Hillary Clinton

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, many years ago when I was a schoolgirl, on this day someone might come up to me in the hallway and say: Hillary, your skirt is ripped. I would turn around in panic, and they would say: April Fools'. Or maybe somebody would stop me after class and say: Hillary, I heard Janie is really mad at you, and I don't know what you did to her, but you'd better talk to her. I would feel terrible. Before I could do anything about it, someone would say: April Fools'. Well, today is April 1, and there is a long tradition of people playing jokes on each other, pulling stunts, and then causing someone to be upset or worried or anxious or maybe even happy that they have been told something is going to happen, only to have the rug pulled out from under them when someone says, either jokingly or sometimes a little cruelly: April Fools'. Thankfully, that day only came once a year, so you only had to endure your friends or maybe your not-so-friendly classmates' jokes and stunts for 24 hours. But I sometimes feel that it is April Fools' Day every single day here on Capitol Hill, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House, because on issue after issue of profound importance to the American people, our Government is basically saying: April Fools'. Do you remember when they introduced their budget in 2001 and said: ``If you drastically cut taxes on the wealthiest of Americans, why, my goodness, revenues will increase in the budget. You don't have to worry about all the expenses that we have keeping this great country going because this will work''? Well, 3 years later, we are facing a $500 billion deficit. Guess what. April Fools' on us. Do you remember when they said: ``Our policies are going to generate jobs''? Well, we saw during the 1990s 22 million new jobs created in America. What a difference that made in so many people's lives. What have been the results of this administration's economic policies? The loss of nearly 3 million jobs. So for all those Americans who believed this administration's policies would work to create jobs and economic opportunity, guess what. April Fools' on you. When it comes to the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the administration knew there was an estimate by the man responsible for calculating how much Medicare will cost that was much higher than what had been discussed in the debate over the bill. Here in this Chamber we were told the bill would cost $400 billion. That is a lot of money. It was a lot of money for what, frankly, our seniors are going to get, which is going to be a lot of confusion because so much of the money is going to drug companies and insurance companies. But, lo and behold, we wake up and find out that it was not a $400 billion bill; it was a $534 billion bill. And the actuary, the civil servant at Medicare--he is not political; he works year in and year out for whoever is in office--was ordered not to tell the truth to the American Congress or the people about the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit or he would be fired. So we passed the bill. I didn't vote for it but a majority did. We passed it. The President signed it. Guess what. April Fools': It is not going to cost $400 billion, it is going to cost $534 billion. Then, of course, we have No Child Left Behind, which many of us so hoped would make a difference in the education of our children. But we conditioned our support for this education reform on the promise by the President that it would be fully funded, that the money our teachers and principals and superintendents and school boards, but particularly our children, would need would be there. Well, no longer is that promise even credible. The President signed the bill and then presented a budget which didn't provide the money required to fully implement No Child Left Behind. Once again, April Fools' on us. Americans have been fooled time and time again by this administration, fooled by promises and fooled by predictions. Indeed, for 3\1/2\ years, this administration has said one thing and done something else. The list is far longer than what I have even mentioned. This was an administration that said: We are going to do something about global climate change and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is warming our climate. We just received a report from the Pentagon talking about what that means to our national security. So the President gave speeches when he was running for office saying we are going to deal with that. Lo and behold, he gets into office, and forget it. April Fools': climate change, no such thing is going forward under this President. We have just seen some recent examples with respect to rising gas prices. That is a big concern. It is a concern in my State and around the country. We are seeing OPEC cutting production which will cause even higher prices for gasoline. When the President was running for office, he said: Why doesn't anyone do anything to get these gas prices down? When I am elected, I will make sure OPEC doesn't raise gas prices on us. Well, OPEC did it. They cut production. All the President said was how disappointed he was. That doesn't sound like much of a strong case being made on behalf of the American people. Again, what should we expect? It is the same story from this administration. Say one thing, do something differently; fool the people, not just one day a year but every single day. It is as if words don't matter anymore with the administration--and, regrettably, with the Republican leadership in Congress. There are a lot of serious issues facing the people I represent. We are losing jobs. A lot of people are losing their health care benefits. The cost of education to send a child to college is going up. We have a lot of challenges we should be working together to meet. On this side of the aisle we have tried to raise the minimum wage. Why have we done that? Because it has not been raised for about 8 years. There are a lot of decent, hard-working people who are falling further and further behind because their costs are going up, but their incomes sure are not. We also want to do something about overtime because what this administration has done is to say: We want to change the rules which would take away overtime compensation from about 8 million Americans. Can you imagine what a horrible experience that would be for somebody working a shift as a police officer or a firefighter or a nurse to be told: Well, your Government, your President doesn't want you to be paid for the hours you have to work extra. April Fools' on you. You are going to work but not get paid for it. We don't like that. Is that obstructionist, that we Democrats think it is not fair that people should have to work and not be paid for it? I don't think so. I think that is in the tradition of American fair play. But we can't get a vote on it here because the Republicans know that if they had to have a vote on it, it would actually pass. That would really embarrass the President and his administration. So they don't want us to vote on it. Unemployment benefits, it is the same thing. A lot of people are not only out of work, but they can't find work because there are so few jobs being created in this economy. The administration doesn't want to help these people. They don't want to give them that extra unemployment benefit that can tide them over until maybe we can start seeing some jobs created that will put people back to work. So our friends on the other side of the aisle don't want to vote on that because the administration would be embarrassed, because they know if Republicans had to vote on it, they would actually vote for it. So they don't want that to happen. Time and time again, we have seen the President and the majority say one thing and do something else. It is April Fools' Day today, but that is no way to run a government. It is no way to run a great country.

Mrs. CLINTON. Once again, the Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. As he well remembers, the debate on the floor concerning prescription drugs benefited many opportunities to try to rein in the cost of prescription drugs, to try to give permission to Medicare to negotiate, as any big institutional buyer would have the right to do, and also to import the drugs that are American-made, American-approved, back from Canada so we could get the lower prices. Again, this administration and the Republican majority steadfastly stood against the American public, against our seniors, and stood for the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, the cost is going to be much greater, and much of that increased cost is not going to help our seniors and lower drug costs so we can perhaps have even more prescription drugs available for our people. Instead, it will go right into the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies.

Mrs. CLINTON. Certainly.

Mrs. CLINTON. Well, the Senator from Illinois has raised another important issue because the administration is using taxpayer dollars to convey a misleading impression of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and to do so as a way of boosting the President's reelection opportunity. So taxpayer dollars, instead of his campaign dollars, are being used to try to persuade the American people against the evidence that this massive bill, with so many benefits for the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies, is good for them. It is regrettable. As the Senator knows, many of us tried to prevent that from happening and say let's do this right, in a bipartisan, unified manner, where we really provide a prescription drug benefit for our seniors. As the Senator also is aware, in the last several weeks, the President's campaign has been accusing one of our colleagues, the Democratic nominee for President, of flip-flopping, saying one thing one day and saying something else at a later date. It is the pot calling the kettle black at the very least because it is this administration which, on every important issue to the American people, has either changed position or has persisted in providing a misleading and inaccurate argument on behalf of a position they have taken. The long and distinguished career in public and military service of the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, is one that needs no defense from me or anyone else. It stands on its own merits. It is regrettable that an administration, increasingly known for its two- sided approach and its talking out of both sides of its mouth at the same time, saying one thing and doing something else, would be accusing anyone of engaging in that kind of behavior. Mr. President, it is April Fools' Day once a year. Thankfully, that is only once a year in most of our lives. Here in Washington, it is every single day, 365 days a year. The administration has engaged in April Fools' tricks on the people of this country repeatedly. But I think people are waking up and starting to say: Wait a minute, where is that big surplus you promised if we did everything you said? How come my taxes are going up as a middle income American while taxes on the richest are going down? How come this is the first President in our Nation's history that has led us to war and cut taxes at the same time? How come the White House didn't tell us the truth about the cost of the Medicare prescription drug? How come the administration didn't fund No Child Left Behind the way it had been promised? How come we are having a transportation bill that the President threatened to veto when it is the only jobs bill on the horizon that can put people to work and repair the infrastructure and modernize our transportation system in a way that will make us richer and stronger in the future? Well, the April Fools' Day jokes are coming to an end. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The American people are starting to ask the hard questions. They are not just questions coming from Democrats, but from independents and Republicans, and coming from longtime Government employees who don't have any partisan affiliation, like Richard Clarke, asking hard questions that deserve honest answers. At the end of the day, what really matters is that the American people have trust in their Government and believe their President when he talks to them about matters of life and death. That is what we are talking about--life and death. So let's hope that when this day ends, maybe we can have some good news from this administration in the form of admissions and some corrections that will put us back on the path of unity, that will create the tone the President promised that would be a positive tone in Washington, where we could deal with the real problems facing Americans. I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful that we could see that happen because these are matters of profound importance. It is imperative that we as a Nation have faith in our leaders in these dangerous and difficult times. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CLINTON. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely right. Not only did the President, when he was running for office, say that he would jawbone and fight back hard against OPEC if they tried to limit supply or raise prices, he even said he would use his connections in the oil industry to make sure that got done. We all know about his connections and the Vice President's connections. There has never been an administration in our history that is so closely connected to big oil and big gas and big coal and everything else. So what happens? OPEC meets. Whatever they tried to do behind the scenes sure didn't work because they voted to cut production 4 percent. When that was announced, what did the President do? He said he was disappointed. There has also never been a President or anyone in any administration who is closer or whose family is closer to many of the big oil- producing countries such as Saudi Arabia. They have connections and relationships and friendships going back decades. One would think that if any President could force OPEC not to take this damaging action against the American consumer, it would be this President. But I see no signs of that. I see no real effort in that. Once again, it is say one thing, do something else. April Fools' on the American people.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I thank my leader from Nevada.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. I rise in strong support of the amendment to save crucial programs like Medicaid from being slashed by this short-sighted budget. This is a time when American families are still struggling to find jobs, and the new jobs they are finding are often low-wage jobs that lack health insurance. In this setting, Medicaid remains an essential ``safety-net'' in the provision of health and long term care services for millions of Americans. Meanwhile, even as need is greater, States' revenues are declining, so there are fewer and fewer resources to meet those needs. New York had a $6.8 billion budget gap last year, $11.5 billion in '03/'04-- that's 25 percent of the general fund. This is a pattern repeated for all the states. Texas had a 15 percent shortfall. Alabama faced a shortage amounting to 16.5 percent of the general fund. And because States, unlike the Federal Government, often face State constitutional provisions that prevent them from carrying a deficit, they are forced to cut benefits to make ends meet, thus slashing eligibility, starving hospitals and physicians, and slashing services. We see that happening all over the country. But instead of acting to prevent these cuts, and stanch the bleeding, this budget turns the knife further and forces $11 billion in unspecified cuts to Medicaid at a time when such cuts would cripple states' ability to serve American families in hard times. We have all been on record supporting the important safety net role that Medicaid plays when American families are hard-pressed to find jobs. Last year, we worked hard to recognize the existing financial instability threatening the Medicaid program. We provided $10 billion in temporary State fiscal relief directed at Medicaid. Thanks to this relief, States and local communities have been able to continue to maintain their Medicaid programs and avert drastic cuts in local services. But the fiscal relief is due to expire in 3 months, even as State budget situations remain in critical condition. And as the jobs situation continues to look dire, Medicaid is as critical as ever to ensuring the health of millions of Americans. Now is not the time to make additional reductions in federal Medicaid funding. We must reject the Medicaid reduction provisions in the budget and, in doing so, take a stand to protect the health and long term care needs of our nation's struggling families, our elderly and disabled. That is why I urge my colleagues to support the Baucus amendment to reduce the amount of cuts that would otherwise have to come from Medicaid.

