Larry Craig

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

Mr. CRAIG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I regret that I was detained in my effort to return to the floor, from another appointment, to vote on the Collins amendment, No. 596. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the amendment. I have been speaking again this week with our Governor of Idaho about the current fiscal difficulties faced by State and local governments. In both his role as Governor of our State and as the incoming chairman of the National Governors Association, Governor Kempthorne has eloquently argued the case for Congress to work with the States to address this situation. I am pleased that the Senate today could come to bipartisan agreement in its approach to temporary fiscal relief. amendment no. 654

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am here this morning to speak to the bill that is now before us, S. 14, brought to the floor yesterday by Senator Pete Domenici, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of our Senate. It is a work product that a good many of us have been involved in for well over 3 years, in looking at the issue prior to the Bush administration coming to town and certainly with the initiative of the Bush administration to recognize the need for a national energy policy and to produce for us an outline of their vision of a national policy and asking the Congress to work its will over the last good number of years to produce that policy. Of course, that came in the backdrop of brownouts and blackouts in California, of a jigsaw or certainly unprecedented ties or ups and downs in the gas markets of our country and a real recognition that over the last good number of decades the Congress of the United States and our Government had not minded the energy store of our country very well. We were resting on the laurels of a relatively substantial surplus in electrical energy--the ability to produce hydrocarbons here at home; be less dependent upon foreign oil; and, to watch all of that change with the growth of our economy and some of the other government regulations that denied or limited the ability to produce energy for our country. We know during the decade of the 1990s we went into a mode of deregulating the electrical industry all in the name of spreading that surplus out around the countryside but all based on the premise that you could lower the cost to the consumer because, in fact, there was a surplus. Of course, during the decade of the 1990s we saw that surplus rapidly disappear with the phenomenal growth we went through with the country and the fact we were not adding to the energy base of our country. I believe while consumers in the short term experienced some relief--and ratepayers in the end--we saw price spikes, instability, brownouts, and a greater concern about a constant, stable flow of energy--the high- quality kind that is critical to fuel an industry and making sure that it was available upon call and when necessary, something that in the late 1990s and certainly at the turn of the decade was all in question. That is one of the reasons we are here on the floor debating energy, and will be for the next several weeks in our effort to pass a comprehensive energy policy that will promote the kind of production that will advance conservation, and that will certainly promote the protection of the environment and the production of clean energy. In all of that context, what is most significant is, in fact, the production area. We now know with our capabilities and our technologies that we can produce it cleanly in a nonpolluting way, or certainly in a less impacting way to enhance the availability of supply. One of the areas I have spent a good deal of time on over the last number of years is the issue of nuclear energy. Certainly during the decades of the 1970s and the 1980s and into the 1990s there was a concerted effort on the part of a variety of interests to argue that somehow nuclear energy was not a safe form of energy; that it was one that we ought to take out of our energy portfolio. What they failed to recognize was that about 20 percent of our generating capacity is based on nuclear energy. It really was a scare tactic to panic an uninformed public, on the safety and the stability of nuclear energy, into a sense of urgency as related to eliminating nuclear energy. During that period of time as knowledge began to grow, another fact began to emerge out of all of these issues. That was that nuclear energy was rapidly becoming a least cost part of our total energy package--that the cost of production was stable, that the reactors had operated very effectively, and that in retrofitting them, modernizing them, relicensing them, we were extending their life and getting greater efficiency. In the last spike in our electrical costs, the nuclear energy industry--the electrical side of it--became the least cost producer of electrical energy. At the same time, we have not brought any new reactors on line. The public and/or the interest groups have driven the costs by their concern over the siting of them and the building of them. And the constant demand of retrofitting them and building into them comprehensive and redundant systems has driven the costs and the ability to build one beyond the reach of the consumer and the ratepayer, and, of course, therefore, the utilities. Understanding that we continue to push forward not only to develop a waste repository system to take the high-level waste out of the interim storage facilities at these reactors, as we have promised the public we would do, and move them to a permanent repository that is now sited and in the process of being licensed in Yucca Mountain in the deserts of Nevada, but we also have opened up another geological repository at Carlsbad, NM, known as a waste isolation pilot plant that handles transuranic waste--what I call ``garbage waste'', such as the tools and smocks of nuclear workers. The WIPP facility takes waste from our defense facilities, but the point is this facility has been operating for a number of years and we have demonstrated that we can deal with this type of waste safely. This government has worked hard to keep good on its promise while there are many who would deter it and try to deny those promises to the consuming public, arguing that somehow we couldn't handle waste; therefore, we shouldn't have new reactors, and, certainly, therefore, we shouldn't build them if we couldn't manage the waste stream. While all of that was going on, another issue began to emerge in the context of global concern. It was the issue of climate change. I will be speaking to that in a few moments. But the issue of climate change began to be argued by many as a product of greenhouse gas emissions, and in part certainly produced by the emission of greenhouse gases from the production of energy, and mostly electrical energy. While that grew, it allowed many of us to argue that the ability to produce electricity through a nuclear reactor was nonemitting, or an emission- free system. That has clearly become recognized. I think many of our experts now in the field of energy worldwide, as we see the need for energy constantly growing, will admit that over the course of the decades to come 20 percent of the electrical production, which is nuclear in this country, probably has to grow into 30 or maybe 40 percent of the total package to work to keep our air clean. In France, I believe now nearly 80 percent of their electrical capacity is nuclear. Many other countries are following that route. They are managing their waste effectively and responsibly. It is also true in Japan. Here is a nation that not very long ago was most antinuclear for obvious reasons. But they came to recognize also that the ability to produce electricity for a growing economy in their country could be produced safely by nuclear energy. All of that realization and all of that work in part came together with the coming to town of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the selection of Spencer Abraham as our Secretary of Energy--all recognizing that in the course of this we were going to have to get a new reactor design and new concepts that would allow us to advance the cause of electrical generation through the nuclear industry. As a result of that growing interest and as a result of all of the changes that occurred in the world over the last several decades, and the clear understanding that the energy we produce for today's market and future markets needs to be clean, there is a much better understanding of the role that can be played by the nuclear industry if certain kinds of things are allowed to happen. I believe those certain kinds of things are new reactor designs--what we call new passive designs, those systems that are designed to shut themselves down automatically if problems occur instead of to be activated manually by human operators. We believe--and the industry certainly believes--that all of that is highly possible today. There are models out there that demonstrate that capability. There are many in the scientific and engineering community who recognize the validity of being able to do that. It is with that, and the concept of new generations of reactor systems, that we began to look at the potential of this country's building that kind of prototype--a generation IV, passive reactor system that is clean, that burns its fuel more efficiently, that is extremely robust in its capabilities as it relates to safety and shutdown and, of course, in the end, because of its efficiencies and fuel utilization, leaves less waste compared to the old reactors. Let me depart for a moment and tell you a story that I think most Americans do not know about today. It occurred in my State of Idaho, at a site now called the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. At the beginning of Admiral Hyman Rickover's desire to create a nuclear Navy a good number of years ago, activities began to be undertaken in the deserts of Idaho. Those activities related to the development of the prototype reactors to be put into the Nautilus submarine--a reactor that was small but efficient and powerful and safe for operation and safe to live by, to live right beside. Of course, we have seen the phenomenal growth of that capability over the last good number of decades. We have become so good at building and engineering the reactors for our nuclear Navy today that a reactor that once had to be fueled every few years now need not be fueled for the design life of the hull of the vessel itself. That is almost a hard concept to imagine: that for a new nuclear Navy vessel today, when launched, and when its reactor is activated, that reactor will operate for the life of the vessel--but that is what is going on today. That engineering, that capability, that efficiency was developed in the laboratories in Idaho. Of course, it is one of the great stories of energy efficiency, of safety, and of the effective management of the atom itself. It is that kind of