Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee substitute be agreed to, the bill be read a third time and passed, the amendment to the title be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 585, which is S. 1507.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 322, introduced earlier today by Senators Bayh, Domenici, and others.

Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, a motion to consider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. For the information of all Senators, the Senate will convene at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, and will immediately resume debate on the Defense authorization legislation. As a reminder, there are over 200 amendments filed to this authorizing bill. Senators can expect amendments to be offered and voted on throughout the day. It is hoped that all Senators who have amendments in order will work with the bill managers in an effort to complete this important legislation. Senators should be aware that the Senate may begin consideration of the Transportation appropriations bill as early as tomorrow afternoon.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 14. I further ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of S. 2549, the Department of Defense authorization bill.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, a motion to consider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Con. Res. 121, which is at the desk.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on the Executive Calendar: No. 451, and Nos. 528 through 543, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Foreign Service. I ask the clerk to report Calendar No. 536.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 320, submitted earlier by Senator Lott and Senator Daschle.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nominations be printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank all of my colleagues for the action that was just taken. This is truly one of the highlights of my Senate career. The nomination that was read individually was my college roommate. I roomed with him for 3 years at George Washington University where he was striving to become a career Ambassador for the United States of America. I watched him work and struggle and exceed all expectations. He is extremely brilliant and has been able to get the kind of career that he wanted. I thank the Senator from Wyoming, who is presiding, for the rapid action that he took to have the hearing held on this nomination. I thank the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Helms, for the expeditious work that he did with the full committee to get this name brought before the Senate. We have a truly dedicated career officer who will be serving us in Australia. I know him very well. I canoed with him in the swamps of Georgia. I watched his career and his travels. Most of my travels around the world have been through his eyes, as he has been located in different positions beginning with Katmandu, Nepal. I think we owe a lot of thanks not only to him but to his family, and his wife Peggy, who has gone with him on these travels. They served well as ambassadors for our country. When he had a break, he came back to the United States and served in the State Department. I was often able to see him in Washington. I watched him as he was liaison for the Defense Department, liaison for the State Department with Senator Kennedy, and in a number of other positions. He and I have daughters who are the same age. We have sons who are the same age. His son, Ed, is married to the daughter of the couple who introduced my wife and I. How did a Wyoming girl meet somebody out here? They met at my swearing-in ceremony. The two dads were part of my wedding. And I was there to see their children's marriages in Wyoming. Skip is a fraternity brother of mine and is actually the only brother that I have. With this action taken today, the United States will be well served in Australia. This is the correct action, the best action, and this is the best representation we can get. I thank all of my colleagues for their support in getting this important nomination approved.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I am disturbed at this attempt to derail a conference committee that has been working months on end. If this bill were easy, we would have done it in a few minutes. If this bill were easy, both versions would be the same. We have a system of government that is based on both bodies considering, to their greatest capability, every problem. When legislation is different on one side from legislation on the other side, there is a conference committee. This conference committee has probably put more time into trying to resolve the issues, rather than to jam one side against the other, trying to get an understanding of what is trying to be achieved and reach a conclusion that incorporates both bills. There has been a lot of progress. The amendment before the Senate does not include the compromises that have been made to date, some very important ones. This bill has a big city approach to it. Wyoming doesn't have any big cities. Our biggest city is 50,008 people. I have one city in Wyoming, the biggest city in a county the size of Connecticut, and they don't have a hospital or emergency facilities. They drive themselves in an emergency an hour to get to a doctor. What works in Massachusetts won't work in Wyoming. The bill has to serve both areas. It has to serve the cities and the rural areas. We have to have compromises to do that. We can't force one method on everybody. That is what happens if we go to the bill that the House passed. We have been getting some things in that meet the needs of the small retailer, that meet the needs of the small communities that are isolated. We have some things in the bill that take care of the patients. It isn't just going to effect the small businesses. My staff was talking to Pitney Bowes. Their health care person is not just an average guy. He was the personal physician to President Ford. Now he is administering one of their numerous health plans. He has said if the Norwood-Dingell version passes, they will have to eliminate the kind of health care they have. That is a big employer with a lot more capability than the small employers. We cannot derail a process that is working, a process that worked for our country for years and years and years, one that solves difficult problems such as this, one that brings into consideration all of the parts of this vast country--not just a solution that a few people in Washington came up with. We have to get the opinions of the people of this country included in the bill. Mr. President, I'm more than a little surprised that in response to a first-time-ever Republican offer on a Patients' Bill of Rights to expand liability and scope, the Democrats have walked away from the table. That's an incredible counter-productive reaction to a giant step towards compromise. This conference has been long and time-consuming, but it is working. There is not a single reason why we should abandon a process that is working. Yet, politics is being invited in, and I think the majority of us are here to highlight why that's such a terrible mistake. Conference committees are an important part of process--for our country. It should be. For example, the biggest town in just one Wyoming county--which is the size of Connecticut--doesn't have a hospital, doesn't have an emergency room. Among the handful of principles that are fundamental to any true protection for health care consumers, probably the most important is allowing states to continue in their role as the primary regulator of health insurance. This is a principle which has been recognized--and respected--for more than 50 years. In 1945, Congress passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, a clear acknowledgment by the Federal Government that States are indeed the most appropriate regulators of health insurance. It was acknowledged that States are better able to understand their consumers' needs and concerns. It was determined that States are more responsive, more effective enforcers of consumer protections. As recently as last year, this fact was re-affirmed by the General Accounting Office. GAO testified before the Health, Education Labor, and Pensions Committee, saying, ``In brief, we found that many states have responded to managed care consumers' concerns about access to health care and information disclosure. However, they often differ in their specific approaches, in scope and in form.'' Wyoming has its own unique set of health care needs and concerns. Every state does. For example, despite our elevation, we don't need the mandate regarding skin cancer that Florida has on the books. My favorite illustration of just how crazy a nationalized system of health care mandates would be comes from my own time in the Wyoming Legislature. It's about a mandate that I voted for and still support today. You see, unlike in Massachusetts or California, for example, in Wyoming we have few health care providers; and their numbers virtually dry up as you head out of town. So, we passed an any willing provider law that requires health plans to contract with any provider in Wyoming who's willing to do so. While that idea may sound strange to my ears in any other context, it was the right thing to do for Wyoming. But I know it's not the right thing to do for Massachusetts or California, so I wouldn't dream of asking them to shoulder that kind of mandate for our sake when we can simply, reasonably, apply it within our borders. As consumers, we should be downright angry at how some of our elected officials are responding to our concerns about the quality of our health care and the alarming problem of the uninsured in this country. It is being suggested that all of our local needs will be magically met by stomping on the good work of the states through the imposition of an expanded, unenforceable federal bureaucracy. It is being suggested that the American consumer would prefer to dial a 1-800- number to nowhere versus calling their State Insurance Commissioner, a real person whom they're likely to see in the grocery store after church on Sundays. As for the uninsured population in this country, carelessly slapping down a massive new bureaucracy on our states does nothing more than squelch their efforts to create innovative and flexible ways to get more people insured. We should be doing everything we can to encourage and support these efforts by states. We certainly shouldn't be throwing up roadblocks. And how about enforcement of the minority's proposal? Well, almost one year