Mrs. CLINTON. Madam President, I support the Murray-Kennedy amendment to meet the funding promises in the No Child Left Behind Act. When I voted for the No Child Left Behind Act I though we made a deal with our local school districts--we would ask more of them and we would provide the resources to allow them to meet those expectations. Today it is clear that this administration has deliberately chosen not to play by its own rules and has instead reneged on the promises it made to teachers, parents and millions of poor school children across the Nation. For a third year running, this administration has shortchanged the reforms included in No Child Left Behind. Instead of helping ensure these children are not left behind, this administration has had a clear record of promising false hopes and of cutting resources targeted towards improving educational opportunities for all children. This Democratic amendment ensures the President and the Republicans in Congress live up to their commitments to fully fund programs like Title I, English Language Acquisition, literacy programs, after school and rural education and that is why I am proud to cosponsor it. We all know that there is no greater path to opportunity than education. Unless we fully fund No Child Left Behind, millions of needy students will be denied the opportunity to achieve the American dream I have visited schools across the great state of New York and I know firsthand that our school districts are doing their part to help students learn at higher levels. Yet they continue to struggle with critical funding shortages to fully serve all children in need. The Murray-Kennedy amendment would help ensure that 4.6 million children get the quality education they need and deserve. For New York, this funding will help close the $765.7 million gap in Title I funding between the funding proposed in the Republican budget and the amount that was promised to my state when we passed No Child Left Behind. With these resources, New York schools could decrease class sizes for 834,117 students, expand preschool to 105,689 eligible children and certify 102,740 teachers. The more we hold off on funding these reforms, the more it will cost school districts to meet the requirements to increase test scores and the numbers of highly-qualified teachers. That is why we are falling further behind every year we fail to live up to that commitment. I strongly urge my colleagues to support the Murray-Kennedy amendment.

