John Ensign

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. I understand Senator Bunning would like 15 minutes, and Senator Enzi would like 10 minutes.

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, while I support the underlying amendment, I want to talk about a prescription drug proposal that I believe, and the other authors of this bill believe, could be the answer that seniors are looking for around the country. Senator Hagel and Senator Gramm and Senator Lugar and myself have been working on a proposal that I have worked on for a couple years along with Senator Hagel. This proposal, to keep it very brief, has two major components. The first component of our proposal allows every senior to participate on a voluntary basis. They sign up for a $25 fee. This takes care of just the administrative costs. This $25 fee allows them to get a prescription drug discount card. We use the private sector. The private sector will set up what are called pharmaceutical benefit managers. These managers will offer certain drug plans. Seniors can choose between those drug plans. The better the drug plan, the better chance they have of attracting seniors. It is estimated there will be somewhere between 25 to 40 percent savings for seniors using this prescription drug discount card. The reason they will save money is, very simply, that they are taking advantage of volume buying. We see volume buying all the time. HMOs buy in volume, in bulk. So seniors will get the advantage of this volume buying when they are on Medicare and they sign up for this card. The second part of our plan caps out-of-pocket expenses. The biggest thing that we hear from seniors these days is that they are afraid they are going to be bankrupt. We had an e-mail in our office that came in a little after 11 o'clock Pacific Coast Time last week. It was from a person who said that many seniors have to choose between rent and prescription drugs. So they were saying: Will you step up to the plate, the ``moral plate,'' as this person called it, and do something that seniors really need? Our plan actually does something that seniors really need. It provides them the prescription drug coverage by capping out-of-pocket expenses. Let me give a couple illustrations. For a senior citizen who has now signed up for the plan, let's say they make anything less than 200 percent of poverty--which is, for an individual $17,700 per year; for a couple it is almost $24,000 a year-- if they are below 200 percent of poverty, our bill caps their out-of- pocket expenses at $1,500, so basically $120 a month. So let's take, for instance, somebody who has diabetes or somebody who is a cardiac patient or a cancer patient, and they have $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 a year in drug expenses. This is what they are going to pay. Those are the seniors who need it the most. The nice thing about our plan is--we are hearing about cost estimates of the, quote, ``tripartisan'' bill as being somewhere around $370 billion over the next 10 years. Other plans are floating around out there, and that may be $650 billion-plus. Our plan looks like it is going to come in at an estimate of about $150 billion over 10 years. The other plans, in the next 10 years, really skyrocket. Ours goes up, like every plan does, but it does not go up significantly. This is something for which the next generation can afford to pay; the other plans that are being talked about, the next generation cannot. The reason our bill costs so much less money is a simple fact: If you keep the senior citizen, who is going to be getting these prescription drugs--the Medicare recipient--in the accountability loop, that means when they are paying the first dollars out of pocket--up to, for the lower income seniors, $1,500 per year--they will be cost conscious. That means they will go out and shop. They will make sure those plans have the drugs they need at a price they can afford. So we will have seniors all across the country shopping for their prescription drugs. If we just give them a plan and say we will cover everything, the seniors quit shopping. The market forces then don't keep the competition where it needs to be. Because about half the seniors in America have less than $1,200 per year in prescription drug costs, that is where the huge