ago this body adopted an amendment that stated, ``It would be inappropriate to set federal health insurance standards that not only duplicate the responsibility of the 50 State insurance departments but that also would have to be enforced by the Health Care Financing Administration if a State fails to enact the standard.'' Yet here we are one year later where, not only is it being suggested that we trample the traditional, overwhelmingly appropriate authority of the states with a three-fold expansion of the federal reach into our nation's health care, they still insist on having HCFA be in charge. HCFA, the agency that leaves patients screaming, has doctors quitting Medicare, and, lest we not forget, the agency in charge as the Medicare program plunges towards bankruptcy. And guess what, it looks even worse for consumers under HCFA's ``protection,'' according to a new report released by GAO on March 31st of this year. The model the Democrats are supporting for implementing the Patients Bill of Rights is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, affectionately known as HIPAA. I quote from the report: ``Nearly four years after HIPAA's enactment, HCFA continues to be in the early stages of fully identifying were federal enforcement will be required.'' Regarding HCFA's role in also enforcing additional federal benefits mandates that Congress has amended to HIPAA, the GAO states, ``HCFA is responsible for directly enforcing HIPAA and related standards for carriers in states that do not. In this role, HCFA must assume many of the responsibilities undertaken by state insurance regulators, such as responding to consumers' inquiries and complaints, reviewing carriers' policy forms and practices, and imposing civil penalties on noncomplying carriers.'' And then, the GAO report reveals that HCFA has finally managed to take a baby step: ``HCFA has assumed direct regulatory functions, such as policy reviews, in only the three states that voluntarily notified HCFA of their failure to pass HIPAA- conforming legislation more than 2 years ago.'' Is this supposed to give consumers comfort? First we should usurp their local electoral rights or their ability to influence the appointment of their state insurance commissioner and then offer up this agency as an alternative? I'm not sure I could find a single Wyomingite to clap me on the back for this kind of public service. I could go on at length about the very real dangers of empowering HCFA to swoop into the private market, with its embarrassing record of patient protection and enforcement of quality standards. Such as how it took 10 years for HCFA to implement a 1987 law establishing new nursing home standards intended to improve the quality of care for some of our most vulnerable patients. But I think the case has already been crystallized in the minds of many constituents: ``enable us to access quality health care, but don't cripple us in the process.'' The next, equally important issue is that of exposing employers to a new cause of action under a Patients' Bill of Rights. Employers voluntarily provide coverage for 133 million people in this country. That will no longer be the case if we authorize lawsuits against them for providing such coverage. This is basic math. If you add 133 million more people to the 46 million people already uninsured, I'd say we have a crisis on our hands. In my mind, a simpler decision doesn't exist. We should not be suing employers. Mr. President. Let me close by saying that the conference has worked in incredible good faith, logging more than 400 hours and counting. We have come to conceptual agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral basis on more than half of the common patient protections. We have come to bipartisan, bicameral conceptual agreement on the crown jewel of both bills--the independent, external medical review process. Most dramatically, the bicameral Republicans have offered a compromise on liability and scope, to which the Democrats have given no formal, substantive response, just rhetoric and political jabs in the press. It is absolutely bad faith to have done so. I think it would be regrettable if these continued public relations moves torpedo what, so far, has produced almost everything we need for a far-reaching, substantive conference product. I encourage all of my colleagues to take the high road and support the legislative process our forefathers had in mind, versus a public relations circus. Let me share an employer story. Here's another employer ``real life'' story. Within the last hour, my staff was on a conference call with the Medical Director of Pitney Bowes, a large employer that self-insures and self administers a Cadillac-style health plan for more than 23,000 employees and retirees. All of my colleagues should take note that this is not just any private citizen. Dr. Mahoney was the personal physician to President Ford. Now he's administering one of numerous health plans that this amendment threatens to disolve. Everything from on-site medical centers to on-site fitness centers to the educational seminars on skin cancer and stress management that Pitney Bowes currently offers would be jeopardized. They've said the worst case result would be terminate the employer plan altogether. That sentiment has been echoed from countless other employers, from IBM to caterpillar to mom-and-pop shops. I urge my colleagues not to crush plans like Pitney Bowes over politics.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to recognize some special students from my home state of Wyoming, Green River to be specific, who have been spending a lot of their time studying our Constitution. They got so good at it, in fact, that they entered a national competition here in Washington to test their knowledge against the best of their peers and had a remarkable result. Earlier this month students from around the country came to the nation's capital to compete on their understanding of our Constitution and our American Government. The students of Green River High School did very well in that event. In fact, their understanding and grasp of the fundamental principles of our Democracy and the meaning of our Constitution was judged to be among the best of the 50 teams that participated. Programs like the one the students of Green River participated in are vital if we are to ensure that our future leaders have an understanding of the principles of our Constitution and the beliefs and values our Founding Fathers brought to the creation of our government. Such an understanding is an important part of our children's education for it will help them understand that the rights and freedoms afforded by our Constitution bring with them certain duties and responsibilities - the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. That will help them understand their role as they become our local, state and national leaders and face the challenges of the new millennium. Good work, Green River High School! Led by their teacher, Dennis Johnson, and supported by their State Coordinator, Dick Kean, and their District Coordinator, Matt Strannigan, they did a great job and made Wyoming proud. I would also like to congratulate each member of the team, which includes: Richard Baxter, Natalie Binder, Katharine Bracken, Cameron Kelsey, Sandra Newton, Jacque Owen, Jeremy Pitts, Benjamin Potmesil, Meagan Reese, Rachel Ryckman, Ryan Stewart and Steven Ujvary.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise with my colleague Senator Thomas to submit a resolution authorizing Congress to accept Wyoming's second statue for National Statuary Hall, a statue of the great Chief of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, Chief Washakie. The entire nation owes Chief Washakie a great debt of gratitude for his assistance in allowing settlers to pass over his tribe's lands during the great Western migration and for advancing the cause of peace between the United States and Native American nations. The exact birthdate of Chief Washakie is not known, but it is believed that he was born in 1804 to a Flathead father and a Shoshone mother who lived in a Flathead tribe village. That village was attacked by the Blackfeet tribe and Washakie's father was killed in the battle. Washakie's mother was taken in by the Lemhi tribe of the Shoshone and Washakie and his sister remained with the Lemhis when his mother and the rest of his family rejoined the Flatheads. Washakie made his name as a successful warrior. He devised a large rattle from a dried buffalo hide that was inflated and filled with stones that he used to frighten the horses of rival tribes in battle. He also aligned his nation with the United States and served the United States Army as a scout. It was that service which earned him a funeral with full military honors upon his death in 1900. He was the only Native American leader to be accorded such an honor. Washakie united the Shoshones to battle threats presented by hostile tribes, such as the Cheyenne and the Sioux tribes. This brought him to the attention of the United States Government and white men as someone they could do business with. He was a friend of many of the fur trappers who worked in Wyoming and his assistance with the other Native American tribes was invaluable. He also offered protection to wagon trains making their way across Wyoming. Chief Washakie sent members of his tribe to the Little Bighorn to reinforce Custer's troops during the battle, but were too late to prevent the massacre that took place. Chief Washakie recognized that the white man could be a benefit to the Shoshone tribes. His forward thinking nature ensured that the Shoshone tribe received their current home as a reservation and was not required to relocate to an unfamiliar area. The Wind River Reservation in Western Wyoming is still home to the Eastern Shoshone tribe. Wyoming has recognized Chief Washakie as one of our state's most notable citizens by granting him a very unique honor, the placement of a statue of him in the United States Capitol. He joins Esther Hobart Morris, the first female Justice of Peace in the nation and the woman who started the movement that led the Wyoming Territorial Legislature to grant women the right to vote in 1869. Chief Washakie also joins such esteemed company as patriots Samuel Adams and Ethan Allen, Senator John Calhoun and Henry Clay, and Presidents George Washington and Andrew Jackson to name just a few of the notable Americans with a place of honor in the Capitol. Congress extends its thanks to the people of Wyoming for providing the nation with this statue of one of our most important figures, Chief Washakie of the Shoshone Nation.

