Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 6. I further ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that the Senate then resume debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 4444, the China legislation.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. The amendment removes from the bill an environmental provision that I had put in there prior to a successful discussion of the issues and termination of the issues temporarily in the State of New Mexico. So I do not need the amendment. Senator Reid knows about it. That is what this amendment is.

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator is correct.

Mr. DOMENICI. I had indicated I wanted to send an amendment to the desk so we have one pending. Amendment No. 4032

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and with the concurrence of the minority leader, I ask unanimous consent that during the consideration of the energy and water appropriations bill on Wednesday, it be in order for the minority leader, or his designee, to offer an amendment to strike relating to the Missouri River. I further ask consent that there be 3 hours for debate equally divided in the usual form on that amendment, and further, no amendments be in order to the language proposed to be stricken by a vote.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, when the Senate convenes at 9:30, postcloture debate on the motion to proceed to the China legislation will resume. It is hoped that an agreement can be reached to begin debate on the substance of the bill during tomorrow's session in an effort to complete action on that by the end of this week. The Senate will also continue debate on the energy and water appropriations bill during tomorrow evening's session with amendments expected to be offered. As a reminder, the Senate will consider the China trade bill and the energy and water appropriations bill on a dual track each day this week with votes expected throughout the week.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Reid of Nevada.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I agree. I ask unanimous consent that each of the Republicans he has alluded to, if they desire to, be able to speak for up to 40 minutes. I don't think they will.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the 3:15 p.m. vote, Senator Helms be recognized as if in morning business for up to 20 minutes, to be followed by Senator Bryan for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the energy and water bill on appropriations has been held up. I understand that the distinguished minority leader has an objection to it. I share with Senators the importance of that bill. I suggest, hopefully, that the minority leader rethink this because I do have some confidence that he is not exclusively interested in partisan politics, and that perhaps this very good bill on energy and water could be passed and sent to the President; although, my hopes are dwindling. Essentially, one looks at the energy and water appropriations bill, and while I would devote some time to the energy crisis, which my friend spoke about eloquently, I will interrupt my comments to say this to the Senator: Incredibly, there is a position being formulated by the Vice President's campaign to claim that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be bad for American energy consumers. Isn't that a joke? What is bad for American energy consumers, and the reason gasoline prices are so high, and natural gases are skyrocketing, and we are growing in dependence upon foreign countries for our very lifeblood, for without energy, we have no economy. Of late, we have decided it must be so clean that the only thing we are using in any increased abundance is natural gas. We are even shying away, in this administration, from clean coal technology. Did the Senator know that technology to clean up coal is being pushed down by this administration instead of up?

Mr. DOMENICI. I don't know about that. We will build a short-term nuclear waste facility within 6 to 8 months of the next President, if he is a Republican, because it is totally safe. Whether they put it in Nevada or somewhere else, I don't know.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to say again, getting back to the energy and water bill, that I hope we can work something out on his issue, an issue that bothers some States on his side of the aisle, while on my side of the aisle, the Missouri Senators and the Mississippi Senators and others, have a different view. There is an amendment to this energy and water bill that attempts to solve that problem by not letting some amendments proceed with reference to a Corps of Engineers manual. If this bill does not become law by October 1, I want to talk about a couple of things that will really be bad for some States, and certainly for my State will not be good. In Pantex, TX, there are 2,800 employees; there are 7,300 at the Sandia National Laboratory; there are 3,000 in the Kansas City nuclear weapons plant. Moving over to water, the Army Corps of Engineers has 125,000 workers on 1,400 projects. This is an important bill. I don't want to go up to October 1 and not have a bill and have to say to them that because somebody would not let us bring up our bill--which we could have done, which we could have gotten passed--we are now at October 1 and can't get anything passed. And we are playing a game of who did what to whom. Who keeps the Government open? Who closes it? We could have had this completed. We could have been in conference this weekend and be back from the convention with it finished. It could then go to the President and be signed. I don't go beyond just asking that the problem be eliminated. I take Senator Daschle at his word. There is nothing to this other than he is concerned about protecting a couple of States. I am concerned about a couple of other States or more. I am concerned about keeping in law what has been in the law for at least two previous years. I again thank the distinguished Senator