savings comes to the taxpayer in our plan. We are looking out for the senior with our plan, but we are also looking out for the taxpayer. For the future of the next generation and the generation after that, we cannot afford to ignore the taxpayer because somebody has to pay for this prescription drug benefit. All of us want to take care of our parents and our grandparents, and we want to be taken care of someday. Especially for those who really cannot afford it and are having to choose between sometimes what they are eating and whether they are taking their medicines or whether they are able to pay rent that month and whether they are going to be able to take their medicine, it is a real problem. But we have to do it in a way that is fiscally responsible. We think our bill does that. I have a real life example--we have received some numbers--of a senior citizen who is around 68 years of age. This is a profile of a real senior, but we won't release any names because of privacy. This patient makes around $17,000, is being treated for diabetes, has no prescription drug coverage today, and pays a total of about $5,700 currently per year. Under the Democrat proposal, at least the parts we can tell from it, this person would pay around $2,100 a year, saving about $3,900 a year. Under the tripartisan proposal, the person would pay about $2,300, saving about $3,700 a year. Under our proposal, this person would pay about $1,900 a year, saving around $3,800 a year. So for the person who really needs it, who has serious disease and has a lot of prescription drug costs, our bill actually saves that person more, by a couple hundred dollars at least, than either the Democrat proposal or the tripartisan proposal. Yet it does this in a way that is responsible to the taxpayer because our bill is literally hundreds of billions of dollars less than the competing proposals. I am urging my colleagues to take a look at this plan. This plan would go into effect at least a year earlier than any of the other competing plans. It can go into effect on January 1 of 2004. The other plans don't go into effect until January 1, 2005. Our plan is permanent as well. One of the other plans is sunsetted. Our plan is easy to understand. If you take a look at it, it doesn't sound that easy to understand except when compared to the other plans which are much more complicated. It is much easier to understand for the senior. It provides the benefit and most of the benefit to those who truly need it. I reiterate--and this must be reiterated time and time and time again--it is responsible to the next generation. We cannot afford to pay for seniors today and forget about the next generation. We all want to take care of the seniors today, but we must do it in a fiscally responsible way. To sum up, a $25 fee, you get into the plan. You get a prescription drug discount card which saves you 25 to 40 percent. Then, depending on income, we cap your out-of-pocket expenses. For those 200 percent of poverty and below, their cap will be $1,500. For those 200 or 400 percent of poverty, they are capped at $3,500 out-of-pocket expenses for the year. For those at 400 to 600 percent, they are capped at $5,500. And for the wealthiest, they can still participate. But for the Ross Perots of the world, they have to pay 20 percent of their income in prescription drug costs before they benefit. So the Ross Perots of the world, those people who do not need the coverage like that, will not get the coverage. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. If the Senator would yield, I will keep mine under 10 minutes.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, at the end of my remarks, I will yield whatever time the Senator from Texas can receive. Mr. President, I want to talk about something a little different than what we have been talking about today, although I have very strong feelings about the bill and think that both the managers of the bill, along with Senator Enzi from Wyoming, have done a terrific job in addressing some very serious problems out there. I still believe there are a few problems with the bill we need to clean up in conference. I do think the overall legislation has some positive reforms that must be implemented to try to restore some confidence back in the investing public. Prescription Drugs