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 just finished presiding, and the last 15 minutes I presided was a quorum call. It occurred to me there are probably people watching the quorum call who wonder why there was a quorum call. Since I had to listen to some of the previous discussion that I don't think gave a full explanation of why there is a quorum call, or why we are not proceeding on the business of this country, I feel compelled to give a brief explanation. In the Senate, we have to get permission to proceed to debate a bill. That is where we are right now. We are trying to get permission to proceed to debate an appropriations bill. It is a foreign operations appropriations bill. The Democrats have decided, because of a procedural motion on which they lost yesterday, which will have an effect on the debate of the Senate for years to come perhaps, that we are not going to debate anything for a while. Let me explain a little more about what that is. What we are having is a filibuster. It is being done rather silently, and sometimes in a whining way. We are having a filibuster over whether we are going to debate any of the appropriations bills. What you heard earlier was them saying that if we can't debate extraneous, nongermane items on any one of the appropriations bills, we are going to see that the business of this country does not go forward. I want to tell you, I think that is wrong and I think the American people need to know about it. We can do a lot of finger-pointing over why things aren't happening around here, and that isn't going to get anything done except allow the voters in November to make a decision. But the voters need to know what it is that is happening. We are talking about whether a Senator ought to be able to run down here to the floor on any measure that comes up under appropriations--we have 13 appropriations bills to pass, and it usually takes a week to pass each one, and we have about 13 weeks left of the session this year. We are debating now whether or not you can come down here and just stick in any amendment you want, on any issue you want, and call it ``deliberative debate.'' You can't have an appropriations amendment that legislates. Nobody questions that. That has been determined. We have a Senate rule that says you can't legislate on an appropriations bill. But there is a loophole there. It isn't clear whether you can pontificate on an appropriations bill, whether you can't stick in something that is your pet project and talk ad infinitum on it. That is what this is about. That is what the silence is about. That is what the inability to go forward is about. It is about whether we ought to be able to pontificate on anything we want to, whether or not it is relevant to the item that is up. Why is that important? I guess it is because this Chamber has television in it now and what we say can be carried to people all across this country. It is cheaper than buying a campaign ad. But it doesn't make it right. You can't legislate on an appropriations bill, so should you be able to do a sense of the Senate? I say you should not be able to. We should be at the business of taking the appropriations bills we have and deciding on each and every issue that is in that appropriations bill to see if it is the right thing to do. If it is some other issue we want to debate, we should not get to do it then. When we finish up the 13 appropriations bills, we can go back to the regular legislation of this body. On those, there is no requirement on what can be added to them. You can debate and put in an amendment whether it has anything to do with the bill or not. My personal opinion is that you should not be able to do that either. We would get more business done. But there isn't a rule that keeps you from doing nongermane amendments on the regular legislative business; it is only on the appropriations. Why would we do that? Why would there be requirements on what can be debated when we are talking about appropriations? Well, the bill on which we are trying to get permission to debate right now is one of the smaller ones. A lot of people probably don't think it is very important to this country. In fact, if this bill didn't pass, a lot of people in Wyoming would probably be overjoyed. But it is our business to make sure we deliberate and pass this bill before October 1. What bill is it? The permission that has been requested is to debate the foreign operations appropriations bill. Earlier, a couple of my colleagues mentioned that if people come to see them in their office and they want to talk about the dairy business, they expect them to be able to come over here to the floor and solve their problem. Well, I want to tell you, that isn't how it happens. You can't talk to somebody in your office, leave your office, come over here, and solve their problem. There are days I wish it were that easy and that fast. But it is designed not to be that easy and that fast. You really have to be able to put it with something that will convince enough Senators it is a good idea that you can do it. If we happen to be debating a bill that has that dairy problem in it and the funding allocated for it, you can make a difference at that point in time. That is what we are talking about--how to spend the money of this country. As I said, this is a very small bill. This is a $13 billion bill--$13 billion that we are going to spend partly in the United States and partly around the world. It has some interesting provisions in it that are probably worthy of debate--funds for university development assistance programs across the United States. On page 23, they go into a whole bunch of countries that we help. In the report on the bill on page 34, we talk about physician exchanges, so we can have better health around the world. We have vitamins for at-risk women. On page 35, we have violence against women. One of the items that will undoubtedly be debated at some length in this bill is whether there ought to be some bilateral economic assistance to Colombia for narcotics control and law enforcement. But we are not going to get to debate those because perhaps we ought to be able to debate a sense of the Senate on this bill that has nothing to do with it. Patients' Bill of Rights is very important. I am one of the people on the Senate team negotiating between the Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate for a Patients' Bill of Rights. We passed that bill. It is an important bill. We are trying to get resolution on that bill. As a Senator, if we don't have the rule about how peripheral and how nongermane you can get, I could offer an amendment that says I have this sense of the Senate that everyone will agree with me on, and I would like that Patients' Bill of Rights finished by next week. It isn't going to happen because there are too many details that need to be worked out. I would have had the right day before yesterday to do that. That is what we are talking about. I could have demanded debate time. It is very difficult to bring debate to a close in this body. As you saw with the gun amendment which was a sense of the Senate, it was a nonbinding sort of thing that said they wanted the juvenile justice bill resolved between the House and the Senate, and they wanted it done by May 24, sometime next week. And it had to be done. Well, it isn't going to be done. It can't be done. They demanded 12 hours of debate on that issue--12 hours of debate holding up the Senate. That issue is important to a lot of Members. We already debated it and sent it to the conference committee. It is being resolved in the conference committee. Does it deserve another 12 hours of debate when we are on appropriations? The appropriations bill that we are trying to get done now is on foreign ops. The one we finished when that came up was military construction, building the things that our military needs at home and abroad to do the right job for our national security. Deliberation is different than publicizing. These desks down here on the floor were built two per State as the States came into the Nation. They are the same desks that all of the Senators have used through the years. If you have an opportunity to be on the floor, you can take out the bottom drawer of these desks. Senators, as they were leaving this deliberative body, carved their names in that drawer as a tradition. Those are now preserved in Plexiglass. That is taken out, and Members can add their names as they leave. There is a list in each desk that shows each and every Senator who sat at that desk in the history of the United States. It is fascinating to come down here at night and sit at these desks, look at those lists, and see the names of Senator after Senator whom you have read about in your history book who has been here and debated. You can read about some of the great debates they gave. For a long time there was not even a sense-of-the-Senate amendment. We didn't have this pontificating, saying I really think we will feel better if we debate and do a sense of the Senate on this nongermane issue. But if you sit here at night and read those names, it is like a walk through history. It is also an opportunity for you to get the feeling that they are still in this Chamber debating whether we are doing the job that we ought to be doing. In my opinion, the job that we ought to be doing is getting the appropriations bills of this country done as fast as we possibly can, as deliberately as we possibly can, as carefully as we possibly can but getting it done and sticking to the issue of what is in that appropriations bill, or what we think ought to be in that appropriations bill, or what we think ought to be disappearing from that appropriations bill. Those are the amendments that we ought to be debating, turning in, and turning over. Those are the ones that we ought to be giving grand consideration to in the style that used to in this Chamber--not bringing in peripheral amendments and saying I think I can delay this whole bill so that the President can negotiate it when the new year begins. It is even possible to delay the whole thing by doing genuine amendments to a genuine bill. It is important for Senators to be able to express themselves on all issues. I daresay if you watch television evenings and weekends you can see Senators debating absolutely every issue. You can't see them making progress on every issue. That is a very prized thing and very difficult to do around here. I have to tell you that a sense-of-the-Senate amendment doesn't do that. A sense of the Senate delays the actual amendments that change appropriations. I suspect that if we don't get some agreement to proceed on this bill, we will check and see if there are other appropriations bills they believe are maybe important enough that we ought to be getting on with the business of and debating. We have 13 of them. I think another one that has now cleared the committee is agriculture. I have to tell you that I think the farmers across this country are going to be pretty livid if this appropriations bill is being held up because somebody has a sense of the Senate where they kind of want to see if all of the Senators kind of feel good about something that doesn't have to do with agriculture. They ought to be livid about it. I know when I go home, they say: How come you guys put other nonrelated stuff in bills you are talking about? How come some of those get in there? They really want the stuff to be germane to the bill that we are working on and they want it debated. They want it debated in a timely fashion. They think we ought to be getting on with the business. We can finish appropriations. We can talk about other bills. We talked about a lot of them. They just need to be resolved. But we can talk about those other bills. On the other bills of the Senate, you can still add anything you want, including a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, or including a motion, or legislation that has nothing to do with anything. The debate should be moving on. The debate should not be held up over whether we can do feel-good motions on appropriations. The debate should center around whether an appropriations bill is justified or not justified, whether we ought to spend the money or we ought not to spend the money, whether the program is good or whether the program is bad. That is the appropriations process. We have plenty of it to do as we spend close to $2 trillion in this United States. For those of you who have family budgets and scrimp and save and worry and force that into your capability to buy things, you can recognize how important it would be for us even on something as small as $13 billion to get started on the debate, to look at the items that are included to decide whether or not they are justified and make a decision and move forward so that we can get to the bigger bills that amount to billions more dollars than this one. This should be a bill that is done in about 1 day. But it isn't going to be 1 day. It isn't even going to be started in 1 day. I suspect we may not be started on it next weekend, unless the American people get upset with the way their Government is being run. I am sure they will express their opinion that we ought to be debating every dollar that is involved, and when the debate on the dollars is over, get to the other business of passing laws in this country. I thank the President. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I am sorry. Time is equally divided on this. I will not yield.

