Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am sorry that I have to do this, but for the proceedings we are now under, and the fact we have dealt with this issue before--my colleague and I agree on much of what he has just said, but I do believe the way he now attempts to address this issue does not fit where we want to go or where the Senate has acted and the House has acted. Therefore, I object.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation, on behalf of myself and my fellow Idaho Senator, Mike Crapo, creating a new Federal judgeship for the State of Idaho. This is a matter of great urgency to the citizens of Idaho, and our bill is aimed at heading off a looming crisis for the Federal bench in our State. Idaho has two Federal district judgeships, created in 1890 and 1954. It is one of only three States in the Union with two Federal District judgeships. Because of he State's sheer size, its extraordinary increase in population, and tremendous growth in caseload over nearly five decades, the current situation is becoming increasingly unworkable. For that reason, Senator Crapo and I are seeking an additional judgeship to ensure that there are adequate resources for the administration if justice in our State. I am gratified to note that we have the strong support of Idaho's sitting Federal judges in this effort. Let me take a moment to explain my State's problem in greater detail. Idaho has three distinct and widely distant geographical areas: the Southeast, the Southwest, and the North. A district judge must travel up to 450 miles between division offices. This distance is greater than that traveled in other rural district courts, including those Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, or eastern Washington. In fact, only a district judge in Alaska has a greater distance to travel, when comparing these rural district courts. The sheer size of Idaho, the geographical barriers, and the distribution of population make it a time-consuming, expensive and physically draining process for two judges to serve the entire State. As our current Chief District Judge B. Lynn Winmill has pointed out, if there is a trial in southwest Idaho and a trial in southeast Idaho, ``there is no district judge to serve the needs of northern Idaho.'' In addition, as Judge Winmill has stated, the ``mountainous terrain and two-land highway system in northern Idaho make [that] area particularly difficult to serve.'' Some Federal districts have the advantage of being able to call upon senior judges to help out by taking half-caseloads. Idaho has no senior judges and therefore does not have the flexibility that other districts have in relation to managing cases. Consequently, for example, when district Judge Edward J. Lodge was involved in a 6-month trial on a complex matter, Idaho was forced to request that the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council authorize the use of judges from the Eastern District of Washington. These judges assisted our district by handling close to 50 cases in the last year. While this action may have eased Idaho's crisis temporarily, it cannot reasonably be considered an acceptable permanent solution to borrow judges from another state and district. The population of Idaho has increased 28.5 percent in the past decade, giving Idaho the third fastest-growing population in the country. In the past year alone, Idaho was the fifth fastest-growing State in the Nation. Population growth is traditionally a controlling factor in increasing a district's judgeships, and yet Idaho has not gained a judge in nearly half a century. The District of Idaho's caseload continues to grow. During the 12- month period ending September 30, 2000, the District of Idaho's civil filings increased 26.9 percent, ranking second in the country in the percentage increase. Our district also ranks 25th in the Nation in the number of trials completed. The gap between the number of new civil filings and the number completed is spreading ever wider, and is already a broad chasm into which too many cases are already dropping. There are currently 23 assistant U.S. attorneys in Idaho, which is more than Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern Washington. With filings for the period ending September 30, 2000 weighted at 447 cases per judge, this number exceeds the 430 which the Judicial Conference uses to indicate the need for additional judgeships. Combining this excess number of cases with the travel distances in Idaho makes the caseload even more burdensome for Idaho's two judges. Additionally, according to Idaho's new U.S. Attorney Tom Moss, there has been an increase in criminal cases initiated, and he is expecting the ``caseloads to increase significantly,'' especially in Idaho's five Indian reservations. Although this bill is being introduced late in the year, the effort to secure an additional judgeship has been underway for many months. We have had member-to-member and staff-to-staff discussions with the Senate Judiciary Committee about including an additional judgeship for Idaho in any legislation that the committee considers, creating new judgeships. Indeed, Idaho's chief district judge even traveled to Washington, DC, to visit personally with members of the committee and make the case for a new Idaho district judgeship. I greatly appreciate the advice that we have received in this effort from Chairman Leahy, Senator Hatch, and their staff, as well as other Judiciary Committee members, and it is because they suggested it that we are taking the step of filing this very simple bill, to put the issue formally before the Judiciary Committee and the Senate. There should not be a waiting list for people to obtain justice in our courts, but there is in Idaho. This will continue to be the case until relief arrives in the form of a third judge. I hope the Senate will support this measure and protect the interests of justice in the State of Idaho.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation, on behalf of myself and my fellow Idaho Senator, Mike Crapo, creating a new Federal judgeship for the State of Idaho. This is a matter of great urgency to the citizens of Idaho, and our bill is aimed at heading off a looming crisis for the Federal bench in our State. Idaho has two Federal district judgeships, created in 1890 and 1954. It is one of only three States in the Union with two Federal District judgeships. Because of he State's sheer size, its extraordinary increase in population, and tremendous growth in caseload over nearly five decades, the current situation is becoming increasingly unworkable. For that reason, Senator Crapo and I are seeking an additional judgeship to ensure that there are adequate resources for the administration if justice in our State. I am gratified to note that we have the strong support of Idaho's sitting Federal judges in this effort. Let me take a moment to explain my State's problem in greater detail. Idaho has three distinct and widely distant geographical areas: the Southeast, the Southwest, and the North. A district judge must travel up to 450 miles between division offices. This distance is greater than that traveled in other rural district courts, including those Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, or eastern Washington. In fact, only a district judge in Alaska has a greater distance to travel, when comparing these rural district courts. The sheer size of Idaho, the geographical barriers, and the distribution of population make it a time-consuming, expensive and physically draining process for two judges to serve the entire State. As our current Chief District Judge B. Lynn Winmill has pointed out, if there is a trial in southwest Idaho and a trial in southeast Idaho, ``there is no district judge to serve the needs of northern Idaho.'' In addition, as Judge Winmill has stated, the ``mountainous terrain and two-land highway system in northern Idaho make [that] area particularly difficult to serve.'' Some Federal districts have the