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business, with the time consumed counting against the postcloture debate.

Mr. ENSIGN. If you require the 50 minutes that will be left against.

Mr. ENSIGN. Yes.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, what I want to talk about is something we are going to be dealing with later this week--as early as tomorrow from what I understand--and that is the whole idea of prescription drugs within Medicare. Earlier today, Senators Hagel, Gramm, Lugar, Inhofe, and I all introduced a new prescription drug bill. It is the compilation of work mainly that Senator Hagel and I have been doing for the last couple of years. We think it is a proposal that deserves the attention of our colleagues, and I encourage them to study this proposal. I want to start by reading an e-mail I received from a senior citizen back in Nevada. This e-mail came in at 11:21 p.m. Pacific standard time, so obviously this person was up late at night thinking about the whole issue of prescription drugs. Let me read it: I urge you to ponder very honestly the proposed prescription coverage with Medicare. Many social problems arise due to the fact that many persons who need medication to maintain some sort of life existence are not able to purchase the needed medications. Must we continue to choose housing or our medications? Please step back and consider if an elderly or disabled person in your own family were in this precarious situation. Would you not step up to the moral plate and fight to find funding for Medicare covered prescriptions? I think this person summed up very well what a lot of seniors are feeling: They are having to choose sometimes between the type of food they eat and prescription drugs; sometimes between whether they can turn their air-conditioner on in the summertime or their heat on in the wintertime and prescription drugs; sometimes between rent and prescription drugs. There are several proposals, and I commend the people who have been working on their proposals, but, frankly, the reason we decided to introduce this bill is that some of the other bills, especially when one looks into the outyears, are so costly that they literally could bankrupt the Medicare system in and of itself. Our bill does a few things. First, it is available to every beneficiary, and it is also available faster than any of the other prescription drug proposals. Our bill can be implemented as early as January 1, 2004, whereas the earliest the other proposals can be implemented is 1 full year later. Our bill is also the most affordable bill, especially to the taxpayer. We are waiting for the final score from CBO, but we think it is going to come in somewhere around $150 billion over the next 10 years. The next cheapest proposal, that we are aware of, is around $370 billion, and when one looks at the full cost of a 10-year program, other programs can be up to a trillion dollars. A trillion dollars is not something this country can afford, especially under current economic conditions, and especially when we think about young people who would like to see Medicare as a benefit to them someday. So we must enact a reform that not only America can afford but also senior citizens can afford, and we think we have come up with that balance. Basically, the way the program would work is, every senior on a voluntary basis would be able to get a prescription drug discount card. For a $25 annual fee, they would sign up and get this prescription drug discount card. They would then go buy their prescription drugs, and all seniors would save because of volume discount buying. We would use the private sector to do this. They would save, on average, 25 to 40 percent on their drugs. That is a huge savings right upfront that every senior could achieve. On top of that savings, seniors up to 200 percent of poverty would next spend, on average, about $100 a month out-of-pocket; then after that, other than a very small copay, the Federal Government would cover the rest of their prescription drug costs. This is what seniors are looking for. In my campaign in the year 2000, I took this plan all over the State of Nevada and talked to low- income, moderate-income, and higher income seniors groups about it. I told them that people who are in the lower income bracket are going to get most of the benefit, and for people in the higher income bracket, it is going to cost them more money, as it should. In some of the other programs, no matter whether one is a lower income or higher income senior, they basically are treated the same. I personally do not think Ross Perot or somebody in his income category should be treated the same as somebody who makes $15,000 a year. There should be some difference. Under our bill, there is a great difference in the way those two categories of people would be treated. The reason our bill is less costly to the taxpayer is one simple fact: All the other bills give a percentage of first dollar coverage. Whether it is 50 percent or whatever the coverage, after a very small deductible, they all start covering right away. Our bill says the senior is going to pay about the first $100 a month out of pocket, and then after that, our coverage kicks in. About 50 percent of the seniors do not have $1,200 worth of prescription drug costs per year, so about half the seniors, other than the discounts they will get because of the prescription drug discount card, actually will not use it. But, frankly, most seniors can afford about $100 a month for prescription drugs. It is for that diabetic patient or that heart patient or that cancer patient who has maybe about $500, or $300, or $400, or whatever it is, a month that they are paying in current prescription drug costs. These are the people that really cannot afford their prescription drugs, and our bill helps that person much more than most of the other plans. The reason our bill saves so much money is that we keep the patient accountable for the drugs they are getting. They do not have somebody else paying for it and as they get the benefit. That is one of the biggest problems we have with our current health care system: There is no accountability with patients. They are receiving the benefit regardless of the cost, and so they do not think about shopping because somebody else is paying the bill. We do not have market forces working in the health care field today, and if we enact a prescription drug benefit without utilizing market forces, someday we are really going to regret it because we will have severely out of control costs. The bill we have introduced, we believe, is more fiscally responsible and targets most of the benefit for those who truly need it the most. We can enact it a lot more quickly than some of the other programs, and it is permanent. It is because of those factors that we believe this bill is the bill that our colleagues should take a look at supporting. We would be happy to meet with anybody to talk to them about the bill and possibly about cosponsoring the bill. Do not be turned off because one political party may be offering one bill and the other party offering another bill. We are offering an alternative to either of those bills, and we think this bill, with its fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer, is the bill that people should support. In closing, I look forward to engaging in a meaningful debate on prescription drugs after we deal with this accounting reform issue--and this issue is so important, and I see my friend from Wyoming who has done so much work on the bill, and I applaud him and the others who have worked on this bill. But later in the week as we are debating this prescription drug benefit proposal, we need to take a serious look and not play politics because seniors cannot afford for us to play politics with the prescription drug issue. We need to work together in a bipartisan, rather, in a nonpartisan fashion, so seniors can get the help they so deserve. I ask unanimous consent that under the provisions of rule XXII, I may yield whatever time I can yield back to Senator Gramm. I understand it is 44 minutes, and I yield that amount of time to Senator Gramm.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that State regulators do not automatically apply the provisions of this bill to accounting firms, particularly small accounting firms and firms that service small businesses without first looking at the possible harmful unintended consequences to those small businesses. The standards applied by the board under this act could create undue burdens and cost if applied to nonpublic accounting companies and other accounting firms that provide services to small business clients.

