Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, following the 10:15 a.m. vote on the Bolton nomination, the Senate proceed to the vote in relation to the listed amendments in the following order: Craig amendment No. 372; Kennedy amendment No. 375.

Mr. CRAIG

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to amend the Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. I am pleased that Senator Byron Dorgan and Senator Mike Crapo are joining with me in this effort today. I understand the benefits of administration simplification and support the goal of getting healthcare providers to use uniform codes to reduce overall costs through increased efficiencies. However, it was originally intended for the entire package of administrative simplification regulations to be released at one time. This would have allowed for system changes to be included in a comprehensive upgrade. These final provisions are now expected to be released over time, which will drive up the cost substantially for providers and health plans as they will be forced to adapt their systems with every new regulation. For example, identifiers for providers, plans and employers have yet to be finalized, making it impossible to incorporate this information into new computer systems. In addition to the costs of repeatedly updating systems to be incurred by providers, the overall cost of compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is expected to exceed the costs of Y2K readiness. Small providers, like those in my state of Idaho, cannot afford the high cost in such a short time frame. A longer timeframe will allow these small providers to pay incrementally for systems upgrades. In addition, if health plans and providers hurry implementation of these provisions, there is the serious possibility that service problems will arise for consumers, including inaccurate payments and customer service issues. A longer implementation timeframe will also allow providers and plans to address any unanticipated consequences as they arise. For these reasons, with my colleagues Senators Dorgan and Crapo, I am introducing this legislation to delay implementation of the administrative provisions until the later date of either October 16, 2004 or two years after the final adoption of all regulations. The regulations that would be impacted by this legislation include electronic transactions, code sets, security standards for the electronic standards, and identifiers for health plans and providers. To avoid confusion, let me be clear that this legislation does not affect implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act medical privacy issues and does not deal with unique health identifiers for individuals. To ensure that providers, plans and the Department of Health and Human Services are working towards compliance to these provisions, this legislation calls for the General Accounting Office to evaluate the progress of implementation no later than October 31, 2003. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to address the very issue my colleague has just talked about, the issue of spending and education. We have offered an amendment to curb the Federal Government's appetite to spend tax dollars. It will ensure that we no longer throw good money after bad programs. It will focus our Nation's educational bureaucracy on what should be its sole purpose: helping students learn. Over the course of the last several days, we have been debating reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, and in that process we are adding by authorization a phenomenal amount of new money for the purpose of education. We have heard a great deal in this Chamber about how much we need to spend to improve education for our young people. Every Senator clearly wants to improve the educational system to which we entrust our children's futures. Unlike the past, we are offering some very real reforms this time. But in a continuation of past practices, we also are offering a tremendous amount of new money. Let me say very clearly that we have spent an awful lot of money on education in the past, and the record is very clear that money alone does not solve that problem. In fact, the additional money we have added to our educational system over the last 30 years has done nothing to improve education. Over the past 30 years, the amount of money we have spent to educate our children has doubled; that is even after inflation. In other words, it is real money we're talking about here and a lot of it. It will cost taxpayers twice as much to educate my grandchildren in public schools as it did to educate my children in public schools. We doubled the amount we spend on each student in the timespan of 30 years. Yet this huge increase in spending has brought us, as I just mentioned, nothing. This is a chart that demonstrates that clearly. In spite of the fact that per-student spending has doubled and continues to climb, student achievement has stagnated. This is a line that demonstrates that major increase in spending over the timeframe I have mentioned through the seventies, the eighties, and the nineties. Look at the reading scores of the national assessment of 17-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 9-year- olds. Somehow it does not seem to parallel the amount of money we have spent. We doubled the resources, and yet somehow the system did not improve, and our children were shortchanged. Today's schoolchildren are entering an educational system that is no better than that in which their parents were educated. In fact, there are measurements to indicate it is worse. This next chart shows that not only have reading scores stagnated over that 30-year period, but doubling education spending likewise has brought us no improvement in math and no improvement in science. Yet