John Ensign

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, we are debating about whether to raise the Federal minimum wage in our country. I think that people on both sides of the aisle have agreed that it is time to raise the minimum wage in this country. But health care is an important issue, and ensuring that health care is more affordable, available, and accessible affects a lot more people in the United States than does the minimum wage. So at the same time we are helping some in our society, shouldn't we be looking at ways to help many more Americans obtain health care that is accessible, affordable, and available? Our health care system does not work to keep costs down and quality up because the people who actually receive health care services are not responsible for paying for the services. The vast majority of people receive health care through their employer and have low-deductible policies. This provides no incentive to shop for better prices or high quality of care. If there was such an incentive, most people would shop for better prices and better quality. However, many people are covered by a health insurance plan where they are told where to go and which doctor to see. These individuals do not shop for quality or for price. Market forces can improve both the quality of medicine and the cost of medicine in the United States. Health savings accounts are an example of one instrument that can bring the idea of market forces into the health care field. I can use several examples to illustrate how insurance can provide the wrong incentives for people, ultimately driving up costs and utilization. Try to imagine if your homeowners policy was similar to what our health care policies are today. In other words, try to imagine if your homeowners insurance covered items beyond the structure of your home if it was damaged and destroyed. For example, what if your homeowners policy covered painting the trim on your house or doing the yard maintenance. If that were the case, what would happen? Well, all of us would paint the trim on our houses a lot more often. And, all of us would probably have landscapers instead of doing the yard work ourselves. As a result, the cost of all of our homeowners insurance would skyrocket. We have seen the cost of health insurance skyrocket for the last several decades. As the cost of health care increases every year, faster than inflation, more and more Americans are becoming uninsured. So, in order to try to drive down the cost of health insurance, health savings accounts were created. These accounts allow individuals with a high deductible health insurance plan to set aside money, tax-free, up to a set limit, to use for routine medical expenses. Health savings accounts allow individuals to shop for quality and for price. With the health care system we have today, employers, who pay most of the costs, indicated that something had to be done about the high cost of health care. As a result, health maintenance organizations were created. HMOs were supposed to help manage care, but became more about managing costs. HMOs are not viewed positively by most of the American people. Individuals who are enrolled in HMOs often don't have a lot of choice when it comes to picking a doctor. These individuals also do not get to spend a lot of time with their doctor because their doctors are paid on what is called a capitated rate. This means that doctors are paid a certain amount of dollars per patient. The more patients these doctors can move through their offices, the better off they do. As a result, the doctor-patient relationship has been hurt. Health savings accounts allow you to walk into the doctor's office with your own money, so you will want your doctor to spend appropriate time with you. Health savings accounts do something else fairly wonderful. Since 30 to 35 percent of our health care costs today are spent in the bureaucracy of paying the bills, every single doctor's office has to hire people to collect the bills. With a health savings account, you are paying for your care at the time of your visit. As a result, you are not spending all of your money in an HMO, where there are layers of administration when it comes to billing. Health savings accounts go a long way toward eliminating a lot of the bill collecting that is conducted, and the money that is saved can go into providing better quality of health care in the United States. My amendment is simple. It would make health savings accounts more attractive. It would make it easier for people to get health care coverage by allowing people to use their pre-tax Health Savings Account dollars to pay for health premiums. I believe my amendment will encourage more people to adopt health savings accounts. Now that Federal employees are eligible for health savings accounts, my family and I signed up for our own health savings accounts. We actually had some health care issues with our children this last month. So my wife has been spending a lot of time talking with doctors. I told her to negotiate for prices and talk about quality and all of the various things that shoppers do in the marketplace. When market forces are brought in--whether it is with regard to cars, airplanes, or computers--costs not only go down, but quality goes up. I have introduced this amendment today to urge more health savings accounts, so there are more market forces brought into our current health care system. My amendment will make health care more affordable and more accessible. It may also reduce the number of uninsured. If we can bring the cost of health care down, more people will be able to afford health insurance. A lot of healthy young people say: Health insurance is expensive. I can use that money to do other things. I am probably not going to get sick. If we can bring down the cost of health care, a lot of the young people who are currently choosing not to enroll in a health plan can be brought into the health insurance market. What does this mean for the rest of us? It means that risk will be spread out among healthier people, which brings the cost of health insurance down for everyone else in the system. Health insurance is all about spreading out risk. What does that do? It makes health insurance even more affordable. It brings in more people who are healthier and younger into the health insurance market. Of those 40-plus million people who are identified as not having health insurance coverage today, a lot of them are young, healthy people. The more of these people we can get into the health care system, the more affordable health care is going to be for everyone else. It can have a magical spiraling effect that can make health care more accessible, more affordable, and more available to the citizens of the United States. Mr. President, this amendment is the right thing to do for America. If Members care about getting better quality health care to more people in the United States, vote for my amendment to expand health savings accounts today. How much time remains on both sides?