technology that should be, and we hope can be, applied to the commercial side of the atom today, that we can, in fact, build smaller, modular, flexible, passive reactors that, when fueled, continue to operate long term for the production of electricity; and, of course, in doing that, to be immune from the price spikes in the marketplace that are based on the supply of fuel itself, because when that reactor is fueled and activated, it then continues to operate, at a flat cost, nearly for the lifetime of that fueling, which could go on for a good number of years. That is a uniqueness that we think we are now capable of producing in new reactor designs and new reactor concepts. As all of this was developing, and this new interest was growing--and certainly brought to the forefront by the Bush administration, as they came to town and began to openly talk about the development of passive reactor concepts versus an administration that had just left town that worked actively trying to stop, to turn off, or to shut down the nuclear industry--other dynamics began to occur. This is another unique dynamic that now fits into the whole concept of building a new nuclear reactor today: It is hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cells, and the ability to build clean hydrogen fuel cells that generate electricity to operate our automobiles. I have driven a hydrogen fuel cell automobile, as many of my colleagues have, and they drive most effectively, except the prototype that I was driving up in Dearborn, MI, costs about $6 million. Well, we know that is out of the reach of the average citizen. However, we also understand that if this technology is applied to the transportation market as a whole, that there could come a day when my children and my grandchildren will view it normal to go to the local car dealer and buy a hydrogen fuel cell electric automobile at a competitive price in the market. That electric automobile will drive very efficiently, long term, at low cost, and have zero emission. This administration, once again, in pushing the envelope of energy and energy technology, has argued that this ought to be the transportation fuel of the future, and we ought to begin to invest, increasingly so, in this concept. In S. 14, these concepts come full circle, and we begin to authorize the investment substantially in the development of the hydrogen fuel cell--now, not just for the automobile, but the idea that there could come a day when you could develop small, modular fuel cells for the individual home, and they could run safely and easily and emission free for long periods of time to generate electricity for a home site or a small business or a rural dwelling is very feasible with the development of that technology. Here rests the problem: Most have said we will gain this hydrogen through natural gas, that natural gas can become the producer of hydrogen. The problem is, you are using one energy source to produce another energy source. The efficiency of doing that makes it, in fact, a very poor use of natural gas. We have also seen the unwillingness of this Congress or some interest groups to allow the exploration for natural gas and the expanded capability of that production. I spoke yesterday on the floor about the pumping back into the ground of billions of cubic feet of natural gas in Alaska. Why? Because there is no way of getting it to the lower 48 States without the development of a pipeline, a pipeline that is proposed and embodied in S. 14, for the necessary purpose of supplying natural gas to the lower 48 states. But the reality of the use of natural gas is that it ought not be used to produce hydrogen, and it ought not be used to fire gas turbines to generate electricity. Efficiency-wise, that is a poor use of natural gas. Natural gas ought to be used for the purposes of space heating. That is where it is the most efficient, and in an industry where it can be used for certain processing purposes. That is where natural gas finds its highest efficiencies. If we want to develop a hydrogen transportation fuel industry--and natural gas is not necessarily the best source of hydrogen--how do we get it? How do we push that envelope to supply an abundant source of hydrogen to a marketplace that may well grow to fuel the fuel cells that will generate the electricity that will propel the modern car 20 or 30 years or 40 years from now? You can do it through using electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen--a process known as electrolysis. You can do it through the use of electricity in a much more efficient way than you can with the use of natural gas. What do you use in electrolysis? You use water. So not only do you have an abundant resource that can be converted, but it can be converted in a very clean way into a gas that, when utilized, produces no emissions into the atmosphere. Is this a dream? No, not at all. It is a reality, and we know that. It is a reality within the engineering capabilities of this country and the industries embodied in the energy field. We know that is a capability. How do I jump from nuclear to hydrogen? I want to bring both of those together this morning because what we believe is that a generation IV passive reactor of the kind we are proposing be built as an experimental prototype by our Government, and one that is proposed and authorized in this S. 14 comprehensive energy policy for our country, also has built in it a system to produce hydrogen. The idea is that we can, in fact, get two for one, and we can design safe nuclear reactors today, or passive nuclear reactors today, that are capable of having within them a system that splits water to produce hydrogen for the future transportation market of our country. This concept is something that is so exciting to me and ought to be exciting for our country. To think that we have the capability of moving ourselves that much further forward is an opportunity. I liken this uniqueness, this application of science and engineering and technology, to something almost as important as the space program was decades ago. It is what Government ought to be doing, ought to be using its resources for--to push the envelope of technology forward and to allow the kinds of developments in technology that the private sector can then take and effectively use--because the private sector cannot afford to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars that it ultimately will require to develop this kind of technology. This long term technology development does not have the immediate payback return on it and so if we leave it all to industry it simply will not happen for a long period of time. Embodied in S. 14 are the provisions that would authorize exactly what I am talking about today, a new reactor design for our country, a design that has within it the capability of the production of hydrogen through electrolysis, and to me that is a tremendously exciting concept. That is why I believe S. 14 is important legislation. A press person stopped me the other day and asked: How is President Bush doing on his domestic agenda? One of this President's No. 1 items, or top two or three, in his domestic agenda is a national energy policy. A lot has taken that issue off the headlines the last number of years--from the issue of 9/11 to terrorism to the war in Iraq. But underlying all of that and always important for the productivity of an economy, for the future of a Nation, is an abundant energy supply. Through all of that, we have found just how fragile our energy supplies are. We are now nearly 60 percent dependent for our oil supply on foreign countries. We have in our infrastructure of electrical production aging facilities and transmission that is not effectively being replaced to sustain the quality of electricity we have. As soon as this country begins to get back into the 3, 4, 5 percent growth rates we hope to see in the near future, we will find once again a lack of supply because we are not producing it or, if we are trying to produce it, we are trying to use gas through electrical turbines. The pricing of that is yet to be determined because of our inability to produce a more abundant supply of natural gas. All of those issues fit together, and the American public, I hope, will be allowed to focus on that with us as we debate these issues embodied within S. 14. S. 14 is a bill that was written the right way. It was written by the authorizing committee on Energy and Natural Resources, a combination of ideas that have worked their way through the process, that came to that committee to be crafted into legislation in a bipartisan way. Amendments were offered. Some were voted up; some were voted down. Most importantly, the process the American people respect and ask for was allowed to effectively work. The energy bill we had on the floor a year and a half ago was not written by committee, but by a couple of individuals in the majority leader's office. The bill we have on the floor today was in fact crafted by the responsible committee of the Senate. I hope we can debate it thoroughly, amend it, if necessary, and ultimately get it into a conference with the legislation the House has passed so we can put it on our President's desk for his signature as a national energy policy for the country. I have talked about a few provisions of the policy I believe are tremendously important. Let me speak to one other I believe is important as we work our way toward the development of a comprehensive policy. Many of us have been through what is known as the Kyoto debate, a debate on climate change, an argument that the production of greenhouse gases is in fact creating a greenhouse effect that has created global warming. There are some who believe that emphatically. Others say the science simply does not bear that out today, that while our world may be getting warmer, it is not necessarily believed it is the greenhouse gases or the emission of those that is causing it. The obvious reason for that argument is clear. Historically, over the millions and millions of years of our timetable for the world, we have seen this globe get cold, get warm, and go through a variety of changes. There will be some who argue the changes we are experiencing today are in fact a product of that magnitude of geological change. I am one who has argued on the side of science. Others found this to be a rather nifty political idea and have generated the politics of it, arguing that, my goodness, the world was going to come to an end and the ice cap on the Antarctic was going to melt and shorelines were going to move inland hundreds of feet, if all of this ice melted in the world today, and that could all be stopped if we would simply stop emitting the greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels. If we were to do that, because that is what would be required, if we knew in fact our globe was warming and we knew it was warming because of the emission of greenhouse gases, that is something this country would rush to do. However, it would also rush to convince the rest of the world