Mr. ENSIGN. Many of these small businesses rely on their CPA or auditor to provide objective, trusted advice and counsel on a broad range of tax and business related issues. Without this amendment, we will end up harming thousands of American accounting firms and their small business clients.

Mr. ENSIGN. I thank the Senator from Texas for his comments.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Reserving the right to object, just to make sure we have this clarified, the unanimous consent request is just to the Dorgan amendment pending, and we would not object as long as the second-degree amendment is not in order to his amendment.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending second-degree amendment is not germane to the bill postcloture.

Mr. ENSIGN. Provided that no second-degree amendments are in order to any of the three amendments.

Mr. ENSIGN

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to yield, the reason I brought it up and the reason I thought the question of the Senator from Pennsylvania was so appropriate is because this stuff that may be proposed is very important, first of all, because the cost of rail is not included in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The cost of the rail into the Nevada Test Site is not in the budgetary projections. The second thing is that if a Senator is voting on whether this thing is going through--in other words, if I am a Senator from Pennsylvania, and I have a couple of nuclear powerplants, but I know I have a lot more shipments may be coming through my State--if I think there are only going to be 20 shipments a year through my State versus maybe 1,000 shipments through my State, that may make a difference on how I would vote.

Mr. ENSIGN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ENSIGN. I wonder if the junior Senator from Alaska will yield for a question.

Mr. ENSIGN. That is fine. If Senator Reid has control of the time, it is fine with us.

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I wanted to emphasize a couple of points. First of all, Senator Reid and I obviously vehemently oppose this bill and oppose this bill even being on the floor today. Given the reality of what we were dealing with, we knew that we could not delay this bill coming to the floor beyond the July 27 deadline that has been talked about. Because of that, we believed the procedural vote was so important that we have some debate prior to the vote. As Senator Murkowski has pointed out, it is a nondebatable motion. We appreciate the cooperation of the other side because it is such a precedent- setting motion that we believed it was important to have the debate. We appreciate the cooperation for this 4\1/2\ hours of debate prior to the motion to proceed, understanding that if our side loses that vote, it will automatically go to a voice vote and nobody is going to request--although not precluded--no one will request a recorded vote. I will not object at this time.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, reclaiming my time, the Senator said there were the 175 shipments as a statement of fact. He said, as a matter of fact, he is relatively sure of that statement. Because he said he was relatively sure of that statement----

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, if the Senator from Alaska would engage, I think it is an important part of our discussion. The point I was making was that if a Senator were worried about transportation coming through their State--it seems to be one of the biggest issues, and I think it should be one of the biggest issues, if people are thinking about the way to vote on this issue--it is important to know how many shipments, or approximately how many shipments, or the types of shipments that are going to be coming through the State. As the Senator from Alaska has said, that is going to be determined in the future. But as was pointed out, the only chance for the Senator from Pennsylvania to vote is today. Today is the only chance to vote on whether or not I have 20 shipments coming through my State or whether I may have 100 shipments coming through my State. The numbers can be that different. Once again, based on table J-1 on page J-11, in the final EIS report, if we have a mostly truck scenario just on one of those proposed actions, we would have 52,000 shipments over the period of time that Yucca Mountain is open. Under mostly rail, we would have around 11,000 shipments. When we have dedicated trains, the numbers go way down. But these aren't dealing with dedicated trains. In fact, the final EIS Department of Energy report did not contain dedicated trains. That is the reason I was asking the question and why I wanted to get it cleared up. If we don't know we are going to be using dedicated trains, how can the Senator from Alaska and others, including the Senator from Pennsylvania, say there are 175 shipments per year? We toss that number around as if it is a fact when, in fact, it is not a fact. It is something that is conjecture, pure conjecture, from the Department of Energy based on dedicated trains when they are not even putting that in their final EIS report. The Senator can answer it on my time. If the Senator from Alaska would like to comment on that, I think it is very important to try to clear this up, because when the Department of Energy testified, they certainly didn't clear this up in the committee.