Mr. ENSIGN. Just on my side?

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, in a moment, the Senate will adopt the Ensign-McCain-DeMint amendment related to scope of conference. I want to thank Senator McCain and Senator DeMint for working with me on this amendment. I also want to explain why this amendment is such an important improvement over the underlying bill. Under the Constitution, the legislative branch controls the purse strings. That is a significant authority given to Congress. Congress must use that authority wisely. As I explained earlier today on the floor, too often conferees insert earmarks in conference reports that were not funded in either bill passed by the House or the Senate. In a democracy such as ours, Congress should do its business in the full light of day. The entire Senate should consider, debate, and amend legislation in full view of the American public. We should scrutinize how Federal dollars are spent. Each project Congress funds should be debated and considered by Congress. We must do a better job of oversight. We must ensure that the taxpayers' dollars are being spent wisely. But when we insert projects in a conference report, without debate and without oversight, we fail to live up to our responsibilities as Senators. What the Ensign-McCain-DeMint amendment would do is fix what has become a broken process. My amendment makes clear that a point of order can be raised against any funding, no matter how specific, for any program, project, or account that was not originally funded in either bill sent to conference. This is a simple but critical change. It will improve how Congress operates, and it will make the Government more accountable to the American people.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, we are debating an important piece of legislation. The American people are rightly frustrated with the process Congress uses to consider. That is to say, it is not done in the light of day and with full transparency. They believe lobbyists have too much influence on this institution. Last year, we tried to pass a lobbying reform bill to help clean up some of the ways that we do legislation around here. We were not able to come to an agreement between the House and Senate, so there is another effort underway this year. I think this legislation is very important. Republicans support reform. We have been offering relative amendments to make Congress more accountable to the American people. More transparent. These amendments will address the problems that have existed for some time. The majority, however, is trying to end the debate on this bill. They are not willing to let the Senate consider some very important amendments that will improve how Congress handles the people's business. I will mention a couple of my own amendments to this legislation in just a moment. I would say that the majority would be right to cut off debate, if Republicans were strictly trying to obstruct passage of this bill. Then their parliamentary move would, I agree, be appropriate. But the minority is not being obstructionist. We have legitimate amendments that deserve to be debated and voted on. Senators deserve to be heard. It is not right for the majority to try to railroad this piece of legislation through this body without giving Members their right to have amendments debated. Particularly when those amendments are not being used as a delaying tactic. I simply do not believe that is the way this institution should be run. That is why, last night, 45 Senators voted against what is called cloture. That would have brought debate to a close and would have brought any attempt to improve this legislation to a close. Let me give you two examples of legitimate amendments that have been offered and why they are important to be debated and voted on. The first amendment I want to talk about addresses provisions where this bill falls short, particularly with respect to transparency and to allow the American people to observe how this Congress operates. Section 102 of this bill is an example of where the bill falls short. I commend the authors of the legislation for including this section. The intent is to stop the conferees from putting unrelated pieces of legislation in a conference report. Too often in the past conferees have inserted provisions in the conference that were completely unrelated to the bill. This simply is not the way the Congress should be legislating. The Senate should not bypass the regular legislative process. When we do, it means we are passing legislation, in some cases, without even holding a hearing. This process also denies Senators the opportunity to debate and offer amendments to improve unrelated provisions. But the most offensive part of this is that it is done outside of the public's view. In a democracy such as ours, Congress should do its business in the full light of day. The entire Senate should consider, debate, and amend legislation in full view of the American public. I often hear from constituents who have concerns about legislation we are debating on the Senate floor. That feedback has always been important to me. I have always appreciated Nevadans who have taken the time to participate in the legislative process. So when we insert unrelated matters into a conference report, we deny the