to do it with them and in a way that would find alternative sources of energy. We would want to do that based on the very best science available, to use the modeling that could be produced by the supercomputers to bring about those kinds of judgments. We really would be talking about turning the light switches of our country off, unless we were willing to shift dramatically to new sources of energy in a relatively short time. I am one who believes the science is not yet there to argue those kinds of changes. In fact, the Clean Air Act has produced a much cleaner environment, and we have on board current policies today that are continually reducing the amount of greenhouse gas produced per capita individual in our country as compared with other countries. We are contributing in a major way today to the improvement of the world environment. But we are a big country. We are big in the sense of the use of energy. We are the largest country in the world when it comes to the use of energy, and it is because of our wealth and because of the size of our economy. So when you examine the amount of greenhouse gas produced per capita individual, we still remain high, at the top of the list. There are other countries today who have demonstrated little concern about the emission of greenhouse gas in their building of an economy. China, India, other countries, Third World emerging nations working hard to produce an economy to put their people to work. They have paid little regard to the environment. In fact, in the debate at the Kyoto climate change conference, the interests driving the conference said: We can just exclude developing countries because they can't comply. They are not advanced enough, and we couldn't get them to comply, anyway. Yet they have become major producers of greenhouse gases. If you believe that in fact emissions of greenhouse gases are creating the kind of climate change some would argue is going on, then certainly the developing countries ought to be included. Why should we shut ourselves down and allow other countries to increasingly become polluters, allow them to be extremely competitive in the economic marketplace, when we have denied ourselves that kind of competitiveness because we have driven our cost of production up dramatically by new energy sources? That is all part of a fairly general summary of the debate that has gone on here in the Senate and across the country and the world for the last number of years. I have attended a conference of the parties at The Hague related to climate change. That was the attitude of the rest of the world, that the United States economy was the bad actor producing all of the greenhouse gases, and we should just shut the United States' economy down or we should demand that the United States change its ways dramatically. What they were not saying was: We also will consider making a similar change in our country, as long as our cost of production remains relatively low. The reason they will not say this is that they want their competitiveness in the world economy to rapidly increase compared to that of the United States. That became part of all of that debate. I, along with Senator Byrd and Senator Hagel, some years ago developed a resolution that got 95 votes in the Senate suggesting that this country ought not go it alone when it came to climate change, and it certainly ought not proceed without good science; and we ought to build the systems that produce the science that allow those of us who shape public policy to make decisions based on the best science--I am talking lab science, not political science. The climate change debate has been a good deal about the politics of the environment rather than the reality of the change itself, or what is producing the change and the science involved. This administration has said: Let's err on the side of science. Let's make sure we have an ambitious effort to get where we need to get, relating to climate change. We are not going to ignore it. We are going to be sensitive to it, but we are going to make sure that what we do is done right. It just so happens that the nuclear initiative I have just talked about fits nicely into that equation of beginning to produce more and more of our electrical power from a nonemitting fuel source. The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle concept that I am talking about is, again, another clean technology. So while we are pushing the envelope of technology, we clearly ought to be building the scientific base to be able to make the decision as to how much further our economy and our country ought to go towards zero emissions into the environment in the name of climate change. Those are awfully important issues, and they are some this country cannot deny or sidestep. But until we have the best science available, until we are using our own modeling, based on our own supercomputers, and we are not using the modeling with the Canadian bias, or a German bias, the kind of modeling that is producing the science that we are looking at today because we don't have our own, then shame on us for not developing it, for not using our own science and our own scientists to make sure that the science from which we base our decision is the right science. As I have said, the consequence is to produce an economy in which the American worker is no longer competitive or productive as it relates to other workers around the world. If that becomes the case, we slowly put our economy and our country at a tremendous disadvantage. The great advantage we have always had as a country is the availability of an abundant energy supply. It is from that energy supply, which in most instances costs less than a comparable form anywhere else in the world, that we have built the greatest economy the world has ever seen, that we have put more people to work, that we have generated more wealth, and we have created a standard of living that all of us are proud of, and that we have provided for ourselves and our citizens truly the American dream. Was it all based on energy? It all was based on the availability of energy as a major component of that industrial base, that economic base. It was certainly also based on the free market system and the competitive character of that and the innovation that occurred through that. But along the way, Government effectively used itself and the resources of the American taxpayer to push the technology, lift the horizons of experimentation that, in a way, ultimately brought that to the ground for use by the consuming public and to be generated in the private sector. That is what S. 14, in large part, is about. It is about the grand, new designs of new concepts that deal with large production. It is about the grand, new utilization of wind turbines and photovoltaics, and certainly the type of energy that is extremely clean and can provide a portion of energy to our energy basket. It is about making our current forms of energy even cleaner by advancing the technologies available, to give the tax incentives to effectively use the regulatory device to do so, and also not to deny ourselves the continued production of energy from our public lands and resources, and to do so in clean, environmentally sound ways that we now have the technology to utilize, because we pioneered it. The world uses our technology today to produce clean energy. We are denying ourselves the use of our own talent. This very comprehensive energy bill will advance our cause as a country in the world, and in the area of energy technology dramatically. That which we produce for ourselves is also available to the rest of the world. It is not nor should it ever be ignored that even in China today, as it works to build new energy technologies, it is using the technology that we developed to produce energy for itself. Now we are wanting to push that envelope of technology even further, in a more aggressive approach that is environmentally benign and clean and productive for our general economy. So a good deal of work has gone into the legislation. Now we will work our will on the floor of the Senate with different amendments that compete with some of the concepts I have talked about and, in some instances, would like to deny them altogether. We will vote it, I hope, up or down within the next few weeks. I believe it will pass and we will move it to a conference with the House and then ultimately to the President's desk. All of that happens when the President signs this into law and public policy. I think the Senate and the Congress of the 108th can be proud of the work it has done on this energy bill. We can look forward into the future for generations of Americans and say we have redesigned the foundation, reshaped the context of a national energy strategy for our country. As this policy is implemented, it will allow that continuation of an abundant supply of a variety of forms of energy that in the past, today, and in the future will feed an ever-growing economy that continues to grant the average American citizen access to the American dream. That is what we are about. That is what good public policy ought to be about. I believe S. 14 embodies a great deal of that. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are still in morning business. I note that no other colleagues are yet on the floor. I will speak again in morning business, but only briefly this time, as it relates to the issue before us and the protocol for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the ascendency to that organization of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. As we began to expand NATO a good number of years ago, I had voted against some of the early expansions because I did not think we had yet effectively designed our role in a post-cold-war era and a post-Soviet Union era and about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as it relates to what it would be doing in the future. As we have seen that role adjust and change over the last several years, certainly the activity in the Balkans and the ability of NATO to participate there in bringing stability to that region has played an increasing role. I have also been concerned that as NATO grew, we effectively changed our posture there and, in fact, even reduced some of our presence there. I had the opportunity during the Easter break to travel to Romania. Romania, in a few years, will be eligible for and will make application for entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With the growth and development of the European Union and, of course, NATO itself, it is important, I believe, that we continue to expand its role and reshape its presence on the European Continent. We will have before us Executive Calendar No. 6, Treaty Document 108- 04, bringing these countries in to NATO which is an important expression on the part of this country of support of these countries. They are struggling mightily as they emerge from behind the Iron Curtain, as new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe shaping their own economies, to put their people to