our young people, in a very integrated world where demand for math and science skills is higher than ever, must compete with students from around the world for jobs that in their very character are international. Yet our educational system, despite all the money we've poured into it, has produced stagnation in math and science achievement for the last 30 years. The law we concern ourselves with today was passed in 1965. Its primary purpose is to close the achievement gap between poor students and nonpoor students. Since 1965, we have devoted some $120 billion to this goal. Yet as this chart demonstrates, $120 billion later, poor kids still lag behind in reading. In other words, poor kids are no better off today than they were 30 years ago. We have achieved nothing for them. Most important, we have allowed them not to achieve, and the taxpayers of this country have spent $120 billion in a failed attempt to close that gap. Five years ago, the Department of Education conducted a review of this program for disadvantaged students known as title I and found: The progress of [title I, part A] participants on standardized tests and on criterion-referenced tests was no better than that of nonparticipants with similar backgrounds and prior achievement. When tested, no difference could be found between those inside title I and those outside title I. I want to repeat that. The progress of the participants was no better inside the program than outside the program. In other words, we spent a lot of money on a program that did nothing to improve the situation of these poor children. One hundred twenty billion dollars and nothing to show for it. How did we reward the system's failure? Of course, with more money. We allowed the establishment to design the system, and we fed the system money hoping that young people would improve, hoping that their scores in reading, math, and science would improve, and it did not happen. Yes, children have been left behind for a good number of years. We have struggled mightily. Certainly the chairman and the Presiding Officer have struggled mightily to try to reform the primary and secondary education systems of our country. The establishment has fought them openly and aggressively. Today we have some reform, but we are also putting in a phenomenal amount of new money through authorization with that reform. The question is, What will it yield? It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and just hoping there will be a different result. That is exactly what we have been doing for 30 years. This is a prescription for mediocrity. The amendment I offer today will change the way the Federal Government deals with schools that fail to improve. It is a moderate amendment and, I believe, a compassionate amendment. Decade after decade, as I have demonstrated, at least for the last three decades, schools have failed to improve, and decade after decade, with a wink and a smile, we tell the system: Don't worry about how many children you have left behind, we are still going to give you more money. The amendment I offer today will stop handing out rewards for leaving children behind. Under this amendment, in order to receive a funding increase under this act, States would be required to make adequate yearly progress in boosting student achievement, as defined in the bipartisan agreement reached between my colleagues from Vermont and Massachusetts, the chairman of the committee and the ranking member. This is a moderate measure. It will not cut educational spending. It guarantees that a State's funding level cannot fall below its current level but that a State that does not improve their children's achievement would forgo any reward from the Federal Government until they do. This amendment even allows the act to adjust for inflation because if we did not, that would be a real cut. What we have to say to the educational establishment of this country is: If you do not create a system that allows our children to achieve at ever improving rates, then we cannot reward you with more of the taxpayers' money. Public education is critically important, and a strong public education system in our country has been the foundation of our Republic and, without question, the strength of our Republic. This is a moderate and compassionate measure, and I believe it is necessary. We cannot reauthorize this act and say that without improvement, the taxpayers of this country will continue to reward the system. Taxpayers historically have been very generous when it comes to education. Funding at the local and State level over the last several years across the country has rapidly increased. But it is also time to say, as we do with this amendment and with the reauthorization of ESEA, improvement is now a must; it must be measured, and if you do improve, we will reward you. But if you do not, we will no longer use taxpayers' hard earned dollars to buy mediocrity for the young people of America. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I do not object to that.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Thursday, May 10, 2001, immediately following a hearing by the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation scheduled at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on H.R. 880, a bill to provide for all right, title, and interest in certain property in Washington County, UT, to be vested in the United States. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For further information, please call Mike Menge (202) 224-9607. subcommittee on investigations

