Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act introduced today by Senator Dorgan. I am an original cosponsor and I encourage each of my colleagues to join me as a cosponsor of this bill. We had to take a look at the Internet sales tax issue for people who might be using legislative vehicles to develop huge loopholes in our current system. We are federally mandating states into a sales tax exemption. We need to preserve the system for those cities, towns, counties, and states that rely on the ability to collect the sales tax they are currently getting. There are some critical issues here that have to be solved to keep the stability of state and local government--just the stability of it-- not to increase sales tax, just protect what is there right now. I believe the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act is a monumental step forward in protecting, yet enhancing, the current system. Certainly, no Senator wants to take steps that will unreasonably burden the development and growth of the Internet. At the same time, we must also be sensitive to issues of basic competitive fairness and the negative affect our action or inaction can have on brick-and-mortar retailers, a critical economic sector and employment force in all American society, especially in rural states like Wyoming. In addition, we must consider the legitimate need of state and local governments to have the flexibility they need to generate resources to adequately fund their programs and operations. If the loophole exists, I can share a method for local retailers to avoid sales tax collection too--but creating this loophole will lead to others--pay attention here. Sales tax collection and federal and state income tax could be in the same boat, if sales tax collection is no longer necessary on Internet sales purely by virtue of the sale over the Internet. Why shouldn't an employee whose check is written on the Internet and transmitted directly to his bank account not owe any income tax? Both would be Internet tax loopholes--tax collection exemptions forced by an all-knowing federal government. As the only accountant in the Senate, I have a unique perspective on the dozens of tax proposals that are introduced in Congress each year. In addition, my service on the state and local level and my experiences as a small business owner enable me to consider these bills from more than one viewpoint. I understand the importance of protecting and promoting the growth of Internet commerce because of its potential economic benefits. It is a valuable resource because it provides access on demand. In addition, it is estimated that the growth of online businesses will create millions of new jobs nationwide in the coming years. Therefore, I do not support a tax on the use of Internet itself. I do, however, have concerns about using the Internet as a sales tax loophole. Sales taxes go directly to state and local governments and I am very leery of any federal legislation that bypasses their traditional ability to raise revenue to perform needed services such as school funding, road repair and law enforcement. I will not force states into a huge new exemption. While those who advocate a permanent loophole on the collection of a sales tax over the Internet claim to represent the principles of tax reduction, they are actually advocating a tax increase. Simply put, if Congress continues to allow sales over the Internet to go untaxed and electronic commerce continues to grow as predicted, revenues to state and local governments will fall and property taxes will have to be increased to offset lost revenue or states who do not have or believe in state income taxes will be forced to start one. After months of hard work, negotiations, and compromise, the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act has been introduced. I would like to commend Senator Dorgan on his commitment to finding a solution and working with all parties to find that solution. The bill extends the existing moratorium on Internet access, multiple, and discriminatory taxes for an additional four years through December 31, 2005. Throughout the past several years, we have heard that catalog and Internet companies say they are willing to allow and collect sales tax on interstate sales (regardless of traditional or Internet sales) if states will simplify collections to one rate per state sent to one location in that state. I think that is a reasonable request. I have heard the argument that computers make it possible to handle several thousand tax entities, but from an auditing standpoint as well as simplicity for small business, I support one rate per state. I think the states should have some responsibility for redistribution not a business forced to do work for government. Therefore, the bill would put Congress on record as urging states and localities to develop a streamlined sales and use tax system, which would include a single, blended tax rate with which all remote sellers can comply. You need to be aware that states are prohibited from gaining benefit from the authority extended in the bill to require sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales if the states have not adopted the simplified sales and use tax system. Further, the bill would authorize states to enter into an Interstate Sales and Use Tax Compact through which members would adopt the streamlined sales and use tax system. Congressional authority and consent to enter into such a compact would expire if it has not occurred by January 1, 2006. The bill also authorizes states to require all other sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales unless Congress has acted to disapprove the compact by law within a period of 120 days after the Congress receives it. We introduce this bill because we do not think there is adequate protection now. It is very important we do not build electronic loopholes on the Internet, an ever-changing Internet, one that is growing by leaps and bounds, one that is finding new technology virtually every day. What we know as the Internet today is not what we will be using by the time the moratorium is finalized. More and more people are using the Internet everyday. Mr. President, I recognize this body has a constitutional responsibility to regulate interstate commerce. Furthermore, I understand the desire of several Senators to protect and promote the growth of Internet commerce. Internet commerce is an exciting field. It has a lot of growth potential. The new business will continue to create millions of new jobs in the coming years. The exciting thing about that for Wyomingites is that our merchants do not have to go where the people are. For people in my state, that means their products are no longer confined to a local market. They do not have to rely on expensive catalogs to sell merchandise to the big city folks. They do not have to travel all the way to Asia to display their goods. The customer can come to us on the Internet. It is a remarkable development, and it will push more growth for small manufacturers in rural America, especially in my state. We have seen some of the economic potential in the Internet and will continue this progress. It is a valuable resource because it provides access on demand. It brings information to your fingertips when you want it and how you want it. I was the mayor of a small town, Gillette, Wyoming, for 8 years. I later served in the State House for 5 years and the State Senate for 5 years. Throughout my public life, I have always worked to reduce taxes, to return more of people's hard-earned wages to them. I am not here to argue in favor of taxes. There were times in Gillette when we had to make tough decisions. I was mayor during the boom time when the size of our town doubled in just a few years. We had to be very creative to be sure that our revenue sources would cover the necessary public services--important services like sewer, water, curb and gutter, filling in potholes, shoveling snow, collecting garbage, and mostly water. It is a tough job because the impact of your decision is felt by all of your neighbors. Hardly any of those problems is solved without money. When you are the mayor of a small town, you are on call 24 hours a day. You are in the phone book. People can call you at night and tell you that the city sewer is backing up into their house. I was fascinated how they were always sure that it was the city's sewer that was doing it. Therefore, it is important that we do not cut towns out of an historic source of revenue. They provide services you really depend on. Remember you cannot flush your toilet over the Internet. The point is that the government that is closest to the people is also on the shortest time line to get results. I think it is the hardest work. I am very concerned with any piece of legislation that mandates or restricts local government's ability to meet the needs of its citizens. This has the potential to provide electronic loopholes that will take away all of their revenue. The Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act would designate a level playing field for all involved-- business, government, and the consumer. I do strongly support this bill. The current system of collecting revenues for those towns and states should be preserved--preserved on a level playing field for all involved. I do not think we have all the answers, or we would not be asking for this bill. So whatever we do, we have to have a bill that will preserve the way that small business and small towns function at the present time. Our bill is critical for towns, small businesses, and you and me. I urge my colleagues to support it. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. ENZI. I yield the Senator 2 more minutes.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur today on adoption of S.J. Res. 6 at 8:15 p.m., and that paragraph 4 of rule XII be waived, and the time between now and then be divided as follows: Senator Kennedy or his designee in control of 80 minutes; Senator Nickles or his designee in control of 40 minutes.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want to comment on that because I am the subcommittee chairman for employment, safety, and training. I have held some of the hearings and have said repeatedly--particularly this morning--that something needs to be done on ergonomics. I am willing to work on it. I mentioned that one of the highlights of mine last week was an award I received from the Service Employees International Union. I think that is the largest division of the AFL-CIO. The reason I got that award is that I worked with Senator Kennedy on a needle-stick bill. Employees of this country were injured by accidentally being stabbed by needles, and janitors when emptying trash were stabbed. The worst part isn't the fact that they got stabbed but all of the time it takes before they understand whether they are really infected or not. We got together and did a reasonable bill that provided some incentives for people to do that--a different way of doing recordkeeping and it passed by unanimous consent through both bodies. In a very short period of time, we were able to do that. In light of your question about some kind of a mechanism here for postponing this rule for 2 years, the option is, under the CRA, of eliminating it now or staying with it. It is an up- or-down vote on that proposition, not an amendable motion. It is impossible to say we will put that in place. I recommend that you do not keep the present one in place because some people say it is not a perfect fit and we ought to trim it back. If you have a tree that is rotten to the core, you don't try to prune it; you chop it down and you plant a new one. If you have a house built on a bad foundation--and that is what the testimony shows--you don't try to build the top part of the house up again; you start at the basement. I think it can be done in a relatively short period of time because there has been all of this collection of information and there are people out there who are hurting. I have said a lot of times if we actually talk to the people who have the problem, we can get a solution. We are always talking to the experts who talk to the people who have a problem. Somehow they seem to complicate those problems considerably. We haven't put in place--well, we have put in place incentives for the employers already. It was mentioned in the Senator's hearing that some of the people had a net gain by doing these things. Of course, I don't know of a businessman in this country who, if he couldn't get a net gain out of doing something good, would not do it. So already in this country people are bringing down the number of accidents. They are doing it because it is the right thing to do. So we have a lot of support from the business community to come up with the right way to do it. As I pledged this morning, I will be happy to work with everybody on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, everybody who deals with appropriations--you carry a big stick in dealing with appropriations--to come up with a solution for this. We have to do it the right way.