American people the chance to observe what we are doing, to participate in that process, and to be heard. That is why I fully support the intent of section 102 of the bill because the intent is to fix that which is broken. In my review of this section, and after consulting with the Senate Parliamentarian's Office, I don't believe that the current language in this bill will work. This section will not change what we are saying needs to be changed. What do I mean? First and foremost, section 102 states that a Senator may object to a conference report that contains provisions that were not considered by the House or the Senate. That sounds good. As written, this sentence reads how rule XXVIII actually operates; that is to say that the point of order is raised against the entire conference report and not the offending provision or objectionable item in a conference report. While the intent of section 102 is to allow a Senator to object to a single provision that is added into the bill, the bill is not written to allow that. My amendment makes it clear that the point of order is to be raised against an individual item that is in the conference report and not the conference report itself. In other words, this small, simple change is absolutely critical to the process because if you want to strip something out of the bill, without my amendment you cannot strip a single provision out of the bill. You raise a point of order and it brings the entire conference report down. Why is that important? Well, let me tell you why it is important. For instance, we had a port security bill last year. There was an unrelated item put into the port security bill. There may have been objections to that item, but if one had raised the point of order, it would have brought the whole port security bill down. Nobody wanted to do that. It was an important piece of legislation. Without my amendment, that is the way we would continue to operate. But that is not what section 102 in this bill states. Its intent is to be able to surgically go in and cut out a piece that is added in the dead of night, behind closed doors, in a conference report--the types of things that, frankly, most Americans find objectionable. So this is one of the reasons that we should not be passing this legislation until the Senate has carefully considered each provision of this bill. We should allow for amendments to go forward, to be debated. We should make sure that we get things in this bill right before it leaves the Senate, so that when it is joined with the House's bill, we have done the best possible job to ensure that we cleaned up the way we do our business. I have another amendment that I want to talk about. This illustrates the other important point of why it is important to allow Senators to have their time with amendments. The minority--the Republicans in the Senate--want legitimate amendments to improve this legislation. I believe we should have the right to offer those amendments. The second amendment I want to talk about is to ensure that our men and women in the military, those serving in harm's way, remain our top budget priority. I want to speak about protecting defense spending from being raided and used for nondefense purposes. Over the past several years, there have been several congressional scandals that have undermined public confidence in government. It is my sincere hope that this legislation before us will be the first of many steps to restore that confidence. The message to both parties last November was that Congress has to change the way we operate. The American people will no longer accept some of the practices of the past, nor should they. It is up to this body to change our practices, to reform how Congress does the people's business. We should ensure that our dealings are transparent, that we are accountable, and that we are honest with the American people. The tradition of America is that we rise to the occasion. Americans have a history of meeting the challenges that we face together. Each generation has met obstacles and overcome them. For Congress's part, we must be honest and straightforward with the American people about the nature of the challenges facing our Nation. Unfortunately, in some respects, Congress has not lived up to its end of the bargain. We have been using sleight of hand and budget gimmicks to mask our out-of-control spending habits. Over the past 5 years, Congress has been underfunding defense in the regular appropriations process in order to shift some of those funds into what are called other discretionary programs that are nondefense items. The game being played, with a wink and a nod, is that if we underfund defense in the regular appropriations process, we will then make defense whole with what are called emergency supplemental bills. In some instances, Congress has shifted as much as $11.5 billion from defense to nondefense spending in just 1 single year. We know that emergency spending has increased substantially in each of the last 5 years. I have a chart to illustrate this. In the years 1990 to 1993, under the first President Bush, we had a total of $115 billion in emergency supplementals. During the Clinton administration, the total was just about the same, $115 billion. Since President Bush has been in office, there have been a total