Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. We are talking about rates of increase from the last transportation bill to this bill, 43 percent. The President is proposing a level of spending. What does this represent as an increase over the last?

Mr. CRAIG. There is a 17-percent growth rate above current levels of expenditures. Is that annualized?

Mr. CRAIG. That is annualized?

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I wish to express my view regarding the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2004, SAFETEA, S. 1072. This legislation reauthorizes our Nation's surface transportation, freight, and mass transit programs, which are so vital to the infrastructure of my State of Idaho and to the Nation. Idaho is considered a ``donee'' State, one that receives more Federal dollars from the Highway Trust Fund, HTF, than we contribute. This is due to the low population density, reduced tax base, and several miles of interstate that run throughout the State. Thanks to the hard and careful work of my colleague, Senator Crapo, who serves on both the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee and the Environment and Public Works committee, I believe Idaho has received fair and equitable treatment in this bill. I applaud the committee and especially Senator Crapo for recognizing that large, rural States have to maintain the infrastructure that our farmers, long-haul truckers, tourists--and most important, our citizens--use every day. However, Mr. President, I would like to voice my concern with the legislation now before us. Last year the President proposed his version of SAFETEA to Congress. Both House and Senate committees of jurisdiction quickly began their work to forge a bill that addresses our Nation's needs. Although neither was successful in bringing the bill to the floor, after a year of work, the Senate will vote on our version of the bill today. As I have seen it, the President's proposal would authorize $256 billion in highway and transit funding over 6 years. This is a $45 billion, or 21 percent increase from the 1998 reauthorization referred to as ``TEA-21.'' The legislation before the Senate is calculated at a total cost of $318 billion, with $311 billion of the total amount under contract authority. For obvious reasons, my concern is that this legislation sends the wrong signal to the American taxpayers. Before I go further, I must say that I strongly support the need to maintain and improve the infrastructure of this Nation. I also understand the impact this legislation has on creating jobs and its role in strengthening our economy, which continues to grow and expand. The benefits of this bill are many, but I cannot support the funding levels proposed in this bill. Recently the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, predicted that the federal deficit will reach $477 billion this year. These figures are sure to fluctuate, but I think Congress must act responsibly by keeping spending under control. The bill before the Senate is roughly $62 billion above the administration's request, and $24 billion over budget. We have already faced a motion to waive the budget today, which directly undermines the budget we all agreed to last year for FY2004. It is a tough choice for me to oppose this bill. Thanks to the bill's managers, Idaho will greatly benefit from the formula's allocation for both our highway system and our transit needs. However, I cannot allow for future generations of Americans to pay for the fiscal irresponsibility of our actions now. It is my hope that when this legislation is placed before a conference of the House and Senate, that common sense and fiscal responsibility prevails, and I will be able to cast a vote in favor of a final conference report.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, this afternoon the Judiciary Committee's Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, on which I serve, held an important hearing on immigration and guest worker reform. The hearing focused on broad issues related to temporary guest worker, and especially on the framework for reform proposed recently by the President of the United States. Our chairman, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, also welcomed statements from several Senators who have introduced bills in this area. Before this President came into office, the Federal Government led the way as our Nation remained in denial, ignoring both the rapidly growing number of undocumented persons in this country and the increasing dependence of critical sectors of our economy on undocumented workers. Some would say, with justification, that the Nation actually spent the last four decades looking the other way. Then, a real wake-up call came on September 11, 2001, on the need to manage our borders effectively, and of the failure to do so for many years before. In the last 2\1/2\ years, we have made progress. President Bush has demonstrated tireless leadership on and since September 11. The new Department of Homeland Security has been established to bring rationality to our border, immigration, and homeland security efforts. With the hard work of the administration, our men and women in uniform, and the Congress, our borders are more secure and our homeland is safer. However, a lot of work remains to be done, as recognized at this hearing. The President has proposed a framework for guest worker reform. I applaud the administration's repeated assurance that it is not taking any position on any one bill and has no intention to preclude any bill. The President