work, to assume their role in the European Community. Many of these emerging countries, new democracies, were also very supportive of the coalition of Great Britain, Spain, and the United States in our recent effort in Iraq. They recognize the importance of stability. They also were the subject of a form of dictatorship in communism and control and their disappearance behind the Iron Curtain and within the Soviet Union for over 45 years. They appreciate the right of free people to shape their countries and their economies, probably more so than any other country around the globe today because they are newly freed nations. I think it is important, in dealing with this effectively, as we debate it this afternoon and tomorrow, to understand that it is a role we play in cooperation with the European Community today and we will continue to have a strong role in NATO, but one that I think deserves to be redefined as the new emerging democracies of Europe become members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I am very excited about the opportunity for them. I was extremely excited to see what they are doing in Romania today and the hard work that is going on there to shape a new country, to build an economy, and to get their people back to work and out from under the old government bureaucracies of communism, and to recognize there really is a marketplace and there really is representative government and that free people can be phenomenally inventive, creative, and geniuses when they are free to the market, free to the profit incentive. Romania clearly has that opportunity. I was over there on a different mission than to deal with NATO. I was there on a mission for children. I am the chairman of the Congressional Coalition on the Adoption Institute. As Romania was emerging, we know there were a good number of accusations over the past years, following the dictatorship of Ceausescu and when the world got a chance to see inside Romania, about how they were handling their orphans and children who had no families. I began to work through the Adoption Institute for the ratification of the Hague Treaty which developed an international protocol that all nations we hope will conform to as to how they deal with their children and how they deal with intercountry adoption within a process that makes it transparent, legitimate, and legal so there is no trafficking of children. Romania has been accused of such activity. As a result of that, the President of Romania and their parliament decided to put a moratorium on intercountry adoption for a time. It caught a number of Americans who were in the process of adopting Romanian children midstream in those adoptions. They are working very hard at this moment, if you will, to clean up their act. They have excellent people working now to reform the whole of child care in Romania. We saw great examples of that. They are also working to make sure they are in full compliance with the protocol of the Hague Treaty and to build a transparency into the system and to effectively register the agencies that function in the areas of adoption. In the course of all of that discussion, and in visiting with nearly all of the elected officials of Romania, certainly the president, the prime minister, defense ministers, and others, they recognize all of these issues go hand in glove as they emerge into an environment where they can become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and ultimately a member of the European Union. Of course, for them and for their country, their economy, and their citizenry, this is an ever- important process, an important march and journey that the country of Romania is on. That is certainly true in the broad sense of all of the countries I just mentioned that are now looking for acceptance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is important we speak to that. A good deal more will be said certainly by Senators Warner, Levin, Roberts and others, along with Senator Dodd, as we deal with this issue and vote on this particular Executive Calendar number. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, since we are still in morning business, I will speak a few more moments until another of my colleagues asks for time. Because it is time sensitive, I thought I would talk for a few moments about the issue of double taxation of dividends that is currently before our Finance Committee and certainly is a major component of our President's stimulus package. Some weeks ago, before the Special Committee on Aging that I chair, we looked at this issue as it relates to older Americans. I found it fascinating that 71 percent of all taxable cash dividends are received by Americans age 55 and older. Dividend income benefits older workers and seniors who worked very hard throughout their working life, sacrificed, saved, and invested in stocks, and in their senior years were most assuredly concerned that those stocks were dividend producers. Unfortunately, dividend income is taxed twice--we know that--once at the company level and then again at the individual level. In effect, it certainly punishes older Americans for taking personal responsibility in their lives to save and build a little nest egg as a part of their total retirement. This pie chart demonstrates that very clearly. Dividend penalties are received by more than half of all of our seniors. This pie chart shows that 52 percent of seniors receive taxable dividends. Nine million seniors are age 65 and older, many on fixed incomes, and rely on a little dividend income. The average dividend income for these seniors is over $4,000 a year, and that is very significant to a retired person living on a fixed income. That is one of the reasons our President put this idea forth. But it is only one reason. The economists who we had before the Special Committee on Aging talked about a lot of other issues embodied in this concept. When our President first proposed it, there were a good many who said: Why this? How could this be stimulative to the economy? As those critics began to examine what our President proposed and put it in a computer model to see what kind of stimulative effect it might have, they began to recognize that it might have considerable effects. Economists are now suggesting it would reduce the cost of business investment by 10 to 25 percent. In other words, the cost of capital that businesses require to build plants and create jobs could be reduced by as much as 25 percent. And, in fact, they would be removed from basically a 71-percent net tax bracket in which dividends or profits of corporations find themselves. I find it interesting that we are the country of the free enterprise system, we are the country of big business, in which the rest of the world wants to invest, generating and creating the jobs on which so many of our workers depend--and at the same time we tax our profits from these businesses at nearly 71 percent. We tax them in combination twice, once at the corporate level and once at the individual level. We are now beginning to find increased business investment that would result and have a tremendous stimulative effect on our economy and would boost the technology side of spending in our country. That is one of the very areas that help is so directly needed. Most technology companies depend on purchases made by the industries most likely to pay dividends. It is the growth generating effect of the two in combination that is so important. These industries include manufacturing, banking, insurance, transportation, communications, and other sectors. All of them currently are flat or growing very slowly. The strength of these industries depends on boosting their business investment. If these industries are strong and are buying the new technologies of the country, then our technology side also begins to strengthen. Of course, increased use of technology by workers improves worker productivity. You have to get the marketplace working and you have to get investment back into the market to increase productivity. Productivity is the ultimate source of economic prosperity. While it will tremendously benefit seniors--and these are statistical facts on which we all agree--what we are really talking about is jobs. What the American people are questioning and asking for right now is job creation, and we are playing politics with an awfully important issue that can have the effect of stimulating the economy, bringing investment into the economy, and creating those jobs that the American people are extremely concerned about today. Technology, the application of investment into these fields, ratchets upwards and does exactly what we want it to do, producing higher levels of productivity and driving wages higher for all of our citizens. It is an economic combination that works well. It is interesting that the economic critics are quiet because they have done their modeling and they have seen the positive, job creating effect of ending the double taxation of dividends. It is now the political critics who step forward saying we cannot do this kind of thing. Of course, if one is a critic of the issue and their political advantage requires that somebody ought to fail who has put this issue forward, then denying this economy the ability to grow is certainly in the forefront of their concern. The argument is deficits and spending, that government does not create jobs, it just spends a lot of money. Yes, ending the dividend penalty can have an effect, and I talked earlier this morning about the effect of technology and the application of technology once it is well developed in areas where the public sector cannot go. That ultimately will create jobs when it is applied in the private sector, but certainly the kind of spending we are talking about as it relates to government is not what generates jobs. What will generate jobs and what most of us have come to realize can generate jobs--is an effective economic stimulus package that does not double tax, that does not penalize profit-seeking, and that does allow a reduction in the cost of capital by as much as 10 to 25 percent. In my State of Idaho, employment decreased by 6,000 workers last year, and we are not a big State. Earlier this year, Micron, one of my larger employers, announced a plan to lay off 1,000 people. Zilog, a California company employing a number of people, closed its doors. The dividend taxation is, in part, something that can change this equation effectively and, I think, responsibly. I hope the Finance Committee can bring a stimulus package to the floor that has the elimination of double taxation as a centerpiece to the total package that we will be voting on here in the next couple of weeks. I see my colleague, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from Utah, is now on the floor. I will yield the floor so he has adequate time to speak. I thank my colleagues for listening.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank my colleague.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, are we in morning business at this time?