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, because of the traffic and the business in the Chamber yesterday, I was not able to speak on May as Older Americans Month, but I did submit a resolution as chairman of the Senate Aging Committee to recognize May as Older Americans Month, as we have for 38 years, saying that this is the official month during which we pay tribute to the contributions of 44 million older Americans. It is during this month that we as a nation recognize older Americans for their service, hard work, and sacrifice that helped assure us the freedom and security we now enjoy. There is a great deal more I could say, and through the month of May there will be a great deal said about the contribution that older Americans make to this great society of ours. Of course, for those of us who still have parents or grandparents who are active and contributing to their communities, we know how valuable this group of citizens is in our culture. The program we will be looking at when we reauthorize, as we did the Older Americans Act, is going to advance once again the surety of a good many of the programs that are available to them. We reauthorized it last year finally after 5 years. It is important we did that because so many of those programs drive results at the local community level that are extremely valuable to all of us. With this authorization, Congress was able to add an important component to the act, and that was the program to authorize $125 million to establish a new National Family Caregivers Support Program to provide grants to States to provide information and services to family caregivers, another one of those broadening concepts on which we work with the senior community of our Nation. I wanted to take time briefly this morning to recognize May as Older Americans Month and the resolution that was submitted yesterday by myself and others.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as you know and certainly now as our country knows, for this week and until we have concluded, we are focused on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the important role it plays in the future education of our young people. By overwhelming majorities, Americans have said time and again that they want education in this Nation improved. We cannot improve education by merely throwing money at the problem. We have tried that for a long time. Yet the performance of our young people against the performance of other young people around the world simply does not rate as it should. Our educational system does not need money alone, and that is why we have spent the last several years looking at the concepts that fall together to create a dynamic education program of the kind that is so important for the future of our country and our country's young people. Increased funding alone, as I have mentioned, will not help. Do we need money? Of course we do, and with this bill, there is a substantial amount of more money authorized. What we really need to look at is the tremendous bureaucracy of education that has grown up over the years in the public systems in our country and does that, in fact, function in the dynamic ways that are necessary to stay on the edge of educating in a contemporary society. At the same time, we need to deal with all young people and all levels of learning that are so necessary to have a thorough and responsible system. Our President has said time and again over the course of the last year that he wants to leave no child behind. Neither do we. The combination of our work, with the leadership of this new President, I believe, can accomplish what Americans have been asking for a long time. We have underperforming schools, and when we have underperforming schools we have children who have not been provided the opportunity to advance as rapidly as they are capable of doing. Clearly, if schools are underperforming, then children are underperforming. And if they are not able to compete, then the likelihood is they run the risk of underperforming for the remainder of their lives. With the reauthorization of this act and its modernization, we are creating levels of accountability that can become the cornerstone of the advancement of the quality of education in our country, the kind of accountability that will bring constant reform to the educational system. Key to accountability is the commonsense notion that we should not allow Federal dollars to follow failure, but clearly we have. If we used the concept that the current system needed more money and the current system, in some instances, is failing, that is exactly what has been going on. We were financing failure without any level of measurement that would determine what that failure was and how it could be replaced. Accountability is, without question, going to be the greatest key factor in what we do with the reauthorization and the modernization of this act: accountability in the schools and allowing the parents an element of measurement, working to improve those schools that are underperformers, but at some point if the system does not respond, giving the parents the flexibility to move that child elsewhere. Empowering parents and children in the educational system will, by its very character, push it toward reform. It is that kind of dynamic we must demand of our public education system in this country. To strengthen, to assure that a free society always has access to a public learning system has been the strength of our country historically and can continue to be our strength. As we work in this area of education and work to reauthorize this legislation, that is clearly part of the goal toward passage of this act. I am pleased to be a part of it. I will come back to the Chamber over the course of the next several weeks as we debate this issue to participate with my colleagues in explaining to the American people what we are attempting to do, what role the Federal Government can play with the States and local communities. I and others believe that the bulk of the educational responsibility does reside