advantage of being able to call upon senior judges to help out by taking half-caseloads. Idaho has no senior judges and therefore does not have the flexibility that other districts have in relation to managing cases. Consequently, for example, when district Judge Edward J. Lodge was involved in a 6-month trial on a complex matter, Idaho was forced to request that the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council authorize the use of judges from the Eastern District of Washington. These judges assisted our district by handling close to 50 cases in the last year. While this action may have eased Idaho's crisis temporarily, it cannot reasonably be considered an acceptable permanent solution to borrow judges from another state and district. The population of Idaho has increased 28.5 percent in the past decade, giving Idaho the third fastest-growing population in the country. In the past year alone, Idaho was the fifth fastest-growing State in the Nation. Population growth is traditionally a controlling factor in increasing a district's judgeships, and yet Idaho has not gained a judge in nearly half a century. The District of Idaho's caseload continues to grow. During the 12- month period ending September 30, 2000, the District of Idaho's civil filings increased 26.9 percent, ranking second in the country in the percentage increase. Our district also ranks 25th in the Nation in the number of trials completed. The gap between the number of new civil filings and the number completed is spreading ever wider, and is already a broad chasm into which too many cases are already dropping. There are currently 23 assistant U.S. attorneys in Idaho, which is more than Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern Washington. With filings for the period ending September 30, 2000 weighted at 447 cases per judge, this number exceeds the 430 which the Judicial Conference uses to indicate the need for additional judgeships. Combining this excess number of cases with the travel distances in Idaho makes the caseload even more burdensome for Idaho's two judges. Additionally, according to Idaho's new U.S. Attorney Tom Moss, there has been an increase in criminal cases initiated, and he is expecting the ``caseloads to increase significantly,'' especially in Idaho's five Indian reservations. Although this bill is being introduced late in the year, the effort to secure an additional judgeship has been underway for many months. We have had member-to-member and staff-to-staff discussions with the Senate Judiciary Committee about including an additional judgeship for Idaho in any legislation that the committee considers, creating new judgeships. Indeed, Idaho's chief district judge even traveled to Washington, DC, to visit personally with members of the committee and make the case for a new Idaho district judgeship. I greatly appreciate the advice that we have received in this effort from Chairman Leahy, Senator Hatch, and their staff, as well as other Judiciary Committee members, and it is because they suggested it that we are taking the step of filing this very simple bill, to put the issue formally before the Judiciary Committee and the Senate. There should not be a waiting list for people to obtain justice in our courts, but there is in Idaho. This will continue to be the case until relief arrives in the form of a third judge. I hope the Senate will support this measure and protect the interests of justice in the State of Idaho.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the ranking member of the Energy Committee, the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski, for allowing me this time on the floor. First, I do want to say for all of us, and for the record, a special thanks to Senator Frank Murkowski for the phenomenal leadership effort he has put into the issue of energy and the development of a national energy policy for our country. He truly has been relentless over the last good number of years, not just starting when the lights went out in California but long before that when he and I and others who serve on that important committee in the Senate began to recognize that if we did not start reinvesting in the energy infrastructure of our country, that our Nation would at some point be in trouble. We have watched, over the last decade, our ramping up of a dependency on foreign oil sources. We began to see a rapid use of the surplus of electrical energy that was out there a decade ago, as our country, through the decade of the 1990s, continued to grow 3 and 4 and 5 percent. No one was really reinvesting in building new generating capacity on the electrical side. As many know, starting in the mid-1990s we began to encourage the Clinton administration to come forward with a national energy policy, one that dealt with this broad range of issues. We called it the market basket of energy: the oil side, the hydrocarbon side, the coal side, the electrical-generation side, the new technology side. We began to invest in new technologies, in wind and in solar. We put money into fuel cells. Clearly, over the last good number of years we have advanced many of those technologies, but they are not yet mainstream. They do not yet fill up the market basket of energy, and we are still dominantly reliant on electricity generated by coal, by nuclear, and by hydro. We are still dominantly dependent on hydrocarbons, gases, and, of course, the crude that comes from around the world. We know it is well over 50 percent. We are sometimes 60-percent dependent on someone somewhere else in the world being willing to put their product into the market for us to buy. The lights began to go out in California about a year and a half ago. It was a major wake-up call to this country. California being our largest State and being the largest piece of the American economy, we knew that if California faltered and failed it could drag the rest of the economy down with it. I am from Idaho. Our State is part of a regional electrical grid that is dominated by the impact of California action. The State of Oregon, the State of Washington, the State of Montana, parts of Nevada, parts of New Mexico, and parts of Arizona were caught up in the California episode. I use the word ``episode'' as it relates to California. As we watched California restructure its electrical system, there was not an economist out there nor a few reasonable observers who knew electricity who said California was doing the right thing. In fact, most said California was doing the wrong thing, and that at some time in the future California would find itself in trouble. That is exactly what happened. My State of Idaho, being in that grid, began to get in trouble, too. We had the least cost power. We were hydro based. All of a sudden, our rates started going up. As a little side note to the rates going up, because we are a hydro- based State and because over the last 2 years the Pacific Northwest has been in a drought, we were in even worse trouble. The energy issue in Idaho became a very strong issue as it grew across this country. A new President was elected last November. While he talked about education and he talked about compassionate conservatism, in one of the first meetings I had with President George W. Bush, he stood aside those issues and said: The most important issue for our country at this moment in time is the development of a national energy policy and a reduction of the dependency of our country and its consumers and our economy on foreign sources of energy, and I am going to assemble a task force headed by Vice President Cheney. We are going to make our proposals, and we are going to lead on this issue. We want you to work with us so we can develop a truly national, comprehensive policy. That was the beginning of a strong effort on the part of the House, the Senate, and the administration to work on the issue of energy. There are a lot of side stories and a good many side notes to this whole effort. But there is one thing that is very clear in the minds of the