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

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to join many of my colleagues, led by Senator Reed of Rhode Island, to express the strongest opposition that I possibly can to the legislation before the Senate. I want to say, Mr. President, that enough is enough. In doing so I am proud to not only stand with many of my colleagues but many of my fellow Americans who are on the front lines trying to keep our communities safe, such as our chiefs of police, other law enforcement, and mayors from around the country, as well as the tens of thousands of victims of gun violence, including my friends Jim and Sarah Brady. Here in Washington, there is a lot of talk about responsibility and accountability. Yet, this legislation does just the opposite. It does nothing but shield irresponsible gun makers and gun sellers from accountability. Gun owners are asked to act responsibly and the vast majority of them do. Gun makers and gun sellers should be held to the same standard. And yet, the legislation before us--the gun immunity bill--says to gun makers and gun sellers that they don't need to meet the same standards as every as other business is required to meet, and that is to conduct one's business in a reasonable and non-negligent manner. No other industry has the kind of protection that the NRA is seeking on behalf the gun industry with respect to a relatively small number of lawsuits that have been filed or may be filed in the future. I simply cannot understand why the Congress would give this extraordinary and unprecedented liability protection to the gun industry. Mr. President, we must do all we can to defeat the gun immunity bill which, among many other things, will give legal protection to the gun dealer--Bull's Eye Shooter Supply--who armed the D.C. area snipers and will take away the right to sue from the victims. What an injustice to the DC sniper victims and the American people. What a real shame. Let me be clear, Mr. President. Despite protestations and suggestions to the contrary, this bill isn't about helping people. This bill is not about the rights of hunters. Not one single gun owner will be helped by this immunity legislation. This bill is also not about jobs. This is about serving the will of the gun industry first, and the interest of the American people a distant second. As noted by Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, Mayor Daley of Chicago, Mayor Kahn of Los Angeles, and Mayor King of Gary, in an op-ed in the New York Times opposing this bill, federal data from 2000 shows that a little more than 1 percent of dealers account for 57 percent of all guns recovered in criminal investigations. Responsible gun sellers should be angry about this. They should demand action to clean up their industry. Yet, the legislation the Senate is considering now would say to the small group of irresponsible gun dealers, ``don't bother running a responsible business,'' and ``you are not responsible for your actions no matter how reckless or negligent they may be.'' Before addressing the specifics of this legislation, let me clear up some other misinformation about how criminals get their guns. Many falsely believe that criminals and drug dealers steal most of their guns and that gun dealers are not responsible in any way for the vast majority of guns that end up being used in violent crime, that it is the fault of criminals. This is simply not true. In 1998, a Northwestern University study of records maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms demonstrated that more criminals buy their guns new than steal them. Specifically, the ATF determined that while more than 11,000 of the weapons traced were stolen from licensed gun dealers or residences, almost four times as many--more than 40,000--were sold by licensed dealers. This number is astounding. Almost four times as many guns recovered from criminals by the ATF were gained through licensed traffickers and not through theft. This is an important point to note because if most guns used in crimes in our country are not stolen but in fact are purchased, manufacturers and sellers of guns and ammunition can greatly influence the degree to which guns flow get in the hands of criminals. Gun dealers hold an enormous and unparreled power over the supply of guns in America. While most gun dealers who wield this power act responsibly, the negligence and irresponsibility of a few bad seeds, like the Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, WA, are the cause of the problem. These bad gun dealers, the 1 percent of dealers who account for 57 percent of all guns recovered in criminal investigations, need to be held accountable. Yet this bill removes that accountability. This legislation removes that accountability through section 3 of the bill, which precludes even the bringing of civil actions against gun manufacturers, gun dealers, distributors, sellers of ammunition, and even trade associations in any Federal or State court. By the way, the prohibition on commencing an action applies not just to individuals, but to states, local governments, and, incredibly, even the federal government. Section 3 also states that pending civil actions ``shall be immediately dismissed'' by the court in which the action was brought. This bill is particularly disturbing to me because it directly and significantly affects New Yorkers. Currently, the City of New York has a suit pending--initially commenced by Rudy Giuliani when he served as Mayor of New York. Given that bill proponents have argued that this legislation is needed to protect against frivolous lawsuits, are they suggesting that Rudy Giuliani would file such a lawsuit against the gun industry. I don't think so. It would be a shame if New York City's suit were to be dismissed because New York City--under the Giuliani administration--filed suit to try and protect the health and safety of New Yorkers by getting the gun industry to change its practices. Indeed, a New York federal court has already found in another case that gun manufacturers improper sales and distribution practices contribute to the illegal gun market in NY State, and there is ample evidence, including a study conducted by the National Economic Research Associates, that if gun manufacturers and sellers change their practices and use care and act responsible in their selling practices, many fewer guns wind up in the hands of criminals and used in committing crimes. And the New York Police Department--the largest and one of the finest law enforcement agencies in the world--has had to expend enormous resources to control gun-trafficking. I don't want their work--none of us should want their work--to be conducted in vain by failing to hold accountable irresponsible gun dealers. As New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has said: ``The nation's law enforcement officials struggle every day against the scourge of gun crimes, and we look to Congress to assist us in that fight, not make our jobs harder. By providing broad immunity to the gun industry, this bill will endanger the very police officers who place their lives on the line to protect all Americans.'' In addition to New York City, a small number of New Yorkers who have been severely injured because of the negligence of others have also commenced actions against certain gun manufactures and gun dealers. I am not going to prejudge the merits of these cases, but the bottom line is that they deserve their day in court. This law would deny them that basic right. One of these suits arose out of what has been referred to as the ``Wendy's Massacre.'' In May of 2001, two criminals armed with an allegedly illegally acquired semi-automatic pistol went into a Wendy's restaurant, ordered all of the employees into the basement, marched them single file into a walk-in refrigerator, duct taped their mouths, tied them up, covered their heads with plastic bags, and one by one, shot them execution style in the back of the head. These workers were brutally gunned down for a total of $2,400. One of those injured individuals fortunate enough to have survived the tragedy was Jaquione Johnson, who now has a suit pending against Bryco Arms. Johnson sustained serious injuries including brain damage and paralysis. Jaquione contends that the defendant's distribution practices created, contributed to, and maintained the illegal secondary gun market through which the handgun passed until it did its deadly work. This underground market, the complaint asserts, depended upon defendants' irresponsible business practices, such as multiple firearms sales and straw purchases. The complaint further asserts that because the gun dealers could gain significant revenue from illegal firearms sales, they failed to adopt basic policies and practices that would greatly decrease the number of guns reaching criminals despite the knowledge that it was reasonably foreseeable that individuals like the plaintiff and the public at large would be harmed. No one in the Wendy's case is arguing that the defendant gun manufacturer and dealer pulled the trigger that killed and maimed the Wendy's workers. Instead, the victim is simply seeking to be compensated for serious injuries that were caused by the negligence of another. If the defendants were not negligent in distributing the deadly weapon used here, they will not be held liable by the court. However, if the defendant gun dealers were negligent in their distribution of the guns and that negligence helped cause the plaintiff' harm, then they will be held accountable. A suit like Jacquoine's, despite what others would have you believe, is not frivolous. This is a meritorious suit that must be heard in our courts to ensure accountability. In fact, just a few weeks ago, on February 3, a Federal judge in New York denied the defendant's motion to dismiss Jaquione's suit, making clear that Jaquione claim is anything but frivolous. Yet, the NRA believes that it, by legislative fiat, should pre-ordain the result in Jaquione's case. This New York case and the case commenced by the City of New York under the Giuliani administration are not outliers. Gary, IN has a suit pending and the Supreme Court of Indiana has held that city had a valid legal claim. The Illinois Court of Appeal held similar with respect to a case brought by the city of Chicago. The bill before us, however, would override the decisions of these appellate State courts. Similarly, in New Mexico, a teenager who was shot in the face has brought suit against Bryco Arms alleging that the pistol's design was defective and unreasonably dangerous for its failure to incorporate safety devices like a loaded chamber indicator and a magazine disconnect safety that would prevent a pistol from being fired with the magazine removed. The New Mexico Court of Appeals held that the suit stated a valid legal claim and should go to trial. Further, the court stated, ``application of our tort law can be expected to enhance [gun] ownership by tending to increase the safety of guns.'' This legitimate and worthy claim would be in danger of dismissal if this bill is passed. There are a number of other suits just like the ones I have just mentioned and they are before our State and Federal courts. That Congress, rather than these courts, would make the decision by legislative fiat to dismiss these cases, regardless of the facts and the law, is extraordinary and unprecedented and a real shame. It should not be countenanced. The proponents of this legislation point to the exceptions contained in section 4 of the bill and have argued that the exceptions are sufficient to allow non-frivolous lawsuits to be maintained. First of all, despite all the talk of frivolous suits, the proponents point to not one court that has deemed any lawsuit brought in any federal or state court against a manufacturer or gun dealer as frivolous. The proponents of this special interest legislation cannot point to such a decision because there is none. No frivolous lawsuits have been filed. That assertion is simply devoid of merit. As to the purported exceptions in the bill, they are so narrowly crafted as to be illusory. The first exception provides that a lawsuit can be brought by the party ``directly harmed'' against a defendant who has been convicted of the crime of ``knowingly'' transferring a firearm ``knowing'' that the guns would be used to commit a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime. In other words, this exception would not apply to a dealer who is extraordinarily reckless or negligent as to how it markets or sells its guns unless the dealer knew it was selling a gun to someone who would commit a violent crime. This is an extraordinarily high burden because it says that you can only sue a dealer if the dealer engaged in a criminal act--if the dealer is, in affect, an accomplice to a violent or drug trafficking crime. The second exception provides that an action may be brought ``against a seller for negligent entrustment or negligence per se.'' ``Negligent entrustment'' is defined in the bill to mean ``the supplying of a qualified product by a seller for use by another person when the seller knows, or should know, the person to whom the product is supplied is likely to, and does, use the product in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical injury to the person or others.'' In other words, according to the Congressional Research Service, this exception would appear to allow a suit to be maintained against an entity that supplied a firearm or ammunition to a person who, because of age, mental disability, intoxication, or violent propensity, seems likely to use the product in a dangerous manner. That may be all well and good, but I wondered why the