of $585 billion in emergency supplementals. Now, we have had 9/11, Katrina, and we have had the war against Islamic extremists around the world, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, that account for most of that spending but not for all of it. This increased reliance on supplementals coincides exactly with the same time period in which defense has been underfunded. The effects of this gimmick are not felt just in 1 year either. Because of the way we do budgeting, called baseline budgeting, money that is shifted from defense in 1 year is really a permanent shift in funding. And, as a result, a $1 billion shift represents not only a shift of $1 billion this year, but that is put in the baseline next year and adds up cumulatively in perpetuity. Let me point out exactly how this works and illustrate it. In 2002, $1.9 billion in new spending was shifted from the Department of Defense. That new spending is built into the baseline in the next year. The green part of the graph is from the previous year. The red part on top of that is the amount that defense was underfunded and shifted into other programs that year. Take that and shift it into the next year, and on and on, where we have a total of 4 years later built into the baseline the $29 billion that we have shifted from defense into other programs. That is one of the reasons spending is out of control in Washington, DC. What was labeled as defense spending is not spent on defense and is then being made up in supplemental appropriations bills. Which is a clever way to disguise increased spending in other places. People in Washington have talked about spending around here. They say we have held the line on spending, except for defense-related items. That is not true. We have actually been playing a smoke and mirrors game, and this chart illustrates that. I believe what we are doing is not honest with the American people, and we have the annual budget deficits as a result of that. I mentioned before that it is important for us to be able to offer amendments. I would not be able to offer an amendment if cloture is invoked on this bill, and we should not cut off debate. This would be considered a nongermane amendment. It would not survive cloture, even though the point of this bill is to require legislative transparency. We are trying to make Congress' actions transparent and to clean up the budget process, however, the majority is trying to cut off debate on these critical reforms. I am going to have one last chart to demonstrate the effect of this budget gimmick. The total effect of underfunding defense and playing this game has cost the American people. This last chart, when one totals the cost of this gimmick up, is $84 billion. We have shifted $84 billion by using these budget gimmicks. $84 billion that was shifted from defense to nondefense programs. Then we backfill the defense accounts with supplemental appropriations. We need to have honest budgeting around this place. We need to be honest with the American people. If we are going to appropriate money for defense, let's do it for defense. If it has to be for some other program, let's be honest with the American people and stop playing these budget gimmick games. If we are going to have transparency in Government, we should have transparency in Government. Accountability in government. That is what this bill is supposed to be about. It is what we are telling the American people that we intend to do. This amendment, along with the one I discussed earlier, are very important to ensure that we end the games and that we end the gimmicks. This amendment ensures that we tell the truth to the American people. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, on January 15 we honor the legacy of a man who gave his life in the struggle for equality. Dr. Martin Luther King read the words to our Nation's Declaration of Independence and worked to ensure that they were lived that way: All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . . Throughout history we have been fortunate to have leaders of unbelievable character and vision, such as Dr. King, who rose in power and worked to change the course of history. Today I want to talk about the legacy of Dr. King and another champion of human rights, William Wilberforce. In 1790, the transatlantic slave trade was thriving. The economic development of Europe was fueled by the trading in enslaved Africans, an incredibly profitable business at that time. Conditions for slaves were horrific--from being kidnaped by foreigners speaking an unknown language, being chained up and forced into unfathomable conditions for the torturous trip from Africa, to finally being sold into a lifetime of slavery--if they survived--in a strange land. Witnesses to and survivors of these atrocities shared their stories with the small, but dedicated, bands of abolitionists who worked tirelessly to rid the world of this shameful slave trade. In the late 1700s, they found their voice in William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament. In 1789, Wilberforce laid out the case against slavery with eye witness and survivor accounts of the brutality inflicted on slaves. He told his fellow legislators: Having heard all of this, you may choose to look away, but you can never say again that you did not