with the State and the local communities. The funding, the tax base, the local school districts, the parents--that is where the greatest responsibility lies. With help, we set standards that are flexible, that fit States, that States can participate in, so it is not one Federal-size-fits-all, but there are levels of measurement, and most assuredly there are levels of acceptance. How do you determine an underperforming school? Clearly, that is determined by the child in that school who isn't performing at the required level. All of these are components of what we work to accomplish in the reauthorization of this most important public law for our country. I am pleased to be part of it, involved with it, to work with my colleagues who spend most of their time in this area and understand it a great deal better than I. I am pleased the Senate is now focused on what really is one of the most important issues we will deal with this year. I am proud to have a President who has made education a priority and who has said and now is backing up not only in words but actions that in his tenure as President of our country no child will be left behind. 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, I rise today to introduce a resolution honoring May as Older Americans' Month. I am here today to celebrate May as Older Americans' Month. For 38 years May has been the official month during which we pay tribute to the contributions of our 44 million older Americans. It is during this month that we as a nation recognize older Americans for their service, hard work and sacrifice that helped assure us the freedom and security we now enjoy. Not only should we take this time to show our appreciation and respect for America's seniors, but also to acknowledge that today's and tomorrow's seniors will continue making significant contributions to our communities through their wisdom and experience; in the workplace, in civic leadership and in our homes. We must also recognize that 77 million baby boomers will soon be retiring and must begin to address some of the challenges this influx will bring. Social Security and Medicare modernization, including the option for prescription drugs, must be addressed before this generation retires. As the new Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, I am looking forward to the opportunities and challenges that await us as we continue our commitment to the goal of ensuring that senior citizens enjoy active, productive and healthy lives, and do so independently, safely and with dignity. This Committee is celebrating its own anniversary this year and I am proud to say that for 40 years, it has played a role in studying problems and opportunities related to older Americans. In addition, this year I believe we have special reason to celebrate. Last year, Congress was able to pass the reauthorization of the Older Americans' Act. As you all know, this reauthorization was 5 years in the coming. I was an original cosponsor of legislation to update and amend the Act and strongly supported the legislative goal of making the programs and services under the Act more responsive to the needs of America's seniors. With this reauthorization Congress was able to add an important component to the Act. The program authorized $125 million to establish a new National Family Caregiver Support Program to provide grants to states to provide information and services to family caregivers. Because of the importance of this program, the Special Committee on Aging will be holding a hearing May 17 to examine its implementation. In the tradition of Older Americans' Month, I am introducing a resolution in the Senate calling on the people of the United States to observe the month of May 2001 as Older Americans' Month and to encourage all Americans to promote awareness through ceremonies, programs, and other activities that promote acknowledgment, gratitude, and respect for American seniors. I ask all of you to celebrate with me Older Americans' Month this May.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise in support of final passage of the budget resolution and to declare victory. Today, all Americans who believe in fiscal responsibility, budget, a sound economy, and fair treatment for taxpayers, can declare victory. All of us who want a government that restrains its appetites and lives within its means, while meeting critical national needs, and letting hard-working individuals and families keep a little more of the fruits of their labor, can declare victory. Today we are approving a budget that is balanced, not only because it is in surplus, but balanced in how it would allocate the resources provided by the American people. Today we are approving a budget plan that, if we follow it, will: first and foremost, pay off all the publicly held debt that possibly can be paid off in the next ten years; hold the line on the growth of federal spending and the size of government; fully protect Social Security and Medicare for today's and tomorrow's seniors, and begin the process of modernizing them, to make them ready for today's workers; answer the demands of the American people to take action on major needs in areas like education, medical research, national defense, care for our veterans, the environment, and prescription drugs; and provide modest, reasonable, and prompt tax relief to the most heavily taxed generation in American history. Could we have produced a better budget this week? Of course we could. But I will never let the perfect be the enemy of the very, very good. The Senate has added several billion dollars in new spending to this budget. I wish we could have done that without raiding the surplus or collecting more taxes. I wish we could have addressed priorities within the reasonable total, the increased total, proposed by