Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator has been responding for 20 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator be permitted to leave his picture up for the vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3807 (Purpose: To make emergency funds available to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for salmon restoration and conservation efforts in the State of Maine)

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank everyone. There have been so many people working on this amendment. It has boiled down to a page and a half, but it is a very good amendment. It will permit the Forest Service and the BLM to do a lot of things they otherwise would not be able to do. I am very thrilled today. I had originally nicknamed this bill ``happy forests'' because I thought maybe if we cleaned them up and took all this gasoline, using that figuratively, that is waiting around to burn them down--I thought they might just smile; they might just be happy forests. I want to say that is going to be the title of the bill. It has another fancy title. But when it passes today, let us just put in the Record, Senator Domenici is going to call this the happy forest bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President and fellow Senators, many of you for a week or more watched on the nightly news as the forests surrounding Los Alamos National Laboratory, America's most renowned scientific laboratory, in spite of some of the negatives that have come forth with reference to security--that laboratory which has supplied us with the very best by way of science expertise and nuclear weapons expertise, not the second best, but the best for the entire era when it was America versus the Soviet Union--we watched each night as that fire got closer and closer to that laboratory. In fact, it burned some buildings, albeit none were critical to the future of the laboratory. We watched it move literally huge distances at night when the winds were blowing. We watched it go from an adjoining forest called Bandelier National Forest. We watched it grow from a tiny spot where park people had impropitiously started a fire to clear away a piece of land. They started with their torches, and there it went out of control--48,000 acres, 440 residences burned to the ground. When you go back and look, you see that these forests were in desperate need of being cleaned so that the kindling on the surface would be at a much, much lower temperature. That brought forth from this Senator and others a very significant cry: Let's get on with doing some of this cleanup. Let's give them additional authority in this bill and some emergency money. Let's see if we can get it done. I thank the cosponsors. I thank the chairman for his attention and for his giving me confidence to offer this amendment because this is the appropriate vehicle. It is my hope that Senator Slade Gorton will support this measure before we are finished.

Mr. DOMENICI. The Indian schools, yes. They are in such a state of disrepair. Indian health is in pretty good health. In this bill, the President asked for substantially more money, and we were able to fund a substantial increase in Indian health money in the Interior appropriations bill; is that correct?

Mr. DOMENICI. I believe we have not finished this amendment yet.

Mr. DOMENICI. Thousands.

Mr. DOMENICI. No, thank you, I say to the Senator.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, for a period of about 4 years, I was joined with bipartisan letters that we sent to the President of the United States and to the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs saying: Will you please put in your budget a 5- or 6-year proposal to pay for the great backlog we have in Indian school construction which, I repeat, only we can make. It is not a question of somebody being generous or kind in building an Indian school. These are Indian schools we own, we operate, and we pay the teachers--we being the United States of America. The President, after a visit--not the last visit he made to Indian country which was to New Mexico, but one just before that, which was his first visit to Indian country as a President--came back and talked about doing something to enhance economic development--that is, jobs-- for Indian people. I was very privileged to be at the White House and discuss the issue with him personally, after which time we joined with a bipartisan group of Senators and put together a package that strengthened our construction and maintenance of schools, that did somewhat more for Indian health and a few other things. The aftermath of that was the introduction of a bill, and the aftermath of that is the bill on the floor which increases funding in these very important areas. In closing, the funding in this bill, which essentially resulted from that meeting in the White House to which I just eluded, and then joining a bipartisan group of Senators, really is not going to move us much in the direction of better jobs in Indian country for the Indian people. All of these things that I mentioned are a necessity. Essentially, there is something basic that the Indian leaders and local communities and the National Government are going to have to do that will make the climate in Indian country better for private sector job growth. I do not levy any criticism at anyone individually, but it is quite obvious that tax credits alone will not do it, for we did that 4 years ago. The most extensive tax credits were passed to give Indian communities a chance to bring in private sector jobs. It is still on the books. It is a huge tax credit per Indian employee. We passed accelerated depreciation at the same time. If somebody builds a plant, they get to accelerate the depreciation much more rapidly than if they were next door in non-Indian country. The problem is that the combination of all of that has not worked to create any large acceleration in the number of Indian people being employed in Indian country in permanent jobs. I submit it will take a kind of a change in the attitude of Indian leaders. I think they are beginning to understand that. Businesses will not go even to an Indian reservation in America with tax credits and other benefits if, in fact, they are not satisfied with the business climate on the