know. For two decades, William Wilberforce fought with every fiber of his being to abolish the slave trade. It was not easy going up against those who made a fortune off of this trade. Many felt the economy and England would crumble without the slaves. Vilified and ridiculed, Wilberforce refused to give up the fight against the fierce proslavery forces. Wilberforce introduced motions to abolish slavery in every single session of Parliament. In 1807, his legislation to abolish the slave trade finally passed. Wilberforce continued his fight until his health could no longer take it. In 1833, a bill passed giving all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. William Wilberforce passed away 3 days later. More than a century later, across the Atlantic, a young Black pastor from Atlanta, Georgia, was sharing his dream for a united, multiracial America. It was Dr. King's eloquence, intense spirit, and vision that lifted him to lead our civil rights movement at a pivotal time. He said that ``Life's most persistent and nagging question is, what are you doing for others?'' and he challenged citizens to make the answer count. While his life was cut tragically short, Dr. King's work to bring equality for all has become part of the fabric of our maturing Nation. William Wilberforce and Dr. Martin Luther King are two men who rose to extraordinary levels of public service by embracing their faiths and working to correct a great abuse of human rights. They each served mankind in a way that very few others have. Yet, the lesson we learn from their life stories is that we all have that spark of greatness. It is our choice whether we stand on the sidelines while others light the way or step forward and ignite our own passion to make a difference in this world. The path to righting an injustice is full of obstacles and risks. Dr. King lost his life and left behind a widow and four young children on his mission to leave them a better world. William Wilberforce faced defeat after defeat with his unpopular legislation to abolish slavery. In fact, his abolition bill was defeated 30 times over the course of 20 years, but he continued the fight, and his eventual victory has been called one of the turning events in world history. I chose to talk about Dr. King and William Wilberforce today because they are truly remarkable people whose stories I believe inspire others to action. Neither Dr. King nor William Wilberforce embarked on their careers knowing that they would become giants of history. They sought to make a difference in whatever capacity they could. It is a lesson from which we should all learn. After all, while Dr. King and William Wilberforce made tremendous progress in eliminating slavery and empowering equality, there is still much work to be done. Racial division and the violence that Dr. King preached against have not disappeared from our country, and slavery worldwide is a bigger problem today than it was in 1790. There are actually more slaves today than there were seized from Africa in four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. It is appalling, but it gives us the opportunity to ask that question Dr. King and William Wilberforce would have easily been able to answer: What are you doing for others? I was able to recently watch the screening of a movie about William Wilberforce called ``Amazing Grace.'' I had actually started learning about and admiring William Wilberforce several years ago, so I was thrilled that his life and impact would be documented and shared this way. The movie shows that while William Wilberforce was the voice and face behind the effort to abolish the slave trade, there were many people who inspired him to take action in the first place. There was John Newton who was William Wilberforce's childhood pastor. Newton was at one time a slave trader. It was from a sea voyage during which he nearly died that he went on to write the hymn ``Amazing Grace.'' Newton convinced William Wilberforce to stay in politics in order to make a difference, and he provided his confession as a slave trader for Wilberforce to use in his appeals for abolition. There was also his friend William Pitt who went on to become the youngest Prime Minister of England. Pitt pushed Wilberforce to continue as a public servant and encouraged him to lead the abolition movement. There were many other characters who played a role in William Wilberforce's involvement and eventual success in abolishing slavery. While they may not be the names we often read about in history books, their impact was tremendous. Former Chaplain of the Senate Lloyd John Ogilvie once said: You may only be able to make a small difference, but that does not relieve you of the responsibility to make that difference. When he says ``You may only make a small difference,'' I think he was encouraging people to try to make any difference, whatever difference they were called to make. They may think that it would only be a small difference, but in reality, it is history that will make that determination. I talked earlier about how shameful it is that there are more slaves around the world today in 2007 than there were during the 400-year period of the transatlantic slavery movement. I applaud a campaign called The Amazing Change. They highlight the work of groups continuing William Wilberforce's work to abolish slavery and make a better world. The campaign is motivating young people across the country to get involved and to make a difference, and there are many causes such as this that need advocates and supporters. Whether it is volunteering in your own community to help abused children or working to help cure cancer, spreading the word about the atrocities in Darfur, find your passion and use it to leave this world a better place. Ultimately, this is the message of Dr. King and William Wilberforce: Do something for others. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ENSIGN. Yes. Amendment No. 40 Withdrawn