Mr. ENSIGN. It is about 400 miles it has to go, 300-some depending on the route, it may have to go, from the Union Pacific to the Nevada Test Site.

Mr. ENSIGN. While the Senator from Pennsylvania is still here--this was part of the hearing. I think it is something important for us to get cleared up. The 175 shipments per year the Department of Energy--and you have mentioned this morning that has been a common number that has been tossed around. The piece of paper I have in my hand is page J-11. It is from the final EIS statement. I am sure your staff has a copy of this. This is part of the final EIS statement from the Department of Energy, table J-1, a summary of the estimated number of shipments for the various inventory, national transportation analysis scenario combinations. They go through the various types of ways that we would ship and the minimums and maximums. From what I understand, the 175 per year would be if every shipment was in dedicated trains, which the Department of Energy so far has been opposed to because of the expense of dedicated trains. The other thing is that we have no rail built in Nevada to make possible the rail segment or the rail scenario. You have to have the rail built in Nevada to be able to go from rail to rail, and there is no rail leading to the Nevada Test Site. The reason I bring this up, and the reason I would like at least to have this on the record as part of the Senate debate is because it is huge amounts more of shipments, from what I understand, unless it is all dedicated trains. Is that the Senator's understanding?

Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I start my remarks today by saying a lot of the information that I am going to talk about this morning on this procedural vote--I will be talking more about the substance of the issue this afternoon, but this morning on the procedural vote, a lot of the information has been gathered through hours and hours of research with the Congressional Research Service, with the former Parliamentarian of the Senate, Bob Dove, as well as several conversations with the current Parliamentarian. I believe strongly this research is accurate and that the precedent we will be setting is a very dangerous precedent. Today's vote is not just about whether the Senate should allow nuclear waste to be dumped in Nevada. It is also about the authority of the majority leader, and the very meaning of a Senate majority. According to the rules of the Senate, it is true, any member may offer a motion to proceed to a bill or resolution. In practice, we all know that's not the way it works. The Senate isn't governed just by rules; it is also governed by traditions. And one of those traditions is that the majority leader--and only the majority leader--can set the Senate's agenda by deciding which legislation will be considered. As Senator Byrd's history of the Senate makes clear, it is the exclusive role of the majority leader to ``determine what matters or measures will be scheduled for floor action and when.'' That's why--the rules notwithstanding--never in the history of the modern Senate has anyone--I repeat, anyone--other than the majority leader or his designee successfully offered a motion to proceed with legislation. It is simply not done. Why? Because if such a motion prevails without the majority leader's consent, then his office has been impaired. His ability to control the agenda of the Senate--which is the basis of his power and that of the majority party--would be dealt a devastating blow. That is why Senators of the majority party have always deferred to the majority leader's authority to set the Senate's agenda--and have voted with him to protect this power even when they disagreed on the substance of the issue at hand. Because they know that if they lose, what is at stake is their very power as the majority party. if any Senator can set the Senate agenda, then all the minority has to do to hijack the Senate agenda is convince a handful of Senators from the majority party to join them on any given issue. Indeed, that is why, from time to time, the minority has sought to challenge the majority leader's power by offering motions to proceed. As a matter of fact, I believe the current majority leader did so when he was in the minority. He did so because he knew the consequences if he succeeded. And those high stakes were the very reason he was unsuccessful--because the majority party has always rallied around its leader. We call today's vote a procedural vote. But it is in effect, a test of the power of the majority. That being said, I suspect few on the other side of the aisle are jumping at the chance to proclaim the stakes in this vote because they hope, perhaps, that no one will notice--that it will be like a tree falling in the woods. If no one hears, perhaps it will not make a noise. But this vote will make a loud noise--and will change the way the Senate operates. It will do so because--as of this moment--every Senator knows that even though the Standing rules of the Senate permit any Member can make a motion to proceed, no one