the President. But we have wisely turned down amendments for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, and we have stuck fairly closely to the responsible plan we and the President started with. And whether, at the end of the year, we enact ten-year tax relief totaling $1.2 trillion, $1.6 trillion as proposed by the President, or $2 trillion, which this Senator thinks is closer to the right amount, we will have won, common-sense conservatism will have won, and the American people will have won. To fully appreciate where we are, we need to remember where we have been. When I first came to Congress, in the other body, I plunged into fighting for a balanced federal budget. The jaded political veterans told me, You will never see it in your lifetime. The problem was so intractable, we formed a bipartisan coalition to push for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Eight short years ago, the experts told us we faced $300 billion budget deficits as far as the eye could see. The previous president said balancing the budget was a bad idea, and he pushed through the biggest tax increase in history to pay for more and more spending. By 1994, that tax hike, along with the Clinton health care plan to nationalize one-seventh of the economy, produced the first Republican Congress in 40 years. Observant students of history and those with good memories will recall that the economy was limping and anemic during 1993 and 1994. That new Congress took office declaring that Job One was balancing the budget, so we could produce surpluses that would save Social Security and Medicare, pay down the debt, and provide tax relief. The real upturn, the acceleration of the markets and confidence in the economy, began when we made this commitment to responsible, limited government. The economy received a booster shot with the bipartisan Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. In that bill, we cut capital gains taxes, which further unleashed the economic activity that is producing today's surpluses. Now, with a slowing economy, the time has come, again, for a booster shot. Today's budget resolution, with spending restraint, tax relief, and paying down the debt, is that booster shot. It is positive that, this week, we have voted to accelerate tax relief. American workers and their families needed tax relief yesterday, relief from the death tax, from the marriage penalty, and to help meet education and other family needs. We've heard a lot of revisionist history this week, with Senators criticizing President Reagan's 1981 tax relief package. The single biggest mistake Congress made in revising President Reagan's plan was in not starting is soon enough. The economic recovery of 1982 began, the boom of the 1980s began, when President Reagan's tax plan finally took effect. If we really can learn from the mistakes of the past, we should learn that prompt tax relief keeps the nation healthy. It's also a positive sign for prompt tax relief that the Senate has agreed to keep the tax relief in this budget free from filibusters later in the year. This is a budget that will keep the nation healthy, if we continue to follow through on it. It is the Senate's budget, and we have made adjustments throughout the week. But make no mistake about it, when you look at all of it, it is still mostly the President's budget, too. I also want to comment on a couple specifics in this budget. As a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am always watchful of how the Congress and the Administration propose to treat our nation's veterans. This President's budget began with a $1 billion increase in discretionary veterans programs and a $4 billion increase, overall--more than 8 percent. Without a doubt, this president has a higher level of commitment to the well-being of veterans than we saw in the previous administration. The House-passed budget added to that amount and now, so has the Senate. Spending per veteran, not overall, but per veteran, accounting for increased caseload, will be about 50 percent more than in 1995. The Veterans Administration (VA) represents millions of men and women who have served our great nation, often at extreme sacrifice. Therefore, in gratitude it is important that we insure that our veterans receive the care and services they were promised and most certainly deserve. Over the past years, since I have been a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, there has been a steady increase in spending per veteran. In 1995, VA spending was $1,465 per veteran. In 2002, the Senate committee on Veterans' Affairs recommends spending $2,228 per veteran. That is a 52 percent increase since 1995. I also commend my Idaho colleague, Senator Crapo, for the amendment adopted last night by the Senate, to safeguard necessary funding for the Department of Energy's Atomic Energy Defense Account. This is needed to continue progress in waste treatment and management, site maintenance and closure, environmental restoration, and technology development, while meeting its legally binding compliance commitments to the states. This is of vital interest in our home state of Idaho, home of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, to similar sites in other states, and to the environmental safety and well-being of the nation. I was pleased to cosponsor and support the bipartisan Crapo-Murray-Craig amendment. I now look forward to resolving the differences between the Senate- passed budget and the House's version and working in the coming months on the legislation necessary to implement this budget. We have made a good start and today is a good day to declare victory for the American people.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place on Thursday, April 26, 2001 at 2:00 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building In Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to conduct oversight on the energy implications of the Forest Service's Roadless Area Rulemaking. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Mark Rey (202) 224- 2878.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 176