has said he wants to work out the details with Congress, and we are ready to work with him. I also appreciated the opportunity to highlight the fact that one bill already introduced in Congress is ready to move. We have a vehicle ready to road-test key principles in the President's framework. I also believe this bill is consistent with the broad goals and principles of several of our other colleagues who have introduced broad reform bills. That bill is AgJOBS--the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act, introduced as S. 1645 and HR 3142. The ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee, the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is the bill's other principal sponsor in the Senate. The principal difference from other bills is that AgJOBS deals with one industry--agriculture. AgJOBS is a thoroughly-developed product, fitted for the unique needs of agriculture. It represents more than 7 years of work on these issues. It reflects 4 years of tough, bipartisan negotiations. A majority of the Senate are now cosponsors. This bill gives us the opportunity to use reform in agriculture as the demonstration program that will help us work out the details, anticipate challenges, prevent problems, and fine-tune the mechanics of an economy-wide reform package down the road. Agriculture also has a unique history of guest worker programs and migrant employment. We have the necessary data and experience to draw on. There is no doubt in the minds of most of us that there really are few American citizens today who want to work, on a seasonal and migrant basis, at the hard physical labor of agriculture. In contrast, in some other industries, there remains the controversy over the availability of willing and qualified domestic workers and concern about their displacement by guest workers. Agriculture is the industry most impacted by dependence on undocumented workers--not by anyone's design, but by circumstance and necessity. The government's own data--based, incredibly, on self- disclosure by workers, themselves--indicates that more than half of the agricultural work force is undocumented. Responsible private estimates run as high 75 to 85 percent. Farmers are going out of business today because they cannot find legal workers at the times they are needed. With AgJOBS, we could begin immediately to improve our homeland security--and especially ensure the safety and security of our food supply--by knowing who is planting and harvesting our crops, where they came from, and where they are working. With AgJOBS, we do not need to wait to start putting an end to the inhumane risks and exploitation suffered by these most vulnerable of workers. Every year, more than 300 persons die in the desert, or in boxcars, or being smuggled in other hazardous transportation. That is not tolerable in a humane society. AgJOBS takes the same long-term approach consistent with the President's framework and other bills--an improved guest worker program. It also addresses the need for a transition program in the immediate term, by allowing workers the earned adjustment to legal status. This is not amnesty. This letter brings together employers and workers--from the American Farm Bureau and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the United Farm Workers and the AFL-CIO. Cosigners include the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, worker and legal-service advocates, large and small employers, Latino groups, religious groups, social service organizations, agriculture and other sectors of the economy, immigration issue advocates, and others. Legislation involving major labor and immigration issues simply does not become law, unless it achieves this kind of bipartisan and broad-based consensus I continue to invite all my colleagues to become cosponsors of AgJOBS and look forward to working with them to move this bill forward this year. I ask unanimous consent to print into the Record a letter of support that Senator Kennedy and I have just received from some 420 organizations--national, state, and local organizations--asking Congress to enact AgJOBS into law expeditiously.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Senior Elder Care Relief and Empowerment Act--the SECURE Act. The SECURE Act provides eligible taxpayers with a non-refundable tax credit equal to 50 percent of qualified expenses incurred on behalf of senior citizens above a $1,000 spending floor. The Senate Special Committee on Aging has held several hearings on different facets of the growing long-term care crisis in this country. A major concern of mine is that the Federal long-term care policy mix may not have the right incentives--especially when it comes to the tough choices faced by families who want to care for their frail and aging relatives. Earlier this week, we held a hearing in the Senate Special Committee on Aging on a growing issue of national importance--the issue of family caregiving for America's seniors. Witnesses at the hearing highlighted the emotional stress and financial challenges faced by family caregivers of aging and vulnerable relatives; and testified favorably about the SECURE Act. Trudy Elliott, a witness at the hearing from North Idaho, talked about the stress and financial challenges she and her husband faced while caring for her mother, sister, and father. Her testimony was very moving. Mrs. Elliott, who also works for a company in the home health field, testified that her experience was not unique. More and more families are facing the stress and financial difficulties that come with caring