive laws respecting homosexuality. It is a sad irony that the same 2,752 servicemembers who fought to guarantee the right of this fringe group to hold and express their beliefs are, along with the families of deceased servicemembers, now the victims of those same hateful, but protected, ideas. First, it is important to point out that the House, led by Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Chairman Buyer, went to great lengths to carefully craft the House-passed legislation to preserve the dignity of military funerals while at the same time balancing first amendment rights. I applaud them, and Senator Jim Inhofe, the original sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, for being proactive in addressing a problem that no military family should experience at a VA national cemetery or at Arlington National Cemetery. Let me describe in brief the many provisions of their legislation that are left untouched by this amendment. We retain the prohibition on unapproved demonstrations on VA or Arlington cemetery grounds. We retain the language used to describe exactly what kind of demonstrations are prohibited. We retain the criminal penalties attached to those who violate the prohibitions. And we retain the language expressing the sense of the Congress that States enact legislation to restrict demonstrations near any military funeral. My amendment would only modify the language of the underlying bill that restricts demonstrations that are within 500 feet of cemetery property. Let me explain why. Many VA cemeteries are tucked in the middle of residential neighborhoods. Thus, the reach of the proposed Federal law in the underlying bill would extend to all private residences located within 500 feet of any VA cemetery property or Arlington National Cemetery. I am always sensitive to expanding zones of Federal influence or regulation, especially to cover lands that are not its own, unless it is absolutely necessary. And, furthermore, in a report by the Congressional Research Service and analyses from constitutional law experts, it was concluded that a 500-foot buffer zone around the perimeter of all cemetery lands may not be sufficiently narrow to pass constitutional muster. Constitutional questions surrounding the language are, of course, open to debate. But my goal here was to move legislation that was as narrowly tailored as possible and that didn't take away any of its effectiveness in prohibiting these offensive demonstrations at our national shrines. There have yet to be any unapproved demonstrations either on VA cemetery property or outside of its grounds. There have been demonstrations at Arlington National Cemetery, but those demonstrations have been limited to the gates outside the front entrance of the cemetery. Practically speaking, if there were to be any demonstrations at VA cemeteries they would likely be at cemetery access points, just as at Arlington. It is VA's policy to hold funeral ceremonies at committal shelters located on its cemetery grounds. By design, those shelters at open national cemeteries are a minimum of 300 feet from any property line. And the line of sight from the property line is, also by design, typically obstructed by trees, shrubs, or other foliage. In addition, each national cemetery has three or four committal shelters, on average, which could be used for ceremonies. According to VA officials, only the cemetery superintendent knows beforehand where the committal shelter to be used for a particular funeral ceremony is located. So it is unlikely that demonstrators could effectively ``disrupt'' a cemetery funeral ceremony at any point other than an access point when a funeral procession was entering or leaving cemetery grounds. There simply are too many distance, visual, and logistical obstructions to overcome. Therefore, my amendment would do the following. It would prohibit individuals who, as part of any demonstration, and within 150 feet of any point of ingress to or egress from cemetery property, be it by road, pathway, or otherwise, willfully make, or assist in the making, of any noise or diversion that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of a funeral, memorial service, or ceremony. This language will ensure that as a funeral procession is entering or exiting any cemetery that there is sufficient distance between the procession and the demonstrators, and that no slowdown of the procession is precipitated by a large gathering of demonstrators near the gates of cemetery property. Furthermore, my amendment would prohibit any demonstration, irrespective of its character, that is within 300 feet of cemetery property that would impede access to or egress from the property. The principles behind my amendment are simple: As a funeral procession approaches a national cemetery, there should be no obstruction of that procession for any reason. The closer the procession is to the gates of the cemetery, the tighter the restrictions on demonstrations should necessarily be to ensure a dignified, solemn, and respectful burial at our national shrines. Again, I thank Representative Rogers of Michigan and Senator Inhofe for their leadership on this issue. And I ask my colleagues for their support.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I understand from the chairman we will not do any further work on the bill this evening. I would, therefore, ask unanimous consent that Senator Shelby be allowed to speak for up to 8 minutes, immediately following this statement, and that I then be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes following that.