Mr. ENZI. I yield such time as he desires to the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, the Senator is correct. The reason we can't wait 60 or 90 days is that the CRA is time limited. Sixty working days from the time the thing was published is how long we have to reverse this rule. So we are put under the rule that was passed by everybody in this Chamber--not me, I wasn't here at the time, but everybody voted to do it that way, so that we would have the right to jerk agencies back that didn't listen. They did not listen to anything said in the committee hearing that I held, that the Senator attended. Without cooperation, with that club of the President over his head, it was easy to see they didn't need to concede any points. That is not cooperation. That is not civility. We can get together and work on these things but not when one side thinks they hold all of the ammunition.

Mr. ENZI. While I think it is an excellent idea to have a target date, there are a lot of staff who are very competent on this who ought to be involved in putting something together so we have a work plan, and there is need for basic time for Senator Kennedy and me and other people to spend some time talking. I don't think that putting a date on it in the pressure of a debate that is time limited is a good idea.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, throughout the day we have heard mention of newspapers that have said using this Congressional Review Act is the right way to go, what OSHA has proposed is the wrong way to go. We had this debate in July. We said OSHA was not listening, they were proposing an ergonomics rule that would not work, and in a bipartisan way, this body adopted an amendment to an appropriations bill that said they could not do it for a year. That was to give us some time to work on it. That passed on the other side, and then, through the conference process, it got messed up to the point where it was moot. That was passed by both bodies. That should have been a warning to OSHA that we were concerned about the way they were doing the rule, that they were not listening to anybody. OSHA forced a flawed process, and they wound up with a flawed rule. That is rogue rulemaking, and we cannot allow it to happen. I am so thankful that Senator Nickles and Senator Reid worked on a bill 5 years ago that makes this action possible. That was a bipartisan act to make sure that if agencies did something we did not like, especially in light of the fact that we are charged with seeing that those agencies let us pass the laws, this was our opportunity to say: You did it wrong; we are going to jerk the chain and make sure we do it right. That puts a huge responsibility on us. I do not think there is anybody in this body who does not think there is an ergonomics problem, but what we want is a solution that will help the worker, not just cost money. This is a little book of some of the hearings my subcommittee held. We have addressed these issues. It is in part where we know for sure that OSHA did not listen. We held hearings on the things they were talking about and did not find any testimony in favor of some of the things they were proposing. As one listened to the debate today, one would think every employer was trying to hurt their employees. If they do, they cannot stay in business; they need employees. During the course of the testimony given by the assistant director of OSHA, I was fascinated to see, since I had been in the shoe business before, that two New Balance shoe manufacturing facilities cut their workers compensation costs from $1.2 million to $89,000 per year and reduced their lost and restricted workdays from 11,000 to 549 during a 3-year period. I had to ask the assistant director just what kind of a fine process they had to have in place to get these people to do this magnificent work. It is one of many examples. There are many examples in here of employers who have done the right thing and made huge differences to their workers, as there are examples of individuals who have been hurt by work ergonomics. I had to ask: How much did you have to fine these New Balance shoe folks to get them to do that outstanding work? You will not be surprised to find out that his shocked answer was: We did not have to fine them. Of course, you do not have to fine them. You have to help them find solutions. That is what this rule misses. It does not help anybody to know exactly what to do, particularly if it is a small businessman. They have to carry around 2 pounds' worth of regulations and learn them well enough--it is not just 2 pounds; there are all those other additions to it I mentioned--they have to learn them well enough to do the job or they get fined substantially because this rule is about fines. This rule is not about helping people and the small businessmen. The Senator from Iowa mentioned earlier he did not really know the rule that well, but then he does not have to because we cannot be fined under this. We do not have to meet these same obligations. Every small businessman in this country is going to have to know that stuff or pay the price. We heard how 10 years of effort went into this. Every time people mention that I think about my dad interviewing people for the shoe business. One of the things he always asked was how much experience they had. A lot of times they had a lot of experience--10, 20, 30 years of experience in the shoe business. One of the things he always told me was that sometimes after he hired them he found out what they had was 1 year of experience, 30 times. That is what they got on OSHA. Until they actually get to the point where they publish something that people can look at and evaluate, you don't have but 1 year's experience 10 times. If it is flawed, it is still flawed. If it is a rotten tree, rotten to the core, you can't just prune it. If it has a bad foundation, you don't want to build on it. So we can't take what has been done and work on it. Now, another comment made today is the employers have all of this power, the employer can say what is happening. Let me state what the employer can't do under this rule. If somebody gets injured, he cannot talk to the doctor and find out how he got injured and how he could be saved from it because he is not allowed to investigate that. That has always been a capability under workers compensation. The employer has always been able to find out what hurt his employee and how he could change it. Another thing that is mentioned is this is only 8 pages of rules. I have to remind Members, whether it is 8, 400, 600 or 800--and it really is 800--it is not like filling out your tax forms. If you do a simple form, you probably only have to do 2 pages, but if you only pay attention to those 2 pages, you don't pay attention to all the pages and regulations that come with it, you are not going to get it done right. I challenge anybody to be able to fill that thing out without looking at a single reference. Again, thousands of pages. That is what we are doing here, forcing on the American small businessman thousands and thousands of pages of work. We showed some of the formulas they have to have. I think everybody ought to have to be able to translate that formula before they vote against the Review Act tonight. It has also been mentioned that we spent millions of dollars for the National Academy of Sciences to do studies. I have to say, some of the quotes from the National Academy of Sciences remind me of some of the things that people do with the Bible--a little bit of selective reading. I have to say something about OSHA. We said wait. Did they wait? No, they didn't wait. Now we hear all the quotes about how the National Academy of Sciences said it is OK to do this rule. Well, read that and I don't think you will agree that the National Academy of Sciences thinks that is the proper way to go. But remember, OSHA didn't even wait to find that out. They were so adamant, so focused on doing exactly what they wanted to do; they didn't listen to us; they didn't listen to any of our staff; they didn't listen to any of the committees. They went ahead and did what they wanted to do. I talked about a flawed process. They paid people to testify; they brought them in and practiced them; they rewrote their testimony; they paid them to tear apart testimony. What galls me the most, they paid them to tear apart the testimony of the people testifying on the other side. We cannot let that happen in the United States. People have to have their own right to testify without being taken on by government money. As I mentioned, this bill was pushed by OSHA through a forced process and they wound up with a forced rule. We cannot let that rule stand. I ask Members to vote for the resolution and to vote against the OSHA rule. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. ENZI. We talked about doing that as of 6:15, which would have made the vote at 8:15, which is what the hotline has gone out for. How about on that 10 minutes used, if each of us put up half of it and we still have the vote at 8:15?