Mr. ENZI. We have 4 months. One month we will be gone for recess. That leaves 12 weeks. We have 13 appropriations bills. We seldom pass more than one appropriations bill a week. I can tell you that if we start doing sense-of-the-Senate resolutions on appropriations bills, we will not be able to get them finished in a week. What does that do? That puts the process that the Constitution says is ours, the Congress of the United States, in the hands of the President. I have to admit that were I the President, I might want that to happen, and that is why the other side delays and delays and delays with things such as sense-of-the-Senate resolutions. Last year, we put rule XVI back into effect. We said we are not going to legislate on appropriations bills. That was a major move for this country. We said there will be no legislation on bills. Now what we are talking about as the point of this whole debate is whether we are going to have sense-of-the-Senate resolutions back door. Why is that important? We said no real legislation. Now are we going to allow any kind of a debate we want on any kind of a topic with a sense-of-the-Senate resolution? A sense-of-the-Senate resolution says it is kind of our opinion, and it would make us feel good to pass it, and perhaps with all of the publicity we can persuade America that we are right. Well, America sees through that. America knows whether we are really doing our work or whether we are trying to make people feel good. We don't know that yet. But they know that. That is the process that we are going through. This will set a precedent. We set a precedent under the budget this year. There were dozens of sense-of-the-Senate resolutions that did not make it into the budget process. I know. I negotiated two sense-of-the-Senate resolutions dealing with OSHA. That is one of the most difficult things to reach agreement on between the Democrats and the Republicans. But it was for the safety of American workers. We agreed to two of them. We had another one on health care. Sometimes it is difficult for Republicans and Democrats to agree. We agreed. Then in the budget process, we said no, unless these have been fully debated. And there is a very limited time for debate. In the budget, we said we are not going to do that. Some very good sense-of-the-Senate resolutions went down. We decided at that point in the process that we should not do sense-of-the-Senate resolutions; they really do not mean much except for people being able to stand up later and say: This sense of the Senate passed 100-0. Well, they passed it in a hurry to get it out of the way so we could get on with substantial debate that this body is charged with--the bipartisan effort that we are charged with of getting an appropriations bill finished, and then the other 12 appropriations bills that we are supposed to do. We cannot concede 8 hours of debate on every issue that wasn't brought up through any other process. We can't give up 8 hours on every partisan issue that can come to this body. Never mind that it was a knee-jerk, one-size-fits-all, do-it-in- Washington, make-the-people-feel-good motion. It doesn't solve problems. It just doesn't solve it. It is just a political issue. It isn't a complete reflection of even the march that happened Sunday. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from today's Washington Post by Courtland Milloy in which he talks about some of the other issues at the march. It wasn't all about guns. It was about the safety of our kids. But you can tell that the big publicity thing is guns. I ask the Senate to watch what is happening and not set a precedent. I thank the Senator for the time.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want to bring to the attention of all Senators, and anyone else who might hear our words, that it is a very confusing situation here on the floor. One might think the issue up for debate is guns. The underlying issue of the entire debate process is military construction--military construction. That is where we take care of the security of this Nation. That is where we provide for military housing. That is where we provide for cleaning up the environment on bases that are having a problem. That is where we provide for the morale of our military. But you heard guns discussed. This is an amendment that I think is not germane to the process. It is not about security, not about housing, not about the environment, not about the morale of our military people. It is not about the military. We are going to use up a day and a half debating that. The other side says, well, if it is so insignificant, why not pass it? Because we are setting a precedent for this body that we have not had before. We are setting a precedent for this body that under appropriations we are going to debate a sense of the Senate that anybody brings up, whether it applies to anything in the bill or not. That is a very important precedent. It is very important that we do not set that precedent, that we do not get off on debating any whim that anybody in the Senate wants to do under any bill. There has to be a process--particularly a process for spending almost $2 trillion of the people's money. This is supposed to be a deliberative debate about spending the money--spending the money on military construction--just military construction. Instead we are talking about guns. Last night, the Senator from California said we have time for this; that, after all, we have 4 months left before the new appropriations have to go into place. I want everyone to understand that, 4 months. First of all, we will not be here for all of the 4 months. This is an election year. People will be leaving to participate in their candidacy. We will be gone during August.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I am compelled to speak at this point. I am really disturbed about the direction the conversation--I will not call it a debate--is going. I think the American public needs to know what is going on here. At the moment, the bill that is on the floor is the military construction appropriations bill--not gun control. You might be confused, if you have been listening to the debate. We are on the military construction appropriations bill. This is the bill that provides for the national security and promotes the national defense. This is the bill that builds things for the military, to make sure we have a strong military. This is the bill that builds the dormitories and the housing for our military people so they have the morale to stay in the military and do the job of protecting us. We are debating the military construction bill. It is the bill that takes care of some of the problems on military bases where there has been pollution. A lot of it we did not know was pollution at the time it happened, but we recognize the need to take care of the environment, and this bill takes care of the environment--if we can ever get around to it and get it passed. But it sounds as if we are having a gun debate. This bill, the military construction appropriations bill that we are considering, is the bill that handles our basic military construction needs. It is not about schools. It is not about gun control. It is about taking care of our military in a responsible and timely way. That is what is going to be happening with appropriations bill after appropriations bill after appropriations bill. We do 13 of them. It takes us about a week to do an appropriations bill. It is tough to get them done by October 1, when the next appropriation starts. It is very important that we be expeditious in the work of the appropriations bills. We have trouble passing appropriations every year. There is always a mini filibuster done on appropriations. My friends across the aisle would prefer the President set the appropriations for this country. That is not what the Constitution says. The Congress of the United States sets the appropriations. We can do it, and we can do it in a timely fashion, as long as there is not a filibuster. Filibusters come in different forms. One of the filibusters you see is this gun control legislation that has been thrust into the military construction bill. Another form of it is putting 100 different amendments down on an appropriations bill and expecting to be able to debate each and every one. Those are all attempts to delay the appropriations process and put the process in the hands of the President. I want the American public to know that the responsible way, the constitutional way, is for this Congress to pass a budget. As to the debate we are having tonight, why didn't we just agree to have a vote on the sense of the Senate and get on with the business of appropriations? This is a very important point. We cannot set new precedent for people to be able to delay the appropriations process, and that is what we are talking about. Last year we passed rule XVI. We made rule XVI valid again. The purpose of that process that we went through, a very difficult process, was to say you cannot legislate on appropriations bills. You cannot do that because we are not going to have every piece of legislation that everybody would like to have passed that they cannot get through the regular process brought up as a simple amendment to an appropriations bill and debated for hours and hours and hours. If we are going to get the appropriations process done, it has to be according to the rules. We had a rule, rule XVI, that said you could not legislate on an appropriations bill. It had been kind of set aside. Last year, we put it back into effect so we could expedite the appropriations process. OK, there is a way around that. There is not anything that really addresses if you offer a sense-of-the-Senate amendment on an appropriations bill. Perhaps that is a way to back-door some of these other debates. We are not going to do it. We said you cannot legislate on it, we are not going to let you back-door legislate on it at the moment. That is what we are talking about here, a sense-of-the-Senate amendment. If I had my way, we would not do sense-of-the-Senate amendments. Sense-of-the-Senate amendments are our opinion as reflected in time crunches, which means they do not mean anything. They are used a lot because if somebody passes a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, you will hear them up here frequently saying: I passed that sense-of-the-Senate amendment 100 to nothing, and that means the Senate wants it. What they did was pass it 100 to nothing to get it out of the way so we could get to another issue, perhaps a real issue. The sense of the Senate does not get negotiated with the House folks. It is just something we pass so we can feel good. That is what this sense-of-the-Senate amendment is; it is something that will make us feel good. There is violence in this country, and it