Mr. CRAIG. I ask the Senator, how much time would she like?

Mr. CRAIG. I follow Senator Shelby. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Louisiana be allowed up to 30 minutes following me.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate briefly this evening to visit with my colleagues about an issue that we all now know about to some degree; and that, of course, is the very serious breach of security that occurred within the VA earlier this month. My office, like yours, is lighting up with phone calls from concerned veterans wanting to know how this could happen and what type of risk they are facing. So I thought I would take this moment, as the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee in the Senate, to visit with my colleagues about it: No 1, to lay out the facts as we know them--they are limited because this is an ongoing investigation and, therefore, the FBI has denied VA the right to talk in any great detail about this breach of security--and, No. 2, to provide all of you with some context in which to think about this issue. First, what we know is that the information was taken to the home of a VA employee in violation of VA policy. We also know that the employee who took the information was authorized to view it. So this was not a case of unauthorized personnel looking at sensitive information. We also know that the employee was the person who brought the loss of the information to the attention of VA officials. So what we have is an employee, authorized to view information, who took the information home, apparently to do work in violation of agency policy, and then immediately informed the agency when the theft of the data became apparent. Certainly, the employee should face some consequence for his or her action. Obviously, he or she should have known not to remove that type of information from VA's protected data system. However, at this point, the actual removal of the data does not appear to be a crime at all. Of course, the FBI is still investigating whether any criminal behavior occurred. At this point, they do not suspect any foul play on the part of this longtime Federal employee. Rather, they only suspect a random act of burglary at the employee's home that, unfortunately, compromised this very important information. I must tell you that I struggle--a little--with the question of whether VA, or any Government agency, should keep information like the type that was lost without any real reason to do so. But I also know that when Americans contact their Government or veterans file a claim, they expect, in this day and age, that they will have their information. So there is a disconnect with what we expect and the security we expect it to be held with or if that information should be held at all. So given the expectations of our consumers, in this case our constituents, I think we need to make sure we have a uniform set of guidelines for training our employees all across Government, and that then we work on putting in place a system with enough checks and balances to be sure that no employee can abuse information data bases of any agency. Frankly, this problem is not likely limited to VA. Many Federal agencies keep records on citizens that contain sensitive information. It is not just IRS or HHS. There is information maintained by the Department of Education, that comes from the free application for Federal student loans or the Department of Agriculture, which provides crop assistance plans and crop insurance and a variety of other kinds of things. All of these agencies have names and addresses and Social Security numbers. They must be secure. At the same time, we need employees who can use that information for legitimate purposes to serve our constituencies in a timely fashion. All of this will require thoughtful balancing on the part of this Congress. We have to balance every doctor's need to see a veteran's medical records with the legitimate concern that one too many nurses on the floor have access to those records for no reason. I hope what took place at the VA a few weeks ago is only an isolated incident of bad judgment by a dedicated employee seeking to do a little work at home on his or her own time. But we must not ignore the fact that it appears, at this time, that getting that information to his or her home was very easy. That cannot be tolerated because it may well have been a breach of policy but not a violation of law. So my committee will hold hearings this Thursday with VA officials to examine what their policies and practices are with respect to sensitive information and how we can assure that a breach of security such as this does not happen in the future. We will also be asking the right questions about the security of veterans themselves and if VA is doing all they possibly can do at this time now, along with the IRS and the Social Security Administration, to make sure that veterans whose names were on that list--some 26 million, of which 19 million had critical information--be treated fairly and responsive to assure, if we can, the protection of their information base. It is fundamentally important that our Government and the Veterans' Administration respond as quickly as they can. And there is every indication, at least at this moment--which our hearing, I trust, will bear out--that they are moving in the right direction to assure that. This may have been the largest breach of ID in our Nation's history. We need to make sure, as a Congress and as a Senate, that this cannot happen in the future and that there are exacting guidelines to assure this will not occur. In a day of electronic data and access that is unique and sometimes very easy, we need to make sure we are current with all of our needs, without providing names and information that is not necessarily needed to be held by our Government. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from New Mexico. He has approached this very contentious and very complicated issue in a very thoughtful way, looking at realities and numbers. I appreciate his observations today. His proposal, and an amendment he offered that was adopted last week, changes the numbers. I am not going to stand here on the floor as an advocate of the legislation and suggest we have gotten it right, but we spent a great deal of time attempting to get it right, recognizing the importance of the migrant labor force inside the American economy and, at the same time, recognizing the wishes of the American people to make it a transparent legal process with secured borders. That is what they are asking of us. I hope, as we finalize this legislation this week, that is the outcome of it before we send the bill to the President for his signature. I have come to the Chamber this afternoon to talk once again about an issue that is before us. The Presiding Officer is the author of the amendment. Again, it is one that, in part, is a bit technical. I suggest this afternoon in my opposition to the amendment that it is predicated on what I hope are appropriately the unforeseen consequences of this amendment and the impact it would have on American agricultural employment. Last Thursday night, Senator Chambliss opened the debate on his amendment, and I talked about its impact on the users of the H-2A agricultural guest worker program. To get right to the bottom line, my argument is that the Senate should keep the provision that is in the bill now and deny Senator Chambliss the success of his amendment. Why? A deal doesn't necessarily have to be a deal, but at the same time, over the course of the last 4 years, in negotiating with agricultural employees and agricultural employers, we attempted to bring some rationale to a method of compensation under the H-2A program that simply in most opinions was out of touch with reality. It was escalating on an automatic basis every year, and it simply was not fitting the need, especially when more and more in agriculture were illegal and were not under that program. Now a small minority actually, some 40,000-plus a year, are under the H-2A program and identified with the wage set by that program. It is possible--and we are not sure--but a million-plus are not and are simply out there in the marketplace bidding for a salary that, in most instances, is below the H-2A adverse wage that is proposed. So what did we do? Recognizing that disparity, we reached back, with the agreement of all of the parties involved, and said that one of the pieces of getting this puzzle right was to freeze that wage in 2003 at the 2002 level, and that is what is in the bill. So that pushes that wage scale back substantially for a period of 3 years while we look at what Senator Chambliss has attempted to do in his legislation in developing a prevailing wage for American agricultural employers and employees that fit into this guest worker category. I don't know that we, with all of the different categories of wages, can automatically put it all under one at this time. Of course, that is what the Senator attempts to do. The agriculture section of S. 2611, as I said, immediately drops that wage down, and then over a period of 3 years, we look at it and adjust as the program is adjusting because we are not going to have everybody inside the program once it becomes law for a period of several years as the program adjusts and as we work our way through and people begin to qualify under the blue card system that we proposed to become legal workers and have permanent visas for the purpose of moving back and forth across the border as guest workers to work in American agriculture. What I have attempted to do and what I am attempting to understand is what in the bill is now the best deal for American agriculture. That is one reason I believe a vote on the Chambliss amendment is not a good deal for American agriculture at this moment. But that is not the only reason. Let me talk about the rest of agriculture, the million-plus who will now be affected by the Chambliss amendment if it is to become law, because I see that as the rest of the story, and the rest of the story deals with the blue card and the blue card transitional program, the earned status which is a part of the whole of this program. It isn't just a matter of putting in a wage; it is a matter of how that wage ultimately affects the transition into a blue card status. We have done a pictorial chart tonight that I think better explains what we are talking about. We believe the blue card built within the agricultural jobs is that transitional tool which allows American agriculture to cross the chasm, if you will, and allow a reformed H-2A program, a guest worker program, to come into being. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen under the law, and it will happen with a wage scale that is pushed back as we make sure we get it right. That is under the reform program. The second part of the agricultural jobs is a one-time-only program, right here, a blue card. It will last for a specific period of time while we are transitioning the illegals here today into a legal status so they can continue to work and move back and forth across the border in a guest worker program. The blue card program is a critical piece of the agricultural job solution. It is an essential transition program. Let me repeat, agriculture needs this blue card if we don't want to throw it immediately into havoc because agriculture, whether we like it or not, based on an H-2A law that didn't work at all well and a very transparent border, has grown increasingly dependent on an illegal workforce. There are no wage requirements for blue card workers in the bill. It is only the 40,000-plus H-2A we shove back. They are paid whatever the farmer is paying, whatever the current wage is in the area, and other workers are gaining. And those wages would differ from place to place and job to job, farm to farm. What the Chambliss amendment does, however, is it says that blue card workers must be paid a prevailing wage. It pushes the base up substantially. The Chambliss amendment doesn't just deal with the wages of the H-2A program, the 40-plus, it applies the same fix to every farmer who employs a blue card transitional worker. Now, why is that significant? Here is why: By definition, the prevailing wage is neither the lowest nor the highest wage; it is just about in the middle or between the two. It is the 51st percentile in wages. So even if a farmer is paying a lower wage for a particular job, if he hires a blue card worker, if the Chambliss amendment becomes law, he is going to have to pay the blue card worker a higher wage than he is currently paying today. And if the Chambliss amendment is adopted, the lower 50th percentile of wages, that is the figure that becomes the calculating base for the next year. While you freeze for 3 years and let the wage scale work as it is, the Chambliss amendment begins to ratchet the wages up, setting them at a 51st percentile level. I don't think American agriculture has that one figured out yet. What could ultimately happen is that we lose the value of the transition of the blue card, especially when it comes to vegetable crops and crops that can move very quickly out of this country that aren't mechanized and are labor intensive. Already, we are beginning to lose those farmers because the worker isn't there. If all of a sudden that wage scale shoots up under the Chambliss bill, as I propose it will, to a prevailing status, my guess is not only will you not have the worker but you will not have the producer out there in the field simply because they will not be able to afford to pay that wage in a competitive way. More and more of our production, tragically enough, I believe will go south of the border in some of these areas. Much of that production today happens outside the United States. So I think when we are talking about what sounds like a good idea, we better put it in the context of what the bill is really about; that is, the transitional time of 2 to 3 years of blue card workers who are in the market today working at a variety of wages, depending upon the particular job, the particular type of agriculture, and all of a sudden establishing a whole new wage base substantially above where they are being paid but, as the Senator from Georgia would argue, below H-2A. But remember, once again, only about 45,000 workers are in H-2A, and there are well over a million who are all of a sudden going to be affected by the blue card status and by the Chambliss amendment. So it is tremendously important that we bring this into context. Now, that is not going to be just a couple of workers, as I said. That is nearly 70 percent of the current agricultural workforce we believe to be undocumented. Not all of those workers are going to qualify for the blue card program, but a lot of them will. Our blue card program envisions that it could go as high as, over a 3-year period, 1.5 million, and if I am not mistaken, those higher wages won't be limited to the blue card worker. But what the Senator from Georgia is doing is setting a new, higher floor for all agricultural employment. Somehow, you are talking about inflating the wages of a large percentage of the American agricultural workforce. I am not against higher salaries. I am for a fair salary. What I am concerned about in particular is labor-intense areas, and those crops will simply cease to exist and they will go south of the border, to Chile or somewhere else. In areas of agriculture that are highly mechanized, there will be limited to no effect. And it is that which I believe we have to put into context. So what is the result? The result is that employers, in my opinion, won't be able to afford blue card workers. Is that the intent of the Senator from Georgia? I don't think so, but I believe it is the unintended consequence we are talking about and something I think my colleagues need to understand. Part of that was the discussion over the last 4 years. This is something which didn't just come up yesterday. There were 4 years of negotiation between the employer and the employees as to how to get an H-2A wage right. We had the adverse wage for a lot of reasons, such as because of where agriculture was located and because housing wasn't available. There were a lot of things that were brought into that discussion. We know our country has changed since the creation of the first H-2A law. And while there are still other benefits tied to the wage, that is why we could effectively negotiate rolling that wage back and allowing American agriculture and the employers in American agriculture to effectively look at what we were doing and strike the kind of balanced margin that is necessary. What happens? What