Mr. ENZI. Yes, if it counts against your time.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of our time. I ask unanimous consent, since I have listened so many times to the example of the chickens and the processing of the chickens, that the response by the Senator from Arkansas be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an editorial from the Chicago Tribune be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Patrick Thompson and Liz Dougherty of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from Tennessee may use.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the opportunity to comment, and I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for so well setting up the comments I have. There was a reason for the Congressional Review Act being passed, a good reason for it. You could even assume there was a good reason on the basis that it was passed in a very bipartisan way. First, cosponsors of it were Mr. Nickles, the Senator from Oklahoma, and Mr. Reid, the Senator from Nevada--one from each side. How good of a job did they do of persuading you that this was a good law to put in place? I am not sure what precipitated it. I assume that some agency jerked the Congress around, and Congress believed it was time to jerk them back to reality. Not one of you voted against the CRA. There is a need to have an act such as the CRA. That need exists when an agency fails to listen to a single comment on the work they are doing, when they are so sure of their work that they will not listen to hearings; that they will not listen to Congress; that they will not listen to experts; that they continue to do exactly the same thing they did before. Wait a minute. No, they did make some changes. They made it far worse. They took the comments they got, and they opposed everything and incorporated things in this that were worse than in the law that was passed. We can't have agencies taking that kind of action. We know this is a divided Congress. My bet is that there will still be a very bipartisan action to pass this resolution we are voting on today to eliminate the rule as was proposed, as was printed, as is now in effect. There has been a suggestion that we should trim it. I could go along with that. But where would you start? I am holding 600 pages of stuff that the average American businessman cannot understand. Yes, he can hire technical experts who will help him with it at great expense. But even the technical experts are divided. This little document includes by reference eight more documents. This isn't the whole load that a small businessman has to carry around this country. Let me ask you if you have received those eight documents and read those eight documents. I can tell you conclusively, you have not. One of those documents isn't even available. The people, when you call them and ask for the document, say: Don't bother us anymore. This is ridiculous. One document referred to in this rule you can't even get. Some of my colleagues say the rule is really a short rule. Is it 400 pages? Is it six pages? Is it eight pages? Is it 20 pages? You can argue for all of those numbers. You can argue for 800 pages. But if you really count what the small businessmen in America are going to have to read, you will find that it is 800 pages. To say that this document is eight pages is statistically impossible. If you agree this document is eight pages long, you think that the income tax forms you fill out only require reading two pages of material. That is exactly the same thing. When you fill out your income tax form, there are two pertinent pages to fill out, but there is a little manual that comes with them. If you don't pay attention to that manual, you will mess up your taxes. You will be fined. Maybe you will be thrown in jail. So you can't just look at the two pages, even if they are the only ones you fill out. So let's not argue about 8 pages, 20 pages, 400 pages, 600 pages, 800 pages. Ask the small businessman how much he wants to read, and then take a look at how much he is going to have to read. Now, you and I can look through this, or we can have our staffs look through it, and decide what we think is pertinent. I tell you, the small businessman out there doesn't have that luxury. He can't say, ``Somebody just show me the couple of paragraphs that affect my business.'' He can't do that because this affects his business--this and eight more manuals, only seven of which are available at a cost of $220.90. That is a lot of work for a small businessman. Trim it? Why didn't OSHA trim it. California has a one-page ergonomics rule. Why not OSHA? Why is this rule bad? This rule was written for the people who are bad to the bone. You and I both know that in any profession, in any business, and even with groups of employees, there are going to be about 5 percent of the people who are ethically challenged. Five percent look for ways not to do exactly what they ought to do. That is both the businessmen and the employees. Out of that 5 percent, you will find that there are about 3 percent--this is included in that 5 percent--the reason they are ethically challenged is that they don't care. No matter what you put in their manual, they don't care; they are going to do business as usual. Out of that 3 percent, there is about one-tenth of a percent of people who are bad to the bone. That is on both sides. That isn't just businessmen or employees. It might even be a smaller number than that. This rule is written punishing 99.9 percent of the people in this country--businesses and employees--to take care of one-tenth of 1 percent of the people who are bad to the bone. That is not the way we are supposed to do these rules. That isn't the right way to do it. We have a little conflict in some of our laws. One of the conflicts we have is that it is difficult to talk to the worker. You will hear examples throughout the day of terrible things being done to workers. I know of some of them. I have heard the speeches before on a lot of them. I have even looked into some of them. I have talked to some of these workers. Do you know we have a law that prohibits management from talking to the employee about how his job could be more ergonomically sound, unless he is in a union? Now, there is a little catch there. Actually, the employer still doesn't get to talk to the worker who is doing the job because he is represented. It is the representative that they have to talk to. So they don't get to listen to a worker who is doing the job. I listen to them in Wyoming almost every weekend--they know how this job ought to be done. And they have some of the simplest solutions. But they are not able to talk to employers about it because of the National Labor Relations Act. But this rule doesn't incorporate the solutions for the kinds of problems that you are going to hear today in a way that the small businessman can handle them. Last July we had this debate and we passed an amendment, in a bipartisan way, that was avoided by the administration, pressed by the agency, and circumvented by the agency so this could be put into place. I will have some more words about how that was achieved. I wish to make it perfectly clear that this vote is not about whether we should have ergonomics protection. It isn't about that. Let me repeat that. This vote is not about whether we should have ergonomics protection. Of course we should. Of course we need it. Have each of you worked in your offices to handle some of the ergonomics problems there? I have. It is a necessity right where we work. Does this rule work for us? No. And we have lots of staff. It is just the other people, just the small businessmen who have to memorize the manual themselves. My colleagues and I strongly believe in protecting the workers, protecting the employees against musculoskeletal injuries--there is one of those $50 words from OSHA. We are not trying to kill ergonomics protection. In fact, you heard my colleague from Vermont earlier say that the Congressional Review Act clearly permits OSHA to issue another ergonomics rule, and you have heard the words of the Secretary of Labor who said she will continue to look at this issue and consider all the best options for protecting worker safety, including a new rulemaking. I look forward to engaging in that process with Secretary Chao. As chairman of the subcommittee dealing with work safety, I feel a special responsibility to help employers protect American workers. I have no interest in killing the ergonomics protection, and I would not vote to do that. In fact, one of the highlights of last weekend was my meeting with the Service Employees International Union in Wyoming and receiving a certificate from them, on a national basis, for the work that I did on safety with needle sticks--something that was extremely important in this country, something that had been worked on for at least a decade. Senator Kennedy and I, and Senator Jeffords, and others, talked about some reasonable improvements that could be made. We got together on a bill. We put it together as a bill--not as a rulemaking by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, not something as long as this rule. We agreed on it. Do you know what happened. It passed both bodies by unanimous consent. It went to the President and, of course, the President signed it. After years of working on it, we sat down and worked it out. I am saying that we can work out ergonomics legislation so it will be beneficial to everyone, particularly the ones doing the work. That is how we are supposed to go about doing things, not through the process I am going to describe to you that OSHA went through and wound up with this huge rule. But we are not voting on the value of ergonomics protection today; we are voting on one thing, and one thing only, and that is this Clinton ergonomics rule. This rule cannot be allowed to stand. If this were allowed to stand, it would not be of benefit to people who are working. It was issued as a last political hurrah for the former administration. It is the product of a rushed and flawed rulemaking, and it will not protect workers. The power for OSHA to write this rule did not materialize out of thin air. We in Congress did give that authority to OSHA, and it is time for us to take some responsibility for what OSHA has done this time. The Congressional Review Act gives us special procedures to do just that, and I am proud to be a part of today's historic innovation of the act. I thank my colleague, Senator Nickles, for passing the bipartisan Congressional Review Act, along with Senator Reid, and for his hard work on the ergonomics issue. I also thank my colleagues, Senator Bond, Senator Hutchinson, and Senator Thompson, for their hard work on this issue. This ergonomics rule is such an overbroad, overblown bureaucratic mess that I cannot imagine any action more in need of being taken than congressional intervention. I am sure by the time we have had our 10 hours of debate, this rule will be indefensible. Many of my Democrat colleagues are criticizing the effort to overturn the ergonomics rule. I wonder if any have actually read this gorilla of a rule. Have they tried to understand it? Have they tried to implement it in their offices? Have they asked the small business people in their States whether they will be able to implement it? Of course they haven't. If they had, there is no possible way they would want this rule to remain in effect. Let me explain specifically why Congress must act to revoke the ergonomics rule. This rule violates sound principles of State and Federal law and, more importantly, common sense. I will talk more about that later, as will my colleagues. First, I will talk about how we got here and then we will better understand why this rule is so bad and needs to go. Simply put, OSHA rushed through the rulemaking process. Worse yet, they stacked the evidentiary evidence. They