for their aging parents. It is critical to note that families, not government, provide 80 percent of long-term care for older persons in the United States. This is an enormous strength of our long-term care system. The U.S. Administration on Aging reports that about 22 million people serve as informal caregivers for seniors with at least one limitation on their activities of daily living. These caregivers often face extreme stress and financial burden-- especially those we call the sandwich generation. The sandwich generation refers to those sandwiched between caring for their aging parents and caring for their own children. It is difficult for families to balance caring for children and saving or paying for college, while at the same time struggling with financing care for frail and aging parents. The SECURE Act should not preclude seniors or those near retirement from purchasing long-term care insurance. The Act provides tax relief for high-risk seniors who cannot qualify for long-term care insurance policies. For many families, the nursing home is the only solution for providing long-term care, and that can be a good choice. For other families, keeping aging and vulnerable relatives in their own home or in the caregiver's home makes sense. An that is why I am introducing the SECURE Act. Families facing high levels of stress and eldercare expenses deserve tax relief as they freely care for their frail and aging parents. We also heard from witnesses at the Aging Committee hearing that the SECURE Act will increase the eldercare choices available to families and has the potential to reduce the number of seniors forced to spend down their nest-egg in order to qualify for Medicaid services. Family caregiving for aging and vulnerable relatives requires a flexible national response to ensure seniors and their families have the most appropriate high quality choices. I invite my colleagues to cosponsor this compassionate legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a brief description be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Senior Elder Care Relief and Empowerment Act--the SECURE Act. The SECURE Act provides eligible taxpayers with a non-refundable tax credit equal to 50 percent of qualified expenses incurred on behalf of senior citizens above a $1,000 spending floor. The Senate Special Committee on Aging has held several hearings on different facets of the growing long-term care crisis in this country. A major concern of mine is that the Federal long-term care policy mix may not have the right incentives--especially when it comes to the tough choices faced by families who want to care for their frail and aging relatives. Earlier this week, we held a hearing in the Senate Special Committee on Aging on a growing issue of national importance--the issue of family caregiving for America's seniors. Witnesses at the hearing highlighted the emotional stress and financial challenges faced by family caregivers of aging and vulnerable relatives; and testified favorably about the SECURE Act. Trudy Elliott, a witness at the hearing from North Idaho, talked about the stress and financial challenges she and her husband faced while caring for her mother, sister, and father. Her testimony was very moving. Mrs. Elliott, who also works for a company in the home health field, testified that her experience was not unique. More and more families are facing the stress and financial difficulties that come with caring for their aging parents. It is critical to note that families, not government, provide 80 percent of long-term care for older persons in the United States. This is an enormous strength of our long-term care system. The U.S. Administration on Aging reports that about 22 million people serve as informal caregivers for seniors with at least one limitation on their activities of daily living. These caregivers often face extreme stress and financial burden-- especially those we call the sandwich generation. The sandwich generation refers to those sandwiched between caring for their aging parents and caring for their own children. It is difficult for families to balance caring for children and saving or paying for college, while at the same time struggling with financing care for frail and aging parents. The SECURE Act should not preclude seniors or those near retirement from purchasing long-term care insurance. The Act provides tax relief for high-risk seniors who cannot qualify for long-term care insurance policies. For many families, the nursing home is the only solution for providing long-term care, and that can be a good choice. For other families, keeping aging and vulnerable relatives in their own home or in the caregiver's home makes sense. An that is why I am introducing the SECURE Act. Families facing high levels of stress and eldercare expenses deserve tax relief as they freely care for their frail and aging parents. We also heard from witnesses at the Aging Committee hearing that the SECURE Act will increase the eldercare choices available to families and has the potential to reduce the number of seniors forced to spend down their nest-egg in order to qualify for Medicaid services. Family caregiving for aging and vulnerable relatives requires a flexible national response to ensure seniors and their families have the most appropriate high quality choices. I invite my colleagues to cosponsor this compassionate legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a brief description be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests for the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on Thursday, February 12, at 2:30 p.m. in Room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1421, to authorize the subdivision and dedication of restricted land owned by Alaska Natives; S. 1466, to facilitate the transfer of land in the State of Alaska, and for other purposes; S. 1649, to designate the Ojito Wilderness Study Area as wilderness, to take certain land into trust for the Pueblo of Zia, and for other purposes; and S. 1910, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out an inventory and management program for forests derived from public domain land. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150. For further information, please contact Dick Bouts 202-224-7545.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will be held on Wednesday, February 4, at 2:30 p.m. in room SAD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 1354, to resolve certain conveyances and provide for alternative land selections under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act related to Cape Fox Corporation and Sealaska Corporation, and for other purposes; S. 1575 and H.R. 1092, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to sell certain parcels of Federal land in Carson City and Douglas County, Nevada; S. 1778, to authorize a land conveyance between the United States and the City of Craig, Alaska, and for other purposes; and S. 1819 and H.R. 272, to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to convey certain land to Lander County, Nevada, and the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land to Eureka County, Nevada, for continued use as cemeteries. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee of Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510-6150. For further information, please contact Frank Gladics at 202-224- 2878.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as cochair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, I rise today to remember the recently passed William L. Pierce, a man who dedicated his life to helping children. As founder and president of the National Council on Adoption, William Pierce was a leading adoption advocate who worked tirelessly to help formulate and promote several major adoption policies over the last 25 years. To name a few: The Infant Adoption Awareness Act created the Infant Adoption Training Program, which trains health and pregnancy counselors in presenting adoption as an option for unplanned pregnancies; the Multi- Ethnic Placement Act of 1994 reduced obstacles to many adoptions; the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 promoted adoptions out of foster care by removing barriers to adoption and creating incentives for States to place more foster children with adoptive families; and the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 included provisions to permanently extend and expand the tax credit for adoption expenses and the employer-based adoption assistance program. William Pierce's consistent advocacy of pro-child adoption policies helped improve the lives of countless children, birthparents, and families. He was an outstanding husband, father, grandfather, citizen, advocate, and leader. I remember him today.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from New Mexico, for yielding. Let me first and foremost thank him for the phenomenal time and effort he has put into a national energy policy. We missed getting cloture by just two votes. Again, a majority of the Senate supports your work. It is full, it is comprehensive, it is revolutionary in driving this country toward having reliable energy once again. As the average American got up this morning and flipped the light switch, the lights came on. They expect that to happen every day. What they do not understand is that there is now a risk in our country that might not happen. Why? Because over the last decade we have not allowed the energy sector to reinvest, to reconnect, to change the way it did business in the past. Government regulation, in almost every instance, stood in the way and created a supertest and sometimes total obstruction in the ability of a company to invest back into the energy sector. During the decade of the 1990s, if you wanted to generate electricity, how did you do it? You used natural gas because the Clean Air Act said you could do it no other way. So we did. But on the other side, we were not producing more natural gas so we used up the surplus capacity, and a couple of months ago gas spiked--at $5 to $6 per million cubic feet--astronomically high. What happened? The chemical companies shut down and sent their work overseas. Of course, those electrical plants that were built in the decade of the 1990s, that were generating electricity, turned off the switches. They could not afford in the marketplace to be able to generate electricity. The bill we have in the Senate today, that we have been denied passage of, would go a long way toward remedying that problem. If the American consumer believes you pass a bill tomorrow and the light switch is reliable, they better remember its reliability is based on a decade of investment, that it does not happen just overnight. What the Senator from New Mexico was trying to do is drive that investment forward for decades to come to create reliability. The other morning I woke up to the announcement that the President of the nation of Georgia had just resigned. What does that mean as it relates to our energy? We want the oil out of the Caspian Sea to flow into the energy markets of this world to drive down overall prices and