crafters of the bill went to the trouble of defining ``negligent entrustment,'' when such a cause of action is defined by state law. Well, it's because ``negligent entrustment'' has been defined in this legislation much more narrowly than how it has been defined by many states under state law. In fact, in the case brought by the victims of the DC snipers against Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, the Washington state court held that ``negligent entrustment'' also occurs when a firearms manufacturer sells firearms to a retail store that it ``knew or should have known . . . was operating its store in a reckless or incompetent manner, creating an unreasonable risk of harm.'' Indeed, one of the allegations in the complaint brought by victims of the DC sniper against the manufacturer of the gun used by the DC snipers was that the manufacturer knew or should have known that the retailer--Bull's Eye--had a ``history of a large number of weapons for which it could not account.'' The Washington state court found that if the plaintiff could prove this, then the manufacturer ``may be liable for plaintiff's injuries under the theory of negligent entrustment.'' The court, therefore, denied the defendant manufacturer's motion to dismiss. So the bottom line is that this supposed ``exception'' in the bill is not really an exception because it dramatically narrows the State law definition of negligent entrustment. To make matters even worse, the exception does not cover manufacturers; it only covers ``sellers,'' such as gun dealers. So even if there were a broader definition of negligent entrustment in this exception, it would still prohibit such a cause of action from ever being brought against a manufacturer. This is one of the major objections to the bill made by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Lastly, as to this second exception in section 4 of the bill, including ``negligence per se'' doesn't add much because the common law definition of ``negligence per se'' means that a person or entity is negligent per se, 1, if the party violated a state or federal statute; 2, if it demonstrated that the person bringing the action was the member of the class of persons that the statute was intended to protect, and 3, that the party's injuries suffered were the kind that the statute was enacted to prevent. But the bottom line is that violation of a statute is required. That's not very much of an exception to the gun immunity's general provision that no civil action can be brought in any federal or state court and that all pending cases must be dismissed. There has been much discussion about the third exception because it was recently added to this legislation, but this exception, like the others in the bill, is extraordinarily narrow as to be almost meaningless. The third exception provides that an action may be brought in which a manufacturer or a seller of a gun violated state or federal law concerning the sale or marketing of guns or ammunition and the violation of the statute was the proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought, including, 1, any case in which the manufacturer or seller knowingly made a false entry in, or failed to make an appropriate entry in, any record required to be kept under federal or state law; 2, any case in which the manufacturer or seller aided, abetted, or conspired with any person in making any false or fictitious oral or written statement with respect to any material factor concerning the lawfulness of the sale; or 3, any case in which the manufacturer or seller aided, abetted, or conspired with some to sell or otherwise dispose of a gun or ammunition, knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that the actual buyer of the gun or ammunition was prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm or ammunition under subsections (g) or (n) of section 922 of title 18. I know this section has already been discussed at some length, but I want to underscore that two esteemed lawyers, Lloyd Cutler and David Boies, after reviewing this language extensively and the complaint filed by the DC sniper victims against Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, stated that in two separate legal opinions that this suit could not be maintained under this exception and would have to be dismissed. The fourth exception is an action for breach of contract or warranty in the connection with the purchase of a gun. This exception is also of no moment, however, because as troubling and out of the mainstream as this legislation is, one would hope that the United States Congress would not seek to render null and void contracts and warranty agreements entered into between the sellers and purchasers of guns. The fifth and final exception to the general provision requiring the dismissal of pending cases and the prohibition on bringing any future cases is an exception for ``an action for physical injuries or property damage resulting directly from a defect in design or manufacture of the product, when used as intended or in a manner that is reasonably foreseeable.'' ``Reasonably foreseeable'', however, is defined to exclude any criminal or unlawful misuse--violation of a statute, ordinance, or regulation--of a gun or ammunition, other than possessory offenses. What does this mean? Contrary to what some of my colleagues have said during this floor debate, it does not mean that all design or manufacturing defect cases can be brought or maintained. This is so for a number of reasons. First, the product would have to be used as intended. If there is a defect in the gun, for example, but an unintended use is that a child uses the gun and accidently maims or kills himself, this legislation would prevent the child or his parents from even filing a lawsuit against the manufacturer to seek recovery and, equally important, from trying to hold the manufacturer accountable so that the defect could be fixed and such injuries to other children could be prevented. This exception is also extraordinarily narrow in that even if there is a design or manufacturing defect and even if someone is harmed because of the defect, no recovery can even be sought if the gun was used in any criminal activity or misused in any way. I know I have taken a fair amount of time to talk about the exceptions contained in section 4 of this bill, but I felt it important because proponents of this legislation have constantly said ``look to section 4,'' suggesting that these exceptions will enable legitimate cases to be brought and/or maintained against negligent manufacturers and gun dealers. As I have laid out in great detail, the assertion made by the proponents of this legislation is unequivocally--simply--not true. And I want to make sure that the American people who are watching and listening to this debate understand that. I also want to take a moment to correct some other misstatements that have been statements in support of this bill. As noted above, one of the assertions is that there are thousands of frivolous lawsuits--including I guess the one filed by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani--that have been filed. Well, as we now know, that statement is simply not true because not one court has deemed any case filed to be frivolous. In fact, a respected senior Federal judge in New York, Judge Jack Weinstein, actually dismissed a case brought by the NAACP because he held that the NAACP wasn't the proper plaintiff. However, in his 178- page ruling, Judge Weinstein found that gun manufacturer's improper sales and distribution practices contribute to the illegal gun market in New York State. His conclusion was based on previously unavailable data from the ATF and from the gun industry that established a connection between the gun industry's marketing practices and access to guns by criminals. He also found that the data demonstrated that a ``handful of `bad apple' retailers in the industry supply a disproportionate share of guns used in crimes.'' Indeed, according to Robert Haas, the former Senior Vice President for marketing and sales for defendant Smith & Wesson, the gun industry knows that the criminal market is fueled by the industry's distribution practices, but does nothing. Haas has said: ``The company and the industry as a whole are fully aware of the extent of the criminal misuse of firearms.'' ``The company and the industry are also aware that the black market in firearms is not simply the result of stolen guns but is due to the seepage of guns into the illicit market from multiple thousands of unsupervised federal firearms licensees. In spite of their knowledge, however, the industry's position has consistently been to take no independent action to insure responsible distribution practices.'' This failure to take action is particularly disturbing because the problem can be fixed. If all gun manufacturers took reasonable measures in distributing their guns, then there would be significantly fewer guns in the hands of criminals. This is consistent with Judge Weinstein's finding that the data in the case before him showed that the handgun industry could have done something about these dealers, including implementing obvious common sense solutions such as data gathering and monitoring regulations, but chose not to do so. Another assertion by proponents of this legislation is that these lawsuits--less than 100 of them--are bankrupting the industry. Well, from what I can tell, the gun industry is doing anything but hurting. That's not my view, but the view of gun manufacturers that have filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Manufacturer after manufacturer has reported to the SEC that it is financially stable and that ``it is not probable and is unlikely that litigation, including punitive damage claims, will have a material adverse effect on the financial position of the Company.'' Another claim made is that these suits are going to cause jobs to go overseas. Now, I would love it, and more important, the American people would greatly appreciate it, if instead of considering this bill, the Senate was seeking to address in a comprehensive way the more than 3 million jobs lost in the past 3 years. But the Senate has chosen not to do so. I have worked hard to support the development of jobs in my state and appreciate that there are New Yorkers in my state who help to manufacture guns at Remington Arms. But the truth is that Remington Arms is not in financial trouble based on this litigation. Remington Arms produces long guns primarily and the vast majority of the victims of gun violence and crime are shot by hand guns, not long guns, such as rifles and shotguns. Remington Arms does not need this protection; it is financially strong. Instead, it is the victims of gun violence that need protection from this legislation. In short, these suits are not about putting the gun industry out of business. They are about responsible business practices, they are about keeping the guns out of the wrong hands through responsible distribution practices. In fact, it is because of some of the lawsuits that have been filed that some gun manufacturers have improved their marketing and distribution practices. In March of 2000, for example, the gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson reached a settlement with a number of government entities, including the State of New York. This settlement demonstrates why the gun immunity bill will actually make guns less safe. As part of the agreement, Smith & Wesson agreed to change the ways it distributes guns it manufacturers. It promised to sell only to authorized distributors and dealers who adhere to a stringent code of conduct and it agreed to terminate sales to any dealer who sells a disproportionate number of guns used in crime. The settlement makes us safer because it helps to ensure that guns won't end up in the hands of criminals. Smith & Wesson also agreed that their guns will be shipped with external safety locks, that all pistols will have a chamber loaded indicator, that new gun designs will include smart gun technology, and that all guns must pass performance tests to ensure safety and quality. These are reasonable agreements that all gun manufacturers should follow. They make guns safer for everyone, especially those who own and operate them, especially for the children of gun owners. This settlement demonstrates the great possibilities that exist to improve the safety of guns. This settlement underscores how much manufacturers and dealers can do to keep Americans safer without unduly affecting the bottom business line. If the bill before us becomes law, however, don't expect to see any similar settlements in the future. If gun makers cannot be held liable, they will have no incentive to enter into a settlement. If they cannot be held liable, gun makers will have absolutely no financial incentive to make their guns safer. Indeed, they will actually have a financial disincentive to develop new safety mechanisms and distribution practices. As a Senator from a State with millions of law abiding gun owners, I want guns to be as safe as possible. I want new safety features and improvements developed. And I want--we should all want--the victims who are injured or killed because of defective guns or bad marketing and sales practices to not have the courthouse doors slammed in their faces. Gun violence is a dangerous threat throughout our nation claiming the lives of thousands of people every year across America and New York State. In 2001, the number of deaths in the U.S. from firearms was 29,573. In addition, for every firearm fatality in the U.S., there are two non- fatal firearm injuries. A study of all direct and indirect costs of gun violence estimates that gun violence costs the nation $100 billion a year. In 1999, New Yorkers suffered 1,652 hospitalizations and 965 deaths at the hands of gun violence. 