American people: That we are not masters of our own destiny when it comes to energy; that we are a phenomenally dependent economy when it comes to an adequate, abundant supply of energy at a reasonably low base price in that economy; when that fails or when those prices go radically up because the market price drives it, our economy is in trouble. About a year ago, Alan Greenspan said the recession was beginning to appear as a slowing of the economy, and it was clearly evident that the spike in energy costs would take a full percentage point off the economy and would cost millions of jobs in the economy as business and industry offset their profitability or their costs based on an unbudgeted, rapid increase in the price of energy. All of those scenarios played themselves out. All of them are extremely important to this country. The Senate began to work its will. The House began to work its will. Lots of hearings were held. We were beginning to shape and write a bill in the Senate. Frank Murkowski, Larry Craig, and a good many others had already introduced a bill earlier in the year. Chairman Bingaman introduced a bill earlier in the year. There were opposing points of view on energy--not dramatically different but different. That is OK. That is fair. That is the way the process works. But all of them were intended to come back to the Energy Committee in the Senate. Out of the effort of the Murkowski-Craig bill and the Bingaman bill, we were going to produce a national energy policy bill for the Senate which we planned to do through the months of September and early October after coming back from the August recess. The House had already worked its will with H.R. 4. The amendment we are offering today is the House product. But it was done before September, during the August recess. The House moved a little more quickly than we did and built a reasonably comprehensive bill to solve the problem I have just in a general way laid out for all of us. We came back from the August recess. The Senate began its work in the Energy Committee. Of course, the House had already worked its will and sent a very loud message to us, to the President, and to the American people that we could produce a comprehensive bill which included some very controversial but extremely important issues in it, such as exploration in northern Alaska as it dealt with broadening and developing our oil reserves. All of this is at hand when September 11 occurs--a dramatic and horrible time for our country. That incident and all of the preceding events have clearly reshaped the thinking of the American people about a lot of things. But very clearly it has reshaped the thinking of the American people in their attitude towards energy and energy supply. Let me give you an example. If you polled on the issue of oil exploration in northern Alaska before the September recess, a slight majority of the American people would have said: I don't think so. I don't think we ought to do that. After September 11, a substantial majority--from 40-plus to 60-plus--said: Yes, do it. Do it environmentally safe, but do it because all of a sudden the American people were focused as never before on our weaknesses, our dependency, and our inability to stand alone and stand firm. We had been struck. We had been hit. Thousands of Americans had been killed. Guess what. They came out of the Middle East. Guess where the largest supply of oil comes from on which we are dependent. It comes from the Middle East. Americans said: Why should that be so? Can't we be more independent? Can't we stand alone more strongly? We shouldn't be at risk. We are at risk. We were just struck on our soil, and thousands of Americans died. That was the thinking, and it was very clear. Here is an example. This is a poll taken on November 14. Ninety-five percent of Americans say Federal action on energy is important; 72 percent of Americans say passing a bill is a higher priority compared to other actions Congress might take these days. The American people have elevated the energy policy issue as high as they have elevated airport security, as high as they have elevated antiterrorism, as high as they have elevated anti-biological warfare and anti-chemical warfare. It has become a national priority. Seventy-three percent of Americans say Congress should make energy a part of President Bush's stimulus package, and 67 percent of Americans say exploration for energy in the United States, including Alaska, should be part of a national energy policy. Post-September 11, some pollsters said, was the most significant shift in the minds of the American people in the history of modern-day polling. I believe that is true because Americans not only were fearful of what had happened but they began to reassess their own personal security, their families' security, their communities' security, and their States' security, and said: We are not secure. When I go to the gas pump and I fill my car, I am buying oil from Saddam Hussein. It is true--700,000 barrels of oil a day come out of Iraq, 12 million a day of your consumer dollars. Americans are paying $4 billion a year to an enemy so that he can further his weapons of mass destruction, so that he can fight a war against us and our friends in the Middle East. Yes, that is the reality of what we are doing. We did not do it consciously. We fell into it. We fell into it because this country has rapidly fallen into greater dependency on energy sources because we refuse to develop our own in a comprehensive, balanced, and environmentally sound way. Somehow there was this prohibition attitude that said, no, do not go there, even if there is energy there. We will buy it somewhere else. The environment is so valuable you cannot go there, whether it is offshore or onshore across America. What it did for us was open our soft underbelly of dependency to foreign interests, and shame on us for doing so. The American people are now saying that, and they are saying: Congress, change your attitude. Change your mind. We want to be stronger. We want to stand on our own two feet. We want to be able to supply a reasonable amount of energy for us, for our needs. New technologies? Absolutely. Alternative sources? Absolutely. But we also know for the next 25 or 30 years we are going to be dominantly dependent on hydrocarbons--gas and oil--we are going to be increasingly dependent on nuclear--and we should be; it is clean, and we ought to be building more nuclear facilities; we can meet our clean air standards if we build nuclear--and we ought to be looking at clean coal technology, and we have lots of coal. All of those things need to get done. There need not be a rush to judgment. There simply needs to be a systematic, methodical approach for dealing with this crisis. The speech I am giving today is in the backdrop of declining gas prices across America. I am sure there are a few of our critics out there saying: Oh, well, now look. They are rushing to judgment once again. There go those doomsdayers. What they ought to be saying is, because our economy has fallen almost on its face, there is a lessening demand for energy. We are not using as much in the airlines. We are operating at 60 percent there. Americans are doing less. Industry is doing less. We all know those figures. This week, for the first time, our agencies declared we were in recession. That is a large part of why we have seen declining usage. So if we have this moment of opportunity to bring more energy on line and lower the costs, it is, and it can be, one of the greatest stimuli to the economy of this country, if we do it and do it right. That is the scenario. That is where we are at this moment. And throughout all of this, something strange has happened. About a month ago, the majority leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle, picked up the phone and called Chairman Bingaman and said: Shut your Energy Committee down. I don't want you to mark up a comprehensive energy bill in committee. Why did he do that? I believe I know, but