to create availability. Guess what happened. Companies are building a major pipeline across Georgia. They invested heavily through the politics of this President. He resigned. Georgia is almost in revolution. Yet that $2 billion pipeline that is going to start producing about 1.2 million barrels of oil a day into the world market may not produce. The significance of the resignation of Shevardnadze, the President of Georgia, is quite simple. He, by that action, created some degree of instability in the world oil market. If we are going to continue to rely on our supply flowing from unstable areas of the world, then the American consumer can expect broad fluctuations at the fuel pump-- $1.50, $2, $2.50. The passage of this legislation would stabilize that kind of action. There is no question. If this Senate thinks we will rely on the nation of Georgia or the Caspian Sea or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else to be a reliable, continual supplier of hydrocarbons into our system to fuel the gas pumps and to fuel our chemical industry, they ought to think once again. The Senate Energy Committee has fought long and hard about this for the last decade. In the last 5 years we have worked hard, in the last 2 years we have kept the lights burning all night to try to craft a bill. The Senator from New Mexico got that job done. We missed by just two votes in the Senate. It is the President's No. 1 priority. He thinks like we think, if we do not make a major move in the direction of beginning to supply energy to the country once again, the availability of jobs, our cost of living, our lifestyles, our standards, all that we hold dear as Americans will have to change because so much of what we do today is based on a relatively low cost, reliable supply of energy to all sectors, all segments of our economy. Shame on this Senate because a little bit was not right or a little bit was not right there. Nobody looked down the road. Nobody got out in front of their headlights to try to understand the implication of failing to move a bill that produces long-term investment in the energy sector. We just passed an important bill for all citizens of our country. It is an expenditure right out of the general fund of the United States Treasury. While we were criticized on the energy side for some of the tax credits in this bill, there is a fundamental difference. First of all, the industry has to invest in the economy before they can get the credit out. They have to drive investment. They have to go out and borrow money, pour concrete, build transmission lines, and hire people. These jobs, created by the tax incentives and the investment, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 over the decade into the energy sector. There is a fundamental difference in the way both bills ought to be looked at. While what we just voted on is an important expenditure for the well-being of our country and the well-being of our citizen's health, this is an investment in the infrastructure, in the stability, in the light switch reliability. Tomorrow morning, for anyone who is listening, when you flip that switch for just a moment, think, how did the electricity get there? No one really understands it unless you have studied it. Think a little bit about it. When you go to the gas pump and fill up your car, ask yourself why it is a little higher now than it was a year ago. How did it get there? All of that is part of what makes our country work. The Energy bill we had before the Senate, the Energy bill we must have before the Senate again when we return, will speak to that, speak to it clearly, and say to the American people, the Congress of the United States has looked out into the future, determined what the fundamental needs are, and is creating an environment of investment that creates reliability, that creates conservation, that creates new technologies, that drives the energy sector in the direction of production as well as conservation for the well-being of this country and future generations. I thank the senior Senator from New Mexico for all the work he has done in 2004. Early on in the next session of the 108th it is incumbent upon this Congress to finish our work on that issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment at the desk be agreed to, the concurrent resolution, as amended, be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 339, the adjournment resolution.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I was pleased to sit and wait and listen to the Senator from Pennsylvania. I appreciate his leadership and the accomplishments he has helped guide us through this past year in the first session of the 108th Congress. They are many, and there are yet many to accomplish. Yes, we have had substantial obstructionism on the part of our colleagues on the other side. Why? It is politics to them in many instances. They see those as defining lines between their party and ours. I do not think objecting to or obstructing judges is that. I think it is an act that is unconstitutional in its character. I think it is now broaching on a constitutional crisis in our country to suggest that it takes a supermajority when any one individual decides to confirm or at least bring to the floor the vote of a judge.