reservation; that is, if they can go 50 miles to a community off reservation and believe they have a lot more certainty of law, more certainty with reference to rules and regulations, they are not going to be coming to Indian country. I have been urging that the Indian leaders, while they claim their sovereignty, understand that every government entity that claims sovereignty, from time to time, shows that sovereignty by giving up a little bit of it, by waiving a piece of it, or by entering into an agreement where they share responsibilities with another unit of government, frequently called intergovernmental agreements. These things are going to have to happen if we are going to bring jobs to Indian country. There is much more to be said about it. There are many people who have tried, and I do not know just when it will work or when it will start working to any significant degree, but I am confident that this year we took a giant step in terms of the public responsibility. There are things moving around, either at the White House or out in Indian country, that are trying to move this whole attitude issue in a direction of business feeling more comfortable on Indian country. I thank the chairman, again, for the bill with reference to the Indian people and I thank the committee that worked with him to bring it here. Having said that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to Senator Durbin, I apologize for not being present on the floor when he gave what is always an eloquent speech, which he also did in this instance, with some very marvelous background information. Since that graphic is so alive, I suggest that the Senator should know when the vote starts he has to take it down. In any event, the good Senator from Illinois said there is no good reason to continue to support the Domenici amendment from last year. Incidentally, on an up-or-down vote on the Durbin amendment last year-- he will get up and say it is a different amendment, but essentially it is the same issue--58 Senators voted against Senator Durbin in favor of the Domenici amendment and 37 voted against the Domenici amendment, and 5 did not vote. I am looking at those who did not vote on the Domenici amendment, and I think the numbers will get more lopsided, I say to the Senator from Illinois, because more of them will go my way than his way. So we want everybody to understand that we still need what we needed last year. I will answer the rhetorical question, which was, there is no good reason for doing this again. I will say, there are 1,300 good reasons to do it this year, for there are 1,300 Americans--some in my State, some in the State of the Senator from Montana, some in the State of the Senator from Wyoming, but there are 1,300 permits that are still not done, and those are for the years 1999 and 2000. We have 2\1/2\ months left in 2000. But there are 1,300 permits backed up for processing that are not completed. Let me make sure that in just a few minutes everybody understands what this means. If you were to come around 5 years ago or 6 years ago and ask, what is the issue with the National Environmental Policy Act and the grazing permits--as I told my friend from Illinois last year, it did not exist because nobody thought that renewing a grazing lease qualified under the National Environmental Policy Act--get this--as a major Federal action. But it has happened in this administration. They have concluded that these 10-year leases we give to ranchers, which are policed by the U.S. Government, are subject to NEPA. Be it the Forest Service rangers or the BLM rangers--they police these permits. They see that they are managed right. That is their job. Incidentally, during that 10-year lease, if they violate it, they are penalized. If they do not take care of things, they get their allotment cut. It is not operating in a vacuum. It is operating all along with the rancher trying to make a living and the Government saying: Do it right. Then here comes this administration and it says: Why don't we make both Forest Service permits and BLM permits go through a National Environmental Policy Act review for each and every one. I can tell the Senator, they heard from me then, but all they heard from me were two things: One, it really isn't needed; and, two, if you are going to do it, you will never get it done on time. I turned out to be right on both scores because, I say to the good Senator from Illinois, in my State, for each and every NEPA evaluation that preceded a lease renewal, about one from my entire State was changed significantly. That means across the board, 99 percent-plus of the time, the NEPA analysis found nothing needed to be dramatically changed. As I said to the administration way back then, NEPA analyses aren't needed. And then secondly, I said: You will not get them done on time. Lo and behold, 2 years into that process, we started getting letters from ranchers and property owners saying: Look what is happening. They are making us do a NEPA statement, but they have not done the work yet, for the Government does the NEPA statement. They have said: What is going to happen when our lease expires? Nice question. The administration could say: We are not ready to give it to you because we have not done the environmental impact statement on each and every grazing lease, which almost everybody looking at the land says is unnecessary. But let us conclude that they had authority administratively to impose NEPA. Incidentally, they never got authority from Congress. Senator Scoop Jackson was the author of the NEPA law. It would be very interesting if we could ask him from his place, wherever he is on high: Scoop, did you ever think that a grazing lease renewal was a major Federal action under your law? And I swear, if he is listening, he is turning over in his grave because ``major Federal action'' meant a major Federal action, not renewals of every single lease on the grazing lands of America, which are thousands. Nonetheless, when I offered my amendment last year, all it said was: Look, Federal managers, because of your own fault, you did not get the NEPA work done. Here is all the money you need. How much money do you need? I remember in the Interior bill they asked for more funding. The distinguished chairman gave them that money, so they had no more complaints. They