has ever done it successfully, save for the majority leader or his designee. After today, if the minority succeeds, it will be a different story. Each Senator will be able to decide how to interpret the results. Will it be OK for any Senator to offer a motion to proceed on any bill or resolution? Or just measures considered under expedited procedures, such as this bill? Or just those considered under expedited procedures which explicitly state that any member can make a motion to proceed? Take your pick, Madam President. Like beauty, this precedent is in the eye of the beholder. And that's what makes it so dangerous. Our opponents argue that this is a unique circumstance. They are simply wrong. The procedure in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is not unique. There are many statutes containing expedited procedures. And 6 expedited procedures in current law, including the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, contain language that explicitly states that ``any Member of the Senate'' may offer the motion to proceed. That language merely restates the rules of the Senate. Still no one has ever successfully done so without the express consent of the majority leader. There have been times when Congress has determined that is appropriate to override the traditional power of the majority leader to schedule the Senate's agenda, and this is important when this has been the will of Congress, Congress has passed legislation like the National Emergencies Act and the War Powers Act to do so,. The War Powers Act states that, Any joint resolution or bill so reported (from Committee) shall become the pending business of the House in question (in the case of the Senate the time for debate shall be equally divided between the proponents and the opponents), and shall be voted on within three calendar days thereafter, unless such House shall otherwise determine by yeas and nays. Madam President, unlike the War Powers Resolution, the nuclear Waste Policy Act does not make the resolution the pending business of the Senate. It does not take away the prerogative of the majority leader by making a resolution the pending business without any motion to proceed being required. Had the Senate wished to do so in this case it could have followed the language of the War Powers Resolution, but it did not. Unlike this War Powers provision, there is no requirement in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act for Congress to take any action with regard to the Yucca Mountain resolution. The procedure spelled out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is not required; it is merely permitted. In other words, it is left up to the majority leader whether or not to proceed. Indeed, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act anticipates that a vote on the Yucca Mountain resolution might not occur that it might be blocked. That is why, if the deadline passes, then the statute giving the State of Nevada a veto will have been carried out. That was part of the 1982 compromise. The junior Senator from Alaska stated that he does ``not know that it really matters very much'' who makes the motion to proceed to the Yucca Mountain resolution. Well, I say that it does matter. It matters very much. The majority leader has made clear he opposes proceeding with this legislation. He has staked his reputation and his office on this matter. I--and the people of Nevada--appreciate his courage in doing so. So let me be clear: any Senator who offers a motion to proceed in this matter is posing a direct challenge to the powers of any majority leader. For the majority leader to lose such a vote would be unprecedented. As I said, it may be in my interest as a member of the minority to see the majority leader lose such a vote. But the majority leader has put a lot on the line for Nevada, which is why I am standing here today--a Republican Senator--defending the prerogatives of the Democrat majority leader. I am doing so because this issue is the most important matter for the State of Nevada to come before the U.S. Senate. No single issue unites Nevadans--no single issue transcends region, political party, or industry--like our fight against becoming the Nation's nuclear dumping ground. In conclusion, let me restate how important the precedent we are setting today is if the majority leader is overruled. Every Senator needs to reflect on this vote very carefully because this vote could literally change the entire way the Senate operates. Many people believe this issue is vitally important. Some of us believe it is wrongheaded, as I do. Regardless of how one Senator feels on this issue, the procedures of the Senate need to be preserved. The precedent set today will be a dangerous one and the unintended consequences in the future could be very dire. I encourage all my fellow Senators to think long and hard before they vote. It is not just a vote on whether or not to proceed on Yucca Mountain but a vote on violating the rules of the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, 5 minutes now I would really appreciate.