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Senator from Pennsylvania was talking about marriage. I come to the floor to talk about families for just a moment, and I will be brief. The Senator from Delaware has been waiting patiently also. This is November. This is the month of Thanksgiving. Hopefully, most of us are a few days away from the opportunity and the privilege to go home and sit down with our families and have a Thanksgiving dinner of some proportion; most importantly, to be with our families. That is what this country is all about and certainly that is what Thanksgiving is all about. November is, in my opinion, another special month. For the last month, I have been wearing on my lapel--and I do not have it on today-- a little gold word that says ``adopt.'' November is National Adoption Month. I am a proud parent of three adopted children. I am going home to be with them and our grandchildren for Thanksgiving. We have three children and seven grandchildren now. My wife Suzanne and I are tremendously proud of that. I became a father through adoption. Well, this month of November is National Adoption Month. It is a time to celebrate special families, the families of more than 2 million children in America who are adopted, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In fact, it is estimated that more than half of the population of America has been personally touched by adoption, whether they are adopted or have adopted or have a close friend or family member who is adopted or has adopted. In other words, many of us have said adoption is a phenomenally viable option when it comes to forming a family. Just this past week, we added to those numbers. November 22, this last Saturday, was the fourth annual National Adoption Day. On that day, the courtrooms of the Nation, where volunteers helped, over 3,000 children found permanent, loving homes and new parents through the adoption system of our country. Think what this Thanksgiving is going to be to those 3,000 children who will now sit down at a table to have Thanksgiving dinner with new parents who are offering them permanent love and stability in their life. While this is wonderful news, there are still far too many children waiting for permanent, safe, and loving homes. Our foster care system provides temporary care for more than 580,000 oftentimes abused and neglected children. Among those children, 126,000 of them are waiting for adoption. For anybody who reads this Record or might be watching at the moment, listen up. There are 126,000 kids in America who would love to have one of you as their parent, their mother or their father, who would love to have you offer them a permanent and loving home. Sadly, every year 25,000 children age out of foster care. What does that mean? They become 18 years of age. They leave the foster care system, never having known a permanent, caring, loving home. Foster parents are caring, but it is not permanent and the child knows that. So they graduate out. They are out on the street at 18 years of age. They do not have the stability of the family unit. Seventy-plus percent of them get in trouble. Seventy-plus percent of them just cannot make it because they do not have a mom or a dad to refer back to, to help them, to give them advice. They are on their own at age 18. I would not have wanted to be on my own at age 18. Now I might have thought I could have been. But how many times did I go home to mom and dad to ask for their advice, their help, or their counsel? Well, innumerable times. So I hope Americans will consider opening their homes and their hearts to children through adoption. As an adoptive father, I can say this experience has changed my life, and this Thanksgiving I will be reminded of all of that when I hug those seven grandbabies and try to share a little turkey with them. Last year, President Bush launched the first Federal adoption Website to help families connect while waiting children across America connect to them. The Web site is www.AdoptUSKids.org. Go online. Find out that you, too, can become an adoptive parent. Mary Landrieu, the Senator from Louisiana, and I have cochaired the adoption caucus on the Senate side for a good number of years. We have passed a lot of laws to make adoption easier, we have provided tax credits, we have created incentives, because we want Americans to go after those 126,000 children who are not yet in permanent, loving homes. We have also created the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. I have just stepped down as its chairman. Mary Landrieu has become its chairman. It is now a freestanding 501(c)(3) institute. We have had tremendous success with people coming in to help us, to advance the cause of adoption. We hope Americans might look at us also because we are willing to help them break down the barriers so that they can build their family through adoption, if that is what they choose. Later this week, a lot of Americans, as I have said, will be sitting down at that Thanksgiving table. It is a moment to be thankful for so much, but it is a moment also to recognize that you could give a little more. If it is at that time in your life or at that moment when you and your spouse have decided you want a family, here is one way to do it. There are 126,000 children waiting for you to select them and bring them into your heart and your home for a loving, permanent relationship that in every way will be positive. So November is National Adoption Month. Choose adoption as an option. If I can be of help, call me, or go online and go to www.AdoptUSKids.org. You will have a happier Thanksgiving.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield to determine where we might be this morning? There are several in the Chamber who wish to begin to speak on the Medicare prescription drug issue. Have we established any order for that purpose?

Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Medicare conference report now before the Senate, brings to fruition President Bush's early and strong commitment to prescription drug relief, and it reflects nearly 6 years of difficult congressional debate. The Senator from Iowa is here in the Chamber. He has played a key role in shaping the final package, in hours and hours of work with our majority leader and with leaders from the other side, to try to strike a critical balance. This historic legislation, like the 38-year-old program it seeks to reform, is indeed expensive, complex, and unweildy but it is a compromise I can and will support, although not without some very strong reservations. This bill is a solid step toward accomplishing two core goals: Providing prescription drug relief to seniors in need, and strengthening Medicare's future through greater market competition. This legislation also includes dramatic improvements in consumer choice through health savings accounts, and perhaps the best package of rural health care improvements Congress has ever considered. I know its impact on the rural hospitals of Idaho will be significant. Despite its deep and undeniable faults, this bill offers a rare opportunity unlikely to return for several more years, if ever--years in which millions of seniors will continue to suffer for lack of needed drugs and years in which the retirement of America's baby boomers will draw ever closer, and the modernization of Medicare will become ever more urgent. No, it is not perfect, but to hold out for perfection would risk a permanent sacrifice of much that is good and necessary in this legislation. As chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, I have chaired several hearings examining many of the hard questions in this debate-- including the long-term demographic and financial pressures facing Medicare, and the importance of integrating competitive alternatives into Medicare's future. I am pleased to see some of these themes reflected in the legislation before us today. Mr. President, my reasons for supporting this legislation are straightforward: First, the legislation provides long overdue drug relief for our Nation's seniors. Nearly every health insurance plan in America today contains drug coverage. It is time Medicare did, too. Beginning in 2006, seniors who decide to enroll in this completely voluntary new program and will pay a premium of about $35 and will receive a 75 percent subsidy for the first $2,250 in annual drug costs, after meeting an initial $250 deductible. And after a senior's annual drug costs reach $3,600, Medicare will cover 95 percent, providing essential relief for those seniors with catastrophic drug needs. Overall, the average senior enrolled in this program will see annual drug costs reduced by 44 percent to 68 percent. In the nearer term, prescription drug discount cards will be available, offering seniors drug discounts of up to 10 to 25 percent. Second, I am very pleased that the bill devotes the greatest share of its relief to seniors of modest and low income, those who need it the most. For these seniors, the relief will be even greater than in the basic package. In Idaho, nearly 35 percent of our Medicare beneficiaries are likely to qualify. Seniors whose incomes fall below about $13,500 for an individual or $18,200 for a couple will receive deeply discounted premiums and deductibles, and those whose income is below about $12,100 for an individual or $16,200 for a couple will have no premium or deductible and will pay only a few-dollar copayment for each prescription. The important thing to keep in mind is that the proportion of seniors today who have no private drug coverage at all is relatively small-- about 25 percent--and it is on these seniors, as well as those whose current coverage is inadequate, that this bill is focused. In short, those in the greatest need get the greatest benefit and that is as it should be. Third, the bill before us today seeks to bring Medicare into the 21st century, not just by providing prescription drug coverage, but also by offering seniors the choice to enroll in federally supervised but privately operated health care plans--that same kind of choice and coverage currently enjoyed by other Americans under 65. Medicare today remains weighted down by rigid bureaucracy and complex regulations--regulations that are already beginning to drive doctors and other health care providers out of the program. Even more distressing, the heavily bureaucratic Medicare Program has utterly failed to keep up with the kinds of medical innovations and coverage options most of the rest of us take for granted. By contrast, this bill's new competing regional preferred provider plans will give seniors one-stop shopping for comprehensive and integrated coverage, including prescription drugs, preventive care, care coordination, and protection against very high catastrophic medical bills--benefits which are largely unheard of in today's Medicare Program. Even more encouraging, six large-scale demonstrations, beginning in 2010, will test direct price competition between private plans and traditional Medicare. Although not as extensive as I would have wanted, these competition-based reforms are nevertheless the most substantial steps Medicare has ever taken toward bringing marketplace innovation into the program. Importantly, all of these new choices will be completely voluntary. Seniors who want to keep their current coverage and stay in the traditional Medicare will be free to do just that. No senior will see any reduction in any Medicare benefits under this bill. No benefits will be taken away--none. Fourth, this legislation contains landmark improvements in the ability of Americans to take charge of their own health care through expanding the use of health savings accounts. To a greater degree than ever before, this bill will permit individuals to build significant tax-free health care savings for use in meeting a family's health care needs, including long-term care. As we try to encourage those who are becoming