happens if the blue card is removed? I am going to argue tonight that the Chambliss amendment has the effect of removing the blue card substantially because it inflates that lower wage base significantly. What happens if it is removed? The bridge that is the chasm we cross as we transition with American agriculture into a legal--a legal--guest worker program goes away. That is what I am worried about, dramatically worried about, and that is why I am urging my colleagues to vote against the Chambliss amendment because I think if that goes away, there is no transition. Within a very short time, even under tight labor conditions today, because our borders are getting tighter and because of shifts in the workforce, this drives that workforce even further out of the ability to be hired by much of American agriculture. I think it is tremendously important that we look at all of that and understand it. Here is something else that is ironic. The Chambliss amendment creates a federally mandated wage base for American agriculture. Some will argue that we have done it in a couple of other areas, but most of us will say the market ought to work. It was only in the unique status of H-2A that we had a different kind of wage base. I will argue today, and I think appropriately so, that we are setting an entirely new standard for 70 percent of the American workforce. Instead of allowing us to make sure that it fits right in the program, looks at the diversity, looks at the kind of representation that is reflected all over the United States when it relates to where you are working, how you are working, the type of work you are doing--is it piecework, are you doing it by the amount produced instead of by the hour of work--all of that kind of thing works today, and I am not so sure it is not effectively distorted by the proposal which is being offered by the Senator from Georgia. That is why I hope my colleagues would stay with us and stay with what is in the bill and in the provision that we call AgJOBS, that rolls back--on 40,000-plus workers qualified under the H-2A program, rolls their wage back to the 2002 level, freezes it for 3 years, while the Department of Labor, working with American agriculture, can get this right because I am convinced that the unintended consequences of now mandating a Federal floor, if you will, to American agriculture is not where we want to go. If we want American agriculture to transition across this chasm, to get its workforce legalized, as it wants and as the Senator from Georgia and I want, then we have to make sure the transition which allows that to happen effectively uses this tool, the blue card, which will allow that kind of transition to go forward in a way that causes us to adjust. We can't take the blue card off the table. I will argue that in the end, if the Chambliss amendment passes, we have taken that worker out of the workforce. That is not going to be good for American agriculture. That is not going to be good for the crops that are rotting in the fields today if, by that action, we now have a Federally mandated prevailing wage which brings that wage rate up across the board in a way that disallows American agriculture from being competitive. I believe those are the critical points involved in the difference between where we are and where we know we need to get. We need to get there in a way that allows the worker to be treated fairly, the producer to be treated fairly, and most importantly that we have an available, legal workforce to meet the needs of American production agriculture. That workforce is at risk today, and with the passage of the Chambliss amendment, significantly changing the base rate, it will be at even greater risk as production agriculture looks where it needs to farm to be competitive in a world market. It may not be on the soil of this great country, and that would be the wrong thing for us, the wrong thing for our country, and certainly for our consumers. So I hope my colleagues will look at that and consider it as we deal with this issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I don't think he and I disagree. My concern is you are affecting 1.5 million workers by your immediate action, and I am affecting 40,000-plus in rolling them back. And we are giving a period of transition of 3 years to get right what you have proposed. My concern is that in getting right what you proposed, you have an immediate effect on the next phase of agricultural jobs, and that is the transitional period of time in qualifying the blue card worker to become a permanent worker or a permanent legal worker, and that immediately inflates the wage base. And then immediately upon inflating it once, you inflate it again the next year and the next year because you have lifted the base, ratcheted it up by each year's calculation. I think that is a very legitimate concern. So I ask you, is that not the impact of what you do? I am affecting 40,000-plus; you are affecting 1.5 million.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. CRAIG. Inside the AgJOBS Act there is a U.S. labor pool established. They would pay the going wage. They have to make sure that pool is exhausted so U.S. citizen agricultural workers are protected. You go there first before you go to hire a blue card worker or a H-2A- qualified worker. I hope the Senator understands that they are protected in that sense, as it relates to making sure that they are the first in line, if you will, for a job that is available if they would choose to work in that field at the wage that exists at that point.