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be laid aside, and I send two amendments to the desk.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a Nevadan whose ingenuity and leadership has changed the way that government operates. Bruce James has served as Public Printer for 4 years, but the impact of his service will be felt indefinitely. President Bush chose Bruce to head the Government Printing Office because of his extensive experience in the printing industry, beginning when Bruce was 11 years old and set up a basement print shop in Cleveland, OH. His lifetime of work as a printer and executive has been full of great success and accolades, and, combined with his inspiring commitment to public service, he has earned the respect of Nevadans and leaders and organizations around the world. While businesses in this country have been rapidly transforming and changing to accommodate technology, many sectors of our government have fallen drastically behind. While it is easy to blame bureaucracy and the slow speed at which government generally operates, we must focus our work on keeping pace. That is exactly why Bruce James was ideal for the job of transitioning the Government Printing Office from a 19th century print shop mentality and reputation to a 21st century digital tool for keeping Americans informed. Bruce has successfully developed and managed printing and publishing ventures driven by technology for more than 30 years. With the same leadership and zeal that he put into private sector enterprises for all those years, Bruce was determined to turn the Government Printing Office into a state-of-the-art information machine by today's standards. When Bruce took over the Government Printing Office, the agency had lost $100 million over the last 5 years. By 2004, Bruce had turned devastating losses into an $11 million gain. As a staunch fiscal conservative looking to make government as efficient as possible, I applaud Bruce's efforts and ingenuity in turning this agency upside down and making it run more like a business--a successful business. He did so with compassion for the employees, a determination to succeed, and the vision to make it happen. This country is fortunate to have had Bruce at the helm of the Government Printing Office. He made the agency more fiscally responsible, and he also has made great progress in making government documents more accessible. By the end of 2008, nearly every Federal Government document published since our Nation was founded will be available online. It is a remarkable achievement, especially considering how far Bruce had to bring the agency to reach this point. In the position for only 4 years, he set a standard for all government agencies today and in the future. When Bruce first spoke to the White House about taking the position, he told them he could not get this sort of transformation done in less than 3 years, and if it took him more than 5, he was not the right person for the job. Turns out he was the perfect person for the job. As he prepares to complete his term as the Nation's 24th Public Printer, I want to thank Bruce James for his commitment to the job, his respect for the position, and his tremendous contributions to furthering the core mission of the Government Printing Office--keeping America informed. Nevadans welcome you and Nora home with open arms and great pride for the work you have done. Thank you and God bless you.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I am going to take a couple minutes to talk about my great friend Rick Santorum. Election night; a lot of emotions going on; no question my heart was torn because my best friend in the Senate lost the election that night. I was saddened simply from a personal level, but I was also saddened for our country because I believe Rick Santorum has served this country so well. His integrity, his vision--so many things about this man have really been extraordinary. I have gotten to know a lot of the people around him, his staff. It says a lot about him because of how many of them are sitting in this room today. The quality of the people he has around him says a tremendous amount about him, as does the passion with which they served him and the passion with which he serves the country. I also came to know Karen and his six kids. They are extraordinary people. Rick is a great leader of his home. Just seeing the love and respect that Karen has for Rick and that his children have for him as a father says a lot about him as an individual as well. I am going to keep this short. This is completely from the heart. I can say with confidence that as a human being, there have been maybe as good human beings who have served in this Senate, but there have been no better. He is that quality of a human being. His faith leads him to that. I consider it a great privilege to have served with him and to call him a friend over these last 6 years. I know the friendship he and I share will be a lifetime friendship. Rick, this body will miss you greatly, but no one in this body will miss you more than I.