he has not told me personally. It was an unprecedented action. In the backdrop of all of this new national attention on the need for a greater sense of strength and energy, the leader of the Senate reaches out to his committee and shuts it down--the very committee that would craft the energy bill. I will tell you why he did it. Times have changed. He was behind the curve. America said explore in Alaska as a part of a comprehensive policy, and he had an environmental political debt to pay, and he is going to pay it. The way to do that is not to allow that vote on the floor, not to allow that vote, when the American fervor of self-reliance is high and when the American fear of foreign dependency is higher. We hope that will settle out, I think he thought. And next year--next year--sometime we will do a national energy policy and maybe then we can win the vote on ANWR. What he failed to recognize was that before the crisis in September, the House had already passed a bill with Alaska exploration in it. It has only increased, since September 11, the attitude toward that kind of exploration. So because the majority leader of the Senate shut his committee down in an unprecedented act and denied them the right to mark up a bill in the appropriate bipartisan way, we are on the floor today, using a tactic that is procedural and appropriate but somewhat unprecedented when it comes to offering up a major national energy policy. The bill we would have produced, the bill that Chairman Bingaman would have produced had he been allowed to, had he not been forced to shut down his committee, would have been a much stronger bill and a broader bill than the H.R. 4 bill that we have on the floor today, the amendment that we are going to try to attach to railroad retirement because we have been given no other alternative on this critically important issue. I support railroad retirement. Railroad retirement will be strong if railroads can buy reasonably inexpensive diesel to fuel those big trains out there. But if diesel were to go to $3 or $4 a gallon, railroad retirement and the financial stability of the railroads would not be worth much. That is why it is appropriate to put an energy bill that will keep costs to the rails down and costs to the consumer down as it relates to their need for energy and attach it to this legislation. But the reason we are doing it is because the majority leader of the Senate has denied us no other approach. In fact, he has denied the right of the Senate to work its will, to do what the American people want, what 95 percent of the American people say is now necessary, what 72 percent of the American people now say is a critical priority that ought to be included in President Bush's stimulus package to improve the state of the economy. And where is our majority leader headed? In the other direction, away from what the American people are asking for, and what our President is pleading with us to get done before we leave town for Christmas. The Senator from Texas has come to the Chamber and wants to speak. Let me mention just a few other things about a national energy policy. One item in a comprehensive bill deals with exploration in Alaska-- one item--and yet if you listen to the debate or you listen to the critics, you only hear one item: Alaska. Let me talk about a few other things. H.R. 4, the amendment that we want to put on here, that we are going to be voting on on Monday, reauthorizes Federal energy conservation programs and directs the Federal Government to take leadership in energy conservation with new energy savings goals--produce more but use less. It means you can have a growth economy and an abundance of energy. It isn't all conservation, and we know it. It expands Federal Energy Savings Performance Contracting authority. It increases Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program--what we call LIHEAP--and Weatherization and State Energy Program authorization levels to meet needs of low-income families. Most of us want that and think it is appropriate. That is a part of it. It expands the EPA/DOE Energy Star Program and directs the EPA and DOE to determine whether Energy Star labels should be extended to additional products. That is called causing and promoting industries out there to produce instruments and equipment and usages for consumers that consume less energy. That is called conservation. It directs DOE to set standards for appliances that are on ``standby mode'' energy use. A lot of energy is being used today by the new high- tech economy. We are asking--and causing by promotion and credit in the marketplace--that industry, as it grows, that it should produce products that consume less energy. That sounds like a pretty good idea. It reduces light truck fuel consumption by 5 billion gallons over the next 6 years, improves Federal fleet fuel economy, and expands use of hybrid vehicles. That is new technology. Those of our friends who are critics about exploration on the public and private grounds of Americans say: You can lead out of this with just the new technology. We are saying: Let's do both. Let's put the new technologies on line. While the old technologies are being replaced, let the marketplace work and the infrastructure that supplies these new technologies build over time. And it will, as they become viable. About a year ago I went to Dearborn, MI. I drove a new Ford fuel cell electric car. It was a beautiful car. I had it out on the racetrack, roaring around the track with an engineer. He said: Feel the thrust. He didn't say: Step on the gas, he said: Step on the pedal. There was no gas in that car. It was a hydrogen fuel cell car. I kind of slipped on one corner because it was raining. He said: You better be careful; this car costs $6 million. I had never driven a $6 million car. His point was it was a prototype. It is very expensive. As it comes on line in the market and the market expands, the price will go down dramatically. In order to build an assembly line to produce a hydrogen fuel cell car, it would compete in the market with other cars, but then where would you fuel it? You have to build fueling stations around the country. The gas station that we drive into today is a product of 70 years of building up an industry to supply an American need. Not overnight do we replace that with a new industry that could fuel a hydrogen fuel cell car. That is my point about working to bring new technologies on line while building the resource of the current technology and the current energy. I could go on through the long list of items that are in H.R. 4. The point is simple. While the public's attention will be directed toward a single item in a major comprehensive bill, called exploration in northern Alaska, what the rest of the world needs to hear is that there is a lot more to talk about and a lot more to get done. Let me close by saying: Tom Daschle, 95 percent of the American people are asking you to help us produce a national energy policy. The President and the Republican Senate and 73 percent of the American people are saying: Mr. Daschle, allow it to be a part of the economic stimulus package. It is that important. Senator Daschle: Why don't you lead us and help us get there instead of blocking us and trying to stop us from getting there? I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. On behalf of the Republican leadership, I object.