seniors to acquire long-term health care insurance, here is a way to finance it and finance it with tax-free dollars. Together with high deductible insurance for very high medical expenses, this approach puts control of health care where it belongs--in the hands of the individual citizens of our country. This is something I have been fighting for since I first came to Congress, and I believe this bill's health savings account provisions are among its most important accomplishments. Fifth, I am tremendously pleased, as should be every Idahoan, that this bill includes an unprecedented package of nearly $25 billion in improvements for rural health care. Senator Grassley can be extremely proud of the work he has done to ensure the stabilizing of rural hospitals and rural health care. Most importantly, this legislation achieves a permanent evening out of rural and urban Medicare reimbursement rates. For far too long, doctors and hospitals in Idaho and other rural States have suffered under payment classifications and reimbursement levels that put them at a significant disadvantage--and that makes the already difficult task of providing rural health care even more daunting. Sixth, the conferees have included, for the first time, a requirement that high income seniors (those making over $80,000 individually or $160,000 as a couple) pay slightly more in Medicare premiums than those who are less well off. In the decades to come, I believe our children will thank us for recognizing that America's taxpayers simply cannot afford to continue subsidizing care for the wealthiest among us at the same level we provide for the less well off. Finally, I believe it is important to recognize that the conferees have taken great care to include protections against something I know has concerned many seniors--namely, Will this bill cause me to lose the drug coverage I already have? The final bill includes very significant assistance to employer-sponsored plans to help assure their continued participation in retiree health care. Indeed, some are concerned that this assistance is, in fact, too substantial. But Congress's intent on this issue is clear: Seniors who are happy with the coverage they have today should be free to keep it. The underlying framework of this bill is a sound one, and it follows the strong and guiding principles laid out by President Bush earlier this year--namely to strengthen traditional Medicare and keep it as an alternative for those seniors who want it--but also to provide a new foundation for the future, one built on choices, competition, and innovation. This said, however, I remain gravely troubled by certain aspects of this bill. First, it troubles me deeply that this legislation will add substantially to an entitlement program whose long-term future is already sobering in the extreme. Even without a new $395 billion drug benefit, Medicare is expected to spend nearly $3.9 trillion over the next 10 years--and by 2075, these costs will nearly triple. Nothing can change the fact that desperately hard choices lie ahead, regardless of what we do this year. Nevertheless, what we sow today, future generations will reap. Second, I am disappointed that the conferees chose not to adopt firm expenditure restraints if and when Medicare cost growth rises faster than currently projected. Nearly all honest observers predict that this bill will ultimately cost more than the $395 billion over 10 years that is now budgeted. Such a cost restraint measure would have gone a long way toward assuring future generations that we are serious about fiscal restraint and preserving a viable Medicare program for our children and grandchildren. Third, I believe this bill should have moved Medicare more assertively toward a 21st century competitive approach, with an even greater role for private plans and the innovation they generate--an approach patterned, for example, after the highly successful program now available to Members of Congress and other federal employees. As it is, this bill makes a credible start in that direction, but much more remains to be done. And finally, I am concerned by this legislation's very high level of complexity and prescriptiveness. Of course, Medicare legislation is never simple. However, this bill runs to many hundreds of pages and is very heavy with exceptions, rules, and carveouts--including literally dozens of provisions and billions of dollars relating to specifics of provider payment. This bill's new competitive alternatives, if they succeed, are intended to take us away from this kind of micromanagement. Unfortunately, if the complexity of this bill is any guide, we may yet have a ways to go. My concerns about this bill are very serious ones. However, on balance, I believe this legislation is a positive step forward for America's seniors, for the Medicare program, for Idaho, and for the country as a whole. President Bush deserves tremendous credit for making Medicare and prescription drugs a top priority this year, as do Majority Leader Frist, Senator Grassley, and the other conferees for bringing us to where we are today. Medicare urgently cries out for a better future, and America's seniors desperately need meaningful prescription drug relief. This legislation moves solidly toward reaching both of these goals, and I urge my colleagues to stand with the President and support its passage into law. I close by thanking the Senator from West Virginia for his courtesy. I will adhere to our agreement. I yield the floor, and I thank my colleague.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield? I know the Senator is going to speak at 11 o'clock. I was told I could speak. The Senator from Illinois has been here for some time. I understand both of these Senators anticipate fairly lengthy statements. I do not. I anticipated no more than 10 minutes. Is it possible that I could slip in there somewhere?

Mr. CRAIG. Exactly right.

Mr. CRAIG. I would do that under a unanimous consent, certainly.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Chair signal me when I have spoken for 9 minutes?