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, first, I thank my colleague from Nebraska for the work he has done in this area. You have not heard my voice on campaign finance reform in the last several years, largely because I believed the legislation that was on the floor was not campaign finance reform. I do believe now that the Hagel amendment brings to the floor the kind of reasonable and appropriate adjustment in the campaign finance law that fits and is appropriate for the political process. Just for a few moments, I will address some of the comments of my colleague from Connecticut a few moments ago, when, in a rather emotionally charged way, he suggested that the political process is awash in money. I only can judge him by his statement, but I have to assume that the perspective he has offered is from a 1974 view. If you step back into 1974 and look forward into the year 2000, that judgment can be made, that the political process is awash in money. But you cannot buy a car on the street today for a 1974 price, as much as you or I might wish. You cannot buy a house today at a 1974 price. Is he alleging that the auto industry and the real estate industry and all other industries of our country are awash in money? He has not made that statement, nor should he. This is the reality: In 1980, I ran for political office in the State of Idaho as a congressional candidate for the first time. I spent about $185,000 on that campaign. At that time a campaign for Congress was about $175,000. Today that same campaign costs about $800,000 or $900,000. Why would it cost so much? At that time I was paying about $5,000 for polling advice. Today that same candidate would pay $13,000 or $14,000. At that time I was paying $400 or $500 for a political ad. Today in Idaho, I would pay $3,000 or $4,000 for a political ad. Does that mean politics is awash in money or does it simply mean you are having to pay for the cost of the goods and services you are buying for the political process today in 2000 dollars and not 1974 dollars? I do believe that is what the Senator from Connecticut meant, but what he alleges is that there is all of this money out there when, in fact, it is the money that comes to the system based on what the system has asked for and what it believes it needs to present a legitimate and responsible political point of view. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong or what needs to be adjusted is how that money gets directed and how that money gets reported so the public knows and can make valid and responsible judgments when they go to the polls on election day whether candidate X or candidate Y has played by the rules and is the kind of person they would want serving them in public office. I do believe that is what the Hagel amendment offers. It offers to shape and control and disclose in the kind of legitimate and responsible way that all of us should expect, and that is important to the credibility of the political process. It is tragic today when politicians malign politicians and suggest that there is corruption and evil in the system. Not all of us are perfect, but about 99 percent of us try to play by the rules. We are judged by those rules. For any one of us to stand in this Chamber and suggest that the system is corrupt and therefore, if we are in it, we are also corrupt or corruptible is a phenomenal stretch of anyone's imagination and should not happen. It is too bad it does happen. Only on the margin has it happened in the past. Usually those individuals who fail to play by the rules ultimately get destroyed by those rules. What we are trying to do is to adjust those rules in a right and responsible fashion that brings clarity to the process, that reflects the fact that you cannot run a 2002 campaign in 1974 dollars or cents, for that matter. You cannot reach back well over a quarter of a century and expect that you can find the goods and services that you once purchased back then as something you will employ now in the political process. So when the Senator from Connecticut gets so excited about the money that is in politics, why don't we be more concerned about directing it and clarifying it instead of trying to step back a quarter of a century to buy the goods and services that he bought then and that I bought then for the political process that have gone up by at least 25 or 30 percent in the interim? Let me talk for a few moments on disclosure. Without question, disclosure is critical. The public clearly deserves to know and we have the tools and the technology today to disclose almost on a daily basis, certainly within a weekly process. Everyone should have their Web page and be up on the Internet and allow the world to know where their money is coming from and who is giving it. What is wrong with that? Nothing is wrong with that. And we should all be held accountable for it. The soft money issue--well, I think my colleague from Louisiana painted it very clearly: Disarm the political party, but let the open and uninhibited speech on the outside go unfettered. We can't touch that. The Constitution has said so. And we should not touch it. What is wrong with a full, open, and robust political process? Nothing is wrong with that. That is how we make choices in this country, how we decide who will represent us in a representative republic. That is the way our system works. Those are the kinds of judgment calls the public ought to be allowed to make, and the Hagel amendment, in a very clear, clean, and appropriate fashion, makes those kinds of determinations.