291 of those deaths were individuals below the age of 24. In 2000, there were 1,093 deaths in New York State from firearms. We should be talking about how we can reduce gun violence and prevent deaths of American men, women, and children, not how to slam the courthouse door shut to gun victims and while at the same time giving bad gun dealers blanket immunity from irresponsibly and negligent conduct. Although this very bad bill is currently before the U.S. Senate, all of my colleagues, including the bill's proponents, have an opportunity to help make our communities safer by supporting a number of amendments currently pending, including the amendment offered by Senators Feinstein, Warner, and Schumer that reauthorizes the assault weapons ban and the amendment offered by Senators McCain and Reed that seeks to close what has been called the ``gun show loophole.'' I must say that it is astonishing to me that we even need to debate the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban because there is no reasonable argument that can be made against it. People do not hunt with assault weapons. Instead, assault weapons are designed for one purpose and for one purpose only and that is to kill people. Extending and improving upon the assault weapons ban is essential because assault weapons are a clear threat to law enforcement. Assault weapons kill police officers. One in five law enforcement officers slain in the line of duty is killed with an assault weapon. I would hope that everyone would agree that we need to put the interests of law enforcement officers far ahead of the interests of the NRA. If we are to remain true to our support for law enforcement officials, we need to extend and improve the assault weapons ban because it is our duty to protect those who risk their lives to protect us. In addition, a report released yesterday by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, ``On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act,'' demonstrates that the assault weapons ban passed 10 years ago has been working. The report shows that the assault weapons banned by name in the Act have declined substantially, 66 percent, as a percentage of overall crime gun traces since the assault weapons ban was enacted in 1994. The study concludes that the ban has contributed to a substantial reduction in the use of assault weapons in crime, despite the industry's efforts to evade the law through the sale of copycat guns. The assault weapons ban has been successful keeping these killing machines off our streets but it is set to expire later this year. To protect our law enforcement officials, to protect our safety, we cannot let this law expire. We must reauthorize the ban on assault weapons. We must also do all we can to close the ``gun show loophole'' because the loophole enables those who are otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms under federal law to easily obtain guns. Terrorists, criminals and other people prohibited from buying or possessing guns seek out unlicensed sellers at gun shows because they know that they can simply put down their money and walk away with deadly weapons. Additionally, because these unlicensed sellers are not well-regulated and do not keep records, criminals exploit gun shows to sell firearms and law enforcement has difficulty tracing gun-show firearms that turn up at crime scenes. Gun shows are now the second leading source of firearms recovered in illegal gun trafficking investigations. The gun show loopholes in our laws allow individuals otherwise prohibited from legally purchasing firearms to easily gain access to potentially deadly weapons. Both the City and State of New York have enacted laws regulating gun sales and the possession of guns within the City and State. Yet, because of the gun show loophole, these laws have been unable to stop guns from coming into New York. Expert studies by Dr. Howard Andrews of Columbia University show almost 90 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in NY were purchased out state. If our background checks on gun purchases are going to have meaning and value, we must close the gun show loopholes and that is why I support the McCain-Reed-DeWine-Lieberman amendment and I hope the entire Senate will do the same. In closing, Mr. President, I want to implore my colleagues to examine the legislation before us that will give blanket immunity to bad gun manufacturers and dealers and to support the amendments designed to make our country safer. I can't even begin to imagine what this nation will be like at the end of this September if the assault weapons ban is not renewed, the gun show loophole is not closed, and the gun immunity bill becomes law. Unscrupulous and negligent gun manufacturers and dealers--both licensed and unlicensed--will be able to sell guns of all kinds, including assault weapons, and incredibly, no matter what happens, no matter how many Americans will be maimed and killed, they will be immune from liability. I implore my colleagues to do all we can to make sure that doesn't happen.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to introduce an important piece of legislation to assist our atomic weapons workers. The legislation addresses a major flaw in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program by expanding eligibility for benefits. Under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA), workers are eligible for a payment of $150,000 and medical coverage for expenses associated with the treatment of diseases contracted due to exposure to radiation at atomic weapons plants. However, under EEOICPA, workers who became sick from working in contaminated atomic weapons plants after weapons production ceased are not eligible for benefits. In 2003, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health released a Congressionally-mandated report, entitled `` Report on Residual Radioactive and Beryllium Contamination in Atomic Weapons Employer and Beryllium Vendor Facilities.'' The report concluded that ``significant'' residual radioactive contamination existed in many of these plants for years and decades after weapons production ceased, posing a risk of radiation-related cancers or disease to unknowing workers. In fact, the report found that: 97, 44 percent, of covered facilities have potential for significant residual radioactive contamination outside of the periods in which atomic weapons-related production occurred; 88, 40 percent, of such facilities have little potential for significant residual radioactive contamination outside of the periods in which atomic weapons-related production occurred; and 34, 16 percent, of such facilities have insufficient information to make a determination. In my State of New York, 16 of 31 covered facilities were found to have the potential for significant contamination, 10 had little potential for significant contamination, and 5 of the 31 had insufficient information. In other words, more than half of the New York Atomic Weapons Employer Facilities in New York were contaminated after weapons production ceased. As a result, workers were exposed to radiation, and deserve to be eligible for benefits under EEOICPA. That is why I am introducing the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act (RRCCA) today. The bill would extend eligibility for benefits under EEOICPA to workers who were employed at facilities where NIOSH has found potential for significant radioactive contamination. In addition to expanding eligibility to workers employed at facilities where NIOSH has found potential for significant radioactive contamination, the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act would require NIOSH to update the list of such facilities annually. This addresses the fact that there was insufficient information for NIOSH to characterize a number of sites in its 2003 report. I would also like to take the opportunity to draw attention to another important issue--the special cohort rule. Under EEOICPA, the Department of Health and Human Services was to establish procedures so that workers can petition the government to be included in a ``special cohort''--meaning that they would be eligible for the program--if their radiation doses are difficult to estimate but it is likely that they have radiation-caused illnesses. Despite this important mandate, the letter notes that ``. . . nearly 39 months after EEOICPA was signed into law, the promise of ``timely, uniform and adequate compensation'' has not been met. As a result, I sent a letter to Secretary Thompson, along with Senator Voinovich and 16 of my other Senate colleagues--Senators Harkin, Kennedy, Schumer, Murray, DeWine, Alexander, Craig, Bond, and Talent, Reid, Grassley, Hollings, Cantwell, Domenici, Campbell, and Bingaman. The letter requested that the Secretary immediately put out the special cohort rule. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that letter be printed in the Record. More than two weeks after the letter was sent, I have still not received a response. This is unacceptable. The Administration seems to have no sense of urgency in addressing this issue. But each day that passes only delays long overdue justice for the Cold War heroes who worked in our weapons facilities. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act be printed in the Record.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to introduce an important piece of legislation to assist our atomic weapons workers. The legislation addresses a major flaw in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program by expanding eligibility for benefits. Under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA), workers are eligible for a payment of $150,000 and medical coverage for expenses associated with the treatment of diseases contracted due to exposure to radiation at atomic weapons plants. However, under EEOICPA, workers who became sick from working in contaminated atomic weapons plants after weapons production ceased are not eligible for benefits. In 2003, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health released a Congressionally-mandated report, entitled `` Report on Residual Radioactive and Beryllium Contamination in Atomic Weapons Employer and Beryllium Vendor Facilities.'' The report concluded that ``significant'' residual radioactive contamination existed in many of these plants for years and decades after weapons production ceased, posing a risk of radiation-related cancers or disease to unknowing workers. In fact, the report found that: 97, 44 percent, of covered facilities have potential for significant residual radioactive contamination outside of the periods in which atomic weapons-related production occurred; 88, 40 percent, of such facilities have little potential for significant residual radioactive contamination outside of the periods in which atomic weapons-related production occurred; and 34, 16 percent, of such facilities have insufficient information to make a determination. In my State of New York, 16 of 31 covered facilities were found to have the potential for significant contamination, 10 had little potential for significant contamination, and 5 of the 31 had insufficient information. In other words, more than half of the New York Atomic Weapons Employer Facilities in New York were contaminated after weapons production ceased. As a result, workers were exposed to radiation, and deserve to be eligible for benefits under EEOICPA. That is why I am introducing the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act (RRCCA) today. The bill would extend eligibility for benefits under EEOICPA to workers who were employed at facilities where NIOSH has found potential for significant radioactive contamination. In addition to expanding eligibility to workers employed at facilities where NIOSH has found potential for significant radioactive contamination, the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act would require NIOSH to update the list of such facilities annually. This addresses the fact that there was insufficient information for NIOSH to characterize a number of sites in its 2003 report. I would also like to take the opportunity to draw attention to another important issue--the special cohort rule. Under EEOICPA, the Department of Health and Human Services was to establish procedures so that workers can petition the government to be included in a ``special cohort''--meaning that they would be eligible for the program--if their radiation doses are difficult to estimate but it is likely that they have radiation-caused illnesses. Despite this important mandate, the letter notes that ``. . . nearly 39 months after EEOICPA was signed into law, the promise of ``timely, uniform and adequate compensation'' has not been met. As a result, I sent a letter to Secretary Thompson, along with Senator Voinovich and 16 of my other Senate colleagues--Senators Harkin, Kennedy, Schumer, Murray, DeWine, Alexander, Craig, Bond, and Talent, Reid, Grassley, Hollings, Cantwell, Domenici, Campbell, and Bingaman. The letter requested that the Secretary immediately put out the special cohort rule. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that letter be printed in the Record. More than two weeks after the letter was sent, I have still not received a response. This is unacceptable. The Administration seems to have no sense of urgency in addressing this issue. But each day that passes only delays long overdue justice for the Cold War heroes who worked in our weapons facilities. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Residual Radioactive Contamination Compensation Act be printed in the Record.