ignored criticisms--worse than that, they paid people to rip the criticisms apart. They changed the rules in the middle of the game. Is it any wonder this flawed process produced a flawed rule? Use spoiled milk, you get a spoiled milkshake. Let's look at some examples. Since 1988, the average time OSHA has spent per rule has been 4 years. Yet the ergonomics regulation was finalized in under 1 year by OSHA despite the fact it generated more public comment than any other prior OSHA rule. Why the rush? The answer is clear: The history books were closing on the Clinton Presidency so OSHA rushed to publish its final rule on one of the last possible days before the new administration to ensure that the new administration would have no recourse. The rule was published on November 16, put into effect on January 16. Is it any coincidence that the inauguration was January 20? That is by constitutional law. Everybody knew when the inauguration would be, when the opportunity would come for a new administration to take a look at what has happened. This has been a rush. No, they rushed forward in spite of the fact that both the Senate and the House voted to impose a 1-year delay on the rulemaking in a bipartisan way, in a civil way. Responsible rulemaking or political posturing? What was the agency doing and thinking? My Democrat colleagues love to say this rulemaking has been a 10-year process started by Republican Elizabeth Dole. Let's be perfectly clear. No matter how long an issue is out there, the public has no way of knowing how OSHA will handle it, what OSHA will require, what OSHA is going to do, until OSHA actually publishes a proposed rule. That is the beginning of the rule debate. We have all known there have been ergonomics problems--ergonomics problems at work, at home, ergonomics problems with our recreation. Something needs to be done in all of those areas to eliminate the pain and suffering people go through. We have all recognized that. When did OSHA actually do something? They did it a little less than a year before the final rule. In the case of ergonomics, OSHA let us in on their plan a mere 358 days before they made it the law of the land, one-quarter of the time they typically take. Let's break it down even further. After the public comment period closed on August 10, 2000, OSHA received over 7,000 comments with 800 volumes of exhibits comprised of over 19,000 separate documents, each ranging in size up to 700 pages. Say the average size of these documents is just 100 pages; that comes to 1.9 million pages of material. That is pretty close to 2 million pages. But there were only 94 days between the end of the public comment period and the date of the OSHA-published rue. How can the American people possibly have confidence that OSHA truly read, understood, analyzed, correlated, and responded to the 2 million pages of material in 94 days? That is 20,000 pages a day, steady, consolidated. Even if they don't consider it--which we know they didn't--it takes a long time to get through 2 million pages of work. Maybe that is where they saved time because there isn't a single bit of evidence that a single concern made it to the final rule. In fact, the rule got worse. They didn't listen; they made it worse. Maybe OSHA didn't think it needed to pay any attention to these comments because it could get all the information it wanted from its hired guns. Yes, hired guns. At a most conservative estimate, OSHA paid over 70 contractors a total of $1.75 million to help it with ergonomics rulemaking. In particular, OSHA paid some 20 contractors $10,000 each to testify on the proposed rule. They not only testified on it; they had their testimony edited by the Department. Does that show concern for the problems of America? They brought them in for special sessions so they would be prepared for the same kind of atmosphere they would be in when they were presenting their testimony. They practiced these people, which also made sure the testimony they were giving was the testimony OSHA wanted given. Then--and this is the worst part of it all--they paid those witnesses to tear apart the testimony of the other folks who were testifying, at their own expense. Not being paid $10,000 by their government, coming to Washington wanting to testify on a rule, or sending their comments to Washington expecting their comments to be read and considered: not much to ask of a citizen, is it? What does our government do? They pay contractors to rip apart the testimony. These may be the same contractors who helped compile these 2 million pages of documents to see if there was anything worth putting into the rule. That is not how our government ought to work. OSHA assisted the contractors with preparation of their testimony; they made suggestions to them about what they should say; they held practice sessions to prepare them. Regardless of whether these tactics actually violate any law, it clearly paints OSHA as a zealous advocate, not an impartial decisionmaker. That is what we expect of our government: impartial decisions--not rabid, zealous advocates. OSHA should be weighing all of the evidence and making the best decision for workplace safety, not blindly defending its own position at all costs--literally all costs, your costs and my costs, paying people to present the testimony. How can the American people have any confidence that the outcome of this rulemaking was fair and unbiased? Look at the evidence. They can't. This perception is also strengthened by the fact that OSHA completely ignored the many criticisms of the proposed rule and actually made it worse. For example, I held two hearings on OSHA's proposed rule last year. Yesterday, I brought in a volume that included that, with lots of testimony, lots of information, lots of letters. During the first hearing, we examined a provision that requires employers to compensate certain injured employees at 90 percent to 100 percent of their salary. OSHA calls this requirement a ``work restriction protection,'' or WRP. But this provision sounds an awful lot like Federal workers compensation, doesn't it? At the hearing, we heard testimony from a State workers compensation administrator and two experts in insurance and workers compensation. We also received written testimony from a large group of insurance companies. All of this testimony unequivocally showed that this provision will wreak havoc with the State workers compensation systems. All 50 States have intricate workers compensation systems that strike a delicate balance between the employer and the employee. When I was in the State legislature in Wyoming, that took up a good deal of the time we spent in the Labor Committee, working on all of the history of workers comp. It is decades old, and there are thousands of administrators who have worked on this for years. OSHA doesn't have anybody who has worked on it for years. OSHA doesn't have anything in place to take care of the kinds of things that are going to happen when this rule starts generating workers comp payments. All 50 States do have intricate workers compensation systems, and they strike a delicate balance. Each party gives up certain rights in exchange for certain benefits. An employer gives up his ability to argue that a workplace accident was not its fault in exchange for a promise that the employee will not pursue other remedies against it. Each State has reached its own balance through years of experience, trial and error. Significantly, Congress has never taken this autonomy away from the States by mandating Federal workers compensation requirements before. The ergonomics rule destroys the State's balance and completely overrides the State's rights to make an independent determination about what constitutes a work-related injury and what level of compensation injured workers should receive. OSHA doesn't have the mechanisms or the manpower to decide the numerous disputes that will inevitably arise because of the WRP provision. All of a sudden, OSHA will have to decide disputes over the existence of medical conditions, the causation, and the right to compensation. What is going to happen to workplace safety and health while OSHA is busy being a workers compensation administration? Do you think they are going to need some additional help on that? You bet they will. In addition, under WRP, employers must pay immediately and employees can keep both the WRP payment and the workers compensation payment unless the employer sues the employee to recoup the double payment. Do you think the employee will have the money to pay back the double payment? What we mentioned in committee, and I have mentioned this personally to the people who were working on this rule, that it was set up so an employee could be paid twice for being injured--I ask you, if you can make more money by not showing up for work than you can by showing up for work, would your boss expect you to be there? Even for the best intentioned person, this is a great temptation. And what we are hearing from the businessmen across this country. How do we administer this? How do we make sure we are not doing double payments to employees? How do we make sure that our workforce isn't being paid not to work? We want to do what is right, but we do need workers. Employees will be making more money by staying home than coming to work, and without any medical diagnosis. The rule is triggered with no medical diagnosis. Worse yet, under the WRP, the employer cannot get information from the doctor about how the accident happened? He can't get advice from the doctor who actually looked at the patient, to see how to solve the problem. That is illegal under the rule. If we really want to solve the problem for the person, why can't they talk to each other under this rule? Talking to people is the way to get the solution, and OSHA prohibit it because they think all those employers out there are bad to the bone. They wrote this rule for the one-tenth of 1 percent of the people in this country who will not be affected by the rule one bit. It is no surprise that this WRP provision was vigorously opposed by the Western Governors' Association, the Tennessee Legislature, the New York Department of Labor, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor, and many others. All these complaints are on top of the fact that WRPs violate the OSH Act, a little problem OSHA chose to ignore. Thirty years ago when Congress wrote the Occupational Safety and Health Act, it made an explicit statement about OSHA and workers compensation. I will quote the act. . . . supersede or in any manner affect any workmen's compensation law or to enlarge or diminish or affect in any other manner the common law or statutory rights, duties, or liabilities of employers and employees under any law with respect to injuries, diseases, or death of employees arising out of, or in the course of, employment. This is almost as if to say: What part of ``no'' don't you understand? ``Nothing in this chapter shall be construed''--``in any other manner''--there are so many words in here that say you can't do workers comp. You will hear the other side mention a couple of areas where there have been some WRP payments. You will find that those are instances where they can test for substances that can be isolated at the workplace, where there was virtually no other possibility of them getting the contamination somewhere else. They are in the cotton dust and the lead provision. These are very special cases where the exposure can only happen at those workplaces. That is not like this one, where the accident can happen--it happens over a period of time; it happens as a result of an accumulated effect, and, according to the National Academy of Sciences study, it is even based on attitude at the moment. I would like to see people measure that one. Twice the provision uses the broad phrase ``shall not affect in any manner'' to describe what OSHA should