from Utah for his comments. I want to respond for a moment to a very good friend of mine from the other side of the aisle. I consider him a friend. For the most part, we run into each other on dairy issues. People do not know that New Mexico is a big dairy State. But clearly, the distinguished Senator, Mr. Feingold, comes from a State with a lot of dairy cows. We frequently are on each other's side, or against each other, principally because that is a farming issue. But today, in some brief remarks, Senator Feingold took his farming issues, and instead of being concerned about his State, got over into my State and into an issue that involves thousands of farmers in New Mexico. The issue is that thousands of farmers in New Mexico are on a river that runs short of water in dry years. We are growing into a confrontation as to who owns the flow of the river in a dry year, and a silver minnow, which has been declared an endangered species, which they think currently resides in the extreme southern regions of the river close to the Texas border. Thousands of farmers use it to irrigate small and medium-sized farms, and there are a few large ones. I hope, if the Senator's constituents, as he said, are concerned about this, they are concerned about the entire problem--the problem of cities that own water in a dry river basin, and the river basin is not always totally moist and running with water. What about the thousands of farmers who under our State law own the water? I think if he clearly understood that, he would say: I choose not to interfere in a contest between the minnows and thousands of farmers and maybe two cities or more. And maybe he would say: I wouldn't like Senator Domenici getting involved in that if that were my State situation. Though he is entitled to and can certainly come down here and do that, I hope maybe before doing it--or maybe even now--he would talk with us about the issue, which is a very interesting issue. For the last 2\1/2\ weeks, I have been constantly in touch with the Secretary of Interior seeing what we could do to try to work this issue out. I have put on this energy and water bill something so that water will not be governed totally by a Solicitor General's opinion. That is the issue. I contend it shouldn't be. We might be able to work that out soon because there are some very serious problems involved that ought to be worked out. I thank Senator Feingold for his consideration of issues that might affect my State. I think I have been concerned with his. I would truly like to talk to him about this subject because I don't believe it is as simple an issue as perhaps some of his endangered species constituents indicate in their request to him that he get involved in the issue of thousands of farmers in the State of New Mexico and whether they get water.

Mr. DOMENICI. I would be delighted. I know I said something implicitly about his State, but I didn't mean to.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me tell the Senator this: I asked this administration and I asked this Vice President to send to us what their great energy policy has been during the last 8 years. Every time we say there is none, they say they have got one, they have had one and we turned it down. I would love to see it. I would like to evaluate it and send it out to the energy people and ask them what would it have produced had we given more money to solar and wind than we did. How would that have had an impact on the consumers of America--paying this enormous price for gasoline, this enormous new price for natural gas? Frankly, I say to my friend from Utah, if Americans don't know it-- because we worry so much about Social Security and its future, Medicare and its future, what happens to this surplus, and what happens to the debt--probably the biggest challenge to the American way of life and our standard of living, driving automobiles and finding jobs and factories growing, is that we have no energy policy. And we are going to move slightly and slowly, because of this administration, into a position where we are not going to have enough energy to make America go, or it will be so high that Americans will wonder what in the world happened to us. Do you know when that will be? That will be when our dependence on foreign sources of energy grows some more. Americans should know that over 50 percent of the crude oil and crude oil products this great Nation consumes comes from foreign countries, from the so-called cartel. It is not all Saudi Arabia. We have South American and Central American countries in there, too. But do you know what. They are not interested in America. They are interested in how much their oil will bring on the market to them. For a few years, they can sit back and say: America, America, when oil prices were $10 a barrel and you were hopping along and we were broke and we could not pay our debts and could not borrow money--one of the closest things to a financial crisis for Saudi Arabia, whether or not you like the sheiks--financial jeopardy was when oil prices dropped so low. We were thrilled. What do you think they are going to think when the oil prices finally get up where they are making a lot of money and America is crying for it? They are going to say: Where were you when oil prices got down below 10 and hovered around 10 while we cried? Frankly, I believe if the Vice President's campaign decides that our wonderful ticket for President, because one comes from a mass oil- producing State, and he is proud of it--and the other one, after serving in the highest office in this country, is the president of a 100,000-person corporation that happens to be involved in seeing to it that we continue to get oil and gas in America by working down there in oil patch--frankly, I don't think we ought to assume that this attack makes any sense or that they will do it. I think what we should do is we should attack Vice President Gore as being the mastermind, the promoter of a no energy policy for America, unless it is wind and solar, which all of