Mrs. CLINTON

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

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I also rise today to offer an amendment that is a sense of the Senate on an issue I spoke briefly about on the floor yesterday. I know the majority leader and several others touched on it this morning. It is regarding the issue of jobs and the administration's economic policies. This sense-of-the-Senate amendment is on an issue that is of critical importance to New Yorkers and all Americans, the loss of jobs in our country. We have lost 2.2 million jobs since the beginning of this administration. This sense of the Senate is not about cutting or raising taxes; it is about protecting the jobs that Americans have today, because these 2.2 million people are not statistics; they are factory workers, office workers, laborers, engineers, radiologists-- people holding down jobs in every sector of the economy throughout our Nation. Why are they losing jobs? Because this administration has failed to provide the leadership or put forth an economic plan that inspires confidence in our markets and inspires investments by our companies in the United States. So where are these dollars and investments going? They are going overseas, where companies don't have the same environment and labor standards, and where they don't have to pay the wages that are necessary to support a middle-class lifestyle in America. Now, these lost jobs are a tremendous concern to those of us in this Chamber. I hear about it everywhere I travel in New York. You would think if there could be a consensus on anything in this Nation, it would be on how we keep jobs in America, how we prevent jobs from being outsourced, sent overseas. But apparently there is no consensus. That is what is troubling me. According to the Los Angeles Times yesterday, ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.'' I did a double take. I could not believe that was the headline. The L.A. Times wasn't the only newspaper surprise. The Seattle Times headline read: ``Bush Report: Sending Jobs Overseas Helps U.S.'' The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported: ``Bush Economic Report Praises `Outsourcing' Jobs.'' The Orlando Sentinel said: ``Bush Says Sending Jobs Abroad Can be Beneficial?'' Where did this come from? It came right from the White House. According to Gregory Mankiw, the President's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing. I know the Presiding Officer shares my concern about lost jobs. He sees it in his State, as I see it in my State. I don't think losing American jobs is a good thing. The folks at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue apparently do. Maybe that is because they have no real strategy of creating jobs in America. Maybe that is why in this budget they have sent up they are gutting investments in workforce training and dislocated worker help, and they are not pushing for stricter standards in trade agreements on labor and the environment. They are really coming forward with no plan to help control health care costs or pension costs facing American companies. The only economic policy they have is to cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. The more, the merrier. Give those CEOs and wealthy folks at the top even more money to take jobs and move them out of our country. It is all starting to make sense. The administration thinks moving jobs overseas is a good thing. This is part and parcel of a set of economic policies that are out of touch with the needs of America's working people. I now send this amendment to the desk. I hope this Congress will take up this issue as quickly as possible, because we need to send a clear message to Americans of all political persuasions, in all regions of our country, that we care about jobs. If the administration doesn't have a strategy, then this Congress will have a strategy. I ask for immediate consideration of this amendment, and I ask that Senator Bingaman be added as a cosponsor. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I clearly have a fundamental disagreement with the views of the junior Senator from Virginia. I hope our colleagues will look at the facts. The facts are that failure to enforce seatbelt laws, to make it absolutely clear that there are penalties associated with not wearing seatbelts, causes deaths from accidents that would otherwise not cause fatalities. This amendment will help us encourage States to adopt stricter seatbelt laws. We give them an option. I hope our colleagues will join with us in voting for this very important safety measure. I thank the Senator for yielding the floor.

Mrs. CLINTON. With respect to the debate that has been occurring, I understand the concerns raised by the Senator from Virginia, but under this amendment States would have the option of either enacting a primary seatbelt law or bringing their seatbelt usage rates up to 90 percent without such a law. Therefore, it is an option provided today. Would the Senator from Virginia agree that the lack of seatbelt usage causes up to 30,000 people a year to die in automobile accidents that occur on our highways and byways in this country?

Mrs. CLINTON. With respect to this legislation that I am a proud cosponsor of, along with the key sponsor and advocate, the senior Senator from Virginia, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Corzine be added as a cosponsor as well.

Mrs. CLINTON. Will the distinguished Senator from Virginia yield for a question?