is important to end violence. But we are not talking about whether or not we are doing that. We are talking about whether we are going to have an appropriations process that can be done responsibly, without all kinds of other issues being thrown into the process, willy-nilly, to hold up the process so the President can decide, with Congress, how the appropriations are going to go. So earlier tonight you saw a lot of procedural motions. Those were motions to make sure that the sense of the Senate could be voted on, that a new precedent could be set for how we are going to do appropriations bills around here. That is why we have been so adamant at making sure there are votes. In order to get a vote on germaneness, we had to concede 8 hours of debate time. Instead of talking about military construction and getting the bill passed, completing the amendments to it--instead of that, we agreed we would do 4 hours of debate on each of two amendments, so we could get to some votes. You saw what happened earlier--endless quorum calls. Every time there was one of those quorum calls, we did not have to go quite as formal. The other side likes these filibusters to be a bit more subtle, so instead we just have to do a quorum count. We had to actually show on the lists up there that the people were here. It was not an actual vote. It only took about 7 minutes each time one of those procedural quorum calls was called. But it did not just delay 7 minutes; it kept a vote from happening. And that is the strategy: Filibuster the appropriations, put it in the hands of the President, set a new precedent so we have additional opportunities to set it back. It is about time Congress went to a biennial budget, a budget that we do every other year so we do not get in this time crunch every year; so we do not get under the gun and put things into appropriations that ought not be there; so we can have the best possible debate every other year and get the best possible biennial budget and appropriation that we can and, in the in-between year, have a chance to see how the people are spending that money and making sure it is according to the way Congress appropriated it. We have concentrated on guns in the debate tonight. As I have pointed out, the bill we are debating is military construction. Everyone that I know is sensitive to the violence issue in this country. We need to do something about that violence. Since it has been brought up as the single solution being gun control, and the Democrats are willing to concede that perhaps a little enforcement might help out and are using statistics about a 40-percent increase in the amount of Federal enforcement that has been done--it is pretty easy if you only have 9 one year to get 40 percent the next year, especially with the crew we have to do the enforcement. They ought to be embarrassed about the enforcement. Neither of these things are the solution. We have to quit trying to treat the symptoms. We have to get to the heart of violence, and the heart of violence is that we lack a sense of community. We have lost a sense of community. I am from Wyoming, and I get back to Wyoming almost every weekend. I travel 300 to 500 miles around the State going to all kinds of towns-- small towns, big cities. In Wyoming, the big cities are 50,000 people. One can drive out of that city and see the whole city at one time. It is not another town running into another town into another town. Some of the communities I visit are listed on the Wyoming highway map as having zero population. That really irritates the two people who live there, but they are counted in the county population rather than the city population. When my wife and I go to those towns, we call ahead and talk to those two people and say: Can you invite a few of your friends over so we can hear what is on your minds? When we get there, there will be 20 to 30 people at that place ready to give their opinion because they have seen a lot of stuff on television with which they do not agree. They have seen polls in which we believe, and they want me to know the right way. I challenge any other Senator to beat that percentage of attendance: zero population, 30 people. Give it a try. The average town in my State is 250 people. They turn out well, too. When I go to a town of 250, I usually get to talk with 80 percent of the people who are there. I do not even know what size building I would have to have in Los Angeles to talk to 80 percent of the people, but we can do that in Wyoming, and we do. They do not think handling the symptom of guns or enforcement is the answer. They are a little distressed at the lack of sense of community. They have a strong sense of community. They know their neighbors. They talk to their neighbors regularly. They respect their neighbors, and they have this community they can see. Wyoming is an example for the Nation when it comes to community. We are worried about it there, too. Television has made a tremendous difference in this country. We are not trying to outlaw television. That would cause the biggest uproar this country has ever heard. I can tell from some of the satellite TV and cable TV problems we have that it is the most important thing in the minds of many people in America. What does television do? It turns everybody inward. Part of the time I was growing up, we did not have television. Then we got a black and white television set. I watched this tremendous progression of television. It was a fascinating technology with fascinating new capabilities. Television has turned us inward. When I was growing up, there were not many channels from which to select, but there were different programs that different members of the family wanted to see. We had a discussion, a debate, a family decision on what we were going to watch. There was interaction in the family. That is part of community. Today we have the Internet. Not only can the child go to his or her own room and watch his or her own television set; they can go to their room, and if they do not like what is on television, they can go on the Internet. Again, it is turned inward, perhaps a little more outward than television because one can get into chatrooms. I suggest to parents--and I know a lot are watching what their kids do with television and on the Internet--talking to somebody in a chatroom is not the same as talking to them in person. It is talking to a computer game. It is talking to yourself with some interaction, and that is turning us inward. My daughter is a teacher. She is an outstanding teacher of seventh and ninth grade English in Gillette, WY. She has been a little distressed over the last year at some of the things she has seen happening even in Wyoming. I know it is nothing compared to what is happening in the rest of the Nation. There was a knife incident in her school, and she went through the entire enforcement process. It was a very disturbing experience and maybe a reason at some point in the near future for her to quit teaching. It is a very difficult process. I have talked with her about guns, violence, and what we can do about it. I have received a lot of good suggestions from her and the students. Again, we find this inward turning, this lack of community, this lack of respect as being one of the big problems. I am very proud of my wife. I have to mention her, too. This last weekend when I was in Wyoming, I went to the University of Wyoming and watched her receive her master's degree. She has been working on that for several years, while we have been in Washington, on the Internet taking it from the University of Wyoming. It is very difficult, but it is a way one can pick up a degree no matter where in the world one is. Even when we were traveling, she could go online and make the class times she had to make. It was difficult but doable. I congratulate her for her efforts. Her master's degree is in adult education. She has done some teaching in high school before. One of her views is that one of the things we ought to have in schools is a course called ``Life's Not Fair and What To Do About It.'' We are so busy in this country giving people rights. We have the Bill of Rights, but we are giving out a lot of other rights. Unfortunately, I think we have given the kids of this country the impression that they have the right to everything for themselves, and if they do not get that right, they can take it out on others. There are a number of different ways they can do that. They can sue. If they fall down and hurt themselves, it is not their fault anymore. It is somebody else's fault and they have to concentrate on how much money they can get from them for themselves. Life is not fair. We have kids across this country who are saying life is not fair and I am going to hurt somebody because they have hurt me internally. In fact, they even kill people over that. Somehow we have to get the message out to each and every kid. We have lost a whole generation of kids. There is a whole generation of them who have not had the message they are not supposed to hurt other people, and they are definitely not supposed to kill them. That is a message we are missing. I know the first thing a lot of people are going to do is jump up and say: But we have all these working mothers now. If they did not have to work, they could take better care of their kids. I am not going to let them off with that excuse. We just had Mother's Day, and that ought to be the most special day in the world. We ought to listen to what every mother has in the way of instruction--the mothers who marched and the mothers with whom we celebrated. One of the most important lessons is listen to your mother. My mom is in Washington right now. She has had a tremendous influence on my life, and she was a working mother. She and my dad had a shoe store, a small business. If there are people who think owning a business is the easy way of life, they need to do a business plan and take a look at small business. The only people who do not get off when they need to or want to are the people who own the business. They are the ones locked into a schedule. The people who work for them have more flexibility because, as a businessowner, you do not want them to quit and not have any help. If you have your own business, you work interminable hours because it is everything you have. Until one has gone through the agony of figuring out how to pay the bills in a small business, one really cannot appreciate what a small businessman goes through. My mom worked at the shoe store. She did the books for the store and had to spend a lot of time at it. So did my dad. But my sister and I, I do not think, turned out too bad. My sister is really the smart one in the family. She is a CPA. She is the business manager for a school district in Sheridan, WY, and does just outstanding work. She