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, let me speak for a few moments on the issue of railroad retirement, the stimulus package, and the business before the Senate. Our assistant Republican leader is on the floor and wants to speak to the motion to proceed, so I will be brief. I rise in support of railroad retirement and have been a cosponsor of that legislation for the last several years. There is adequate time to deal with this issue. We can deal with it now following the stimulus package or certainly we can deal with it next year. The Democratic leadership has chosen to bring it up and force the issue at this time. It is an important piece of legislation. There are 75 cosponsors in the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee has worked some on it. The House has worked on it and passed it. Is it a perfect piece of legislation? No. It goes a long way to fix a flawed system, a system at this time that is in deep trouble, a 65- year-old system that has been treated poorly in the past in many respects and will not serve the retirees or the railroad system effectively well in the future. As a result of an effort on the part of management and labor to bring this issue together, they have worked hard to do so. There are many on my side who disagree and some on the other side who disagree. This issue does not find unanimous support in the Senate. I would hope issues of such critical nature could find unanimous support, but that will not happen. It is important this issue be addressed. I hope the Senate can work its will. I will support efforts to bring it to the floor. At the same time, I hope the Democrat leadership understands a recession has been declared in this country by the institutions that measure our economics and measure the output of our economy. If we are in recession--and we are--we ought to deal with a stimulus package that will bring investment and job creation back to the marketplace. We ought to be understanding that we are at war. We ought to move expeditiously, as the House now is, to deal with the DOD package to make sure our men and women in harm's way are adequately funded, and that all of the issues of post-September 11 are dealt with in the appropriate fashion. That doesn't mean we have to stay here for the next 3 weeks to get that done. We do our timely work now; we come back in late January and do the balance. This is an issue that could have been dealt with in late January, as can agriculture, as energy, I hope, will be with a date definite and a vote up or down to pass. If energy is not dealt with in that fashion, and if the majority leader does not choose to give us a clear signal as to how energy will be voted on, energy will be an amendment to any amendable bill that comes before the Senate following the current effort. This bill will be amendable. Maybe energy fits well into a railroad retirement package. It is every bit as critical to a broader base of the American economy as this bill is very critical to a lot of people in my State and across the Nation. To reiterate, I support the railroad retirement legislation. I am one of the 75 cosponsors in the Senate. In the last Congress, when I was briefly a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I had an opportunity to participate in the hearings on the bill and vote in favor of passing it and sending it to the Senate floor for consideration. While I am a supporter of this bill, I can understand why some of my colleagues have genuine problems with it. Does this bill take a flawed system and make it perfect? No. However, does this bill take a flawed system and dramatically improve it? Yes. I am here today to urge my colleagues: Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very good. It is no small feat that rail labor and rail management came together, reasoned together in good faith, and devoted a great deal of energy, expertise, and old-fashioned innovation to improving a 65-year-old system in a bright and forward-thinking way. They have fashioned a remarkably good bill. It removes a 65-year-old requirement that assets of the system be invested solely in Federal instruments. It permits the kind of investments that any other industry pension plan might make. As a result, over time the system will bring in more revenue, and that will permit better benefits for retirees and surviving spouses, while reducing the contributions needed from rail employers. It is important to remember that this bill also provides for the possibility that the returns on investments might be less than history suggests they will be. If that should occur, it would trigger an automatic adjustment mechanism requiring more contributions from the industry. This protects the federal government and the nation's taxpayers. On the other hand, if returns are greater than projected, both labor and management will be able to reduce contributions further. The new Investment Trust created by the bill will not include any government employees and will not be appointed by any. Trustees will be subject to ERISA fiduciary standards. They will be able to hire professional pension investment advisors. Congress will annually receive a report on the results of the investment efforts. Let me also address the so-called ``cost'' of this bill. I agree with the House of Representatives that changing the investment mix is not an outlay, but just a new means of financing the government's obligations under the system. Those who take balanced federal budgets seriously should have no reason to back away from this legislation. Mr. President, the thousands of working men and women, retirees, and surviving spouses who will benefit from this legislation have waited patiently while this bill has been reviewed again and again. They have waited long enough. This bill is an enormous step in the right direction, and one the entire Senate should support. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Senator Bond and Senator McConnell are not in the Chamber. I know their work with the Senator from Connecticut is dedicated to the end we all want to see in reform because there is an obsolescence to the voting system that has to be addressed. I think that is without question. I guess my only frustration by the majority leader's comments was earlier this week he talked about bringing a farm bill to the Senate. We now have a railroad retirement bill. We still have appropriations to do, and several conference reports coming out of that, and we hope yet a stimulus package now that we know America truly is in a recession. We have known that for some time, but it is now officially proclaimed. Not in any way to lessen the importance of a debate over election reform, and that is important, I cannot yet quite understand how we get all of this done in time to get out for Christmas. Before the Thanksgiving recess, I had offered Senator Boxer of California an opportunity to join with me--she from the Democratic side, I from the Republican side--to organize Christmas caroling for the Senate so we could join together in unity, as we have for the last several weeks, and sing Christmas carols on the eve of Christmas. I suggest if we are going to do election reform, if we are going to do a stimulus package, if we are going to do a farm bill, and I add an energy bill because I think right now energy is every bit as important to the American consumer as election reform is to the American voter, and let us see what else is on that schedule--oh, yes, I forgot, railroad retirement reform--then it is going to be a merry little Christmas in Washington for all Senators who cannot make it out the night before to their home States. My State is about 2,500 miles further away than the Senator from Connecticut. So I say to Senator Dodd, have yourself a very merry little Christmas.