Mr. CRAIG. OK.

Mr. CRAIG. I believe it is fair and balanced. The reason it is is because we pushed a wage scale that is already there back 3 years. We do it this time to get right what the Senator from Georgia has proposed. He has shown the disparity that already exists out there--and it exists in all formulations when it relates to agriculture and agricultural jobs. We have never focused on agriculture except in the H-2A area. We believe it did get out of line, and that is why it is shoved back. Then we proceed, just as the Senator mentioned, in a methodical way to examine the country and get the wage scale rate right.

Mr. CRAIG. That is correct.

Mr. CRAIG. Frankly, the adverse wage issue was one of the more contentious, for a variety of reasons--first of all, because producers saw it as being complicated with a lot of requirements other than just a wage, and obviously employment saw it as an advantage but limited. As a result, we were able to agree to shove it back. As I say, that rarely happens in American history, to actually by law push the wage scale back but to do so with the understanding that we would get equity and fairness through the approach that the Senator has outlined. That was the approach we used. A coalition of well over 500, including agriculture, a lot of agricultural producers.

Mr. CRAIG. About 3 years--2\1/2\ years, actually, as we formulated it.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, standing in opposition to the amendment, it is fascinating to me that we now want to play a game of what groups and whose associations. I find it fascinating that the California Farm Bureau, which supports the position, isn't quite good enough. The California Apple Commission, the California Avocado Commission, the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, the California Association of Wine Grape Growers, the California Canners and Peach Association, the California Citrus Mutual--we have nearly 500 groups that have endorsed this. The reason they have endorsed it is because they see the need to do it right and get a reasonable transition. The Web site the Senator from Georgia is talking about has to be right. It has to be effective and reflective. It doesn't do that today. That information is now not available in that context. Let me go back to the transition. We are talking about those who are illegal today and wanting them to come forward, get a background check, show us their credentials, qualify for a transitional status, called earned adjustment status, and a blue card, and to do so in a fair and responsible fashion. They can stay and continue to work. While they are doing that, we are going to work to get the wage scale right. In our work over the last good number of years, literally hundreds and hundreds of agricultural groups and associations have stepped forward and said: Help us fix this. Help us use this blue card to get across, in a transitional way, for a legal workforce, in a reformed H-2A program. The compromise that the Senator from California talked about was just that. It was a transitional wage to get this fair and equitable. What the Senator from Georgia is doing is not affecting the 40,000- plus of H-2A under adverse wage. We are doing that. We are shoving those wages back. He is affecting the 1.5 million that may cause agriculture to become noncompetitive if we don't get the wage scale rate right and involve agriculture along with the Department of Labor, as our studies would do, to make sure we get an equitable and fair wage. Fair means two sides. For the worker, it means certainty; for the producer, absolutely, the product that is produced--especially in the vegetable crops, in the intensified labor crops--has got to be competitive against a world market crop, or we will shove those producers and that kind of production out of the country. We have to do it in a balanced way. What we have offered allows the Senator from Georgia, as the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to participate. He did not participate in these negotiations because he did not agree with them. He did not agree with the transition of getting through what we attempted to do in AgJOBS. That was his choice. In the end, both he and I agreed on many of the provisions except this one. It is important we stay with the work product. Literally hundreds and hundreds of farm groups and associations across the Nation that deal with this type of workforce recognize the need of the transitional period of time and the legality of the workforce, as do we. It is reflected in the bill. I hope our colleagues continue to support it.