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, children are our most valuable resource. Youth are the future of this Nation and a resource that needs to be both valued and protected. Sadly, however, as my colleagues know, this precious resource is being threatened every day. I come to the Senate floor today to talk about a tremendous initiative that has been reaching out to youth since 1983. Project Safe Place is a program that was developed to assist youth and families in crisis. It creates a network of private businesses who are trained to refer youth in need to the local service providers who can help them. Those businesses display a Safe Place sign so that young people know this is a place where they can go to receive help. The goal of National Safe Place Week is to recognize those individuals who work to make Project Safe Place a reality. From trained volunteers to seasoned professionals, thousands of dedicated individuals are working together within their local communities and across the nation to serve young people, under a well-known symbol of safety for in-crisis youth. Project Safe Place is a simple program to implement in any local community, and it works. Young people are much more likely to ask for help in a location that is familiar and nonthreatening to them. By creating a network of Safe Places across the nation, all youth would have access, through this nonthreatening resource, to needed help, counseling, or a safe place to stay. However, while the program has already been established in 32 States, there are still too many communities without this valuable youth resources. If your State does not already have a Safe Place organization, please consider facilitating this worthwhile resource. To create more Project Safe Place sites in Idaho, the staff in three of my state offices have gone through the training to make them all Safe Place sites, and now have the skills and ability to assist troubled youth. I am delighted that the U.S. Senate has passed Senate Resolution 25, designating the week of March 18-24, 2001 as National Safe Place Week. This action recognizes the importance of Project Safe Place and the work of the National Project Safe Place organization. Most important, in passing this resolution, the Senate is applauding the tireless efforts of the thousands of dedicated volunteers across the nation for their many contributions to the youth of our nation through Project Safe Place.

Mr. CRAIG

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

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am looking at section 502 of the Senator's amendment, subsection (B), in how he defines all election- related reports. I know the Senator's intent, and I applaud it. I think it would be absolutely desirable to have a central point, a repository totally transparent to the public. The Senator's amendment says that all election-related reports are those required ``to be filed under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.'' I am wondering if the Senator's intent is to require the reports of section 527 groups whose reports are already posted on the Internet separately. Those are a requirement of the IRS Code. Also, does it require the FEC to put on the Internet what we call LM- 2 forms filed with the Department of Labor, since all of these forms acknowledge labor PACs? In my mind, they fall under the all election- related reports. It just so happens there are others outside the 1971 law. There is another, and this is one I find interesting. It is related to municipal securities dealers pursuant to what is known as the MSRB rule G-37, which I know absolutely nothing about, other than to say there is a requirement for filing under that law because Federal candidates sometimes can have bond-related responsibilities. George W. Bush, as Governor of Texas, had bond-related responsibilities and probably had to do filings. Those are election- related filings, but because they are not under the 1971 law, they would not necessarily fall under the Senator's definition. I know the intent of the Senator from Mississippi, and I applaud his intent. The question is, Is it as all inclusive as he intends it to be because the Senator has limited it to the 1971 law, and there are now other laws we have grown through over the last good number of years that indicate other election-related activities?

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator yield for one last question?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, FEC reports are only filed with the FEC and the Secretary of the Senate. They are filed nowhere else in our Government. In subsection (c), the Senator talks about coordinating with other agencies: Any executive agency receiving an election-related report shall cooperate and coordinate with the Federal Election Commission. . . . I sense a confusion there in how that gets supplied. You file with no one else but the FEC as a Federal candidate. The FEC files with no one else, and there is no relationship to these filings now of the kind I have mentioned--the bond brokerage issue with the broker having to file and the IRS-related issue. Those are all stand-alones, if you will, and also the Internet LM-2 form filed with the Department of Labor. I want to agree with the Senator in creating a central repository.

Mr. CRAIG. We are all concerned about clarity, and I was concerned-- --

Mr. CRAIG. But, of course, if the Senator is intent on creating a central repository with true transparency and these are other valuable reports--for example, the report filed with the Labor Department is labor unions and PACs and their filings which have valuable disclosure information in them. I am not sure we want to be that vague. That is my frustration.