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I am pleased to join today as an original cosponsor of the Medicare Appeals, Regulatory and Contracting Improvements Act, MARCIA. This legislation represents a clear and useful first step toward serious reform of the way Medicare does business with America's health care professionals and Medicare beneficiaries. I have heard from literally hundreds of doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals in Idaho about the truly appalling paperwork and regulatory burdens imposed by the Medicare program, and even more troubling, about how these mounting regulatory burdens are causing many doctors to limit their participation in Medicare or to leave the program altogether. Also, as ranking member on the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, I have made examination of Medicare's paperwork and provider enforcement systems a key priority. In July, our committee held the first of what I hope may be a series of hearings looking into these problems, and this fall, members of my Aging Committee staff traveled across Idaho, talking with more than 60 Idaho providers about their concerns with Medicare. Most recently, I was pleased to have Tom Scully, the energetic and thoughtful new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, join me in Boise to talk about Medicare with Idaho health professionals and senior citizens. We heard a great deal of frustration, and not a little anger. At the same time, it was very clear to me that Tom Scully and the Bush administration are serious about tackling Medicare's many shortcomings. Indeed, Tom Scully and the administration have worked closely with Congress to help develop the legislation we are introducing today. Today, the number of pages of Medicare rules and regulations is now more than 110,000, approximately three times that of Federal tax laws and regulations. Moreover, for every hour spent on Medicare patient care in outpatient settings, doctors and their staffs now spend approximately 36 minutes on Medicare-related paperwork. And in hospital emergency care settings, that ratio is now 1 hour of paperwork for every 1 hour of patient care. These problems are genuinely daunting, and today's legislation is not a panacea. Rather, it is a promising beginning in what I hope will be an ongoing cooperative effort to make Medicare more responsive, more rational, and more efficient. Finally, let me be crystal clear: We must continue to devote significant resources to combating fraud and abuse in the Medicare program. Those who violate the public trust must be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and this legislation would in no way undercut these critical efforts. Rather, this bill would relieve complex and unreasonable burdens on providers and beneficiaries by requiring CMS to issue new rules in an orderly and reasonable manner, and would provide new appeal protections for many Medicare providers and beneficiaries. Further, this legislation would require CMS to use competition to select the best administrative contractors, and it would require CMS and its contractors to place greater emphasis on provider education and outreach. In addition, the bill would implement needed improvements in the way Medicare oversees alleged provider overpayments, principally by reforming current Medicare overpayment collection and extrapolation processes. I am pleased to join my colleagues in sponsoring this much needed legislation, and I look forward to continuing progress on these important issues in the coming year.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I am pleased to join today as an original cosponsor of the Medicare Appeals, Regulatory and Contracting Improvements Act, MARCIA. This legislation represents a clear and useful first step toward serious reform of the way Medicare does business with America's health care professionals and Medicare beneficiaries. I have heard from literally hundreds of doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals in Idaho about the truly appalling paperwork and regulatory burdens imposed by the Medicare program, and even more troubling, about how these mounting regulatory burdens are causing many doctors to limit their participation in Medicare or to leave the program altogether. Also, as ranking member on the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, I have made examination of Medicare's paperwork and provider enforcement systems a key priority. In July, our committee held the first of what I hope may be a series of hearings looking into these problems, and this fall, members of my Aging Committee staff traveled across Idaho, talking with more than 60 Idaho providers about their concerns with Medicare. Most recently, I was pleased to have Tom Scully, the energetic and thoughtful new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, join me in Boise to talk about Medicare with Idaho health professionals and senior citizens. We heard a great deal of frustration, and not a little anger. At the same time, it was very clear to me that Tom Scully and the Bush administration are serious about tackling Medicare's many shortcomings. Indeed, Tom Scully and the administration have worked closely with Congress to help develop the legislation we are introducing today. Today, the number of pages of Medicare rules and regulations is now more than 110,000, approximately three times that of Federal tax laws and regulations. Moreover, for every hour spent on Medicare patient care in outpatient settings, doctors and their staffs now spend approximately 36 minutes on Medicare-related paperwork. And in hospital emergency care settings, that ratio is now 1 hour of paperwork for every 1 hour of patient care. These problems are genuinely daunting, and today's legislation is not a panacea. Rather, it is a promising beginning in what I hope will be an ongoing cooperative effort to make Medicare more responsive, more rational, and more efficient. Finally, let me be crystal clear: We must continue to devote significant resources to combating fraud and abuse in the Medicare program. Those who violate the public trust must be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and this legislation would in no way undercut these critical efforts. Rather, this bill would relieve complex and unreasonable burdens on providers and beneficiaries by requiring CMS to issue new rules in an orderly and reasonable manner, and would provide new appeal protections for many Medicare providers and beneficiaries. Further, this legislation would require CMS to use competition to select the best administrative contractors, and it would require CMS and its contractors to place greater emphasis on provider education and outreach. In addition, the bill would implement needed improvements in the way Medicare oversees alleged provider overpayments, principally by reforming current Medicare overpayment collection and extrapolation processes. I am pleased to join my colleagues in sponsoring this much needed legislation, and I look forward to continuing progress on these important issues in the coming year.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Under that of the ranking minority member, Senator Cochran.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Kohl, and Senator Cochran, for the tremendous cooperation they have extended to me and Idaho agriculture as we have considered this very important appropriations bill. I am pleased the conference report is now before us. We all know that agriculture over the last 4 or 5 years has had a very difficult time, especially at the production level, in finding a commodity with which the producer could break even or make a profit. That has certainly been true in my State of Idaho. While that has gone on, there have been opportunities to improve the research capability and certainly the conference report we have before us represents that. All of our Nation's agricultural production has historically benefited from Federal dollars that have flowed into research at our colleges and universities that ultimately produce hybrid crops, better techniques, better conservation, better use of water and soil. All of those things in combination make agriculture as great as it is in our country today. I am always amazed at the abundance we have produced as a result of a private-State-Federal partnership. It can at times be a problem, too, and that explains part of where we are today. With phenomenal abundance and availability of commodities, commodity prices in the last several years have been at about their all-time lows in relation to the cost of production. As a result of that, certainly this appropriating subcommittee and the authorizing Committee of Agriculture here in the Senate, along with the House of Representatives, has made every effort to assure that production agriculture at least