us think is marvelous but clearly cannot help America through a crisis. I thank the Senator for his comments. I know a lot about nuclear power. I am embarrassed for America that we are doing what we are doing on nuclear power. It is so scientifically unreal and untrue, as to the attacks on nuclear power, and it is a shame. The greatest country on Earth in engineering cannot take high-level fuel rods and move them a little bit across the country and put them somewhere for safekeeping. We can't do that. But 1 out of 25 American ships sails the seas, some with one nuclear powerplant--as they have over there in Pennsylvania. Some have one, some have two. They have sailed the seas since 1954. No more in America--except one in New Zealand that denies these ships with fuel rods safely on board access to their ports. There is no risk. There has never been an accident. Here we sit because a few Americans are frightened to death of radioactivity--low, high, or indifferent; just the word ``radioactive''--while they live in an radioactive environment on average. All of us are exposed to more low-level radiation than most of the things we are afraid of because there is plenty of it around. But because of them, we sit here and cannot find a way to help the State of Minnesota that has fuel rods sitting there from nuclear power which have been as safe as can be, and we can't get enough votes here to move them across the country. Yet those boats with it move all over the world. We sit here with a President--probably supported by the Vice President--who says no. Look, if they like to talk about energy policy, I think we ought to just say: Mr. Vice President, the one thing you take into this campaign is that you have been part of an administration with as bad an energy policy as any because, as a matter of fact, you had none.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today with some very distinguished colleagues from both sides of the aisle--Senator Wyden, who is here, and Senator Grassley, who is not here--who are cosponsors of this measure, along with Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. Mr. President, let me suggest for Senators' staff who are looking at this to look alphabetically. You will find how much is being reimbursed in your cities for the Medicare+Choice reimbursement. Look at it, and you will see how the HMOs are reimbursed to provide this rather good, fair, and competitive coverage to the senior citizens. You will be astounded. Many people think New York is covered. They are getting a very high rate of reimbursement because they started high. But look at some of the cities in New York. You will find that New York has a number of cities that are under $450. We reimburse them on the high level--as high as $800. The bill we are introducing today we are going to call the Medicare Geographic Fair Payment Act. Week after week, the Federal Government deducts a portion of everyone's paycheck to support the Medicare program. After our seniors have retired and begin to take advantage of the program they have supported for so many years, I think it is fair that they continue to have a choice. Right now they have a choice. But the choice is really not for all seniors because we made a decision when we put in the Medicare+Choice Program, which was really an alternative that seniors could choose. We made a decision as to how we would reimburse the provider. That decision was made based upon, as I understand from my good friend, Senator Wyden--allegedly based on what they needed to get the job done to get the program going. I don't intend to be critical, but in many instances those who had not been frugal, had not been careful about costs, got high reimbursements. But if you lived in Senator Wyden's State or New Mexico, where they were being extremely frugal in what they charged for the services, they got a very low rate. It is unfortunate, but for Staten Island the rates of reimbursement are $814; $794 for Dade County--I am not complaining; I am stating a dollar amount--$702 for New Orleans; and $661 for Los Angeles. Senator Wyden, perhaps, could intervene and tell me what it is in Portland.

Mr. DOMENICI. $445; Albuquerque is $430, $15 under Oregon. That is all the government will give as reimbursement if you decide to get into the HMO business with hospitals and everybody else joining together, if you are going to furnish this service. Remember, there are some places getting $800-plus. I am not here to take away anything from anyone. That is how our amendment is different. We are not trying to take the pie, leave it the same size, and say those who are getting more money have to cut back. Rural areas are even lower and are expected to provide the same level of benefits or nearly half the reimbursement. There were seniors who had a marvelous Medicare+Choice Program. Why was it good? It was good because for a reasonable cost they were getting prescription drugs, which you don't get under Medicare, and the whole package was new benefits. Some of them got dental insurance, which they don't get. Some of them got a number of different things they don't get under Medicare, for a premium they could afford. These programs are being closed down every day we delay. Thousands of seniors are getting notices. They had a good program, but they won't have it in January. I want everybody to know if there are going to be any entitlement bills getting out of here on anything that is even close to Medicare, this is an amendment that will be on there--or something better. This amendment says by January 1st of this year, the rates are raised. They are these low rates we are talking about. Very simply, under this bill, we will change the rates. It is pretty easy for everybody to understand. This is not a complicated bill. What we are doing is saying for those metropolitan areas which are 250,000 or more, the minimum reimbursement will be $525. If we can't get that through here to preserve some of these plans where seniors are just falling off the log, desperately getting their