understands numbers far better than I do. She is the more capable one in our family. But I am proud of my mother and the way she brought us up. And my wife, all of the time our kids were growing up, was a working mother. We also had shoe stores. We also had to go through that pain and agony of making sure we could meet payrolls all the time and that we could get all the work done. I am really proud of my kids. Her working did not destroy my kids. In fact, it may have aided my kids, as my mother working aided me. It is very difficult to work and do all of those things and have special time with your kids. I really think that is the key --special time. That does not have to be a whole day. In fact, I would challenge anybody to spend a whole day of special time, unless they are doing it in an entertainment mode, in which case they are looking at something else other than their kids. I would suggest that you have some family traditions. One of our family traditions, both when I was growing up and with my family, was to have one meal a day that you had together--not optional; not with TV--one meal a day together; one opportunity during that day to ask, what did you do, or what are you going to do, to compare notes, to find out and, most importantly, to show a little bit of concern for that child or that spouse--a time that is uninterrupted, 5 minutes, 10 minutes--I do not know how long it takes you to eat but enough time to compare notes just a little bit. If you compare notes, I think it will drag out into a much longer time than 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Another part of this is a respect for neighbors and teachers. This is part of community, too. With community, you have to have some respect for yourself, some self-responsibility. You also have to have respect for your family. You have to have that willingness to work together because everything isn't going to work out in a family just the way you would dream of it. Life is not fair in families, either. But families show their strength by working together when things are difficult. When I was growing up, we respected our neighbors. Our neighbors were able to say: Hey, I saw your boy. I didn't like what he was doing. No punishment was necessary because I changed immediately because I respected that neighbor, too. The same thing for teachers in the classroom. One of the things my daughter does that I really like is, when she is teaching and she has a big assignment that is supposed to be turned in, she calls the parents of those students who did not turn in the paper. It is a lot of extra effort. The first time she did that, she called us, in tears. And she is near tears every time she does it. The reason she is near tears is because of the number of parents who say: So, what are you going to do about it? They put it back on her, as the teacher, when they have the complete control--or as much control as anybody has--of making sure their child does the work timely. It is part of community. I got in trouble a little bit in Wyoming with some education things. At one time I checked and found out Wyoming was spending--this has been a few years ago--about $5,600 a student per year. I suggested that one of the ways we could improve education was if we charged tuition, and then gave every kid a $5,600 scholarship to cover the tuition that we charged. And how did you earn the scholarship? All you had to do to earn the scholarship was show up, do your homework, and be good. Those are pretty weak criteria for getting $5,600 a year. But those are some things that we need in school. We need the kids to show up; we need the kids to do their homework; and we need them to behave so they are not disrupting other people--pretty easy criteria. But that is part of that sense of community, again, that sense of knowing that the people you are going to school with have an equal right to learn. When I have talked to a lot of the school classes--and we usually do that on Fridays when we get to Wyoming--I have found that you want to phrase your questions on what needs to be done very carefully. If you do not, what you get back from kids is: You are not doing enough for us: We need; we need; we need. That is not the solution either. In St. Louis, one of the things they did there--this was not done professionally at all, as I understand; I read about it in a book on communitarianism, which is what I am talking about --in the book, they said in St. Louis they sent out a questionnaire to the kids in the school and asked: What does our community need? What do you need? What does our community need? Which happens to be the right way to phrase that question. They also had a little spot on the survey of what needed to be done where they could list if they were willing to work on it, and how they would work on it, and put their name and their address and their phone number. They expected a small return of these questionnaires. Instead, what they got was over 50 percent back, and over 50 percent of those had signatures on them saying they were willing to participate. And the city was smart enough to put them to work. They let them use the city hall for committee meetings and to go to work on the projects they suggested the community needed. There was a huge decrease in vandalism. There was a huge increase in caring for their fellow people. The same book talks about Cincinnati. There they hired a professional to check and see why there was so much violence and so much destruction. The conclusion of the report was: A broken window left undone leads to a door that is left undone that leads to a kid who feels that nobody cares. They are not interested in us having a bunch of debates back here in a fancy sort of way that sets a whole bunch more laws in place. I would like to be able to tell you I have the solution to violence and that I have the perfect law that will take care of the violence problem in this country. But it isn't going to be done by law. You cannot make people behave. You have to have people who want to behave, to know that they are supposed to behave. Something I also find when I talk to kids is that they believe the only publicity out there is the publicity about the bad kids and the bad incidents. We just had a Congressional Awards Ceremony in Cheyenne, WY. The Congressional Awards Program is something that we all ought to understand because everybody has the right to that program. The U.S. Congress gives out two kinds of awards. They give out the Congressional Medal of Honor; that is usually to adults who have done something fantastic to help our country and our way of life and democracy. We also have the Congressional Awards. Those go to kids, kids who have done something for other people, kids who have helped out in their community, kids who have set goals and followed them, and the goals have to include volunteer work. We have quite a few kids sign up for that in Wyoming. In fact, in most years Wyoming has more kids who get the gold medal than any other State. I did not say on a per capita basis. I want to make sure that everybody understands, in Wyoming we have 480,000 people. So sometimes on a per capita basis it is pretty easy for us. We show up in all the bad statistics because one incident drives us to the top of the charts. I want to mention that again. For congressional awards, in Wyoming we have more kids who get a gold medal than any other State--flat out numbers. About 3 years ago, there were 21 gold medals awarded in the United States. Fifteen of the kids receiving that gold medal were from Wyoming. We are very proud of the program. But the thing we like the most is kids say: We get good publicity for doing that. Good kids get good publicity. The more publicity there is that way, the more people get in the program. So we always have the largest program. I spoke at a Boy Scout Week dinner in Cheyenne. Lots of letters, again, said: Thanks for saying good things about what we are doing. I have gone on a lot longer than I anticipated going, and I particularly apologize for it because we are debating military construction. That is the bill we are considering--military construction appropriations. I have to tell you a little bit about the new dollar, the golden dollar, the Wyoming dollar. Yes, to have a new dollar in the United States, it has to go through the Banking Committee. When they noticed we were running out of the Susan B. Anthony coins, they passed a resolution to do a new dollar. And then the battle started. The resolution said it would have the image of a real woman, and every State has a number of women who are worthy to be on a coin. Trying to break the logjam, I nominated Sacajawea. She is a person of tremendous interest to the Presiding Officer because Sacajawea was born in Idaho. Sacajawea, of course, was kidnapped at a very young age in Idaho and taken to North Dakota. It was in North Dakota that she met up with Lewis and Clark and went across the United States and helped them out by using the skills, talents, and language she had learned as a child. Without Sacajawea, the Lewis and Clark expedition would have fallen far short of its goal. It might not have even made it back to Idaho. But she helped with that. I love to go on and add that not only did she get to travel the entire West through that process, but even after the territory expedition, it is with great pleasure that I can say she chose to spend her last years in Wyoming. People who have seen the West usually like to stay in Wyoming, if they possibly can. But kids in Kelly, WY, helped me promote Sacajawea and helped to get her on the coin. One of the schoolteachers wrote a song about her. His dad wrote a book about her that we used as the evidence for her importance in the United States. Of course, we are coming up on the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. So we are pleased that through the whole process, Sacajawea made it onto the coin, along with her baby. It is a lookback, but a look to the future, and it is the first time we put a baby on a coin. When we had the golden dollar celebration in Kelly, WY, the local bank--well, there is no local bank in Kelly. The nearest town is Jackson, and the bank there arranged for an armored car to come to Kelly, WY, with some of the dollars. I know it was the first time an armored car had been there. But the bank was also so kind as to invite some of the kids from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, which is where Sacajawea is buried, and also from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho. We just had a great day celebrating it. One of the things I noted was that part of Indian tradition is a thing called ``dream catchers.'' They are circular to represent endless time, and they have webs that go through them that would catch dreams and visions. It occurred to me that is a bit of what the dollar is; it is a dream catcher. It isn't any good just by itself. We call it the golden dollar, and it has been pointed out that it doesn't have gold in it. It is colored gold, distinctly from the quarter. It has smooth edges so you can tell it from the quarter. But it is a dream catcher. You have to use it in order to make a difference. Kids understand that. They know that helping other people with their dreams makes one's own dreams come true. Sometimes that is done through dollars. I mention this because, again, we are in the appropriations process. That is where we deal with dollars--trillions of dollars. It is very important that we spend those dollars as well as possible. And we are not going to get the process done if we are diverted onto a whole bunch of sense-of-the-Senate amendments, which are used a few times by people who say, ``I got that through 100-0,'' or whatever the number is. Most of them pass 100-0 because the words on them don't mean anything, except a vocal display. So I hope we can keep the discussion relevant and make sure we can do the business of the United States--the dream catching of the United States--and get our appropriations process done. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I want to use.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wanted to take this opportunity to express the heartfelt appreciation and gratitude I feel, along with my staff and my wife Diana, for the hard work and determined effort Diane Rodekohr has given the Senate and my office over these past few years. If not for Diane, or Dee as she is known to her friends, we just could not have accomplished as much for the people of Wyoming as we have been able to do since my election to the Senate four years ago. When Diana and I arrived in Washington ready to take on this new adventure in our lives, knowing we already had staff in place with experience who were committed to me and to Wyoming made all the difference. The continuity that I benefitted from having a seasoned staff helped to make a transition that was better than smooth--it was almost seamless. I'll always be grateful to Dee for staying on as State Director when she could have ridden off into the sunset to enjoy her well deserved retirement. Instead she stayed with me and with Wyoming and continued to make a difference for me, for my constituents, and for her fellow staff members who continued to look to her for her sage advice, counsel and support. Now she has made a decision to turn her attention to tending different areas of the garden of her life. I hope she fully enjoys whatever challenges await her. The Bible tells us that ``to everything there is a season''--and this is the season for Dee to enjoy her life to the fullest! May God continue to bless and watch over her. My wife, Diana, my staff and the people of Wyoming join in sending our best wishes to her for a life full of continued joy and happiness. Dee, you have truly earned that and so much more!

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, today I rise in strong support of the original committee bill, the Educational Opportunities Act of 2000, which will reauthorize for another 5 years the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. We now call it ESEA. I especially applaud my fellow members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, particularly Senator Jeffords, and also Senator Gregg, Senator Frist, Senator Hutchinson, and Senator Collins for their unusual dedication and the hours they spent working on this bill and working with every single member of the committee. I congratulate the committee for constructing a bill that contains a new recipe of support for our children as they embark on their educational journey. I am very interested in this educational journey. My oldest daughter is a teacher in Gillette, WY, an outstanding teacher of English for seventh and ninth graders. She goes the extra mile every day to make a difference in these kids' lives. I want to do everything I can to help. We are an education family. My wife has been involved in education. She just received her master's degree in adult education from the University of Wyoming by Internet while she was here in Washington with me. That is a major challenge, using some of the new technology in education in Wyoming today. It is what we can do to help kids, wherever they might be, to get a good education. That is the goal, and we do understand that goal, and we do work toward that goal. Unfortunately, the pending amendment offered by the minority leader on behalf of his Democratic colleagues does not seek to address the real academic needs of our children. The amendment is virtually a mirror image of the status quo. Earlier today, somebody said if the Republicans could not use the words ``status quo,'' we could not debate. In this instance, that would be true. The proposal does not reflect an investment in understanding where the Federal role in education has failed our children; therefore, the proposal lacks the payoff our children and parents are demanding, and that is a better education. In fact, one of the only and certainly the most notable change included in the Democratic proposal eliminates funding for many small and rural schools under title IV, the safe and drug-free school section of ESEA--simply writing off communities that under current law receive grants that I have to admit are too small to fund any meaningful initiatives. It is not a productive solution. Our bill fixes that problem, instead of dismissing it, with a new rural flexibility initiative. The other side of the aisle talks about their desire to get the money to the poor kids. On behalf of the Governors of this country, I have to object to some of the accusations made against them today. Education innovation has come from the Governors of this country. Their States have been the laboratories for this country. We have used some of the things they have suggested, and they have worked. They are light years ahead of the Federal ESEA. They are the ones on which we rely. And we are saying, do not trust those Governors with any money? In my State, we have State equalization that takes a whole bunch of these problems that have been laid out here and forces the rich districts to provide for the poor districts so every kid has an equal chance. We provide for that to be taken to court regularly to make sure it still meets all the guidelines of an equal education. I have to tell you, ``equal'' refers to buildings, too. So when I hear some of these things about needing school construction, that is something that is being forced to happen in Wyoming so all kids have a good place to go to school. That was a Republican initiative by a Governor. State accountability. Our State believes in measuring the achievement of the kids, knowing how the kids are doing. It isn't important for the district to know how the kids are doing; it is important for the parents to know how the kids are doing, so the parents can be more involved in the education of their kids. They even have report cards they send home that evaluate the whole school to see how the school is doing. This substitute that has been laid down again is an unfortunate example of resistance to acknowledging and accommodating the differing needs among communities and schools. Wyoming cannot be the only State that has a unique way of doing things, which is why I am so pleased that the underlying bill does reflect a fresh look at the Federal role in education. This is a priority issue for voters because they are concerned with our historic lack of concern for their specific needs. With this bill before us, we finally have the opportunity to honestly say we have listened and have moved away from the stalemate of entrenched Washington to the solutions of the future. While the Federal Government does not hold all the answers, and certainly does not hold the purse strings for the bulk of education spending, there is a clear role for leadership and technical assistance as schools lead the way toward academic improvement for all children. Right now, the Federal Government provides 7 percent of the money-- just 7 percent of the money--in education and requires over 50 percent of the paperwork. Yes, to check on those funds that we give away, we inundate principals and teachers with tons of unproductive proof. Our bill requires less paperwork and makes it count. More could and should be done to reduce paperwork. On this reauthorization we are talking about, everybody seems to agree we have a failed system out there, or at least one that definitely needs improvement. I hear that from the other side of the aisle. I have to say, the other side of the aisle was in the majority the last five times this bill was authorized. They settled for less than 7 percent of the funds and 50 percent of the paperwork. We tried it their way. Everyone has said we need change. The committee bill is change. Let's try it our way once. Our bill essentially provides three options of Federal support for State and local education initiatives, as decided by local communities. The variation between States' economies, geography, student-body composition, and position on the ``academic achievement'' spectrum warrants an improvement in how the Federal Government can be most helpful to each State's unique needs. For example, States that have a self-sufficient internal infrastructure through which they are able to provide local schools with high-quality technical assistance are not dependent on the Federal Department of Education for that kind of support. Those States have been wrestling with the regimented requirements the Federal programs currently demand, despite their ability to not only do it themselves, but for the States to do it better. As a good-faith act of Federal leadership on education improvement, we need to accommodate and support the progress of States that has outgrown the 35-year-old model of ESEA. This is new and, therefore, untested ground. But isn't that what learning is? It is time for all of us to get educated and to make room for improvements and innovations in our kids' education. So the first piece of the underlying bill is a demonstration program for up to 15 States to break from the title-by-title categorical programs under ESEA and develop new proposals for executing excellence in education. While the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA tacked sharply in the direction of measuring what kids learn through the end of the day through standards and assessments rather than solely concentrating on how they are learning, this demonstration program, called Straight A's, tests that model by allowing States to implement an education plan completely outside the current input requirements of ESEA. Again, though, the