not do to workers compensation. As someone with the privilege of being one of the country's lawmakers, it is hard for me to imagine how Congress could have drafted a broader or more explicit prohibition of OSHA's interference with State workers compensation. But did OSHA heed these numerous complaints and the potential illegality and the constant mention that has been made of it during the entire process, in comment letters, in hearings, and remove the rule? No, it did not. They are all right here. It is on page 6885-4--I love the numbering of the Federal documents--of the final rule. In our second hearing, we examined the devastating effect the rule would have on patients and facilities dependent upon Medicaid and Medicare. Testimony at that hearing demonstrated that the rule forces these facilities to violate the law and could force them out of business. In 1987, Congress passed the Nursing Home Act, recognizing the importance of human dignity--the importance of patient dignity--the importance of permitting patients to choose how they are moved and how they receive certain types of care. This act and corresponding regulations mandate this important freedom of choice for patients. The ergonomics rule, on the other hand, imposes many requirements on all health care facilities and providers concerning patient care and movement. Thus, these facilities and providers may be forced to choose between violating the ergonomics rule or violating both the Nursing Home Act and patient dignity. We asked them to come up with some kind of solution for that problem in the hearing. Moreover, OSHA's rule forces impossible choices about resource allocation between patient care versus employee care. The only way for businesses to absorb the cost of this rule is to pass the cost along to consumers. However, some consumers are patients dependent on Medicaid and Medicare--very important people we cannot leave out. The Federal Government sets an absolute cap on what these individuals can pay for medical services. Thus, the facilities that provide care for these patients simply cannot charge a higher cost. They have to absorb the cost of the rule. Simply put, these facilities and providers are unable to absorb the cost of the ergonomics rule. And there is no question these facilities will face a cost. OSHA's own estimate of the cost of compliance in the first year will total $526 million for nursing and personal care facilities and residential care. The industry is already having trouble. The industry estimates that the per-facility cost for a typical nursing home will be $60,000. But my issue with this rule is not that it will cost these facilities so much. It is that it will cost elderly and poor patients access to quality care. The new expenses this rule will add simply cannot be passed on to the patients who depend on this program, and a cut in service will be the only option. We have already seen what is happening, particularly with rural medical practice costs of providing the treatments that are limited. They are going out of business in my State. Did OSHA do anything to address this problem? Did it resolve the legal conflict? Did it explain how these facilities can comply without sacrificing quality of care and quantity of care? No. In fact, OSHA's own estimate of the cost of compliance with the final rule actually increased over the proposed rule. And they stuck in a couple more things. OSHA actually made this situation worse rather than listening to these vulnerable facilities. This really disappoints me. After the hearings were over, I met with the former Assistant Secretary for OSHA and talked to him about my concerns. Mr. Ballinger made efforts in North Carolina in ergonomics and saw a reasonable approach to it, and even recommended him to be the Assistant Secretary for OSHA. I was there at the nomination process and the confirmation hearing. I asked questions about this. I thought we had a person who was reasonable and who would listen. Perhaps he did. Perhaps the bureaucracy took control of him. But I met with him after we had the hearings and before the rule went into effect. I pleaded with him to solve the problems created by the proposed rule. And he said he would make significant changes. But it was clear that he thought OSHA was an advocate for their original version rather than an impartial decisionmaker weighing all the evidence fairly. Now that I have seen the final rule, it is clear that OSHA saw blind advocacy as more important than its duty to craft the best possible rule. I see no indication that he took my subcommittee's work or any of the public comments to heart. Perhaps more disturbing than OSHA's disregard for public comment is its denial of public opportunity to accept only certain elements of the final rule--another drastic attack on the American people. OSHA made significant substantial changes to the final rule without giving the public an opportunity to comment on them. What this could lead to if we don't reverse the rule today is the agency saying: Let's see. The easiest way to do this would be to leave things out of the proposal and then hold the hearings and take the testimony. And, when we are finished, we will do the final rule the way we want to. That is what OSHA did. The starting point wasn't so popular and it drew significant adverse comment. But they didn't address it. They just went on to another publication--one that was more stringent than with what they started. The worst of these changes is OSHA's addition of eight new job hazard analysis tools. I can almost see your eyes starting to glaze over. If I started to read all of these additional pages to you, they would. But remember that the small businessman has to take these into consideration. The guy out there who doesn't have the specialized staff that OSHA has is going to have to know these because they have included them in the rule. OSHA's rule says to employers: If you want to be assured of avoiding fines and penalties, you have to reduce the ergonomic hazards in your workplace below the level specified in one of eight tools contained in mandatory appendix D-1. Doesn't that get you excited? The tool you use is dependent on the type of work your business performs. But you have to figure out which one for yourself. Here are a couple of them. We have the ACGIH hand-arm vibration--actually sharing a summary with the small businessmen. It may be some help to them but not much. GM-UAW risk factor checklist: Sounds like the kind of study you would want to read to keep your mind active. The push-pull hazard table, and the rapid upper limb assessment--do those sound a little difficult? Yes; they are. They were written by ergonomists for ergonomists. None of them were written for small businessmen. But the small businessman still has to understand them. These tools are actually eight separate documents that were not written by OSHA, and they were not mandated in the proposed rule--only the final rule. No member of the scientific community and none of the regulated public had an opportunity to comment on whether mandating compliance with these tools is a good idea. Adding insult to injure, as far as I can tell, OSHA does not provide these documents. Instead, OSHA tells employers: You are on your own. Go ask the publishers, the trade association, and the private companies that wrote these tools to give them to you. So we gave it a shot. Let me tell you it wasn't easy. It took three of my staff several days, and there was still one document they were not able to obtain at all. Remember, these weren't free. As for the rest of them, one of the documents is 164 pages long. That is in addition to the rule. It all depends on how thick the paper is. The Government didn't use good paper. That probably saved us a little bit of money. Not doing the rule would save us a lot more. So let's see what the local bakery has to comply with. I am going to read from The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygenists Hand/Arm (Segmental) Vibration Threshold Limit Value (or TLV). This is straight from the range of pages cited by OSHA in the mandatory appendix: For each direction being measured, linear integration should be employed for vibrations that are of extremely short duration or vary substantially in time. If the total daily vibration exposure in a given direction is composed of several exposures at different rms accelerations, then the equivalent, frequency-weighted component acceleration in that direction should be determined in accordance with the following equation. As for the rest of them: One of these documents is one hundred sixty- four pages long. For at least five others, there are separate monetary charges--that's right, businesses have to pay to be able to read these federally mandated documents. And several of these documents are articles in scientific journals written for ergonomists and engineers. But the corner convenience store, local newspaper and your favorite bakery must comply with them all the same. That is something we deal with on the floor of the Senate every single day, isn't it? I mean, why wouldn't our small businessmen be able to take this simple--simple?--calculus formula and figure out if their employees were getting too much vibration on the job? It would be a lot simpler if they asked the employees if they were having vibration problems. But the law makes that difficult. You cannot talk to the guy with the problem and say: Are the vibrations bothering you? What can we do to eliminate some of the vibrations? No. Instead, we have this thing about RMS accelerations, with equivalent, frequency-weighted component acceleration, determined in conjunction with this very simple formula. Now, I am sure everybody in Congress is going to be proud to go to their baker and say: We know you run some equipment that has vibrations. I want to help you understand this formula. Yes. It is not going to happen. When your baker sees this thing, I will tell you what he will think you ought to do with this rule. There really ought not to be anybody who votes for this rule, not the way it has been messed up through a process that ought to be helping people. Do you see any evidence there was any attempt to help people? All we built in was cost. We did not build in care. We did not take care of the people of America. We did not save them from their ergonomics problems. We put so much garbage out there that the businessman is simply not going to be able to comply. This isn't the kind of thing any of us ever anticipated we would be thrusting on the small businessmen of this country. In fact, it isn't even what we thought we would be thrusting on the workers of this country. Do you know what is going to happen in a bunch of businesses in this country. Instead of asking that employee what could be done, instead of asking him how to solve the problem, they are going to hire somebody who will automate the plant. People will lose their jobs. Yes, we may hire somebody to run the automation, but that is not going to take care of jobs in this country, the jobs of people who work hard every day and know what they are doing and know the simple ways that the process could be improved. I tell you, not one of them is going to read this; not one of them needs to read this. You do not need to read this to solve the problems in the workplace. There are none of us who do not want to see the ergonomics problems reduced and eliminated. I tell you, business has been doing that. Yes, according to OSHA, over the last 5 years business has reduced the number of ergonomics accidents by 22 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives business a lot more credit than OSHA for these numbers. What would improve ergonomics in this country? I tell you, if we had the same number of people working with businesses suggesting things that would help the people in that business, instead of spending their time writing this kind of stuff, we would have a lot more of the problems solved. I am willing to work on coming up with an ergonomics rule that will work to reduce injuries. I am not interested in seeing an ergonomics rule that is for the benefit of the jobs of bureaucrats. That is not going to help us. I ask you, how in the world is any small business or any businessman, for that matter, supposed to figure out all this stuff? They can't. Businesses simply will not be able to comply with the requirements. But OSHA has not heard their stories because it deprived the American people of the opportunity to comment on the requirements. Rest assured, these problems are just the tip of the iceberg. You will be hearing about more flaws from my colleagues in the coming hours. But if even one of these issues that I have raised troubles you--and I think they should all trouble you deeply--then you must recognize the desperate need for congressional intervention. That is why a bipartisan act years ago set up this process, so that Congress could jerk an agency back to reality that has not been paying attention. There is a desperate need for congressional intervention. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution. Let's show the country that although Congress delegated rulemaking authority to OSHA, we have not abdicated our responsibility to the American people. I will watch out for the American people. I know my colleagues will, too. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my remarks follow immediately those remarks of the Senator from Massachusetts who spoke immediately before Senator Grassley so that Senator Sessions' comments will flow on Senator Grassley's remarks.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alabama. First, I congratulate both the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, and the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, for their ultimate effort on the bankruptcy bill. They have both done an excellent job, as well as the people on the other side of the aisle who have contributed to a bipartisan bill, a bill the Senator from Iowa mentioned we passed before. I have been the subcommittee chairman for international trade and finance, and, as such, I got to oversee some of the International Monetary Fund bailouts of some of the other countries that got into an economic crisis. When that happened, we forced them to do bankruptcy. We forced them to do what we have been talking about. They did it, and their economies came back. It is a little embarrassing to revisit those countries and have them say: How come you folks have not taken your own advice? I appreciate all the effort that my colleagues have put into this. It is extremely crucial for the United States and for the consumers and for the individuals of this country. The reason I am here, though, is not to deal with bankruptcy. The speech preceding mine was not a speech on bankruptcy. It was a speech on ergonomics. The Senator I succeeded, Senator Simpson, used to say: Charges unanswered are charges believed. I must discuss the ergonomic comments that have been made. This is a preview of tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will have a full-blown debate, I hope, on ergonomics. It is an extremely crucial issue for every single person in this country. It is very important we do it and we do it right. I put the emphasis on doing it ``right.'' The reason we are going to have a debate tomorrow is it has been done wrong. We will invoke the Congressional Review Act tomorrow, the first significant use of it since it was passed. I congratulate the two people who were primarily responsible for bringing the Congressional Review Act to the Senate, the Senator from Oklahoma, Don Nickles, and the Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid--one a Democrat, one a Republican. It was a bipartisan bill. Why was it a bipartisan bill? Congress has the responsibility for passing laws in this Congress. We have gotten in the habit of delegating our responsibility. It is much easier than hashing out details, to put in a little part in the bill that says we want an agency to write the rules. The reason we passed a Congressional Review Act is we gave that responsibility away and we didn't like what the agencies did. I am sure each Member who has dealt with an agency and their rules have had occasion to say somebody ought to jerk them back to reality. That is exactly what those two Senators did--one a Republican, one a Democrat. They deserve congratulations from this body. Now we need to have the courage to use what they and others did. Although I was not here when it was passed, I suspect some of the people criticizing the Congressional Review Act now were here when it was passed. I suspect some of them voted for it. Now we want to use it on a rule they have some interest in, and they don't want to touch it using that act. I think it is very important we use the Congressional Review Act, we congratulate the people who passed it, and we need to put it to use on this ill-conceived rule. The ergonomics rule has to be the worst rule ever passed by any government agency. It was passed quicker than any other rule by OSHA. We will hear comments that Elizabeth Dole noticed it and mentioned it 10 years ago. I have found references to businesses who knew about it, noticed it, and did something about it, considerably before Elizabeth Dole noticed it 10 years ago. I have been proud of some of the businesses that have made extensive efforts to handle ergonomics in the workplace in spite of not having a rule in place. But regardless of how long ago the issue was first mentioned, OSHA's rule was only proposed less than a year before the final rule came out. It is not the intent of business to hurt employees. It is better business to protect employees. One of the difficulties with ergonomics, an injury does not just happen at work. It happens all sorts of places. It is hard to tell where it happened, when it happened, and how it happened. Putting that aside, we need to have an ergonomics rule. We need to be dealing with it in every possible way. But we have to have a rule that does something, not just costs something. Part of that cost is not going to just be dollars. The estimated $4 billion to perhaps $100 billion is a pretty wide range of numbers. The biggest cost is going to be in American jobs. This will get down to the workers, the people we are not allowing to talk about how to solve the problem, the workers closest to the job, the ones who are doing the lifting or typing or hammering or whatever repetitive motion is involved. No, we have our government set up so the bureaucrats try to find solutions and special committees of speakers can be set up to talk about it and mandate one solution for all. But the guy doing the work, who sees it each and every day, who says there is a better way to do this, cannot decide how his job can be done better. And in most circumstances it is not even legal to ask him about it. There is a law that says employers better not talk directly to employees about safety. But workers are suffering. We need to do something about it. Fortunately, many businesses already are. According to OSHA, even before the rule, in the last 5 years, there was a 22-percent decrease in ergonomics injuries? The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives business far more credit for having done something than does OSHA. Perhaps OSHA has an ulterior motive? At any rate, businesses, when they know what to do, generally do it. I have to say ``generally.'' I always hear the arguments on the floor, not just dealing with OSHA but dealing with a lot of topics, one side talks about the bad businessmen and the other side talks about the fraudulent employees. Neither side is right. Yes, there are bad businessmen. Yes, there are fraudulent employees. But not very many, thank goodness. I would say there are 5 percent of the businesses in this country with businessmen who are ethically challenged. There are about that many employees who are ethically challenged. Out of that 5 percent, many of them just don't care. That's about 3 percent, I think, who generally don't care. No matter what kind of law is passed, they don't care, so it doesn't matter what you do. That is both sides. Of all those who are ethically challenged, I think only one tenth of one percent is truly bad, bad to the bone. That might even be high; might be a little low. But even though the rules and laws in this country affect every single person, they are written as if they are only for the one-tenth of 1 percent who were bad to the bone. That is pretty much what this rule is designed to do. If you want people treated as though they are bad to the bone, both employers and employees, maybe you don't think this rule is so bad. But if you don't, I urge you to vote with me to reverse the ergonomics rule. We heard criticisms of the rule by people who had written letters. Some of those were: The rule is bad; the rule has massive flaws in it. Some things were taken out of context. I hope we get into those tomorrow. We held hearings in the Labor Subcommittee; the Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. We held hearings. This is a book of the hearings. We held two specific hearings on the way it will affect health care in this country. We talked about how OSHA needs to resolve the conflict between the ergonomics rule and the medical rules so you don't have to violate one to achieve the other. We talked about the way the payments for Medicare are locked in at a rate that doesn't recognize the costs OSHA recognizes, the costs that facilities providing Medicare will have to pay. The rule doesn't mention that. We also talked about workers' comp in our hearings. We had people who weighed in from New York, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. We talked about the way the rule infringes on workers comp. In the OSH Act, there is a specific provision prohibiting infringing on workers comp. Workers comp is a system that has been developed in the States, by the States, over decades. There isn't a single thing in place in the OSHA administration to take care of the kinds of controversies, the kinds of processes that will have to be dealt with to handle workers comp. They get into workers comp. Did they listen to what we had to say at the hearings? Not at all. They didn't listen to what was said by the professionals in the field, the State people in the field, the people on the panels, or the Senators asking the questions. You won't find any of it has wound up in the rule they put out. What kind of Government do we have that doesn't listen? You heard some groups that are in favor of the ergonomics bill, ergonomics rule. I am not surprised they are in favor of ergonomics protection, so am I. What we should not be in favor of is this particular ergonomics rule. This rule will bind up what business is able to do. As I said, tomorrow we will get into more of the differences, the flaws and things about which they did not listen. But there is a big problem with this one that deserves use of the congressional review act. Here is what it is. The process was flawed. How they passed it was atrocious. I am ashamed that any agency of our Government did business the way they did business. What did they do? Just a few things I will mention today. Listen for full details tomorrow. They paid people to testify on their behalf. They reviewed and corrected their testimony before it was given. They brought them in for practices. Then, worst of all, they paid them to rip apart the testimony of the individuals who came on their own to testify. Yes. We cannot allow our Government to pay people to destroy the testimony of other citizens in this country who have the right to speak on any rule as well. After that happened, and after I mentioned it on the floor, I got to meet with the Assistant Secretary of OSHA