notices, and raising it to $525, then I don't know what is fair around here anymore. For all the rural counties, we have raised the minimum to $475. My friend, Senator Wyden, can talk about his State and about his observations. Clearly, he has been asking everybody around here, including the Budget Committee, to have hearings on this great disparity which he calls penalizing efficiency. The truth of the matter is in my home city and in my State of New Mexico, what is happening, the HMO companies can no longer stay in business. Seniors are getting notified. In fact, we don't have a lot of people under this program--15,000 are going to get knocked off the program right now, very soon. If you think they are not going to meetings, they met with Heather Wilson, one of our representatives, and 400 people showed up because they read in the newspaper she was holding a meeting and they already got their notices: Come January, find a new plan. They are asking: Why? The plan is good. It is very good for me. I have been paying all my life. Why are you taking this away? I ask Senators to take a look. In my case, we will get $34 million in additional reimbursements during the first year and $170 out of this bill. Incidentally, this bill will cost $700 million the first year. I say to the thousands of seniors who may be able to keep their insurance and be under this kind of program, that is a pretty good bargain. Over 5 years, it will cost $3.7 billion. It also includes a third provision which I ask Senators to look at. It is the product of some very wise thinking by Senator Grassley. It should have been separately called the Grassley bill, but it is packaged in this as our third title. It says essentially hospitals will hereinafter be reimbursed on labor costs--on what the actual cost is, not on what the stated cost is. That makes the payment to hospitals go up substantially. My small State will go up about $6.5 million over the year. I don't know what it would be in a State such as Ohio, but it would be rather substantial. I have extensive research, with cities alphabetically listed. Just look for your city and see what the reimbursement rate is. If it is under $525, we will take it to $525. If there are rural counties that are not in these lists, call home and ask what some of the counties are getting reimbursed. Raising it to $475 will help an awful lot of people. Is it enough? I don't know. I want to get something done. My friend wants to get something done, as do my two cosponsors. I assume in a couple of days or a week we will have a lot more Senators, bipartisan, asking to be on this. I remind everyone, the total cost of doing a bit of fairness to seniors and ending discrimination by region is going to be $700 million in the first year and $3.7 over 5. We have been talking about astronomical numbers for Medicare reform, prescription drugs. I don't know where we will end up. I hope in the heat of this political 6 weeks we don't do anything major, because it will be wrong, but clearly we have to do something. Come January 1, if we don't put money into this reimbursement program, I think my friend, who has followed this carefully, will say hundreds of thousands of seniors will be denied the option to buy coverage which they think is rather good in many cases, including prescription drugs, for which they only have to pay $50 extra. They can't get that anywhere else. They got extensive coverage of items in their health care needs that are not covered anywhere. I very much thank the Senators who are cosponsoring, Senators Wyden, Grassley, and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. We will have more. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill and additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today with some very distinguished colleagues from both sides of the aisle--Senator Wyden, who is here, and Senator Grassley, who is not here--who are cosponsors of this measure, along with Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. Mr. President, let me suggest for Senators' staff who are looking at this to look alphabetically. You will find how much is being reimbursed in your cities for the Medicare+Choice reimbursement. Look at it, and you will see how the HMOs are reimbursed to provide this rather good, fair, and competitive coverage to the senior citizens. You will be astounded. Many people think New York is covered. They are getting a very high rate of reimbursement because they started high. But look at some of the cities in New York. You will find that New York has a number of cities that are under $450. We reimburse them on the high level--as high as $800. The bill we are introducing today we are going to call the Medicare Geographic Fair Payment Act. Week after week, the Federal Government deducts a portion of everyone's paycheck to support the Medicare program. After our seniors have retired and begin to take advantage of the program they have supported for so many years, I think it is fair that they continue to have a choice. Right now they have a choice. But the choice is really not for all seniors because we made a decision when we put in the Medicare+Choice Program, which was really an alternative that seniors could choose. We made a decision as to how we would reimburse the provider. That decision was made based upon, as I understand from my good friend, Senator Wyden--allegedly based on what they needed to get the job done to get the program going. I don't intend to be critical, but in many instances those who had not been frugal, had not been careful about costs, got high reimbursements. But if you lived in Senator Wyden's State or New Mexico, where they were being extremely frugal in what they charged for the services, they got a very low rate. It is unfortunate, but for Staten Island the rates of reimbursement are $814; $794 for Dade County--I am not complaining; I am stating a dollar amount--$702 for New Orleans; and $661 for Los Angeles. Senator Wyden, perhaps, could intervene and tell me what it is in Portland.