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I rise today because I could not believe my eyes when I saw this headline in the Los Angeles Times today: ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.'' If one reads this article, it is clear the concern I feel on behalf of my constituents, who are finding their jobs going to other countries, is not shared in the White House. In fact, Gregory Mankiw, the President's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has this to say: Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing. I do not think outsourcing American jobs is a new kind of trade. I do not think we should be thinking of our people as commodities, and I certainly do not believe it is a good thing. If the other end of Pennsylvania believes it is a good thing to have companies shift jobs from America to the rest of the world, then maybe they do not have a clue about what it is going to take to bring jobs back to this country and create the kind of economic prosperity that will put our people back to work again. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the budget the President sent up, which cuts investments and workforce training of dislocated workers, which underscores the failure to push for stricter standards or real enforcement of labor and environmental standards in our trade agreements, has no plans to address rising health care costs or legacy health and pension costs that are strangling American manufacturing companies, and apparently does not care we are now outsourcing radiologists and engineers, people we told to go get a good education, get that college degree, get that advanced degree; there will always be a place for you in the American economy. If this is what the opinion is on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue--``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas''--I certainly hope this body will join to pass a resolution repudiating this strategy. This is a strategy for decline. This is a strategy for the destruction of the American job market. We will be presenting a resolution, a sense of Senate, to stand against this philosophy in the White House that turns a blind eye to the damage that is being done to the American economy: The loss of jobs, the loss of income, the loss of self-confidence and prestige that is now sweeping our land. I hope both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, will join in a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying: We don't know what they are drinking up there in the White House, we don't know what the Council of Economic Advisers is reading, but we in the Senate do not believe shifting jobs overseas is a good economic strategy and we want, once and for all, to not only repudiate that but to come together with real plans and policies that will keep our jobs here and make it possible for us to promise the American workforce that this economy will be creating opportunities for them and they will not be watching the American dream be outsourced as well. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his kindness in letting me express and vent my frustration about this headline and the words coming out of the White House at this time.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Madam President, I rise in very strong support of the nomination of Magistrate Judge Gary Lawrence Sharpe who has been nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. Judge Sharpe has more than 20 years of experience as a prosecutor. From 1974 to 1981, he served as an assistant district attorney and senior assistant district attorney for Broome County. After serving for a year as a special assistant New York attorney general, in 1982 he became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York. He served in that office until 1997, when he was appointed a U.S. magistrate judge for the Northern District of New York. Even with all of his prior prosecutorial responsibilities, Judge Sharpe made time to serve as a member of the Broome County Prisoner Rehabilitation Board, PROBE, the Onondaga County Substance Abuse Commission, and the Onondaga County Youth Court. More recently, he worked with the Department of Probation to develop the High Impact Incarceration Program, HIIP, a program for defendants who have substance abuse problems and who might be candidates for release. Judge Sharpe's years of service as a magistrate judge have provided him with even more experience, which will serve him well as a U.S. district court judge. Without question, Judge Sharpe has the intellect, judicial demeanor, and commitment to justice to serve the Northern District of New York as a district court judge with distinction. I ask all of my colleagues to support this nomination. I commend my colleague, Senator Schumer, for the important role he has played on the Judiciary Committee. I second his comment that in New York we have worked together with the administration to nominate and confirm judges who will be a real credit, not only to the bench but to this administration and to our country. Magistrate Judge Gary Lawrence Sharpe is at the top of that list. In addition to all of his qualifications, he has also found time as a prosecutor to serve in capacities to assist with prisoner rehabilitation, to work with youth, and to work with people who are in the grips of substance abuse to try to bring down the impact of incarceration. I think he will not only serve with distinction in New York but demonstrate clearly that this is the kind of conservative Republican nominee whom we could be unanimously confirming. I commend him to the Senate. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Madam President, I listened to the debate with respect to the fiscal year 2004 Omnibus appropriations bill that is before us. I agree with many of the points my friend from Texas was making about the important appropriations in this bill and the necessity for providing the funds needed to run the significant, critical programs of our Government. It is regrettable, therefore, that we are confronted with this particular choice. It was an unnecessary choice. It is a false choice. The appropriators worked very hard. I have the highest respect for members of the Appropriations Committee. In their hard work, they produced recommendations about what funding was needed for the critical functions of our Government. If that is what we were voting on today, I do not know that there would be a debate. I am confident there would be overwhelming support for that part of the bill. But we all know what happened was not the bill that came out of the Appropriations Committee or the bills that came out of the Senate. Instead, in a conference committee, legislation was inserted into this appropriations bill that has far-reaching consequences. So here we are being asked to support the ongoing funding of the functions of our Government, which all of us agree is important, at the cost of supporting some very serious changes in our laws that will have far-reaching consequences for the people who live in our States and our country. As Members of the legislative body, the legislative branch of Government--because we have three branches, three coequal branches under our Constitution--we have two primary responsibilities. First, we are the voices of the people who elect us. That doesn't mean we always agree with every constituent. That would be impossible. I have 19 million constituents. But it does mean that we listen and we pay attention and we try to make the very best judgments we can about what is in the interests of the people we represent. Then, second, we are part of the system of checks and balances among the branches of Government our Founders so brilliantly invented. I believe this omnibus bill and the process through which it was constructed violates both of those primary duties. This bill is laden with provisions that were rejected by a vote in this body, and some by votes in the other body. We took a vote. We said, representing the people of New York or Nevada or Utah or America, we are for it or against it but here is where we stand. Apparently the majority vote is no longer the rule in Congress, much to my amazement and distress. That is because this bill has many provisions which were rejected, which were turned away, yet here they are in the bill. We are asked that we either vote for everything or risk the loss of funding for critical Government functions. To me, it just defies our constitutional system. There is a phrase, ``under cover of darkness.'' I think this bill represents, ``under cover of conference.'' This is one of those processes that may sound a little arcane and even boring to people watching at home or sitting in the gallery, but this is the way our Government in this body, the Congress, works. The Senate passes something. The House passes something. Then, in order to work out any differences between the two Houses, they go to what is called a conference committee where they say: Here is what you passed, and here is what you passed. How do we compromise? Compromise is the very essence of a legislative body. But that is not what happened this time. What happened is that the conference committee became a separate, equal, powerful, independent legislative body run by the administration. It was under cover of conference that the White House unilaterally added provisions to this bill which reflect their political ideology and agenda, whether or not the duly elected Members of the House and the Senate agreed. Nowhere is the antidemocratic nature of this process more apparent than in the denial of overtime pay protections for 8 million Americans, including 450,000 New Yorkers. This is a significant overhaul of our Nation's worker protection laws. It was proposed under a cloak of secrecy without a single congressional hearing, without a single public hearing. As many of my colleagues remember, when the previous administration, the Clinton administration, issued regulations governing how we work today with computer terminals and repetitive kinds of procedures which cause carpal tunnel syndrome and other sorts of problems, regulations were issued to help redesign the workplace and protect the modern worker, particularly office workers but also people on assembly lines who do repetitive work hour after hour. The Clinton administration Labor Department issued ergonomics regulations. That is the phrase that describes how we try to improve the workplace to deal with these kinds of stresses. The Republicans in Congress attacked the Labor Department for issuing these regulations, claiming they had rushed to judgment because the Clinton administration held only 27 days of public hearings--27 days. Here we are being asked to vote to radically change the overtime compensation rules of our country, and we have never had a public hearing from this administration. Nevertheless, the changes, when they were announced, got a huge outpouring of reaction and a lot of scrutiny from workers and unions and people who know what it means to have to work hard and be told you are going to work hard and you are not going to be paid any more money for it. Many tough questions were asked. As Members of the House and Senate learned more about these proposals, we became concerned and we said wait a minute, we don't think that is fair. On September 10 of last year, with bipartisan support, we addressed this proposed rule and we saw, in the House, a motion passed to instruct the conference committee to adopt the Senate language, which was on a bipartisan basis, to reject changes under these kinds of circumstances in the overtime compensation laws. Now what has happened? You would have thought that ended it. But, no, the administration has refused to comply with the wishes of the majority of both Houses of Congress, and I believe the majority of Americans. So we are faced with an Omnibus appropriations bill that radically changes laws that have been in place since the 1930s. I just think everybody needs to understand this. This is not a partisan statement. This is not a political claim. This will take away overtime protection from American workers, whether you are Democrat or Republican, an Independent or pay no attention to politics. I don't think most experts believe that workers will work less. In fact, the productivity gains that have been occurring are largely because workers in America are actually working longer hours, not fewer hours. In fact, the General Accounting Office found that workers who already are not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act protections are more than twice as likely to work overtime; three times as likely to work 50 to 60 hours per week. This is going to have a particularly disadvantageous impact on Americans who live in high-cost areas such as New York City. When you look at what the new rules are and the way the administration has rubbed salt into these wounds by not only changing the rules but sending out circulars to employers to tell them how they can avoid even getting into a position where they might have to pay overtime, it is not a far reach to conclude, as have many experts who have looked at this, that we are seeing with this bill a direct cut in the take-home pay and the yearly income of people who work really hard and who will continue to work hard for less money. Three of the groups that will be most impacted are police officers, nurses, and veterans. The International Union of Police Associations and its general counsel, who is widely recognized as one of the Nation's leading experts on the Fair Labor Standards Act, estimates that 50 percent of our police officers will lose their overtime provision if this regulation is implemented. I don't look forward to the next orange alert in any community in our country where police officers are put on 12-hour shifts, maybe 16-hour shifts, where they are asked to work double- and triple-time shifts to protect us, and all of a sudden, no more overtime. The same with nurses. I have an extraordinary admiration for nursing. I know from many of the nurses with whom I work and speak on a regular basis that they are already being forced to do a lot of overtime because of cost pressures on hospitals. They are being asked to do an extra shift. They come to the end of the week, and they are being asked to work weekends. Many nurses are concerned about the quality of their work, being under pressure when they have already put in a 40-hour, 50- hour, or 60-hour workweek. But now we are going to ask them to keep working and not pay them. I am sorry, I don't understand what reality our friends on the other side and on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue live in. We are losing nurses at a rapid rate because the working conditions with mandatory overtime are already so difficult. The average age of the American nurse is 45. These are mostly women. But they are women and men with lots of responsibility, training, commitment, and devotion. They don't mind working hard, but they have families. They have their own health to worry about. All of a sudden they are going to be told their job depends on them putting in that extra time. But we are sorry, we changed the overtime rule. Right now, nurses who do not have a 4-year degree could be denied overtime under these proposed rules if they have ``experience in nursing.'' How absurd is that? Of course, they have experience in nursing. They are nurses. It used to be if you had a professional degree above a certain level you were considered a professional, you worked for a salary, and you weren't going to get overtime. But a lot of LPNs and others, after they have worked a year or 2 years, all of a sudden have experience even though they don't have a 4-year degree. So now this administration is telling their employers to work them because they are now experienced. That is their equivalent. The cynicism of this is breathtaking. It bothers me greatly to see this great body be part of such a fraud. Look at the estimates. Two hundred and thirty-four thousand LPNs will lose overtime. You know that a lot of nurses are going to continue to walk away from nursing. It is hard enough if you are paid for these long, difficult hours. But not to be paid for them? I just think we are going to be exacerbating the nurse shortage and undermine the quality of care available to patients. The final category I will mention is our veterans. We have heard a lot of rhetoric about veterans in the last couple of days, haven't we? I am very proud to represent hundreds of thousands of veterans. I am very proud of the men and women serving us in uniform today. Yet this bill takes away the overtime protections to which many veterans in the workforce are now entitled. Right now, under the law as it is written before this regulation can go into effect, only workers with a 4-year degree in a professional field can be labeled professional, and, therefore, denied overtime. The Bush administration, under this regulation, would do away with this requirement. They would allow training in the Armed Forces to substitute for a 4-year degree. I know we have an all-volunteer military. I am very proud of the young men and women who sign up to serve our country. I know when they are recruited they are told: Here is the training you can get and the additional education you can obtain in the Armed Forces. This is not only an opportunity to serve your country but to put you in a good position for the future when you get out of the military service if you do not make it a career. You will have tremendous opportunities because of these skills. Now we are turning around and breaking faith with our veterans, too. We are basically saying: You know that training we gave you, that education you acquired in the military? Now it is going to count against you. You take a job where otherwise you would be entitled to overtime--say you become a police officer and an MP in the Army; you don't have a college degree, but you served as an MP. All of a sudden, guess what. You are not eligible for overtime anymore. It is very hard to justify in a jobless recovery like the one we are allegedly in that we would make life harder for working Americans; that we would tell the police and firefighters and nurses and veterans and others, guess what. We are going to take money out of your pocket in order to satisfy employers who do not want to be fair to you. We wouldn't have needed these laws if everybody lived by the golden rule, would we? If everybody got up every morning and said I am going to treat people the way I want to be treated, I am going to treat my employees the way I want to be treated, we would not have to have this law, or probably any other law. But we know, with human nature being what it is, that we have to have some protections for those people who are in less powerful positions. We are just tearing up that social contract right now. There are many other provisions in this omnibus bill that either were voted against by this body and stuck in anyway or never considered. I am finding this an amazing experience being in the Senate. Everything that I read in civic books and that I thought was what happened in our legislative body is just being upended and thrown out the window. Another provision slipped into the omnibus which was earlier rejected by this body on a bipartisan basis will delay the implementation of mandatory labeling of the country from which meat and vegetables are imported. I want to know where my food comes from. I would be happy if I could buy only food from New York because I would like to support my New York farmers. I would like to know whether that is a New York apple or a Chinese apple. Somebody else can go ahead and buy the Chinese apple. I want to buy the New York apple. I sure want to know where the meat I eat comes from. That is what this body voted for. But in response to pressure from a small group of the meat and food industry executives, the administration did the bidding of the special interests instead of the vast majority of Americans. Once again, why are we surprised? And they stuck language into this Omnibus appropriations that will prevent consumers like us from knowing where the food we purchase is grown, and they will overturn a law that is very important to the farmers I represent and to American farmers and producers around our country. It is stunning that this would be done at a time when we were really focused on our flood supply, when we know we need to do whatever we can to protect our food from disease and possible terrorism. The mad cow issue that arose a few weeks ago is something that has gotten everybody's attention focused on the quality of our food and the safety of our food. The idea of a country-of-origin requirement was passed as part of the farm bill in 2002. Here it is 2004, and this administration wants to undo the will of the democratically elected majority of the Houses of Congress. There are many more examples of what is wrong in this omnibus, whether it is reimposing the national television ownership cap that was already rejected in both Houses, making our media less diverse, more concentrated, and less responsive to local issues. Senators McCain and Hollings held extensive hearings on this issue. They produced a Senate resolution to restore meaningful, cross- ownership limits on television stations and newspapers. It passed by a vote of 55 to 40. That was a bipartisan majority vote. The legislative branch did its job. We held the hearings, we got the evidence, we did the argument and debate, and we had the vote. It doesn't seem to matter to the folks on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. If it crosses one of their special interests, by George, we don't care about democracy. We don't care about majority votes. We don't care about bipartisanship. We are going to deliver to the people whom we think are on our side when it comes to special interests. It is distressing and it is something about which I think every American should be concerned. We are undermining the checks and balances of our Constitution. We are undermining accountability. We are undermining the coequal branches of Government. If all we wanted was a king, we would have put a king into the Constitution to do whatever the king wanted to do. What do we need a democracy for? Why do we need to elect people to come to the Senate to express their opinion, hold hearings, and have votes? Let us just cede all authority to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. They want control of the executive branch. They want control of the congressional branch. They want control of the pork. Why don't we just all give up and go home? It doesn't seem to matter what we vote on. It doesn't seem to matter what the majority says. The administration calls the shots, and people in this body let them do it. It is astonishing to me. Another example: We are diverting limited educational resources to an untested, unproven, private school voucher plan which was not included in the Senate-passed bill. I think, once again, we are doing something that has no support in this body and we are letting it happen because the administration wants it to happen. We also have an across-the-board cut in this bill, not debated by the Senate, stuck into the bill at conference, taking away money from agencies of the Government, appropriations already signed into law, including the Department of Homeland Security. I could go on and on. It is astonishing what happened under cover of conference. It is hard to justify a process that is so flawed, so antidemocratic--with a small ``D''--so beholden to and in the pocket of special interests, so willing to buckle under and do the bidding of the administration, whether or not it is in the best interests or the long- term benefit of our Nation. It is our responsibility to do the business of those people who sent us here. By ignoring the will of the majority, by turning our backs on the Senate and the House, we are making a mockery of our system. I know very well that during the previous administration the other side of the aisle would be up in arms. And they should have been if something such as this had gone on, no doubt about it. I hope we will continue to stand against this mockery of the democratic process and the undermining of our legislative responsibility.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Cantwell, Jeffords and Feingold in introducing legislation that would create mandatory, enforceable reliability standards for our electricity system. Last week was the five month anniversary of the worst blackout in the history of New York, and, indeed, the history of America. Congress has yet to pass electricity reliability legislation that would help ensure the blackout never happens again. There is strong support for this legislation, which has passed the Senate twice before as part of the energy bill. But with the energy bill stalled, we simply cannot afford to wait any longer to move on reliability standards. The blackout had a tremendous impact on New Yorkers and on the economy. Some experts put the costs to New York at more than $1 billion dollars and the costs nationwide at more than $6 billion. In November, the Electric System Working Group of the United States- Canadian task force on the blackout released its draft report on the causes of the blackout. Among the report's findings was that the North American Electric Reliability Council's (NERC) voluntary reliability standards were violated at least six times during the series of events that led to the cascading blackout. This finding reinforced the need for swift enactment of mandatory, enforceable electricity reliability standards. We clearly need a system that provides real accountability for failure. New Yorkers, and all Americans, are relying on Congress to help prevent another blackout. Congress needs to move swiftly on legislation in this area so that rules can be put in place before this summer. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Cantwell, Jeffords and Feingold in introducing legislation that would create mandatory, enforceable reliability standards for our electricity system. Last week was the five month anniversary of the worst blackout in the history of New York, and, indeed, the history of America. Congress has yet to pass electricity reliability legislation that would help ensure the blackout never happens again. There is strong support for this legislation, which has passed the Senate twice before as part of the energy bill. But with the energy bill stalled, we simply cannot afford to wait any longer to move on reliability standards. The blackout had a tremendous impact on New Yorkers and on the economy. Some experts put the costs to New York at more than $1 billion dollars and the costs nationwide at more than $6 billion. In November, the Electric System Working Group of the United States- Canadian task force on the blackout released its draft report on the causes of the blackout. Among the report's findings was that the North American Electric Reliability Council's (NERC) voluntary reliability standards were violated at least six times during the series of events that led to the cascading blackout. This finding reinforced the need for swift enactment of mandatory, enforceable electricity reliability standards. We clearly need a system that provides real accountability for failure. New Yorkers, and all Americans, are relying on Congress to help prevent another blackout. Congress needs to move swiftly on legislation in this area so that rules can be put in place before this summer. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mrs. CLINTON