sharp distinction is that those States will be held accountable for high standards of student achievement in exchange for such freedom with Federal tax dollars. The second option under the bill was developed in partnership with the National Governors' Association. In another new proposal for improving education, States will now be able to enter into education performance partnerships with the Federal Government. This program will require States to develop a plan similar to the Straight A's education and achievement plan to significantly increase student performance over a period of 5 years. The difference between this option and Straight A's, however, is that States will be required to maintain the targeting of title I to specifically serve the low-income and disadvantaged children those dollars were historically intended to help. While I support the innovation, flexibility, and commitment to meaningful accountability those two new options represent, my home State of Wyoming is actually best served by the third piece of the bill. Under the third option, States can choose to remain under the existing categorical and title structure of the current law. Make no mistake, there have been modernizations to the current law which are intended to make categorical programs do a better job of serving the unique needs of States. That is an improvement in the committee bill. I am sorry more was not done in further reducing the administrative burden associated with the Federal education funds, but I believe we did make substantial progress in leveling the playing field for small States and rural communities; their education needs are just as important as urban needs. Most notably, the supercategorical program known as the Class Size Reduction Program--or 100,000 new teachers--was evaluating and appropriately authorized by the committee. I need not remind everyone that the program, while funded over the last 2 years, was essentially an appropriations rider and had never been considered before the HELP Committee. Now the committee has assigned this program to its rightful place in ESEA. It is part of title VI, the innovative education title. This is the funding source States can use to accommodate existing needs for which there are no other or insufficient resources as well as to innovate outside the box of the other categorical titles under ESEA. If it is more professional development, more reading excellence initiatives, or a new teacher that a school needs, this is where they can fund it. If you cannot pay teachers enough to retain them, what good is another slot? We have a teacher shortage in this country. We have a shortage among many professionals, but the shortage that will affect our future the most is that of teachers. For a small State such as Wyoming, which in the first year of the Class Size Reduction Program required a waiver because we could not even meet the consortia title--we had already met the requirements for class size reduction. We had provided another amendment that would allow you to group some of that under a waiver. We could not even meet that requirement for eligibility, so the committee version of ESEA makes good sense. Also, a notable modernization of the current law approach is the new Rural Flex Initiative. To quote from the committee report: The purpose of this part is to provide adequate funding to rural school districts to enhance their ability to recruit and retain teachers, strengthen the quality of instruction, and improve student achievement. The provision would allow rural school districts with enrollments of fewer than 600 kids to pull funds from titles II, IV, and VI to spend on local improvement initiatives that--and this is important--would enable the small schools to offer their kids programs and activities of sufficient size, scope, and quality to have a significant impact upon student and overall school performance. In Wyoming, there is such a thing as qualifying for a $200 grant, based on current formulas, to run a drug prevention program. Well, $200 is not meaningful and it is not fair. So I applaud my fellow rural Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, for initiating this provision on behalf of all the kids in rural schools. I have to spend just a moment explaining why, despite how good Straight A's and performance partnerships might be for some States, they are not quite the right fit for Wyoming. It is actually quite simple. Wyoming is small in population. We are the smallest population State in the Union, with the second largest relative land mass per person. My county is the same size as the State of Connecticut. That is just my county in Wyoming. The last census in that county, which is 110 miles by 60 miles, recorded a total of 33,000 people--two towns. The biggest one, which we call a city, had 22,000 people. The rest were spread over that huge geographical area. Resources are scarce, and therefore we focus on the basics of education. Simply, there isn't the money, the infrastructure, or, necessarily, the inclination to get fancy. We even have single-child schools. We have driving compensation for parents willing to drive their kids to school because they are the only child on a bus route 60 miles one way. We have school districts with so few kids that the district superintendent teaches classes. We are pioneers in compressed video classes to provide some variety in class offerings--but no teacher is in the room with the student. That is part of the State's charm and its integrity, but it also means that Wyoming utilizes and, in fact, relies upon technical assistance provided by the Federal Department of Education. That is still in here. We don't want the same kind of education that Massachusetts provides. We know our kids can be as well educated but not the same way as the kids in California. I can assure you we don't want somebody in Washington, DC, deciding how we will do things. When you take away the titles under current law, you also take away the technical assistance that goes with them. To be clear, Wyoming hates the paperwork and the bureaucracy as much as I do. But while we are making progress on getting that in check, we cannot throw out the baby with the bath water. Whether it be manuals, guidelines, protocols, research-based models on teaching methods, or the human resources that are the good side of Federal assistance in educating our kids, Wyoming is using it. About 5 years ago, Wyoming gathered its stakeholders in education, from parents and teachers to administrators and legislators, and they developed a plan to bring our kids to the top of the charts. A new system for reporting to parents on statewide, school-by-school progress is up and running. While it is a rocky road, new, challenging, State content standards are near completion with assessment mechanisms soon to follow. It takes a while to develop those, particularly in a small State. You can't say: Wyoming, have it next month or next year, without providing unusually large dollars to do it. It has been no small task to get where we are and it has been, in part, predicated on Federal resources available through the current structure of ESEA. I am not willing to pull the rug out from under my constituents when the light is right there at the end of the tunnel. That is why I am enthusiastic about the options this bill contains. It is a different way for everybody to do different things and make sure their kids are educated. While I don't want to set back Wyoming's efforts by ignoring current law--with improvements--as a viable option for States, I also don't want to impose on States that can do it better another way the structured method of current law. Earlier, there were some comments about Ed-Flex. I have to take on a couple of those. I have heard a number of my colleagues contend that since only a few States have applied for Ed-Flex so far, additional flexibility is not needed or wanted. Fifty Governors signed a letter asking for Ed-Flex. Now, with regard to Ed-Flex guidance, it wasn't even issued by the Department of Education and sent to the States until November of 1999. The bill, as passed, was only 17 pages when the President signed it into law on April 29, 1999. According to State education agencies, the Federal Government has complete control over the application process and the State must tailor its application to the Department's guidelines and expectations. Even the Department of Education wrote in a May 1999 memo: States are strongly encouraged to refer to the guidance before submitting their Ed-Flex applications to the Department. In addition to the guidance issue, officials at the Department of Education have informed the Nation's Governors that contrary to both their own guidance and the Ed-Flex law, written along with Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, they will only approve applications for States that are in compliance with title I requirements. The law, and the Department's guidance, allow a State to participate if it has made substantial progress toward meeting the requirements under title I-- substantial progress. Despite these rather significant hurdles, a number of States, including Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and others, have been working on their applications for months. Tennessee submitted its application in early April. North Carolina has also submitted its application. When Congress passed Ed-Flex, we did not expect every State to take advantage of the new law, but we did think it was important that every State be afforded the opportunity to utilize the flexibility available under the law to support innovation and cut through Federal redtape. The Senate is currently considering several other proposals for increased flexibility that will be available to States, at their option. Because every State will not choose to participate, however, does not mean the policy is unnecessary or a failure. Some States will choose to utilize the new authorities and some will not, but all States should have the opportunity. The Federal Government should not stand in the way of States that want to innovate and reform to meet the specific needs of their own children. I remind you again that the States have been the laboratories for innovation, not the Federal Government. The bottom line here is accommodating success in every State for every child. I think that is a tall order, but I think we have filled it with the committee bill. The opponents of choice and innovation do not have a healthy understanding of our role. I suggest that everyone look out across the country, and then look in their backyard and, only then, come here and argue that there is no variation needed for our children. I won't assume to argue against the needs of any other community. I simply ask the same of my colleagues. I yield the floor.