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia, who is currently on the floor, for being willing to yield for a few moments while I discuss the bill that is currently before the Senate. I thank him for that. This morning Senator Domenici, chairman of our Energy and Natural Resources Committee, introduced S. 14. You can tell by the size of this legislation that it is, in fact, no ordinary bill. Since the spring of 2001 when the President issued his plan for a national energy policy, I and a good number of my colleagues, including the Presiding Officer at this moment, began to work on legislation to implement the recommendations of our President's energy policy. But as important as that is, we tried to bring together in a bipartisan way all of the issues that we have been looking at for a good number of years that reflect the absence of a comprehensive national energy policy for our country. Democrats and Republicans alike had begun to recognize--as the numbers moved to greater dependency on foreign oil, as our economy began to grow and our overall surpluses that were built into our electrical system in the decades of the sixties and the seventies were being used up--that something had to be done. While conservation was important, while new technologies were important, we simply were not producing more energy, but we were consuming large amounts of energy. Along comes the high-tech revolution. That was to be a revolution in which less energy would be used, and quite the opposite happened. The large computer farms that fed the networks of the new electronic revolution, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence used a lot of energy, used high-quality energy. Do I have to enumerate what happened in California a few years ago, the painful problems it went through with brownouts and blackouts, not because somebody was gaming the system, but because there was simply no way to produce the energy necessary to feed the demand system of that supply? Major California utilities were moving toward bankruptcy under a new deregulated energy policy, and our western energy markets that the Presiding Officer and I are in, such as the State of Idaho and the greater Pacific Northwest, recognized that California was draining us of energy, our energy costs were beginning to move up at an unprecedented rate, and the supply within the greater system simply was not there, or the system did not have the capacity to handle it if, in fact, the supply was there. The anxiety of choking the rest of our Nation off from energy caused shock waves and panic across the country in a way we had not seen before. I recall Senators who normally shun even the thought of price caps in a market system coming to the floor and advocating such misguided measures. We saw the Governor of California, Gray Davis, in somewhat of a panic entering into long-term contracts for power at rates that he was proud of at the time, only to now come begging the federal government to break those contracts as unfair when the market changed. A truer description of those contracts might suggest that it was unwise to enter into them, but it was not unfair at that moment. That was the market. The market was reacting to the demand, or the lack thereof. This was just a little bit over 2 years ago, not 30 years ago, not a decade ago, just a little over 2 years ago. It was not just a fluke. Yes, the Enron episode saw the potential of people gaming a system that was badly broken, that was not feeding the market in a way the market wanted to be fed and taking an opportunity that existed. But to suggest it was a manufactured energy crisis is absolute nonsense. The marketplace being what it is, if the market is starved for the resource it demands, then the price moves up until someone cannot afford to buy and only those who can afford to buy will buy. That is the nature of the marketplace. All of those facts were true, and then along came September 11, and our country went through another shock, and we began to look at ourselves and our abilities as a country. Today we have before us a comprehensive piece of legislation that has been literally a year or two in the making and several iterations and with several debates on the floor, but it is a bill that was written in the traditional way that good public policy is crafted, not in the back room of the office of the majority leader of the day when he denied the committee its ability to function a year or two ago, but it was crafted in the open light of day, in a full markup session of an authorizing committee with Democrats and Republicans agreeing and disagreeing in the structuring of this legislation. What we have before us is what I believe to be a comprehensive bill to address a crisis that is real and true in our country, and we are only getting a slight reprieve in a recessionary economy because demand for the resource is down, and we are all hoping we can return to the growth years of the mid-nineties. If we do, there is the distinct possibility that the brownouts, the blackouts, and the high prices will return. Even in their absence, we are already beginning to see shock waves in the marketplace because we have denied the market the right to produce at a time when we are demanding even more. Energy Secretary Abraham stated a year and a half ago that America faced a major energy supply crisis. What he said is a reflection of the market. I say that because natural gas prices, interestingly enough, that reached almost $100 per million cubic feet during the period of the California crisis eventually dropped to more acceptable levels only to start creeping up again to the price of $19 per million cubic feet in February of this year. We have seen phenomenal fluctuation in the market, but yet we are seeing peaks now in that gas market because of a limited supply. The Clinton Administration encouraged everybody to burn gas; not only to use it for space heating but also to use it for electrical generation, even when the experts in the market said that ought not to be done. Really, a poor use for natural gas is to put it in a turbine to create new energy when it ought to be used exclusively for space heat and other forms of heat creation. But because we had denied other forms of energy the ability to generate, that was the one available and everybody rushed to it, and we saw these phenomenal peaks in the market. While we were doing that, we were denying the right to explore and develop gas reserves. In so doing, we created the ups and downs in that market. The natural gas market is volatile and will continue to be into the future. That is the reality of not only bad policy but bad direction of a use of a natural resource and denying the marketplace the right to adjust accordingly. I will now talk about gas and electric transmission and infrastructure. If we were to meet the gas demand to produce electricity through gas turbine generation, we would have to construct over 38,000 miles of gas transmission pipeline to get the gas to market. This bill recognizes the need for that and the need to incentivize that kind of major construction across our country; not only that, but be able to gain access to the lands on which the pipes must be laid. Of course, that has remained an issue, as we have seen government policy deny the right to do that. Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, for example, produces about 8 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, and that is approximately 13 percent of America's daily consumption demand. But that gas is not even available in the market today. Why? Well, it is up in Alaska. There is no easy economic way to deliver it down to the lower 48 so it is simply pumped back into the ground. This bill recognizes it. This bill incentivizes the building of a major gas line across Alaska down through Canada to pick up the Canadian supply and to bring it into the lower 48, to meet the reality of demand, to meet the reality of the potential of a new hydrogen market for transportation that this President and others are talking about, but most importantly to recognize this Nation has phenomenal capacity to produce and to supply if we will simply provide the right incentives, instead of deny and restrict, for whatever reason, as we have over the last several decades access to the land for the purpose of production or access to the land for the purpose of laying the necessary pipelines to supply. Over the next 20 years, the Department of Energy estimates electrical demand in the United States will increase 45 percent, based on current growth projections. One of the ways to meet that demand is to bring the gas from Canada to fuel the gas turbines to generate the electricity in a clean and appropriate way, even though I have argued that may be one of the least effective ways to use natural gas for the purposes it was intended. Consumers are already feeling the impact of a transmission system that is being stressed by demand. Transmission bottlenecks contributed greatly to the blackouts in California, to price spikes in New York, in which the cost to consumers was estimated to be $100 million, simply because somebody denied the right to build a transmission line to access the appropriate systems. The Department of Energy has estimated it will need to construct over the next several years an additional 255,000 miles of distribution line at an estimated cost of $120 billion to $150 billion to ensure our electrical system remains the most reliable in the world. It is a huge investment, but the marketplace is ready to do it. All we have to do is guide it and direct it, and the marketplace will adjust. The consumer is willing to pay and the provider is willing to produce, supply, and build the necessary lines. What we have done is say, no, it cannot be done here, and it will not be done there, and it should not be done over there. We are putting at risk the most reliable electrical system in the world. How many of us have traveled to Third World countries where you can stay in a beautiful hotel and you think you are in a four-star hotel, but the power goes out consistently, or the lights dim consistently, or there is no e-mail