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003, legislation that is vital to ensuring that the voting systems used in our Federal elections are as secure as possible while also ensuring that each and every voter in our Nation has an equal opportunity to verify his or her vote before that vote is cast and permanently recorded. At its core, this legislation will ensure that every vote is properly counted, ensuring the integrity of each vote, which is at the heart of our democracy. In recent months, there has been discussion about the increasing use of electronic voting systems such as direct recording electronic systems (DREs), the first completely computerized voting systems. Computerized voting systems can have many advantages. As the Congressional Research Service has reported, they are arguably the most user-friendly and versatile of any current voting system. Among many features, such voting machines can be easily programmed to display ballots in different languages and can be made fully accessible for persons with disabilities, including the visually impaired. They can also prevent overvotes and spoilage of ballots due to extraneous marks since no document ballot is involved. In addition, fully computerized systems have the ability to notify voters of undervotes. Presently, no other kind of voting system possesses so many features. For this reason, it is expected that within the next two years, with funding authorized under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (``HAVA''), state and local jurisdictions across the country will begin purchasing fully computerized systems. One of the disadvantages of these electronic voting systems, however, is that they do not give voters an opportunity to verify their votes-- to confirm that the voting machinery is registering the vote that the voter intended to cast--before the vote is cast and permanently recorded. In addition, electronic voting systems raise other concerns because of the ability of the software in the voting system to be compromised, or worse, maliciously attacked, by someone who may want to alter the voting results. Indeed, a number of recent studies, including the July 2001 study by Caltech/MIT, the July 2003 study by Johns Hopkins and Rice universities, the September 2003 study by the Science Applications International Corporation, requested by the Governor of Maryland, and the two November 2003 studies conducted by Compuware Corporation and InfoSENTRY, requested by the Ohio Secretary of State, pointed to significant and disturbing security risks in electronic voting systems and related administrative procedures and processes. That is why in addition to ensuring that voters have an opportunity to verify their vote, it is vital that we improve the security of voting system technology, and that means not only the kind of software that is used but also how, for example, that software is designed, stored, disseminated, updated, field tested, and used in an actual election. This is a developing consensus among computer security experts that not only is the security of electronic voting systems wholly inadequate, but that the security policies and procedures that State and local election officials, voting system vendors, and others use are non-existent, inadequate, or, if they exist, are not followed, which is the same as having no policy at all. Our Nation is the greatest Nation on earth and it is the leading democracy in the world. Central to that democracy is ability of Americans to have confidence in the voting system used to register and record their votes. This is a fundamental standard that must be met. I have concerns, however, that our Nation is falling short of that standard. That is why I am today introducing the ``Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003,'' which amends by adding a voter verification requirement for voting systems to give each voter an opportunity to verify his or her vote at the time the vote is cast. Voters will be given an opportunity to correct any error made by the voting system before the permanent voting record is preserved. While requiring that all election jurisdictions give voters the ability to verify their votes, this legislation also gives States and local jurisdictions the flexibility to employ the most appropriate, accurate, and secure voter verification technologies, which may include voter-verifiable paper ballots, votemeters, modular voting architecture, and/or encrypted votes, for their State or jurisdiction in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner. Any voter verification method used must ensure that voters with disabilities and other affected voters have the ability to cast their vote in private, and language minorities must have equal access in verifying their vote. This is important if we are to ensure that all Americans--including the more than 20 million voters who are visually impaired, the more than 40 million Americans who lack basic literacy skills, and millions of language minorities--will be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote. To address critical security issues, the ``Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003'' also amends HAVA by adding a security requirement for voting systems to ensure that voting systems are as secure as possible. Specifically, voting systems must adhere to the security requirements for Federal computer systems as required under current law or, alternatively, more stringent requirements adopted by the Election Assistance Commission. Currently no such requirement exists. I believe that, at minimum, the systems used by the people of the United States to exercise their constitutional right to vote, the hallmark of our democracy, should be at least as secure as the computer systems used by the Federal Government. The security requirements must also provide that no voting system shall contain any wireless device, which reduces the risk that hackers will be able to attack any electronic voting system. In addition, all software and hardware used in any electronic voting system must be certified by laboratories accredited by the Commission as meeting all security requirements. The Act also requires the Election Assistance Commission to report to Congress within 6 months of enactment regarding a proposed security review and certification process for all voting systems. Within 3 months of enactment, the Government Accounting Office, unless the Commission has already completed the following report, must issue a report to Congress on the operational and management systems that should be employed to safeguard the security of voting systems, together with a schedule for how quickly each such measure should be implemented. Lastly, immediately upon enactment, the National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) must provide security consultation services to State and local jurisdiction. Two million dollars in Fiscal Years 2004 through 2006 are authorized to be appropriated to assist NIST in providing these security consultation services. I cannot think of a more significant risk to our democracy than for Americans to lack complete confidence in the voting systems used to cast and count their votes in Federal elections. For all those who believe that in a democracy, there is no more important task than assuring the sanctity of votes, this should be an easy step to take to assure it. For this reason, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, today, I am introducing a bill that seeks to begin a dialogue on one of the most important yet neglected aspects of our health care system--health care quality. this is an enormous issue that affects every single one of us who has ever needed medical care, and it affects all taxpayers because quality care has such potential to avoid waste and save millions of dollars in health care costs. I have raised many of these ideas as amendments in other contexts, such as the Medicare debate on S. 1, and the debate over S. 720, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2003. I intend to continue working with my colleagues on improving these ideas and proposing additional concepts. But with this bill today, I seek to put forward a package of ideas, provoke conversation, and present this as a first step in making quality a focus of my health care efforts next year. My goal with these efforts is to both improve quality and outcomes, and reduce costs by encouraging care that is more effective. There is no reason why we cannot achieve this. We have the most advanced medical system in human history--the finest medical institutions, the newest treatments, the best trained health care professionals. But in spite of the best intentions of clinicians and patients, our health care system is plagued with underuse, overuse, and misuse. currently, only about 50 percent of care that is known to be effective is provided, and the care given is supported by solid scientific evidence, and the pace of dissemination of new evidence is painfully slow. It may take up to 17 years for treatments found to be effective to become common practice. Much of the overuse or misuse of health services stems from the fragmentation of our system. In a recent study in Santa Barbara, CA, 20 percent of lab tests and x-rays were conducted solely because previous results were unavailable. One in seven hospitalizations occurs because information is unavailable, and a shocking percentage of the time, physicians do not find patient information that had previously been recorded in a paper-based medical record. Despite all of our Nation's medical advances, health quality is becoming even more endangered in some respects. Nursing care which is often shown to be a decisive factor for hospital patient outcomes, its in grave shortage, and a majority of U.S. physicians surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund perceive their ability to provide quality care as having worsened over the last 5 years. Additionally, even as the quality of health care we purchase lags, our spending on inadequate and wasteful care is spiraling out of control. Premiums increased 13 percent last year, and health care costs are increasing at nearly 10 times the rate of inflation. To make matters worse, the public health system is straining to meet the challenges of bioterrorism or emerging infections, the number of uninsured Americans is rising, clinicians are leaving practice, and the older adult population is set to double by 2040. The reason is not because doctors aren't trying hard enough, or hospitals are at fault. That we're able to get good health care at all is testament to the genius and heroism of doctors and nurses who deliver care, despite all the obstacles, despite every effort of the system to hinder them. But what our medical system requires of providers is a little like asking pilots to routinely land planes without any information from the control tower. The best of them can do it--they could land a plane with one arm around their backs missing key information and confirmations, but why force them to do it? Why deny them critical information when it could be easily available? There is no plausible reason for denying needed information, especially when life and death are at stake. That's unfortunately exactly what our health care system says to doctors, nurses, and hospitals. Physicians for example spend four years in medical school, and then several years more in their residency training, cramming medical information into their heads. Then we expect them to look at a patient taking four different drugs, with a heart condition, and immediately remember any drug-drug interactions that could occur. We ask them to do it without looking up any reference materials. We ask them to do it in the few minutes that they have with each patient given the ever-shorter visits, and ever-increasing patient and paperwork load. Moreover, in their free time, they are expected to keep up with all the new journal articles and learn about every new drug. Yet hand-held computers can now allow the doctor to pull up up-to- date information immediately, right at the bedside, if he or she has any question. And NIH spends billions of dollars in research to generate that information. Shouldn't that investment reap results for the patient as quickly as possible? This bill seeks to provide the direction that would support such technology and make it widely available to physicians. Right now, doctors, nurses, and hospitals are holding the health care system up, preventing utter collapse by sheer, heroic, force of will. Instead of the clinicians supporting the system, we should build a system that supports clinicians instead. The premise of this legislation is that information, in the hands of the right people at the right time, drives quality and value. We need to empower patients and health care providers to make the right choices. And to do that, health care decisionsmakers--providers, payers, and patients--need to have access to the right information, where and when it is needed, securely and privately. This legislation seeks to: 1. Generate information about health quality through increased research, increased public reporting along key quality measures, and standardization of those measures to assure comparability and usability of reported information; 2. Ensure that payers, providers and patients get information in a usable form so they can make effective decisions; and 3. Reduce barriers to the development of an IT infrastructure that is so critical to achieving those first 2 goals. Eighty percent of the care delivered today is not backed by sound clinical research. That is why we need to do more research, and see if the care we provide today has sound justification in science. But even where we know what to do, we don't always do it because the information is insufficiently disseminated and utilized. Studies have shown some procedures being performed even when they have not met accepted criteria for appropriateness: In one study, of all the non-emergent, noncancerous hysterectomies performed, only 30 percent had been properly worked up and met the full medical criteria for necessity. In another study, about one-fourth of coronary angiographies and upper gastrointestinal endoscopies did not meet standards of medical appropriateness. On the flip side, in situations where the benefits of an intervention are clear, many patients do not receive the indicated care: Very few hospitalized patients at-risk for pneumococcal pneumonia who had not been previously vaccinated end up being vaccinated during their hospital stay. Routine peak flow measurements are conducted in only 28 percent of pediatric patients with asthma. And only one-half of diabetics receive an annual eye exam. We know what good health care means in these areas, but we don't practice it, in part because that information may not be readily available, and regardless, there is no incentive for quality. We are suggesting--track the outcomes, share that information with patients, providers, and insurers, and ultimately, pay for performance. This bill will help us become better purchasers of care, and help us take the first steps toward aligning the incentives so that higher quality is rewarded. I ask unanimous consent that the attached article from last week's New York Times be printed in the Record showing how our current reimbursement system is gravely misaligned. Under the current system, higher quality can be penalized, while worse care can ironically be more profitable. Today, by introducing these ideas for the purpose of seeking feedback from my colleagues and experts in the field, I am taking the first step toward improving our health care system for everyone and saving money. I invite interested colleagues to join me in partnership on this important venture and look forward to taking strong, positive action next year to improve health quality for all Americans.