got every bit of the money they needed to do it. They set about to complete each and every impact statement on leases that were expiring. The problem is, they have not gotten it done yet. All we said is, since you are the ones that are supposed to get it done, and you did not get it done, then you renew their lease. Give them the renewal, but write in this law and on that renewal that as soon as the NEPA work is finished --get this, my good friend, the Presiding Officer--as soon as the NEPA work is done, whatever your conclusions are, you have a right then to impose them on the permit. I have every confidence in the world, since I believe only one lease in New Mexico had any major changes made because of NEPA, that this law that I am asking to continue again--because they are still behind--will do no damage to the public domain. Let me make it very clear. There are some marvelous environmental groups in the United States. They have taken on some fantastic causes. Albeit they do not like my voting record, that is all right with me. I like some of the things they have done. I do not necessarily ask how they want me to vote before I vote. I saw too much of that when I was a young Senator. I saw Senators come to the floor, knowing little or nothing about it, who said: How are the environmentalists positioned on this vote? They would say: They are an aye. They would vote aye. I just do not happen to be one of those Senators. I am kind of proud of that, to be honest. I do not think anybody should come to the floor and say, I better vote with them. I hope I am informed before I get here. In spite of what I just said, and that some of the brightest Americans are leading these environmental groups, believe it or not, I say to my fellow Senators, they have made this little amendment a major American environmental test. Using my name, they have spread it far across the country: The Domenici amendment is calculated to destroy the public domain, to let ranchers ranch without having the Federal Government oversee their growing malignancy which is destroying ranchlands. I say to my friends, it did not destroy any because they did not find anything wrong on most of them. There is a chance they will not get completed on time, and we just ought to stay where we were last year because there are too many Americans who are desperately afraid of the arbitrary action that can be imposed on the rancher by lawsuits. They are afraid of arbitrary actions of people who represent the Federal Government. They kind of cry out to us, when we go meet with them, saying: Just don't do another thing to us, not giving us our lease renewal, when we had nothing to do with the reason for the denial. I can't put it any more succinct. That is the way it is. I urge every Senator to do something very simple, and just send a word back that the proof in the pudding is that the NEPA reviews are not saving the public domain. They are just costing a lot of money, taking a lot of time. At least we ought to say to the ranchers who manage well--which is the overwhelming number--we are not going to hold you hostage out there and do what the distinguished Senator from Illinois recommends, which is that it is no longer mandatory that you proceed in a manner that the Domenici amendment last year said. That law allowed the renewal and then, in due course, when the NEPA analysis is finished, act accordingly, with the Government losing no rights. He would say the Government may do that if they want to. Everybody should know, if you turn the amendment into a ``you can do it if you want to, Federal Government,'' you know what is going to happen, at least for a while: The environmental pressure on the Department will be great enough that they won't do it for anybody. A ``may'' will turn into ``thou shalt not.'' I don't think that is fair. I have high regard for the Senator from Illinois. We were just talking before this debate, saying maybe one of these times we are going to be on the same side. I was thinking, if that happened, we might just overwhelm the Senate. We might get 99 votes. In any event, I am sure hoping he doesn't get 99 votes tonight. I am hoping I get the same number I got last year, maybe even a few more who have thought about it a little bit. Those who understand that it is kind of ridiculous to claim this amendment that Domenici put in this bill is going to wreak havoc on the public domain. I will go anywhere to debate this issue with anyone as to whether this justifies being a major environmental issue. If it does, we must not have very many environmental issues around. They must have paled from the horizon if one of the major environmental issues in America is this issue. This is an issue where the Government doesn't do its work and therefore can't give the rancher a 10-year permit renewal, which he might be completely entitled to. The agency just hold them in abeyance and says: When we get through with our work, we will give you a lease. In the meantime, maybe you will lose your financing. A lot of Senators know about ranchers and financing. I wonder what the banks would do if their leases were not as certain as they have been because the BLM or the Forest Service can just say maybe we will be able to renew the permit. I have spent a lot of time on the floor between the happy forest and perhaps the happy solution to this environmental issue. We will have a vote pretty soon. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if I can engage in a discussion with the distinguished chairman, Senator Slade Gorton, on the bill before us. By way of some opening remarks directed at the fine, excellent job he has done on this bill, I want to talk with him for a moment about what we have done for the U.S. Government-owned-and-maintained Indian schools in the United States in the Interior appropriations bill. First, when we are finished supplying the numbers for the Record, which are obviously in the bill, it should not go unnoticed that this is the first time we have substantially--and I mean substantially-- increased the money for the construction of Indian schools owned by the U.S. Government. Let's not be confused with public schools. These are schools that if the Federal Government does not pay for, I ask my chairman, nobody will pay for them, right; they belong to us?