Mr. DOMENICI. $445; Albuquerque is $430, $15 under Oregon. That is all the government will give as reimbursement if you decide to get into the HMO business with hospitals and everybody else joining together, if you are going to furnish this service. Remember, there are some places getting $800-plus. I am not here to take away anything from anyone. That is how our amendment is different. We are not trying to take the pie, leave it the same size, and say those who are getting more money have to cut back. Rural areas are even lower and are expected to provide the same level of benefits or nearly half the reimbursement. There were seniors who had a marvelous Medicare+Choice Program. Why was it good? It was good because for a reasonable cost they were getting prescription drugs, which you don't get under Medicare, and the whole package was new benefits. Some of them got dental insurance, which they don't get. Some of them got a number of different things they don't get under Medicare, for a premium they could afford. These programs are being closed down every day we delay. Thousands of seniors are getting notices. They had a good program, but they won't have it in January. I want everybody to know if there are going to be any entitlement bills getting out of here on anything that is even close to Medicare, this is an amendment that will be on there--or something better. This amendment says by January 1st of this year, the rates are raised. They are these low rates we are talking about. Very simply, under this bill, we will change the rates. It is pretty easy for everybody to understand. This is not a complicated bill. What we are doing is saying for those metropolitan areas which are 250,000 or more, the minimum reimbursement will be $525. If we can't get that through here to preserve some of these plans where seniors are just falling off the log, desperately getting their notices, and raising it to $525, then I don't know what is fair around here anymore. For all the rural counties, we have raised the minimum to $475. My friend, Senator Wyden, can talk about his State and about his observations. Clearly, he has been asking everybody around here, including the Budget Committee, to have hearings on this great disparity which he calls penalizing efficiency. The truth of the matter is in my home city and in my State of New Mexico, what is happening, the HMO companies can no longer stay in business. Seniors are getting notified. In fact, we don't have a lot of people under this program--15,000 are going to get knocked off the program right now, very soon. If you think they are not going to meetings, they met with Heather Wilson, one of our representatives, and 400 people showed up because they read in the newspaper she was holding a meeting and they already got their notices: Come January, find a new plan. They are asking: Why? The plan is good. It is very good for me. I have been paying all my life. Why are you taking this away? I ask Senators to take a look. In my case, we will get $34 million in additional reimbursements during the first year and $170 out of this bill. Incidentally, this bill will cost $700 million the first year. I say to the thousands of seniors who may be able to keep their insurance and be under this kind of program, that is a pretty good bargain. Over 5 years, it will cost $3.7 billion. It also includes a third provision which I ask Senators to look at. It is the product of some very wise thinking by Senator Grassley. It should have been separately called the Grassley bill, but it is packaged in this as our third title. It says essentially hospitals will hereinafter be reimbursed on labor costs--on what the actual cost is, not on what the stated cost is. That makes the payment to hospitals go up substantially. My small State will go up about $6.5 million over the year. I don't know what it would be in a State such as Ohio, but it would be rather substantial. I have extensive research, with cities alphabetically listed. Just look for your city and see what the reimbursement rate is. If it is under $525, we will take it to $525. If there are rural counties that are not in these lists, call home and ask what some of the counties are getting reimbursed. Raising it to $475 will help an awful lot of people. Is it enough? I don't know. I want to get something done. My friend wants to get something done, as do my two cosponsors. I assume in a couple of days or a week we will have a lot more Senators, bipartisan, asking to be on this. I remind everyone, the total cost of doing a bit of fairness to seniors and ending discrimination by region is going to be $700 million in the first year and $3.7 over 5. We have been talking about astronomical numbers for Medicare reform, prescription drugs. I don't know where we will end up. I hope in the heat of this political 6 weeks we don't do anything major, because it will be wrong, but clearly we have to do something. Come January 1, if we don't put money into this reimbursement program, I think my friend, who has followed this carefully, will say hundreds of thousands of seniors will be denied the option to buy coverage which they think is rather good in many cases, including prescription drugs, for which they only have to pay $50 extra. They can't get that anywhere else. They got extensive coverage of items in their health care needs that are not covered anywhere. I very much thank the Senators who are cosponsoring, Senators Wyden, Grassley, and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. We will have more. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill and additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, following the 11:30 cloture vote the Senate proceed to consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4576, the Defense appropriations bill. Further, I ask consent that there be up to 60 minutes for debate under the control of Senator McCain and up to 15 minutes under the control of Senator Gramm, with an additional 6 minutes equally divided between Senators Stevens and Inouye, and 20 minutes for Senator Byrd, and following that debate the conference report be laid aside. I further ask consent that the vote on the conference report occur at 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, without any intervening action or debate, notwithstanding rule XXII, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating to the conference report be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes.