or there is no Internet, tools we have come to depend and rely on. When we walk to the wall today and flip the switch, the light comes on, and it consistently comes on. That is not always true in Third World nations, and the reason is they do not have the transmission or the generation system to ensure reliability. They are striving to build them today and they know they have to have them if they are going to compete as an economy in this world and be competitive with us. The supply and availability of energy to our economy and to our working men and women has made us the great Nation we are, and it will continue to allow us to be if we will not deny the marketplace the right to produce and the consumer the right of access. This legislation understands that and this legislation is working to resolve that. The State of my colleague, West Virginia, is a great producer of coal. Coal has historically been America's number one source of affordable electricity. It currently powers half of America's generators, and at today's recovery rates our Nation has enough coal to keep those plants running for 250 years. With rising demand, tight gas and oil supply, and an aging power infrastructure, it would be foolish to abandon our abundant coal resources. So what do we need to meet our clean air standards? We need cleaner burning efficiencies from our coal. We need the technology that assures the clean bed of the coal-fired facility so we can use this abundant resource and supply the system that is already there and assure that as we grow other areas for producing electricity, that coal can grow right along with it. The men and women who work in the coal fields and who live in the States that make their economy from coal production continue to recognize that. This bill recognizes it. We do not have coal in Idaho, but we have something else that is just as valuable to the electric grid, and that is hydropower. It is one of Idaho's greatest energy resources. It is one of the Pacific Northwest's greatest energy resources. It makes up about 10 percent of the total supply of electricity in this country. Yet, over the last decade we have made it nearly impossible to relicense a hydro facility on a river. For all of the environmental reasons that almost anyone can imagine, the argument is that particular impoundment should not have been put there in the first place, or it ought to be dramatically modified to fit the environmental desires and needs of today, even at the cost of bringing its production capability down. I recognize there are very real environmental needs and that we are working hard to return our rivers to a more natural state. At the same time, we can't just walk away from an abundant, clean form of energy that is renewable. No, we cannot. Nor should we. The relicensing process we are dealing with needs to be fixed. Certainly, the hydro energy of today is clean. It is emission free. It is renewable. It meets all of those standards and, as a result of that, I and others have worked hard over the last 5 years to make sense out of a process that has become irrational. It can take as much as 2, 3 and 5 years' worth of bureaucratic red tape and tens of millions of dollars just to relicense, let alone retrofit and change the character of the generating facility for the purpose of making it more environmentally benign. During the next 15 years, over half of all of the non-Federal hydro capacity, over 30,000 megawatts of power, enough to serve 15 million homes, must undergo the relicensing process. That includes about 296 dams in over 39 States. It is not just an Idaho or Oregon or Washington or California or Montana problem. It is an issue for the country. It is an issue for the Greater Colorado River system. It is an issue for the country. These great facilities ought to be relicensed and, where necessary, retrofitting them to make them more environmentally benign. But the process ought to be flexible. Clearly the operation of these facilities ought to be flexible to allow optimum power production and to bring that into conformity with the necessary environmental needs of that particular ecosystem and that particular river. We have grown to enjoy our water impoundments in the arid West. While we may call them reservoirs, some view them as high-quality recreation areas and high-quality fisheries, most assuredly, abundant power producing facilities. As was true over 80 years ago when Congress passed Part 1 of the Federal Power Act, what we are striving for in this bill is to create the balance necessary to assure that all of those 296 projects, where necessary, and where they fit, can continue to operate and operate in a productive fashion for the sake of our country. Let me talk about a couple of other items that are important. One is nuclear. For 20 years someone has said to this country that electrical generation by nuclear energy or nuclear fission was wrong, that it was dangerous. Yet the nuclear facilities we have, have gone on operating uninterruptedly. They have been retrofitted and modernized. They have continued to produce. They make up nearly 20 percent of the total electrical base of our country. During the last period of high electrical prices, they became the least cost economic producers. They were the base load that fueled the country, that assured that we would have the high-quality power we have. All of a sudden there is a new respect for electrical energy produced by nuclear power facilities. We had a problem with the waste stream, the fuel rods that came out of the reactors, how they got handled, how they were stored, and did they get reused. We debated for nearly a decade and we assessed, by a tax, the ratepayers of those utilities that were producing with nuclear, a tax to fund a waste system, a waste management system. Just a year ago, in the Senate we finally confirmed part of the process of licensing a facility out in Nevada known as Yucca Mountain for the storage of high-level waste. The Daschle-Bingaman bill we debated this last year was a bill that called for much investment in research and development in our Nation's energy solutions but dealt very little in this area. So much of the research done over the last several years to get us to a point where we could begin to consider as a nation bringing more nuclear energy back into production has been at work, and it has been at work in a laboratory in Idaho, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. In this bill, for the first time, we speak about a new generation of nuclear generation--we call it generation 4--passive reactor systems, much safer, even than those that have been extraordinarily safe through the decades. And at a time when we agree, and I hope collectively as a nation, that we are handling the waste stream and managing it in the appropriate fashion, if we really want abundant clean air in the growth rate of that, 45 percent over decades to come, an ever increasing portion of our electrical production needs to come from nuclear generation. We think it is now time for this country to explore the new research and development, the new reactor designs that are safer, cleaner, in the sense of their engineering, in the sense of their capacity to deal with problems that might occur, although our history with nuclear reactors in this country has been one of safeness, but one of expert management. Why? Because this Government, this Senate, years ago, created a Nuclear Regulatory Commission and managed it in a comprehensive and sensible way. There are a good many other issues about which I can talk. My colleague from West Virginia and I teamed up some years ago, along with our colleague from Nebraska, to say that if there was going to be climate change legislation that dealt with the emission of greenhouse gases, that we and the rest of the world must come together to do it. Our country should not penalize its economy or its industries by attempting to march down that road alone. We could accomplish it and not destroy our economy if we would work innovatively to bring on the new technologies to the marketplace of power in a way that made sense. That is what this bill, S. 14, is all about. It is all about new technologies. It is all about producing an abundance of energy for our Nation that is clean and ever increasingly cleaner than the past. It is about clean air. It is about a recognition that if there is a change in our climate, that is a product of ever-increasing greenhouse gases in the world, we want to do our part. But we are not going to deny ourselves and our economy and our workforce the ability to produce by simply shutting down; that we are smart enough through our technology and utilization of other forms of resources that we can generate an abundance of power and still be pragmatic and work through our problems with climate change. Our country needs a national energy policy. It needs to get back into the business of producing energy. It needs to fill the market basket of energy, full of all types of energy. Wind? Yes. In this bill and its companion tax bill we incentivize wind farmers and the use of the new turbines in the production of electrical power through wind. What about photovoltaics or the sun? We incentivize that. We have not, through this legislation, denied any element of the marketplace or any area of technology access to the production of electrical energy or the supply of energy for our country. Our country and our economy runs on energy. Every moment of the day we use more energy on a per capita basis than any other nation in the world. It is not by accident that we are the richest nation in the world. I say that with great pride. We have worked hard over the years. We have relied on the free market system. We have relied on a government that has been reasonable and moderate in its regulations and balanced in how it applies those regulations to all forms of the producing entities of our economy. And we have always based that on an adequate and abundant and a relatively inexpensive supply of energy. When the gas prices go up 10 or 12 cents a gallon at the pump, that is several dollars, for every time the car is filled up, that is spent on energy