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 6143, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent the Enzi-Kennedy substitute at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, and any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will conduct a period of morning business until 11:30. A number of Senators will be here to pay tribute to our retiring colleagues. At 11:30 we will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Robert Gates to be our next Secretary of Defense. It is the majority leader's hope that we will have a vote on this nomination later today. The Senate will recess from 12:30 until 2:15 to accommodate the weekly policy luncheons. Last night the majority leader filed cloture on the nomination of Andrew von Eschenbach to be the FDA Commissioner. Under the regular order, that vote will occur on Thursday morning.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I understand that there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. ENSIGN. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceeding.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4510, and that the Senate then proceed to its consideration.

Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record without intervening action or debate.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5181 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I would like to note that while I am cosponsoring S. 4067, there are some outstanding issues that I believe need to be addressed before we proceed with this legislation. It is critical to my rural consumers that they continue to have access to distant network signals that they have come to enjoy and depend on, and through no fault of their own now face losing on December 1st, 2006. I want to ensure that all of my constituents are protected. Accordingly, I look forward to working with the bill sponsors to improve the language when the Senate reconvenes in December. In Nevada we have over 5,000 consumers that will be shut off if action is not taken to restore these signals.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Child Custody Protection Act, which will protect the rights of our Nation's parents and their children's well-being. I was very pleased with the work of this body when the Child Custody Protection Act came before the Senate in July. Through the hard work of my colleagues, I believe we were able to come up with an even stronger bill designed to protect our young daughters. The only successful amendment offered to the Child Custody Protection Act contained two important clarifying provisions dealing with parents who commit incest. Senator Boxer and I worked together to ensure that parents who have committed the heinous act of incest are unable to sue, and therefore profit from, someone else who has transported their minor across State lines for an abortion. The Ensign-Boxer amendment also added a new provision making it Federal crime for someone who has committed incest to transport their victim across State lines for an abortion. Recognizing the importance of preserving parent's rights, the Senate passed the Child Custody Protection Act by a vote of 65 to 34. The support of 14 Democrats reflects the reality that this not an issue divided on pro-life or pro-choice lines. There is broad and consistent support to preserve the rights of parents. An overwhelming number of States have recognized that a young girl's parents are the best source of guidance and knowledge when making decisions regarding serious surgical or medical procedures, like abortion. Forty-five States have adopted some form of parental notification or consent law, proving their widespread support for protecting the rights of parents. The people that care the most for the child should be involved in these kinds of health care decisions and, if there is aftercare needed, be fully informed in order to care for their young daughter. Additionally, a huge majority support parental consent laws. In fact, most polls show that consent is favored by almost 80 percent of Americans. These numbers do not lie; the American people agree that parents deserve the right to be involved in their minor children's decisions. The bill before us today makes it a Federal offense to knowingly transport a minor across a State line, for the purposes of an abortion, in order to circumvent a State's parental consent or notification law. It specifies that neither the minor transported nor her parent may be prosecuted for a violation of this act. The purpose of the Child Custody Protection Act is to prevent people, including abusive boyfriends and predatory older males who may have committed rape, from pressuring young girls into having secret abortions without their parents consent. The bill also requires an abortionist to give 24 hours' notice to a parent of the minor from another State before performing the