Mr. DOMENICI. I be recognized to introduce a bill, and then that Senator Wyden follow me.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous-consent request?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent when Senator McCain and Senator Gorton are finished, I might be recognized thereafter. Senator Wyden is here and he has no objection. He is joining me.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, Santo Domingo Pueblo is one of the largest Indian pueblos in New Mexico. It is located north of Albuquerque and South of Santa Fe, about midway between the two. For about 150 years, some 80,000 acres have been in dispute with neighboring Indian pueblos, Spanish land grants, and private land holders. Many of these disputes have been in court, but remain unsettled. I am pleased to inform my colleagues that three years of negotiations have produced a settlement agreement. Our legislation would ratify that agreement, thus resolving a complex land ownership situation in New Mexico. The initial Spanish land grant establishing the Santo Domingo Pueblo Grant was issued in 1689. When this Spanish grant was surveyed in the mid-19th century, approximately 24,000 acres of land to the east of the current reservation boundary were erroneously excluded. The excluded lands are now held in private deeds and public lands, but not by Santo Domingo Pueblo. The Pueblo of Santo Domingo purchased the Diego Gallegos Spanish Land Grant to expand its reservation on the west end. That purchase excluded some privately held lands and overlapped with both the San Felipe and Cochiti Pueblos. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands have also been claimed by Santo Domingo Pueblo. The global settlement we are endorsing, resolves the complex set of title disputes between Santo Domingo, the Pueblos of San Felipe and Cochiti, the federal government, and private land holders. In return for both money and land, the Santo Domingo Pueblo will waive their land claims and remove the clouded title for private land holders. This settlement envisions a monetary settlement of $23 million. Of that amount, $8 million would be payable from the Judgment Fund. The remaining $15 million would be from appropriated accounts over a three year period at $5 million per year, beginning in FY 2002. Approximately 4500 acres of BLM land would be conveyed to Santo Domingo Pueblo, and the Pueblo would have an option to purchase 7000 acres of Forest Service land for the agreed upon price of $3.7 million. Three lawsuits will be settled by this legislation. The first is Pueblo of Santo Domingo v. United States. This case is over 50 years old and was filed under the Indian Claims Commission Act (ICCA). In this action, the Pueblo asserts monetary claims against the United States for trespass, lost use, and breach of the ICCA's ``fair and honorable dealings'' provision by the United States. The Pueblo's claims, based on its Spanish land grants, involve more than 80,000 acres of land. Our legislation affirms the compromise award of $8 million for these claims and also includes the Pueblo's stipulated settlement of the ICCA case. The second lawsuit is Pueblo of Santo Domingo v. Rael. This issue stems from the Pueblo's purchase of the Diego Gallegos Grant. The Pueblo sought possession of land from a private landowner in the same grant. The Federal District court for the District of New Mexico entered judgment for the Pueblo. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit ordered the Rael action held in abeyance until the Government intervened in Rael or judgment was entered in the overlapping ICCA case. To date, neither has occurred. The settlement legislation will resolve the issues in the Rael case. The third lawsuit to be settled by this legislation is United States v. Thompson. In this case, the United States sought to enforce the Pueblo's title against third-party owners who trace their titles to overlapping land grants. In 1991, the Tenth Circuit held that the United States' claim for the Pueblo was time-barred. The Court of Appeals, however, found that the Pueblo Lands Board had ignored an express Congressional directive in its determination that the overlap lands were not the Pueblo's lands. The Court of Appeals did not resolve the ownership question, again due to the time bar. These overlap lands are currently in the possession of non-Indians and in the Army Corps of Engineers. This global settlement will resolve the ownership questions in favor of the private landowners and the Army Corps of Engineers in the overlap area. The global nature of this settlement will put all these issues to rest. Assuming the Congress agrees with our legislation, the next step would be entry of the stipulated settlement of the ICCA case and dismissal with prejudice of the Pueblo's existing quiet title action in Rael. The Pueblo of Santo Domingo would then receive both the money and the lands agreed to in this settlement agreement. In addition to waiving its ICCA claims and the Rael case, the Pueblo agrees to waive other existing land claims. In this settlement agreement, the Congress would ratify and resolve the Pueblo's land claims with finality and do so in a principled way which serves the interests of all parties. The Pueblo of Santo Domingo boundaries have been in dispute since the mid-19th century. This settlement resolves the Pueblo of Santo Domingo claims once and for all, and clearly delineates the Pueblo's boundaries. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.