Mr. DOMENICI. And they are maintained by us. As the accounts will show, not only are we in a terrible state of disrepair, in terms of those schools that need management money, but we have a huge backlog of schools that should be built--that is, built anew--because the facilities that Indian children are occupying are truly intolerable. Thus far, have I stated what the Senator from Washington has attempted to accomplish in this bill?

Mr. DOMENICI. Is it not true one other major function of activities that we must do in behalf of Indian people has to do with health care, wherein we have hospitals and medical facilities that are run by the U.S. Government for the Indian people? There, again, we have just been barely getting by in terms of keeping them open and properly maintained, and they are rather good medical facilities, I say to the American people. It is not like the public schools that we are ashamed of because they are in such disrepair.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today in strong support of H.R. 4578, the Interior and related agencies appropriations bill for FY 2001. As a member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee, I appreciate the difficult task before the distinguished subcommittee chairman and ranking member to balance the diverse priorities funded in this bill--from our public lands, to major Indian programs and agencies, energy conservation and research, and the Smithsonian and federal arts agencies. They have done a masterful job meeting important program needs within existing spending caps. The pending bill provides $15.6 billion in new budget authority and $10.1 billion in new outlays to fund Department of Interior and related agencies. When outlays from prior-year budget authority and other completed actions are taken into account the Senate bill totals $15.5 billion in BA and $15.6 billion in outlays for FY 2001. The Senate bill is at its Section 302(b) allocation for BA and $2 million under the Subcommittee's revised 302(b) allocation in outlays. I would particularly like to thank Senator Gorton and Senator Byrd for their commitment to Indian programs in this year's Interior and Related Agencies appropriation bill. They have included increases of $144 million for Bureau of Indian Affairs construction, $110 million for the Indian Health service and $65 million for the operation of Indian programs. I commend the subcommittee chairman and ranking member for bringing this important measure to the floor within the 302(b) allocation. I urge the adoption of the bill, and ask for unanimous consent that the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record at this point.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to yield 30 seconds for an inquiry. I have an amendment that is pending with reference to a water situation in my State. I ask unanimous consent to follow Senator Bryan whenever he has finished.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, can I make sure the Senator from Michigan and I have one thing clear because he has been so honest with me once we got past this problem? We are both going to see to it, to the best of our ability, that the semiautonomous agency, as created by law, is carried out. He told us that the other day when he was meeting with Republicans. I am very pleased because I think we all have to watch it. Clearly, General Gordon is going to need a lot of help. I think the Senator from Michigan would concur it is not easy to set up a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy. He told us: Let's go. And so did Senator Lieberman: Let's get it done. Is that a fair assessment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield back any time we might have. I understand we will proceed to vote when time is yielded back. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the confirmation.