and asked him about it. I asked him what the process was going to be like. I was a little curious as to whether they were going to try to push through this rule. I mentioned they talk about how Liddy Dole mentioned it 10 years ago. But this rule did not get published until a little over a year ago. The first time it was published that anybody could actually look at a document and say this is what it says was less than a year before the time it was finalized--less than a year. The average rulemaking time on things much less difficult than ergonomics is 4 years. It takes 4 years to get a rule in place. I contend, on a lot of these things, we should get together. We could agree on most of it and get things in place in a shorter time than OSHA can react. But the two sides don't talk, and separately they keep working on that one-tenth of 1 percent of the people who are bad to the bone. I had this meeting with the Assistant Secretary of OSHA. I mentioned some of the things with which we had some concerns based on the hearings. He admitted he was an advocate for the rule the way it was. It seems to me the agency ought to be listening to the comments. I do not see how you can be an advocate and still heed what people have said about what you wrote. I was concerned about that. I brought it up with him. I said: Can you give me any indication that you will make any changes in light of the testimony we have presented? He could not comment on that. But I can tell you, now that I have seen the final rule that is published, he not only didn't listen to me, he didn't listen to the comments that were there. I have to tell you, the final rule that was published was far more difficult than the one on which we had to comment. We cannot have that kind of activity in this country. What if agencies wrote a rule and published it, one with which they knew everybody would agree, then they took testimony, they took comments, they tabulated it--which was not done in the instance I am talking about, or at least I don't see how it could have been done--and then they published a final rule that was totally different from the one on which they took testimony? That is why we need a CRA, to jerk people back to reality who think they know the way to do it and do not take into consideration the comments of the people of this country. We have a document that is flawed. We have a document that was done the wrong way. We need to redo it. You may also hear that the CRA prohibits reissuing the rule if it is ``substantially the same.'' That is absolutely correct. Probably another brilliant idea that was put in the bill by the bi-partisan co- sponsors. ``Substantially the same'' doesn't mean it cannot be done at all. It means that agency that jerked people around before cannot take the same thing, change a word, and put it back out as a rule again, which would put us in the continuous motion of overriding an agency's ill will. We would do it if we had to. But that is what the Congressional Review Act is designed to avoid. It should not be that difficult. With civility and bipartisanship, we ought to be able to arrive at a new approach, and not just on this rule. Did you know, on the rules that OSHA has passed, we rarely revise a single one? Do you think technology has changed in 28 years? Do you think there is any need to change anything that was written 28 years ago? You had better believe there is, and we need to find a system to do it. I pledge to work toward a system that will allow safety for the workplace to get into place easier, quicker, and more effective than it is right now. I am sure business and labor will join in that effort to make sure we get more safety in the workplace. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

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

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to address a concern of farmers in my State of Wyoming and throughout the United States. This legislation, which I am introducing with the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, as well as the senior Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, is designed to clarify a provision in the Internal Revenue Code and its accompanying regulations which has been broadly interpreted to impose self-employment (SE) taxes on rental income from real estate even though such income was generally designed to be exempt from SE taxes. Under Section 1402(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, rental income from real estate was only intended to be subject to the SE taxes when, one, the income is from an arrangement between an owner and lessee that, two, requires the lessee to produce agricultural or horticultural commodities on the land; and, three, there shall be material participation by the owner or tenant with respect to any such agricultural or horticultural commodities. The problem all goes back to ambiguity of the term ``arrangement'' in this section. This section has been interpreted to by the IRS to apply not only to the specific lease agreement itself, but also to other extraneous production or management arrangements between the owner and his lessee. Accordingly, the IRS has hit many small self-employed farmers with a tax penalty that they never expected and which was never envisioned when Congress wrote the section of the Internal Revenue Code in question. The legislation I am introducing today clarifies this section by replacing the term ``arrangement'' with ``agreement,'' indicating that the lease agreement itself must specify the requisite responsibilities of the owner in order to be subject to the SE tax. As in so much of what we do here, a small change in words can have a dramatic impact on people's lives. By clarifying what I believe was intended by Congress all along, we will save numerous farmers the heartache and expense of litigating with the IRS over whether rental income from their real estate is subject to SE tax. This small change in the tax code will provide considerable tax relief to farmers in my home State of Wyoming and throughout the United States. I thank Chairman Grassley for his support of this important legislation and I urge my colleagues to enact this important relief for America's family farmers.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to address a concern of farmers in my State of Wyoming and throughout the United States. This legislation, which I am introducing with the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, as well as the senior Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, is designed to clarify a provision in the Internal Revenue Code and its accompanying regulations which has been broadly interpreted to impose self-employment (SE) taxes on rental income from real estate even though such income was generally designed to be exempt from SE taxes. Under Section 1402(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, rental income from real estate was only intended to be subject to the SE taxes when, one, the income is from an arrangement between an owner and lessee that, two, requires the lessee to produce agricultural or horticultural commodities on the land; and, three, there shall be material participation by the owner or tenant with respect to any such agricultural or horticultural commodities. The problem all goes back to ambiguity of the term ``arrangement'' in this section. This section has been interpreted to by the IRS to apply not only to the specific lease agreement itself, but also to other extraneous production or management arrangements between the owner and his lessee. Accordingly, the IRS has hit many small self-employed farmers with a tax penalty that they never expected and which was never envisioned when Congress wrote the section of the Internal Revenue Code in question. The legislation I am introducing today clarifies this section by replacing the term ``arrangement'' with ``agreement,'' indicating that the lease agreement itself must specify the requisite responsibilities of the owner in order to be subject to the SE tax. As in so much of what we do here, a small change in words can have a dramatic impact on people's lives. By clarifying what I believe was intended by Congress all along, we will save numerous farmers the heartache and expense of litigating with the IRS over whether rental income from their real estate is subject to SE tax. This small change in the tax code will provide considerable tax relief to farmers in my home State of Wyoming and throughout the United States. I thank Chairman Grassley for his support of this important legislation and I urge my colleagues to enact this important relief for America's family farmers.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001. I commend the work of the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce Committee, Senators McCain and Hollings, for their hard work on this legislation. I believe that this legislation takes a balanced approach to an important issue and provides for an increase in public safety without unduly burdening a vital ingredient of our energy infrastructure. This legislation takes several important steps in improving the safety of America's oil and natural gas pipelines. There are several elements of this legislation that I would like to highlight. First, this legislation requires the implementation of pipeline safety recommendations recently issued by the Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector General to the DOT Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA). The Inspector General has recommended that the pipeline industry finalize outstanding Congressional mandates protecting sensitive environmental areas and high-density population areas. Moreover, it calls for the implementation of a training program for the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) inspectors. Second, it requires pipeline operators to submit to the Secretary of Transportation, or the appropriate State regulatory agency as the case requires, a plan designed to enhance the qualifications of pipeline personnel. I hope that this approach, in which the pipeline operators themselves are consulted on the proper safety and training qualifications of their personnel, is a cooperative one that will not only increase public safety, but also encourage the pipeline industry to take ownership in the standards they are called upon to implement. Third, this bill calls upon the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations that require hazardous liquid pipelines and natural gas transmission pipelines to evaluate the risks of the operator's facilities in environmentally sensitive and high-density population areas, and to implement a program for integrity management that reduces identified risks of an incident in those areas. Under these guidelines, the pipeline operator's integrity management plan must be based on risk analysis and must include a periodic assessment of the integrity of the pipeline through methods including internal inspection, pressure testing, direct assessment, or some other effective methods, to ensure that identified problems are corrected in a timely manner. Again, I am hopeful that this integrity management plan will allow operators to be even more pro-active in identifying potential problems and correcting them before any accidents occur. Fourth, this legislation requires an operator of a gas transmission or hazardous liquid pipeline facility to carry out a continuing public education program that would include activities to advise municipalities, school districts, businesses, and residents of pipeline facility locations on a variety of pipeline safety matters. Educating the community on issues of pipeline safety should also serve to decrease the incidents of dangerous accidents in these areas. While no legislation can entirely alleviate the elements of risk and danger from human experience, there are ways that government, businesses, and local communities can cooperate to help minimize risks of serious accidents. When crafting such legislation, it is also important to ensure that any additional burdens we place on private businesses will result in benefits that outweigh those costs. This is especially important in the area of oil and gas pipelines, which are the arteries of energy production that allow us to fuel our cars, heat and cool our homes, and carry out countless activities in our daily lives. All the oil and natural gas in the world is worthless if we are unable to get it to the American consumers. For this reason, I am especially heartened by the cooperative approach that was taken in preparing this legislation to ensure that all the various stakeholders were heard and their legitimate concerns were incorporated into this important legislation. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2001.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, it is always an exciting day when an accountant gets to talk about taxes. The American people have had some concerns over taxes for a long time. If you were to throw that into a list of things about which they are concerned, it would probably come out at the top. Do they think there is going to be tax relief? I ran into a song written by a guy named Roger Miller that sums up the trust people have in the Federal Government giving them some tax relief, and it goes something like this: Well, you dad-gum gov'ment You sorry so 'n' so's You got your hands in every pocket of my clothes Well, you dad-gum, dad-gum, dad-gum gov'ment. Well, you dad-gum gov'ment You sorry rackafratchits You got yourself an itcha And you want me to scratch it Well, you dad-gum, dad-gum, dad-gum gov'ment. The President is coming through with relief on the burden of every taxpayer--every taxpayer. I am in support of President Bush's relief proposal. It is time to ax the tax and cut the burden down to size. I applaud President Bush in acknowledging that surplus revenue is a tax overcharge. It is time to stop the overcharge. It is time to return the money to the American people. It is time to relieve the burden on all the taxpayers. Americans deserve tax relief. Right now Federal taxes are the highest they have been in America during peacetime. Americans pay more in taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and housing combined. Most people work more than 4 months each year just to fund their government. It is time for the Federal Government to get its hands out of the pockets and allow them to keep more of their own money. President Bush has proposed tax relief for every taxpayer. That is right; if you pay taxes now, you will receive tax relief under President Bush's proposal. As an example, a family of four who earns $50,000 a year will receive tax relief of $1,600. That is a 50-percent reduction for those families. Right now I can tell you $1,600 will go quite far in my home State of Wyoming. For most folks, that will pay for 1 or even 2 months of mortgage payments. It will cover a year's worth of gasoline for two cars. It will cover the cost of a year's tuition at many of the community colleges. It will cover the cost of groceries for 4 months for many people in my State. Most importantly, President Bush and the Republican Congress trust the American people themselves to spend their own money as they see fit. President Bush's tax relief will simplify the code while providing relief for all Americans. That is another place where we have a huge burden: The amount of time that it takes to get the information together to see if you owe or if the country is going to give you back some of what you paid. This plan replaces the current five rates with four lower rates of 10, 15, 25, and 33 percent. As such, this tax rebate legislation takes an important step in simplifying our terribly complex code, while allowing all taxpayers to keep more of their own money. Instead of attempting to pick winners and losers--beware of the tax plan that starts out with: Don't give any money to the rich; just give it to the poor. You will find that under the definition of ``rich,'' anyone who pays taxes is considered rich and will not get money back. Watch the wording. Watch the details. We cannot have a bill that attempts to pick winners and losers and makes tax relief a lottery, particularly including those who do not pay. The President's tax plan honors the contribution of all Americans and recognizes they can spend their own money better than the Federal Government. In addition to a simplified lower tax structure, President Bush's tax proposal will benefit families by doubling the child credit from $500 per year to $1,000 a year. It lowers the marriage penalty. It kills the death tax. This is a tax policy that puts its money where its mouth is. The current Tax Code punishes marriages and savings. The Bush proposal rewards marriage, rewards parents, rewards savings. This plan recognizes the enormous burdens that many parents are under and provides some hard-earned relief for each and every taxpaying family in the United States by returning to them part of the tax overcharge that has made this historical surplus possible. While this tax relief proposal will benefit all taxpaying Americans, it especially helps middle-class families who are the backbone of our economy. Those receiving the largest percentage reduction in their Federal income taxes will be those in the middle class. For example, a family of four earning $75,000 a year will see their Federal taxes reduced by 25 percent. The same family of four earning $50,000 a year will benefit from a 50-percent reduction. If a family of four earns $35,000 a year, they will pay no Federal income taxes under President Bush's proposal. This tax proposal is part of a three-prong strategy to save Social Security, pay down the debt, and return a portion of the tax overpayment to the people responsible for it: the American taxpayers. For decades, the Democrat-controlled Congress spent the Social Security surplus on a variety of programs. Under a Republican- controlled Congress, the Social Security surplus is being protected so that it will be there for present and future retirees. It is now time to return a portion of the non-Social Security tax overcharge to the American people. There are those on the Democratic side of the aisle who say we cannot afford tax relief for Americans because we need to spend the money to pay down the Federal debt. If I really thought they were serious about this, I would be more inclined to listen. The problem is, in the 4 years I have been here, I have not seen their actions back up this rhetoric. I have been working with my colleagues, primarily Senator Allard and Senator Voinovich, to actually implement a policy that ensures we pay off the entire publicly held debt regardless of whether all the budget surplus numbers materialize. We have tried at least six different approaches. Guess how many Democratic cosponsors we have had on any of those proposals? Zero. Our Democratic friends love to talk about debt reduction, but when it comes time to vote on a tax cut, when it comes time to vote on debt reduction, their enthusiasm disappears as soon as the next appropriations bill hits this floor; and they envision 1,000 ways to spend that same surplus. They say: Don't lock us into $1.6 trillion of tax relief. Don't lock us into that. Do you know what spending does? Spending locks the American taxpayer into an eternal debt. Do you ever see us stop a program? Do you ever see us hold a program at the same level? Every program continues; every program gets an increase. We talk about how the cost of living is going up, and we better spend more on that program to cover the additional costs of that program for the cost of living. Then we expect to increase it on the basis of whether it is a good program. The evaluation isn't whether it is good or bad. We lock things in. Every time a dime of the American taxpayer's money is spent on a new program, that dime is obligated, year in and year out, for their generation and generations to come. Tax relief isn't locked in quite that well, as people have noticed when they have had their taxes raised in previous years. A tax raise can happen. Tax raises happen more often than spending cuts. So don't talk about locking in a tax cut, particularly with the hope of being able to put it into new programs. There is also talk about the need to reduce payroll taxes. The Bush plan reduces payroll taxes. It reduces that portion of the payroll taxes that are income taxes. It does not yet deal with that portion of the payroll tax that is Social Security or Medicare. Those are two programs funded separate from the Federal income tax. Those are two programs that must be reformed. To make statements on the floor that we are going to reduce those payroll taxes without putting reform in place says that we do not care about the future of Social Security and Medicare. We do. We need the reform. The payroll taxes that are involved with Medicare and Social Security have to be taken into consideration as part of that reform. And the rich versus poor: That is an attempt to start class warfare. The idea is to relieve the tax burden of every taxpayer. You will see things thrown into the rhetoric that will give tax relief to those who do not pay taxes. To me, the surplus is a tax overcharge. That is like going to the store and buying something and being overcharged. When that happens--and somebody discovers it, and somebody is honest enough to pay that back--I kind of expect them to pay it back to me. I do not expect them to pay it back to somebody who just happened to walk through the store. That is what we are talking about with some of the proposals that are being put out there. We need to remember that the surplus is not some magical pot of money created by those in Washington. It is an overpayment of taxes by the American people. It is only fair that we return a portion of that overcharge to those who gave us this surplus in the first place. My experience has been that if we do not give a large portion of this surplus back, we will see it disappear in the waning days of this Congress, as we feed the unquenchable appetite of the ravenous appropriations bills. How does that affect you? When we are voting on appropriations, we are spending a very small part of the American taxpayer's money on each and every proposal. I think the American taxpayer realizes, if you spend enough quarters, you have used all of their tax money. That is about what they put into a program--25 cents. Some people are more than willing to put 25 cents into a new program. But they ought to be able to pick which programs themselves and not rely on the beneficence or the unique knowledge that 100 of us have here and 435 have on the other end of the building. If they want to give, they should be able to give. They should get credit for giving, but they should be able to select what they want to give. They should be able to select what they want to buy. That is what the tax package does. We also have a unique opportunity to simplify. Complexity is a tax burden. It is a tax burden for individuals. That is the No. 1 thing the National Taxpayer Advocates have pointed out: Complexity is the No. 1 problem. The No. 2 problem is complexity for small business, where a lot of individuals are trying to earn a living out there. It is time to ax the tax and cut the burden down to size. We do need tax relief, and we need it now. President Bush's tax proposal is fair, responsible, and will benefit all American taxpayers. This tax plan will create jobs, it will spur economic growth, it will mean jobs for us and our kids, and it will support families in the essential task of raising children. Let's return the tax overcharge and give the American people tax relief now. I yield the floor. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.