and denied to the breakfast table of the family or to the disposable income of the family or to the college trust fund of the family or any of the things for which the American family wants to use their collective resources. We ought to work constantly as a government and as a Senate to make sure those kinds of spikes or run-ups in price do not happen, whether it is at the pump or at the electrical meter or anywhere else in our society. We can do that with the passage of this legislation by the recognition that government can play a role in the assistance of the production of an abundant supply of energy to our country. S. 14 just has not happened. S. 14 is a demand of the marketplace of our country saying: Supply us with an abundant supply of energy, and we will produce for you and for generations to come untold wealth and the American dream. I am proud of that. I am proud of our history. I trust this Senate, over the course of the next several weeks in debating this legislation, will in the end have one important goal in mind: That is to pass a national energy policy for our country that recognizes now and in the future that the basis of this great country's strength and its wealth is the ability to consume clean, high-quality energy at reasonable prices. That is what S. 14 is all about. That is why we have worked as hard as we have, and I applaud Senator Domenici for his effort in the production of this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Johnson in introducing the Commodity Distribution Act of 2003. Children are our future. I strongly believe each child deserves at least one warm, nutritious meal every day. I stand before you today with a new bill that will restore $500 million to the School Lunch Program. The positive impacts of this program are endless. Children should not have to pay the price of not having enough money for food. Originally enacted in 1946, the school launch program set goals to improve children's nutrition, increase low-income children's access to nutritious meals, and to help support the agricultural industry. A family of four has to have an income at or below 130 percent of the Federal poverty level to qualify for a free lunch. The income for these families is tragically low. Congress has a role in providing these children with assistance their families cannot provide. In 1999, Congress enacted the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. This legislation amended the School Lunch Act to require the United States Department of Agriculture to count the value of bonus commodities when it determines the total amount of commodity assistance provided to schools. This change continues to provide a $500 million budget cut for the school lunch program over its 9-year projection. In 2001, the school lunch program comprised over 90 percent of schools, with some 99,000 public and private schools enrolling approximately 50 million children. Today over 28 million children receive free or low-cost lunches every school day. Each State and millions of children are affected. This program provides a basic requirement of food for needy children. The 2002 Farm Bill passed almost a full year ago included language that extended this authorization language until the end of this fiscal year. Without Congressional action, $50 million will be cut from the food budget for school districts. This legislation would further extend this support through 2007, when the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch act is scheduled for reauthorization. It is my belief that no child should be without food. The Commodity Distribution Act of 2003 would ensure that schools receive the full value of entitlement commodity assistance, and allow the School Lunch Program to continue to meet its dual purpose of supporting American agriculture when it needs it most while providing nutritious food to schools across the country. I urge members to support this bill, support children, and support our future.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator Johnson in introducing the Commodity Distribution Act of 2003. Children are our future. I strongly believe each child deserves at least one warm, nutritious meal every day. I stand before you today with a new bill that will restore $500 million to the School Lunch Program. The positive impacts of this program are endless. Children should not have to pay the price of not having enough money for food. Originally enacted in 1946, the school launch program set goals to improve children's nutrition, increase low-income children's access to nutritious meals, and to help support the agricultural industry. A family of four has to have an income at or below 130 percent of the Federal poverty level to qualify for a free lunch. The income for these families is tragically low. Congress has a role in providing these children with assistance their families cannot provide. In 1999, Congress enacted the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. This legislation amended the School Lunch Act to require the United States Department of Agriculture to count the value of bonus commodities when it determines the total amount of commodity assistance provided to schools. This change continues to provide a $500 million budget cut for the school lunch program over its 9-year projection. In 2001, the school lunch program comprised over 90 percent of schools, with some 99,000 public and private schools enrolling approximately 50 million children. Today over 28 million children receive free or low-cost lunches every school day. Each State and millions of children are affected. This program provides a basic requirement of food for needy children. The 2002 Farm Bill passed almost a full year ago included language that extended this authorization language until the end of this fiscal year. Without Congressional action, $50 million will be cut from the food budget for school districts. This legislation would further extend this support through 2007, when the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch act is scheduled for reauthorization. It is my belief that no child should be without food. The Commodity Distribution Act of 2003 would ensure that schools receive the full value of entitlement commodity assistance, and allow the School Lunch Program to continue to meet its dual purpose of supporting American agriculture when it needs it most while providing nutritious food to schools across the country. I urge members to support this bill, support children, and support our future.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President I rise to introduce legislation that will remove any ambiguity as to the intent of the Central Idaho Wilderness Act of 1980 to provide for continuation of the historical use of outfitter hunting camps on the Salmon River. In short, these lodges were established well before the river designation, have been managed as a part of the river designation for 23 years and allow users, in particular the elderly and the physically challenged, to have access to and enjoy the spirit of this wild area. Their rustic nature upholds the ideals envisioned by Congress, and they are used in accordance with all provisions of the law. I am mystified as to why someone would want to eliminate this historical use. However, that is what some extreme wilderness organizations would like to do. They want the Forest Service and the Courts to ignore the intent of Congress in establishing the Central Idaho Wilderness Act and re-establish a pristine area which blocks access to many current users. In the Findings Section of the Central Idaho Wilderness Act, it is clearly stated that ``protection can be provided--to the Salmon River-- without conflicting with established uses.'' It is my understanding that a great deal of time and effort was put into crafting this designation so that established and historic uses of the area would be maintained while preserving one of our Nation's treasures--the River of No Return. In reading the voluminous hearing record and report language, I found references to ``lodges,'' ``hunting lodges,'' ``outfitters lodges,'' and ``commercial services may be performed'' throughout the record. It is clear to me that Senator Church, of Idaho, the main proponent of the legislation, intended for these lodges to remain. The report language specifically states, ``We favor administration of the main Salmon River under the provisions of the Wild and Scenic River Act so as to permit continuation, as appropriate, of motorized travel on the river and outfitter and camping facilities.'' However, I believe the record shows Senator McClure of Idaho was more of a prophet when he stated, ``Whether it is this year, next year, or 5 years from now, or 10 years from now, some forest administrator in the area is going to say it would be a lot more convenient for us to manage that problem if we did not have to deal with that guy that is there. . . . We all know that it was intended for the wild and scenic river classification as attached to that river, that the existing use was going to be permitted to continue; and then, all of a sudden, we find out that that is now unacceptable.'' Senator McClure is off by only 20 years and it is not a forest administrator, but an extreme wilderness organization that is seeking the elimination of these well established lodges. This legislation clarifies that these three specific lodges are an established and historical use in the Central Idaho Wilderness Act and should remain a part of the legacy of this great river. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President I rise to introduce legislation that will remove any ambiguity as to the intent of the Central Idaho Wilderness Act of 1980 to provide for continuation of the historical use of outfitter hunting camps on the Salmon River. In short, these lodges were established well before the river designation, have been managed as a part of the river designation for 23 years and allow users, in particular the elderly and the physically challenged, to have access to and enjoy the spirit of this wild area. Their rustic nature upholds the ideals envisioned by Congress, and they are used in accordance with all provisions of the law. I am mystified as to why someone would want to eliminate this historical use. However, that is what some extreme wilderness organizations would like to do. They want the Forest Service and the Courts to ignore the intent of Congress in establishing the Central Idaho Wilderness Act and re-establish a pristine area which blocks access to many current users. In the Findings Section of the Central Idaho Wilderness Act, it is clearly stated that ``protection can be provided--to the Salmon River-- without conflicting with established uses.'' It is my understanding that a great deal of time and effort was put into crafting this designation so that established and historic uses of the area would be maintained while preserving one of our Nation's treasures--the River of No Return. In reading the voluminous hearing record and report language, I found references to ``lodges,'' ``hunting lodges,'' ``outfitters lodges,'' and ``commercial services may be performed'' throughout the record. It is clear to me that Senator Church, of Idaho, the main proponent of the legislation, intended for these lodges to remain. The report language specifically states, ``We favor administration of the main Salmon River under the provisions of the Wild and Scenic River Act so as to permit continuation, as appropriate, of motorized travel on the river and outfitter and camping facilities.'' However, I believe the record shows Senator McClure of Idaho was more of a prophet when he stated, ``Whether it is this year, next year, or 5 years from now, or 10 years from now, some forest administrator in the area is going to say it would be a lot more convenient for us to manage that problem if we did not have to deal with that guy that is there. . . . We all know that it was intended for the wild and scenic river classification as attached to that river, that the existing use was going to be permitted to continue; and then, all of a sudden, we find out that that is now unacceptable.'' Senator McClure is off by only 20 years and it is not a forest administrator, but an extreme wilderness organization that is seeking the elimination of these well established lodges. This legislation clarifies that these three specific lodges are an established and historical use in the Central Idaho Wilderness Act and should remain a part of the legacy of this great river. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his amendment. I think it improves the legislation substantially in the context of what it is. This bill is not what it was. The CARE Act has all of the right reasons for passing the Congress--faith-based organizations gaining the benefit to serve people in a broader sense. We have gone beyond that now. Now we are talking about providing an opportunity for charities and conservation groups to buy private land, or acquire private land, and, for the sale of that land, to gain a benefit. In public land States such as mine, where private land is, and it is the single tax base of counties and local entities of government, as we deplete that land, for whatever reason, we deplete the ability of counties to provide for themselves and their citizens. I am struggling with this bill in the final analysis because of that. I do not oppose, obviously, the intent of CARE and the intent of rewarding and extending for faith-based organizations their ability to serve our country and its citizens. I thank my colleague for his amendment. I hope we will not table it. I think it clearly helps improve the legislation overall.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield for a minute?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. No more than 5 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in support of S. 762, but in doing so, I have been seated here for the last few minutes listening to the senior Senator from Arizona. I must tell you, what he speaks about in relation to this appropriations bill makes a good deal of sense. I think all of us are looking at debt and deficit at this moment and recognizing the tremendous importance of supporting our men and women in uniform and our President's request for supplemental spending for the operations in Iraq, knowing full well we will fully fund all they need in that area. We also recognize this may well be a time for some belt tightening. We are creative around here as it relates to our ability to associate certain activities in our State with other activities in a national sense, to build a slightly different image or character of them. I think we need, at this point in time, to be much more careful than we have been in the past, and deal with our debt and our deficit and recognize that money is very tight, and that we are struggling at this moment as a Senate, as a Congress, working with our President, to do a variety of things that, in the near future, are going to be very critical--not only the operations ongoing in Iraq but the economy itself, and being able to build a stimulus package for this economy that gets it rolling, gets investment back into the marketplace, and builds job opportunities for the men and women in America who are currently out of work. It is certainly true in my home State. It is true across the Nation at this moment. Our economy is flat. We struggled mightily to put a budget resolution out. That budget resolution is now working its will with the House in a conference to try to resolve our differences, to set the spending trend and limits for the coming fiscal year, and, as importantly, to build a stimulus package to get this economy moving. This is not a time for extra spending. This is not a time for that extraordinary opportunity, if you will, that clearly has value, certainly in the minds of the Senator and the home State that he or she represents but in the whole of things may not be as important in this moment in time as is funding defense, funding our war effort, making sure we hold our spending down so the deficit does not become unmanageable, getting this economy turned on, and getting the men and women of America back to work. That is really what we all ought to be about at this moment. Certainly this supplemental appropriations bill ought to address just that. I must tell you, there is a part of this bill I am struggling with: $3.5 billion to benefit the airline industry. I do not question the value of the airline industry. I do question whether it has reorganized, restructured, asked its employees, asked its executives, asked its pilots to reshape their salaries to get them in line with other industries in our country, and, as a result of that, get their act back together instead of asking the American taxpayers to continually bail them out. I do not, in any way, underestimate the value of the flow of commerce and industry in this country, of tourism and recreation, and business men and women flying around our country, and certainly the average person who just wishes to travel for whatever purpose. I understand the importance of the airline industry. I will vote for this legislation, but I am struggling mightily at this moment in an industry that just has not faced the reality of the day, the reality of years and years of building a commitment to its employees that it may now not well be able to finance and, therefore, to ask the American taxpayer to bail them out in absence of significant reform. Some airlines are doing that. Some have already announced major cutbacks, major adjustments in salary, and they are struggling to hang on. Others have not done so. I hope they will follow suit. We have put some provisions in the legislation that I trust will allow for that. Lastly, let me say, because I have not had the opportunity in the last several days--busy in briefings on the war, busy in committees--to come to the floor and, as one of Idaho's Senators, and 1 of 100 Senators here, tell the men and women in uniform who are currently in harm's way in Iraq how proud I am of them, how proud I am of their leadership and the tremendous work they are doing there on behalf of human freedom, on behalf of the civilian population of Iraq, who for decades have only known the iron fist, the bullet, or the poison of a dictator who has brought that country to phenomenal despair--a country that has lost almost a quarter of a million people in the last decade through starvation or from fleeing their homeland just for the sake of their families and themselves and their well-being. We are there for a purpose. Yes, it is self-serving in the sense of the stability of our country and the wiping out of terrorism around the world and those who might feed it and those who might cause it to flourish, but it says something about this great country when we are willing to put ourselves, our men and women and our resources, at risk to save others, to free others, to provide them with a better opportunity. That is what we are doing in the nation of Iraq at this moment. The war, on the whole, goes well, and I am extremely proud of those who execute it and those brave souls who stand in harm's way on behalf of our country and on behalf of the citizens of Iraq. The supplemental appropriations is about that. And it should be about that and not about a lot of other things that can appropriately come before the Appropriations Committee, on which I serve, and/or the authorizing committees that should be setting the necessary budgets, holding the necessary hearings as it relates to how the public resources of this country get allocated. So I trust that my colleagues will review this critically, can, in the whole, support S. 762, and recognize its importance as we fight our deficits, work to turn on an economy, work to put the men and women of America back to work, and at the same time assure those who stand in harm's way in Iraq at this very moment that they have the support of a country, an appreciative country, and they have the resources of this country to assure them the material necessary to not only execute their mission but to keep them safe. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 479

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time under the quorum call be divided equally.