Mr. DOMENICI. It is good to see you, Madam President, and to be back today. I just arrived from New Mexico, which accounts for my failure to put a more conventional tie on, but if I took the time to do that I would have missed an opportunity to speak on this issue. I am going to take a few minutes to discuss the way I see the matter, the pending nomination of Madelyn Creedon for Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration for Defense Programs. Let me start by suggesting that everyone should know, and I believe the nominee understands, that she does not work for the Secretary of Energy. She works for the new National Nuclear Security Administrator for Defense Programs within the Department of Energy. We might hearken back to only a few months ago when we had a very lengthy, multiday debate with reference to what we should do to reorganize the Department of Energy in the aftermath of the Wen Ho Lee incident, and a very major report by the President's most significant security group headed by former Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire. They recommended, and we adopted by law, a total reorganization within the Department of Energy of the matters that pertain to nuclear weaponry and nonproliferation on the basis that the Department of Energy had been built up just topsy-turvy and we had, within a very dysfunctional multilayered department, a most, most significant American concern, to wit: the nuclear weaponry of America. Believe it or not, a Department called Energy is in charge of the nuclear laboratories that produce all the science with reference to nuclear weapons and the three or four sites within America that used to produce weapons when we produced them. They are now part of a very dramatically changed effort called science-based stockpile stewardship, which means we are going to make every effort to make sure our nuclear weapons are safe and secure without ever doing another nuclear test. We are trying diligently to do that. Now we have a new department within the Department. Let me repeat that, because we are having so much difficulty getting out the message that we have already created a new entity, just let it start working. It is called the National Nuclear Security Administration. It is a hard name. In fact, I remembered it by carrying around to hearings a coffee cup that had ``NNSA'' on it. Then I was able to remember the name. But across the country they were all asking about 6 weeks ago: What are we going to do in the aftermath of Wen Ho Lee, finding some other secrets that had been misplaced in very peculiar circumstances? The first thing we ought to say is that we have already done something about it. We have created a semiautonomous agency that, in the not too distant future, will be running all of that. We have already selected the person in charge, thank God, a very distinguished general--that means he is a four-star--who was with the CIA, worked at Sandia National Laboratories and was an adviser to two Presidents on security. He has agreed to take this job. In other words, he will be running, within the Department of Energy, under his own power, all the nuclear weapons activities. This nominee will work for him. It was very important that we find out, since he did not select her, whether he wanted her for this job. I would think that would be the most logical question we would have; if the new man, General Gordon, who is going to run this, was not part of her selection and she was going to be his deputy, we surely ought to ask: Do you want her? So I am first reporting to the Senate that I had a responsibility of finding that out, because she also wanted to know. I can report to the Senate that he said: As matters are going now, I would not want to stand in the way--in fact, I will support her confirmation by the Senate. So let's not expand much on that. Let's just say that the man for whom she will work, because he is going to be in charge of all this--she is not going to be working for the Secretary of Energy--has said: OK, even though I did not pick her, let's try her. I also want to tell the Senate that she had a lot to do, staffwise, with opposing this new law. She was the one helping Senators who opposed the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration. So I have talked with her at length and I have said: Will you enforce this law? And she said: I will. Do you understand, you are working for the general who runs the new National Nuclear Security Administration? She said: I do. I work for him. I will try to help him be a success. Do you understand that the Secretary of Energy has created a number of positions that violate this law, to wit: He has put dual-hatted some people to work for him and the new man, when Congress did not intend that? They intended that all the people who worked for the general worked only for him, not the Secretary; that there not be 10, 12, 14 people who worked for both of them. She said: I understand that. He said: Did you hear the Secretary of Energy say he would fight that no longer? She said: I did. Did you hear him say he would support amendments to totally clarify this so there are no dual-hatted people who worked for both the Secretary of Energy and the general in charge of trying to create some decent management within our nuclear weapons complex, including the laboratories and the manufacturing centers and the nonproliferation activities that go with the laboratories? She said she understands that. Everybody seems to be on board. The problem is the general was just sworn in. There were a few months of delay for various reasons, not the least of which was that right after signing the bill into law, the President and Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, did not seek to implement the law very quickly. As a matter of fact, they went very slowly. We are now at a point where the general is in office, and he needs to build his team. She will be part of his team. If Senators are worried about whether she will work in that regard, they can vote for her or against her. I did not come to the floor to fight her nomination because I satisfied myself that she understood the law and pledged to enforce it and understood she worked for the general, not for the Secretary of Energy, for the foreseeable future. I do not know how long she will be in office. I do not know how long he will be in office, although we intend to make his term a 3-year term. With that, and given this background, I will vote for her. I am clearly of the opinion she has sufficient talent and expertise based on background and who she worked for and what she did. I do say it will be very challenging, based on her experience, for her to truly help this general make this work because she will be working for him, a very distinguished American retiring from the Air Force where he was a four- star general to undertake this job. It was a true act of patriotism on his part. He decided to take one of the most challenging jobs in Government, hardly understood as of today. But I assume that if it all works out, he will be very well known in a few years. If it really works out, he will be known for having set the nuclear weapons part of our Government on the right path, with the right management, not only with reference to