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as of April of 2006, the average fieldworker in the United States was paid $8.96 an hour. The average livestock worker was paid $9.30 an hour. The minimum wage is $5.15. Do the math. That is why, when we put this bill together, we said we have to get it right for all parties involved. I agree with the Senator from Georgia, producers are willing to pay a fair wage. And they should. And workers who work as hard as agricultural workers ought to be paid a fair and good wage. At the same time, we compete in a world market, and I hope we stay there. I don't think you can meet with one farm organization and establish what the prevailing wage is going to be. That is why we mandated in our bill that the Department of Labor work with agriculture to get it right because we conclude that the H-2A adverse effect wage rate got out of line. I don't know what the right wage is. I wager that the Senator from Georgia probably doesn't know where it ought to be, either, in every segment of agriculture in our country. I wish the Senators would stay with the bill and vote down the Chambliss amendment because in the end we want to get it right for all involved. We want to keep American agriculture competitive in a world market.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I approach this part of the debate on a critical piece of legislation with due caution. I say that because of my respect for my colleagues from Arizona and from the State of Texas and the work they have done as members of the Judiciary Committee and the due diligence they have always put into this critical issue. I believe there is a component missing from this debate that speaks to the need for this country to be in a continual and progressive mode of training and shaping a permanent stable workforce. Unlike all of the demographic studies of the last decade or two, there is something upon us as a nation that we have never experienced before. I am a 1945 baby. I am 60 years old. I am just 1 year ahead of a great class of people--77 million Americans--called baby boomers. They, similar to myself, because of their age, will soon be leaving the American workforce. There are demographic studies out there today which suggest that if we are to sustain a 3.5- to 4- percent growth economy, we have to have about 500,000 new, non-U.S. citizen workers in our workforce on an annual basis. Yes, we will have ups and downs in the economy. We always have. But in the last downtrend we had, in the final days of the Clinton administration and the early days of the Bush administration, it was about 3.5 million in the downturn before it came back. In the 5.2 million jobs created since that time, one-third of them have been claimed by foreign nationals. It speaks to an economic growth pattern that now requires for the first time in our history a sustained, incoming, trainable, and permanent workforce of the kind that the American citizen, by birthrate, is not providing. If we deny that as a country, if we create instability as a country, we deny ourselves the ability to continue to grow. And if we do not grow, this Senate is going to be faced with public policy decisions we are not yet brave enough to make: Social Security reform, Medicare reform, Medicaid reform--all of those things which, without a sustained economic growth cycle, become phenomenally expensive and maybe unaffordable. That does not sound like part of the debate that would tie itself to the Kyl-Cornyn amendment, but I suggest it does. I suggest it behooves this country to create a legal transparent immigration system with a secured border that allows America's employers to train and sustain a permanent workforce, a constantly growing permanent workforce, because the American, by birth, is no longer going to do that. It is the nature of our country. It is the maturity of our country. It is, in fact, the wealth of our country. That is, in part, what all of this debate is about. Americans said: Get your borders secured and get the illegal flow under control; identify them, control them. That is what we are trying to do. I do not believe that a constant temporary environment is a stable environment. For those who work for long periods of time and get a green card, does it mean they will become a citizen? No, it does not. Does it mean they are eligible? In this bill, it says: Yes, if you go to the end of the line and apply, and that is 6 years, another 5 years, that is 11 years, and it goes on and on. I don't believe this is an appropriate amendment to this bill. There is enough temporariness to the bill itself by the nature of H-2A's, H- 2B's and H-2C's, and that is written in. There has to be some stability of permanency. That is critical to the American economic scene and to the stability of America's workforce. And even in that, we will have the down cycles that the Senator from Arizona talks about. I am not sure at that point, when trained workers are at hand and have supplied the American economy with its growth, that you say: The lights are out, leave the country. Somehow, we have to balance that out. That is what we are attempting to do. That is why tonight I ask my colleagues to oppose the Kyl-Cornyn amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?