had a safety net so we would not lose this valuable part of the American economy. I know our consumers oftentimes take for granted when they go to the supermarket, and go to the food shelf in that supermarket, finding such an abundance at such a low price. They oftentimes assume it is always going to be there. Very seldom do we have the ability to look behind at the thousands and thousands of American producers and processors that provide that high-quality food to the American consumer. This legislation assists in that important part of the American lifestyle and the American economy. Also, as agriculture has dwindled, and especially in my State of Idaho where we have seen Federal policy and national attitudes over the last two or three decades that would suggest we ought not log or we ought not mine or we ought not graze because somehow it damages the environment, we have seen rural economies dwindle, unemployment rise, and many of our rural areas, which are farm and resource communities, in dire straits. In this package is also a rural economic development component that is increasingly important to rural America. As agriculture struggles, many of the other associated service industries, and many of the industries that were very typical in my State, have suffered even more. Many of them have shut down. Over the last decade, and in part because of the philosophy of the former administration, we have seen an 80- percent decline in logging on public lands. That has cost Idaho, and other States like Idaho, tens of thousands of jobs. As a result, unemployment in those areas has grown to 12 percent and 14 percent. Unemployment means people out of work. It means no food on the table. Oftentimes it means fewer clothes for the children. It means strife within the family because of the economic circumstances they are experiencing. To be able to turn that around is part of my job. But it is also part of the job of the Congress, to have sensitivity toward economic development of the kind that is, in fact, represented here as we strive to fund U.S. Forest Service programs, USDA programs that will benefit rural communities of the kind that make up a very large part of my State. I thought it important and appropriate this morning that I come to the floor to thank the chairman, Senator Kohl, and the ranking member, Senator Cochran, for the cooperation and the sensitivity they have shown. Certainly, the chairman of the full committee, who is now the Presiding Officer here in the Senate, has always had an eye to rural America. I appreciate that because his State of West Virginia is much like mine. It is built on resources. It is built on mining. It is built on the rural lifestyle. That has been and remains a major part of the American economy. This bill represents that sensitivity, and I thank them for that. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I know how committed the Senator is to this issue, and much of that issue I agree with. I hope sometime in the future we can deal with it. It is important, certainly to those who meet the standards and the qualifications which the Senator has proposed. At this time I believe it necessary to object, and I do object.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I sat here for the last few minutes and listened to my colleague from North Dakota talk about border security. Certainly what he has said I agree with in principle. I haven't seen his amendment. I will now search it out and read it. I have always believed if you have a guest in your home and find out that guest is going to burn down your home, you are going to get that guest out of your house just as quickly as you can before he or she touches the match. Foreign nationals in this country are guests of our country. They are guests in our home. There is nothing wrong with asking them to play by a few rules and for us to know who is on the guest list. If that is what the Senator from North Dakota is talking about, I will support him in that effort.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for no longer than 5 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am happy to join Senator Dorgan in reintroducing legislation regarding the administrative simplification provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. We originally introduced legislation five months ago and have worked since then with members from both the Finance and HELP committees to negotiate a compromise. The bill we are introducing today is the product of those discussions. It provides for one additional much- needed year for providers, State health programs, health plans and others to implement the transactions and code set provision of administrative simplification. Importantly, this new version also includes language to clearly differentiate between this provision and the privacy provision of HIPAA. It was our intention all along that the medical privacy regulations not be affected by our legislation, and we believe this bill accomplishes that goal. My colleague and I have the benefit of being joined on this bill by many of the cosponsors of the original bill, and we are happy to have their support.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters from J. Eldon Yates, chairman and founder of the Vietnam Veterans Institute; the American Legion national commander, Richard Santos; the Veterans of Foreign Wars executive director, Robert Wallace; and Joseph Lipowski, the national commander of AMVETS. They joined me, several of my colleagues, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Principi, just a few moments ago outside our Capitol to call on this Senate and our leader, Tom Daschle, to bring a national energy policy bill before this Senate before we adjourn this year. Clearly, the President has been outspoken in the last month--and I agree with what he is doing--about strengthening our resolve and protecting our freedoms as the country cries out for a national energy policy that is a policy of national security. Today the administration announced that we are going to start buying oil to put into our national Strategic Petroleum Reserve to beef up the total volume in that reserve in case of a national crisis. But even when that is done, if the oil of the Middle East were cut off, that reserve would last only for a few weeks before we would be in a significant energy crisis. Our President as well as the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Energy, the Vice President, labor unions, chambers of commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and small business groups speaks out. America is being told today that national energy is a national security issue. Strangely enough, the chairman of the Energy Committee even spoke this last weekend saying he wanted a national energy policy addressed before the end of the year. Yet nothing is done. The Energy Committee has been shut down by orders of the majority leader. Republicans are producing an energy bill. We have been to the floor time and time again asking for a time certain on which to debate this critical issue. The House acted in August. Our world would come tumbling down around us at this moment, economically speaking, if the oil of the Middle East were shut off from this country. Our economy would stifle. It is an issue of national security. I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, America's veterans, those who have stood in harm's way year after year and decade after decade in defense and support of our freedom, now speak out and say: Senator Daschle, this is an issue of national security. Where are you? Why aren't you allowing the Senate to debate this issue now and have on the President's desk a national energy policy before we recess this first session of the 107th Congress? I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am happy to join Senator Dorgan in reintroducing legislation regarding the administrative simplification provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. We originally introduced legislation five months ago and have worked since then with members from both the Finance and HELP committees to negotiate a compromise. The bill we are introducing today is the product of those discussions. It provides for one additional much- needed year for providers, State health programs, health plans and others to implement the transactions and code set provision of administrative simplification. Importantly, this new version also includes language to clearly differentiate between this provision and the privacy provision of HIPAA. It was our intention all along that the medical privacy regulations not be affected by our legislation, and we believe this bill accomplishes that goal. My colleague and I have the benefit of being joined on this bill by many of the cosponsors of the original bill, and we are happy to have their support.