security--for that will be his job also--but he will set it on a management path that something as refined as our nuclear weapons should have in place for the American people. That has not been the case. There have been at least three major studies just crying out for us to fix this, the last one done by the President's board on national security matters, headed by Warren Rudman with four other distinguished Americans, recommended this, and we helped draft the first law. We had five chairmen on the Republican side sponsoring the legislation which worked its way through the Senate and through the House and has now created this semiautonomous agency that I just described to the Senate and to those who are interested in where the security is going to come from for the nuclear weapons complex and our laboratories. We have created a whole new management effort. It is not going to be setting new boxes within the Department of Energy, which I have predicted will never work, but rather a total semi-independent agency with its own national administrator who will have total power and control. For those who are fearful of this, we have indicated on the environmental side that they must comply with NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. But as to other rules and regulations, it is clear they can make their own, consistent with good judgment, preserving and protecting the safety of our nuclear weapons and preservation of these great National Laboratories. We banter around the security problems that have occurred, but everybody knows, since the Manhattan Project, we have always had the best--not the second best--we have had the very best laboratories in the world in charge of our nuclear designs, the nuclear weapons breakthroughs, and Los Alamos has always been the leader. They are having problems. Instead of saying, here are new rules we are going to pass in Congress, let's just make sure we are going to give the new administrator of that semiautonomous agency, General Gordon, everything he needs to take it out from under the dysfunctional Department of Energy and run it in a semiautonomous manner as described by law. Madelyn Creedon will be a big part of that. I came to the floor to speak so she will know that many of us have a genuine interest in this working, and we will have our minds and ears and eyes wide open and paying attention, and the Secretary of Energy knows we will, too. We want this general to have as much as he needs to do this job right. She will be his first assistant. Everybody should understand it is a big job. I do not need anymore time. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the distinguished Chairman for his consideration and support for this important matter. low-income home energy assistance program

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to raise the issue of how the United States Department of Labor is administering Grants for Dislocated Worker Employment and Training Activities. Both the FY 1999 and 2000 Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill contained earmarks critically important to New Mexico's economic well-being. The earmarks were directed toward training workers for the State's rapidly growing technology-based call center industry. In fact, the industry is generating in excess of 450 jobs per month that pay approximately $11 per hour with substantial benefits in New Mexico. These grants would allow for the continued expansion of this industry by allowing the New Mexico Consortium to create a training curriculum that will lead to employment in the call center industry with an emphasis on the placement of hard-to-employ individuals. However, the Department of Labor's actions regarding these earmarks has left me deeply distressed by the ill treatment New Mexico has received, especially in light of the priority placed on this issue by not only me but, the Committee as well. It is also my understanding the current program year for the Department of Labor ends this Friday, June 30th and that there may be unobligated funds left over at that time. It is also my further understanding that in the event there are such unobligated funds the Department could provide some of these funds to a deserving program, like the training program in New Mexico.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the critical importance of mental health research. The human brain is the organ of the mind and just like the other organs of our body, it is subject to illness. And just as illnesses to our other organs require treatment, so too do illnesses of the brain. With this in mind, I think that it is appropriate to be discussing the benefits of mental health research as we have just concluded the ``Decade of the Brain.'' During this time we witnessed breakthrough achievements like new medications and brain imaging techniques that have provided innumerable benefits for so many Americans. Just last year, I dedicated the National Foundation for Functional Brain Imaging at the University of New Mexico. The Foundation's purpose is to advance the development of magneto-encephalography, or MEG, technology that provides real-time imagery of neurons as they operate within the human brain. As we explore functions of ``normal'' brains, as well as brains of individuals suffering from severe illnesses, we may well be on the brink of exciting breakthroughs for mental illness treatment. Moreover, one only needs to look at the amazing research being done by the National Institute of Mental Health to realize how far we have really come over the past decade. And finally, the close of the decade gave us the first ever Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health entitled, ``Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General.'' However, even with these fabulous advances we must still maintain our vigilance and continue our support for research so even newer and better breakthroughs are made by our nation's researchers. For instance, about 5 million individuals in the United State suffer from a severe and persistent mental illness. Nearly 7.5. million children and adolescents suffer from one or more types of mental disorders. There is a final area I would like to touch upon and that is children. While researchers have already made fantastic breakthroughs in the area of mental illness, research for children still remains incomplete. We must continue the excellent work already being done, like studies seeking to understand the basic mechanisms of brain development and comparisons of effective treatments for specific illnesses. Additionally, scientists have already established preventive steps that can be taken that are effective: Genes are identified to see if a child has a predisposition to a certain illness and if so monitoring begins. In conjunction with that, a calm environment is sought for the child and early stage drugs are administered if appropriate. I would submit the key for not only children, but adults is the continuation of research that will allow us to realize even greater breakthroughs that will enable earlier and more accurate diagnoses of a mental illness. And I firmly believe the key to ensuring continued discoveries through our research is to continue providing our nation's researchers with adequate funding.