abortion. Several exceptions are made, including exceptions related to parental abuse and the life and bodily health of the mother. Should the abortionist fail to do so, they could face a fine or jail time. We are reminded how important parental notification is when we hear the story of Marcia Carroll and her daughter, from Pennsylvania. Ms. Carroll's daughter was, without her mother's knowledge, pressured by her boyfriend's stepfather to take a train and cross State lines and have an abortion she didn't want to have and which she now regrets and seeks continual counseling for. The abortion provider who performed an abortion on Mrs. Carroll's daughter had a long history of abusing his patients. Mrs. Carroll should have been given an opportunity to learn about the history of her child's doctor, who had been professionally disciplined multiple times for having sex with a patient in his office, for performing improper rectal and breast exams on two others, and for indiscriminately prescribing controlled dangerous substances. The parents of America should be given the chance to make sure their children's doctors are not potential sexual abusers and controlled substance pushers, and this legislation would give them that chance. As Mrs. Carroll testified, ``I felt safe when [the police] told me my daughter had to be . . . of age in the State of Pennsylvania to have an abortion without parental consent . . . It never occurred to me that I would need to check the laws of other States around me. I thought as a resident of the State of Pennsylvania that she was protected by Pennsylvania State laws. Boy, was I ever wrong.'' Dr. Bruce A. Lucero, an abortion provider, has supported this legislation because ``patients who receive abortions at out-of-state clinics frequently do not return for follow-up care, which can lead to dangerous complications.'' Sure enough, the abortion provider who performed an abortion on Mrs. Carroll's daughter failed to schedule a followup visit with her to help ensure there were no postabortion complications. Speaking as the father of three young children, including a daughter, I understand how difficult the challenges of raising children can be. In most schools across the country, our children cannot go on a field trip, take part in school activities, or participate in sex education without a signed permission slip. An underage child cannot even receive mild medication, such as aspirin, unless the school nurse has a signed release form. Some states even require parental permission to use indoor tanning beds. Nothing, however, prevents this same child from being taken across State lines, in direct disobedience of State laws, for the purpose of undergoing a life-altering abortion. In many cases, only a girl's parents know her prior medical and psychological history, including allergies to medications and anesthesia. The harsh reality is our current law allows for parents to be left uninformed about their underage daughter's abortion, which can be devastating to the physical and mental health of the child. Parental notification serves another vital purpose--ensuring increased protection against sexual exploitation of minors by adult men. All too often, our young girls are the victims of the predatory practices of men who are older, more experienced, and in a unique position to influence the minor's decisions. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, ``almost two-thirds of adolescent mothers have partners older than 20 years of age.'' Rather than face a statutory rape charge, these men or their families use the vulnerability of the young girl against her, exerting pressure on the girl to agree to an abortion without talking to her parents. In fact, in a survey of 1500 unmarried minors having abortions without their parents' knowledge, 89 percent said that a boyfriend was involved in the decision. The number goes even higher the younger the age of the minor. Allowing secret abortions do nothing to expose these men and there heinous conduct. In the unfortunate instance of abuse or where there is rape or incest involved within a family, minors may be afraid to go to one of the parents. In response, judicial bypass laws have been written across the country to protect the minor. This legislation is a commonsense solution to defeat the legal loophole that currently results in parents being denied the right to know about the health decisions of their minor daughters--a fact which the Supreme Court upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which states, that it is the State's right to declare that an abortion should not be performed on a minor unless a parent is consulted. This is not an argument on the merits of abortion; rather, this is a debate about preserving the fundamental right of parents to have knowledge about the health decisions of their minor daughters. Parental permission is so important because parents are the most intimately involved people in their children's lives. We cannot allow another young girl's life to be irreparably damaged because of a legal loophole that keeps parents from being involved in one of the most major decisions their daughter may make in her life. It is time for Congress to step up and commit to protecting our daughters by assuring that a parent's right to be involved is protected.