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first I would like to thank Chairman Kohl and Senator Cochran for the hard work they have put into the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. It is a challenging process, and they have done an excellent job balancing competing interests within the confines of a balanced budget. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee regarding the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Programs. The committee has encouraged the Department to continue to support the National Rural Development Partnership (NRDP) and its associated State Rural Development Councils within existing funds. It is my understanding that an allocation of $5.5 million would provide Federal funding to 40 State Rural Development Councils (SRDCs) at the level they received in fiscal year 2001 and that it would cover other necessary program support for the NRDP/SRDCs. I would ask that this need be considered when this bill goes to conference. The National Rural Development Partnership is a nonpartisan interagency working group whose mission is to contribute to the vitality of the Nation by strengthening the ability of rural Americans to fully participate in determining their futures. Although the Partnership has existed for 10 years, it has never been formally authorized by Congress. Thirty seven members of the Senate have joined on legislation to formally establish the NRDP and SRDCs, S. 1111, the National Rural Development Partnership Act. This legislation authorizes or formally recognizes the existence and operations of the Partnership, the National Rural Development Council, and SRDCs. In addition, the legislation gives specific responsibilities to each component of the partnership and authorizes it to receive Congressional appropriations. It is essential that the current network of SRDCs remain viable while we work to pass this legislation. The core components of S. 1111 have been included in the House version of the farm hill and we are working to have S. 1111 included in the Senate version of the farm bill. In addition, a task force, which includes significant representation external to the NRDP, is currently considering questions related to the mission, structure, and operations of the NRDP and SRDCs. Fiscal year 2002 is a transitional year during which fundamental issues related to the NRDP and SRDCs will be addressed. During fiscal year 2002, unique role of helping to coordinate rural development policies and programs must be preserved.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first I would like to thank Chairman Kohl and Senator Cochran for the hard work they have put into the fiscal year 2002 Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. It is a challenging process, and they have done an excellent job balancing competing interests within the confines of a balanced budget. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee regarding a situation that has arisen in Idaho. The Idaho delegation is concerned over the growing impact a product called OUST has had on crops in fields near the Bureau of Land Management's rangeland treatment areas. The BLM has been using OUST as part of their rehabilitation program to eliminate cheatgrass and stop the fire cycle. The program is two- fold. First spray, then plant native and perineal vegetation which is better feed for cattle and fire suppression. From October 23 to November 3, 2000, in order to control the spread of cheatgrass on their burned land, the Bureau of Land Management sprayed the herbicide, OUST, from a helicopter onto approximately 17,000 acres of their land. This spring, we began to receive reports from farmers that OUST may have spread beyond its intended use area and may be impacting crops in fields adjacent to or near the BLM's treated areas. Sugar beet growers noticed strange growth developments in their crops. As the crop developed, it was determined the lack of growth could be related to the OUST spray. What our farmers project happened is the OUST, which is activated and broken down by water, was sprayed on top of the ashes from the fire. With the lack of snowfall and spring rains, the OUST was blown with the ashes to as far as 10 miles from the sprayed ground. When the farmers turned on their irrigation systems this spring, it activated the OUST and it is now damaging the crops. The most significant damage reported is in the Burley/Paul area and the American Falls/ Aberdeen area in Southern Idaho. Because of all of the uncertainty, BLM has agreed to stop the use of OUST until this issue is resolved. Since the damage was first noticed, testing by the Department of Agriculture in Idaho has indicated the presence of OUST in crops at least 5 miles beyond the BLM's treated areas. Those tests are ongoing and results continue to show the presence of OUST in damaged crops. According to the information we have seen, in some cases the damage to crops in these areas approaches a 100 percent loss. In other cases, crops are only partially impacted, but may still be damaged in terms of their value. In either case, farmers are facing over $100 million in reduced income. The whole extent of the problem will not be known until later because some crop types will not show damage until further in the season. Unfortunately, the projected losses these producers may incur as a result of OUST are only compounded by the ongoing drought, high energy costs, and low crop prices.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, first I thank Chairman Kohl and Senator Cochran for the hard work they have put into the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. It is a challenging process, and they have done an excellent job balancing competing interests within the confines of a balanced budget. I wish to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee regarding the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. The committee has provided a $13.3 million increase in the budget for NASS. I would like to clarify with the chairman and ranking member that the increase provides $125,000 to conduct a potato objective yield, size and grade survey. NASS has developed a plan to conduct a potato size and grade survey for the seven major potato producing States. The intent of the survey is to provide all market participants with comprehensive potato size and grade data. These data are crucial information to both potato growers and buyers in estimating the current potato crop's quality. All involved market parties will use this unbiased information when negotiating sale or purchase contracts of processing potatoes. The National Potato Council, which represents all segments of the potato industry, has identified that these data are imperative to the orderly marketing of the annual potato crop. These data also ensure that no one group uses their market position to distort the true picture of annual crop quality. The size and grade data will complement the annual production data already provided by NASS and supply the necessary information for the orderly marketing of the potato crop.

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the chairman for his support on this issue.