Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Civil Rights Procedures Protection Act of 2001. I am pleased that my cosponsors in the 106th Congress--Senators Leahy, Kennedy and Torricelli--have joined with me again in support of this legislation. This bill addresses the rapidly growing and very troubling practice of employers conditioning employment or professional advancement upon the employees' willingness to submit claims of discrimination or harassment to arbitration. In other words, employees who raise claims of harassment or discrimination must submit those claims to arbitration, foregoing the right to go to court and any other remedies that may exist under the laws of this nation. The right to seek redress in a court of law--including the right to a jury trial--is one of the most basic rights accorded to employees in this nation. In the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress expressly created this right to a jury trial for employees when it voted overwhelmingly to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But employers are undermining the intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and other civil rights and labor laws, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, by requiring all employees to submit to mandatory, binding arbitration as a condition of employment or advancement before a claim has arisen. Increasingly, working men and women are faced with the choice of accepting a mandatory arbitration clause in their employment agreement or no employment at all. Despite the appearance of a freely negotiated contract, the reality often amounts to a non-negotiable requirement that prospective employees relinquish their rights to redress in a court of law. Mandatory arbitration allows employers to tell all current and prospective employees in effect, ``If you want to work for us, you will have to check your rights at the door.'' These requirements have been referred to as ``front door'' contracts: they require an employee to surrender certain rights in order to ``get in the front door.'' As a nation which values work and deplores discrimination, we should not allow this practice to continue. How then does the practice of mandatory, binding arbitration comport with the purpose and spirit of our nation's civil rights and sexual harassment laws? The answer is simply that it does not. To address the growing incidents of compulsory arbitration, the Civil Rights Procedures Protection Act of 2001 amends seven civil rights statutes to guarantee that a federal civil rights or sexual harassment plaintiff can still seek the protection of the U.S. courts rather than be forced into mandatory, binding arbitration. Specifically, this legislation affects claims raised under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, Section 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 1977 of the Revised Statutes, the Equal Pay Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Federal Arbitration Act, FAA. By amending the Federal Arbitration Act, the protections of this legislation are extended to claims of unlawful discrimination arising under State or local law and other Federal laws that prohibit job discrimination. This bill is not anti-arbitration, anti-mediation, or anti- alternative dispute resolution. I have long been and will remain a strong supporter of voluntary, alternative methods of dispute resolution that allow the parties to choose whether to go to court. Rather, this bill targets only mandatory, binding arbitration clauses in employment contracts entered into by the employer and employee before a dispute has even arisen. The 107th Congress marks the fifth successive Congress in which I have introduced this important legislation. In recent years, we have made some advances in addressing the unfair use of mandatory, binding arbitration clauses. As a result of a hearing in the Banking Committee in 1998 and a series of articles and editorials in prominent periodicals, the National Association of Securities Dealers, NASD, agreed to remove the mandatory binding arbitration clause from its Form U-4, which all prospective securities dealers sign as a condition of employment. The NASD's decision to remove the binding arbitration clause, however, does not prohibit its constituent organizations from including a mandatory, binding arbitration clause in their own employment agreements, even if it is not mandated by the industry as a whole. Last spring, the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, chaired by my distinguished colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, held a hearing on contractual mandatory, binding arbitration and highlighted the problem in the employment area. These are positive developments, but the trend toward the use of mandatory, binding arbitration clauses continues. A legislative fix is needed. The Civil Rights Procedures Protection Act restores the right of working men and women to pursue their claims in the venue that they choose, which, in turn, restores the spirit of our nation's civil rights and sexual harassment laws. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, while the distinguished Senator certainly has it right, he knows what it is like to watch Tommy Thompson in action and to watch him try to solve a problem. His assessment is right and so is the assessment of the former Governor and now new Senator from Delaware who, as so many other Governors, has told me how much they have enjoyed and benefitted from working with Governor Thompson. It is uniform. That is also the experience we have had in Wisconsin. I think I speak for myself, as well as for the senior Senator, Mr. Kohl. We are the two Senators who have worked with Tommy Thompson throughout the 14 years he has been the Governor of our State. No one in the long history of our great State has served as Governor longer, and he is a very popular Governor. For me, I marvel at him. I used to listen to older legislators talk about having known a person for many years and worked with them for many years. I am getting there with this one. I started working with Governor Thompson, then State representative Tommy Thompson, when I was in my twenties. Now 18 years later, I can tell you it has been an excellent relationship. Our roles have changed over the years, but consistently I have found it a pleasure to work with Governor Thompson, and I think you will find it the same when he becomes Secretary. We worked together on a wide range of issues--increasing access to home- and community-based services for the elderly and the disabled, and expanding health care for children and their families. I want to mention a couple things. Everybody talks about, of course, the signature issue of Governor Thompson--welfare reform. It is probably the most well-known example of his can-do attitude. We in Wisconsin can be proud that our State was the first in the Nation to submit a welfare plan under the 1996 law that created the temporary services to needy families, or the TANF program. In fact, I am very proud of our Governor on this. The Wisconsin plan was submitted on the very day that President Clinton signed the TANF program into law. Tommy Thompson has also been very devoted to the issue of child care. Because of his record, Wisconsin is also proud of its rating among the top 10 States in the Nation for the quality of child care by Working Mother magazine. The national recognition is a testament to the unprecedented investments Wisconsin continues to make in safe, affordable child care. In the area of research, which is so very important across the country, and especially to those of us in Wisconsin and those of us who take such pride in our great university and its research abilities, this man, as Governor, has been a great supporter of medical research. He has been a vocal advocate of funding research at the University of Wisconsin, setting up an incubator for transferring that technology to the private sector. The Governor proposed a $317 million initiative to build a series of state-of-the-art research centers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus. With regard to what we like to call BadgerCare, Tommy Thompson has worked with both Republicans and Democrats in Wisconsin to enact BadgerCare, Wisconsin's program to expand health care coverage opportunities to children and their families. He has tirelessly promoted BadgerCare's ideals--the idea that children have a much better chance of being healthy and doing well in school when they have a chance to live in a healthy family. When BadgerCare took effect on July 1, 1999, again, as has been so often the case under Governor Thompson, Wisconsin became the first State in the Nation with a health insurance program that supports parents as well as children. This program has had a number of successes. According to the most recent statistics, more than 74,000 children and their families are now covered under BadgerCare. Finally, I want to say a word about something on which Tommy Thompson and I worked together for many years, and that is our so-called Community Options Program in Wisconsin. We worked together, on a bipartisan basis, to support efforts to expand what we call the Community Options Program, which, better than any other State in the country, in my view, provides cost-effective home- and community-based, long-term care alternatives to institutions and nursing homes. Wisconsin was already on this issue and working effectively to find alternatives in the late 1970s, but there has been significant growth, on a bipartisan basis, on this issue ever since Governor Thompson became Governor in 1986. I think we all recognize that a lot more needs to be done to reform our long-term care system. It is one of my highest priorities. I noticed, when I had the honor of introducing Governor Thompson to the HELP Committee, that many of the members mentioned long-term care. Perhaps the most mentioned issue was either home- and community-based care or home health care. Governor Thompson is the right person to work on this issue. I believe he will use his experience as an innovator to make it easier for States such as Wisconsin to pursue their own reforms, such as making Federal long-term waivers more flexible and making it easier for States to apply for those waivers. So after 18 years, I can talk about a lot of other very positive reasons we are lucky to have Tommy Thompson as our new Secretary of Health and Human Services. But let me say, all of us in Wisconsin are very proud, and it will take some getting used to having a different Governor just because it seems as though Tommy Thompson has been our Governor forever. Of course, he has been very popular in that regard. But I think it will be a good opportunity for the country to see firsthand what it is like to have a person who has a ``can-do'' attitude, a person who really enjoys simply solving problems rather than trying to divide people. I think that has been a hallmark of his role as our Governor. I think it will be a hallmark of his role as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I thank the ranking member and thank the Chair. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I oppose the conference report of the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, which has become the vehicle for the final budget agreement for fiscal year 2001, and I regret the need to do so for there are many laudable provisions included in this package. I was particularly pleased with the boost in funding for Pell grants, an absolutely critical program that ensures lower income students have the opportunity to go to college. Welcome, too, was the additional support for class size reduction and special education funding. This latter program, though, is still far short of where it ought to be. While this spending package brings funding for the Federal share of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to 15 percent, the highest it has ever been, it is still far short of the 40 percent which represents the maximum Federal contribution under IDEA. I was proud to join with my colleague from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords, in offering an amendment to the budget resolution earlier this year which would have provided that full funding for IDEA, and though we were not successful, I very much hope my colleagues will make full funding of this program a high priority. I was also pleased that this measure includes needed increases in support for Social Services Block Grants, a vitally important program that helps counties and social service providers serve our most vulnerable citizens and that had been drastically cut in earlier versions of the Labor, Health and Human Services spending bill. As well, I was glad that additional funding was provided to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, and that additional resources were included to relieve funding pressures on those who provide Medicare services. In this last area, I was especially pleased that the legislation will provide relief for Medicare services delivered in rural areas and that it will delay for one year the scheduled 15 percent cut to home health care agencies. Unfortunately, this massive spending bill also includes a number of highly questionable provisions. I am deeply concerned that the Medicare package is disproportionately skewed toward HMOs, providers that do not serve the vast majority of Wisconsinites. The underlying reimbursement formula for Medicare HMOs is grossly unfair, punishing those areas, like Wisconsin, with efficient, low-cost health care providers. Significant reform is needed for the Medicare HMO reimbursement formula, and until that reform is undertaken, we should not pour billions and billions more into a Medicare HMO system that is so fundamentally unfair. Instead, those funds should have been targeted toward provisions to ensure adequate access to home health care and funding a significant prescription drug benefit. In this regard, I am particularly disappointed that Congress only delayed, and did not eliminate, the 15 percent reduction in payments to home health care agencies and only ordered a study of the inclusion of medical supplies in new payment system. More broadly, this measure contains the same defects that previous large end-of-session omnibus spending bills have contained; namely, special interest provisions that are slipped into the must-pass bill to avoid the usual committee scrutiny and full review on the floors of the House and Senate. My good friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, has identified at least $1.9 billion in pork barrel spending in this year's version of the omnibus spending bill. He notes that in the conference report for the Commerce, State, and Justice appropriations bill, itself an add-on to the Labor, Health, and Social Services appropriations bill, are many earmarked spending provisions that have never undergone appropriate review, including: $200,000 for the Kotzebue Sound test fishery for king crab and sea snail; $3 million for Red Snapper research; $300,000 for research on the Charleston bump; $150,000 for lobster sampling; $1 million for Hawaiian coral reef monitoring; and $1 million for the implementation of the National Height Modernization system in North Carolina. I am willing to concede that some of these programs may have merit. But if they do have merit, those who advocate funding for them ought to make their case before the appropriate authorizing committees and submit their case to the floor of the House and Senate in the normal way. That they chose instead to slip these matters secretly into a massive, must-pass spending bill at least suggests that some of these programs would not have withstood thorough scrutiny. Mr. President, these special interest provisions continue to be one of the best arguments for reforming an appropriations and budget process that has led to an annual, end of the fiscal year budget wreck. Unwarranted and wasteful special interest provisions flourish in such an environment, and fundamental reform, including moving to a biennial budget process, is the only solution. I very much hope such reform will be the very highest priority of this body during the 107th Congress and that this year's pork-laden omnibus appropriations bill will be the last of its kind.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague Senator Kohl to introduce the ``Dairy Promotion Fairness Act.'' This legislation provides equity to domestic producers who have been paying into the Promotion Program while importers have gotten a free ride. Since the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board conducts only generic promotion and general product research, domestic farmers and importers alike benefit from these actions. The Dairy Promotion Fairness Act requires that all dairy product importers contribute to the program. This bill supports the dairy marketing board's efforts to educate consumers on the nutritional value of dairy products. It also treats our farmers fairly--by asking them not to bear the entire financial burden for a promotional program that benefits importers and domestic producers alike. We have put our own producers at a competitive disadvantage for far too long. It's high time importers paid for their fair share of the program. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Quality Cheese Act of 2000. This legislation will protect the consumer, save taxpayer dollars and provide support to America's dairy farmers, who have taken a beating in the marketplace in recent years. When Wisconsin consumers have the choice, they will choose natural Wisconsin cheese, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) may change current law, and consumers won't know whether cheese is really all natural or not. If the federal government creates a loophole for imitation cheese ingredients to be used in U.S. cheese vats, cheese bearing the labels ``domestic'' and ``natural'' will no longer be truly accurate. If USDA and FDA allow a change in federal rules, imitation milk proteins known as milk protein concentrate or casein, could be used to make cheese in place of the wholesome natural milk produced by cows in Wisconsin or other part of the U.S. Mr. President, I am deeply concerned by recent efforts to change America's natural cheese standard. This effort to allow milk protein concentrate and casein into natural cheese products flies in the face of logic and could create a loophole for unlimited amounts of substandard imported milk proteins to enter U.S. cheese vats. My legislation will close this loophole and ensure that consumers can be confident that they are buying natural cheese when they see the natural label. Our dairy farmers have invested heavily in processes that make the best quality cheese ingredients, and I am concerned about recent efforts to change the law that would penalize them for those efforts by allowing lower quality ingredients to flood the U.S. market. Over the past decade, cheese consumption has risen at a strong pace due to promotional and marketing efforts and investments by dairy farmers across the country. Year after year, per capita cheese consumption has risen at a steady rate. Back in the 1980's, when I served in the Wisconsin State Senate, cheese consumption topped 20 pounds per person. During the 1990s consumption increased by over 25 percent, and passed 25 pounds per person. Last year we saw an even more dramatic increase when per capita cheese consumption rose an amazing 1.5 pounds to reach 29.8 pounds. This one-year increase amounts to the largest expansion since 1982! I am proud to say that my home state of Wisconsin, America's dairyland, was one of the main engines behind this growth. After all, when consumers see the label ``Wisconsin Cheese,'' they know that it is synonymous with quality. Over the past two decades consumers have increased their cheese consumption due to their understanding, and taste for the quality natural cheese produced by America's dairy industry. Recent proposals to change to our natural cheese standard could decrease consumption of natural cheese. These declines could result from concerns about the origin of casein and other forms of dry UF milk. The vast majority of dry ultra filtered milk originates from countries with State Trading Enterprises. Many of these countries subsidize their dairy exports through these trading mechanisms, and have quality standards that are well below those of the United States. While it is difficult to obtain specific numbers about the amount of dry UF milk produced in foreign countries, I have heard disturbing stories about the conditions under which the casein and milk proteins are sometimes produced. For the most part, dry UF milk is not produced in the US. In fact, it is, for the most part, produced in countries where sanitary standards are well below those of the United States. These products are sold on the international market, and under the proposed rule they could be labeled as natural cheese. This cheap, low quality dry UF milk tends to leave cheese greasy and increases separation problems. The addition of this kind of milk will certainly leave the wholesome reputation of ``natural cheese'' significantly tarnished in the eyes of the consumer. This change would seriously compromise decades of work by America's dairy farmers to build up domestic cheese consumption levels. It is simply not fair to America's farmers! Mr. President, consumers have a right to know if the cheese they buy is unnatural. And by allowing unnatural dry UF milk into cheese, we are denying consumers the entire picture. This legislation will paint the entire picture for the consumer, and allow them enough information to select cheese made from truly natural ingredients. Allowing dry Ultra-Filtered milk into cheeses will have a significant adverse impact on dairy producers throughout the United States. Some estimate that the annual effect of the change on the dairy farm sector of the economy could be more than $100 million. The proposed change to our natural cheese standard would also harm the American taxpayer. If we allow dry UF milk to be used in cheese we will effectively permit unrestricted importation of these ingredients into the United States. Because there are no tariffs and quotas on these ingredients, these heavily subsidized products will displace natural domestic dairy ingredients. These unnatural domestic dairy products will enter our domestic cheese market and may further depress dairy prices paid to American dairy producers. Low dairy prices result in increased costs to the dairy price support program. So, at the same time that U.S. dairy farmers are receiving lower prices, the U.S. taxpayer will be paying more for the dairy price support program. Mr. President, this change does not benefit the dairy farmer, consumer or taxpayer. Who then is it good for? The obvious answer is nobody. America's farmers have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to create the best cheese industry in the world. They should not be penalized for their efforts. This legislation addresses the concerns of farmers, consumers and taxpayers by prohibiting dry ultra-filtered milk from being included in America's natural cheese standard. Congress must shut the door on any backdoor efforts to stack the deck against America's dairy farmers. And we must pass my legislation that prevents a loophole that would allow changes that hurt the consumer, taxpayer and dairy farmer. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation to reduce the number of presidential political appointees. Specifically, the bill caps the number of political appointees at 2,000. The most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates of this measure is that it would save $382 million over the next five years, and $872 million over the next 10 years. The bill is based on the recommendations of a number of distinguished panels, including most recently, the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Presidential Appointment Process. The task force findings are only the latest in a long line of recommendations that we reduce the number of political appointees in the Executive Branch. For many years, the proposal has been included in CBO's annual publication Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options, and it was one of the central recommendations of the National Commission on the Public Service, chaired by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. Between 1980 and 1992, the ranks of political appointees grew 17 percent, over three times as fast as the total number of Executive Branch employees and looking back to 1960 their growth is even more dramatic. In his book Thickening Government: Federal Government and the Diffusion of Accountability, author Paul Light reports a startling 430 percent increase in the number of political appointees and senior executives in Federal government between 1960 and 1992. Mr. President, it is essential that any Administration be able to implement the policies that brought it into office in the first place. Government must be responsive to the priorities of the electorate. But as the Volcker Commission noted, the great increase in the number of political appointees in recent years has not made government more effective or more responsive to political leadership. Indeed, in their report, the Volcker Commission argued that the growing number of presidential appointees may ``actually undermine effective presidential control of the executive branch.'' The report went on to note that the large number of presidential appointees simply cannot be managed effectively by any President or White House. The Commission argued that this lack of control and political focus ``may actually dilute the President's ability to develop and enforce a coherent, coordinated program and to hold cabinet secretaries accountable.'' Adding organizational layers of political appointees can also restrict access to important resources, while doing nothing to reduce bureaucratic impediments. In commenting on this problem, author Light noted, ``As this sediment has thickened over the decades, presidents have grown increasingly distant from the lines of government, and the front lines from them.'' Light added that ``Presidential leadership, therefore, may reside in stripping government of the barriers to doing its job effectively. . .'' The Volcker Commission also asserted that this thickening barrier of temporary appointees between the President and career officials can undermine development of a proficient civil service by discouraging talented individuals from remaining in government service or even pursuing a career in government in the first place. Mr. President, former Attorney General Elliot Richardson put it well when he noted: But a White House personnel assistant sees the position of deputy assistant secretary as a fourth-echelon slot. In his eyes that makes it an ideal reward for a fourth-echelon political type - a campaign advance man, or a regional political organizer. For a senior civil servant, it's irksome to see a position one has spent 20 or 30 years preparing for preempted by an outsider who doesn't know the difference between an audit exception and an authorizing bill. Mr. President, the report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Presidential Appointment Process identified another problem aggravated by the excessive number of political appointees, namely the increasingly lengthy process of filling these thousands of positions. As the Task Force reported, both President Bush and President Clinton were into their presidencies for many months before their leadership teams were fully in place. The Task Force noted that ``on average, appointees in both administrations were confirmed more than eight months after the inauguration--one-sixth of an entire presidential term.'' By contrast, the report noted that in the presidential transition of 1960, ``Kennedy appointees were confirmed, on average, two and a half months after the inauguration.'' In addition to leaving vacancies among key leadership positions in government, the appointment process delays can have a detrimental effect on potential appointees. The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force reported that appointees can ``wait for months on end in a limbo of uncertainty and awkward transition from the private to the public sector.'' Mr. President, as we reduce the number of government employees, streamline agencies, and make government more responsive, we should also right size the number of political appointees, ensuring a sufficient number to implement the policies of any Administration without burdening the Federal budget with unnecessary, possibly counterproductive political jobs. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a measure that will begin to restore to many dairy farmers throughout the nation, part of the market power they have lost in recent years. Mr. President, when dairy farmers across the country voted on a referendum two years ago--perhaps the most significant change in dairy policy in sixty years--they didn't actually get to vote. Instead, their dairy marketing cooperatives will cast their votes for them. This procedure is called bloc voting and it is used all the time. Basically, a Cooperative's Board of Directors decides that, in the interest of time, bloc voting will be implemented for that particular vote. In the interest of time, but not always in the interest of their producer owner-members. Mr. President, I do think that bloc voting can be a useful tool in some circumstances, but I have serious concerns about its use in every circumstance. Farmers in Wisconsin and in other states tell me that they do not agree with their Cooperative's view on every vote. Yet, they have no way to preserve their right to make their single vote count. After speaking to farmers and officials at USDA, I have learned that if a Cooperative bloc votes, individual members simply have no opportunity to voice opinions separately. That seems unfair when you consider what a monumental issue is at stake. Coops and their members do not always have identical interests. We shouldn't ask farmers to ignore that fact. Mr. President, the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act of 2001 is simple and fair. It provides that a cooperative cannot deny any of its members a ballot if one or two or ten or all of the members chose to vote on their own. This will in no way slow down the process at USDA; implementation of any rule or regulation would be able to proceed on schedule. Also, I do not expect that this would change the final outcome of any given vote. Coops could still cast votes for their members who do not exercise their right to vote individually. And to the extent that coops represent farmers interest, farmers are likely to vote along with the coops, but whether they join the coops or not, farmers deserve the right to vote according to their own views. I urge my colleagues to return just a little bit of power to America's farmers, and a little bit of pure democracy to the vote on issues that have such an impact on their future. I urge my colleagues to support the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act, a dairy bill without regional bias. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Dairy Farmers Viability Act, legislation to establish a Commission to provide Congress with legislative and administrative recommendations to address dairy farming prices, stability, and marketplace competition and concentration. As Congress moves to revise the 1996 farm bill, it is of paramount importance that we fashion dairy policies to meet the needs of all dairy farmers. I have taken the floor a number of times to talk about the challenges facing Wisconsin's dairy farmers, and many of those challenges are a result of inequities in the current pricing structure of milk. While I may disagree on many levels with my friend from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, there are a number of issues that face all dairy farmers, whether they are in Vermont, Idaho or Wisconsin. This commission will help Congress address many of these common concerns, such as reducing the concentration in the marketplace, increasing competition in rural America, and improving farm-gate prices. I hope my colleagues will work with us to move this commission forward quickly and help to address the concerns of dairy farmers nationwide. Mr. President, I ask that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a measure which will serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system. The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For sixty years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a high price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price for fluid milk increases depending on the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, even though most milk marketing orders do not receive any milk from Wisconsin. The bill I introduce today will prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets. This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk. This one change is so crucial to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. By providing disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creating artificial economic incentives for milk production, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk in some parts of the country, the prices have led to excess production. The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down. The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995 some regions of the U.S., notably the Central states and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production, that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin. The market distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in federal orders are manifest in the Congressional Budget Office estimate that eliminating the orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concludes, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions which would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses show that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal Orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions. While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs. Mr. President, that is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is neither the lowest cost production area nor a primary source of reserve supplies of milk. In many of the markets with higher fluid milk differentials, milk is produced efficiently, and in some cases, at lower cost than the upper Midwest. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, specifically California, which now leads the nation in milk production. Fluid milk prices should have been lowered to reflect that trend. Instead, in 1985, the prices were increased for markets distant from Eau Claire. USDA has refused to use the administrative authority provided by Congress to make the appropriate adjustments to reflect economic realities. They continue to stand behind single-basing-point pricing. The result has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because they can't produce a product that can compete in the market place, but because the system discriminates against them. Today, Wisconsin loses dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate of the region. Other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly. In an unregulated market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be fair. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this out-dated system and work to eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am today re-introducing legislation terminating the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), a medical school run by the Department of Defense. The measure is one I proposed when I ran for the U.S. Senate, and was part of a larger, 82 point plan to reduce the Federal budget deficit. The most recent estimates of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project that terminating the school would save $273 million over the next five years, and when completely phased-out, would generate $450 million in savings over five years. USUHS was created in 1972 to meet an expected shortage of military medical personnel. Today, however, USUHS accounts for only a small fraction of the military's new physicians, less than 12 percent in 1994 according to CBO. This contrasts dramatically with the military's scholarship program which provided over 80 percent of the military's new physicians in that year. Mr. President, what is even more troubling is that USUHS is also the single most costly source of new physicians for the military. CBO reports that based on figures from 1995, each USUHS trained physician costs the military $615,000. By comparison, the scholarship program cost about $125,000 per doctor, with other sources providing new physicians at a cost of $60,000. As CBO has noted, even adjusting for the lengthier service commitment required of USUHS trained physicians, the cost of training them is still higher than that of training physicians from other sources, an assessment shared by the Pentagon itself. Indeed, CBO's estimate of the savings generated by this measure also includes the cost of obtaining physicians from other sources. The House of Representatives has voted to terminate this program on several occasions, and the Vice President's National Performance Review joined others, ranging from the Grace Commission to the CBO, in raising the question of whether this medical school, which graduated its first class in 1980, should be closed because it is so much more costly than alternative sources of physicians for the military. Mr. President, the real issue we must address is whether USUHS is essential to the needs of today's military structure, or if we can do without this costly program. The proponents of USUHS frequently cite the higher retention rates of USUHS graduates over physicians obtained from other sources as a justification for continuation of this program, but while a greater percentage of USUHS trained physicians may remain in the military longer than those from other sources, the Pentagon indicates that the alternative sources already provide an appropriate mix of retention rates. Testimony by the Department of Defense before the Subcommittee on Force Requirements and Personnel noted that the military's scholarship program meets the retention needs of the services. And while USUHS only provides a small fraction of the military's new physicians, it is important to note that relying primarily on these other sources has not compromised the ability of military physicians to meet the needs of the Pentagon. According to the Office of Management and Budget, of the approximately 2,000 physicians serving in Desert Storm, only 103, about 5%, were USUHS trained. Mr. President, let me conclude by recognizing that USUHS has some dedicated supporters in the U.S. Senate, and I realize that there are legitimate arguments that those supporters have made in defense of this institution. The problem, however, is that the federal government cannot afford to continue every program that provides some useful function. This is especially true in the area of defense spending. Many in this body argue that the Defense budget is too tight, that a significant increase in spending is needed to address concerns about shortfalls in recruitment and retention, maintenance backlogs, and other indicators of a lower level of readiness. Mr. President, the debate over our level of readiness is certainly important, and it may well be that more Defense funding should be channeled to these specific areas of concern. But before advocates of an increased Defense budget ask taxpayers to foot the bill for hundreds of billions more in spending, they owe it to those taxpayers to trim Defense programs that are not justified. In the face of our staggering national debt, we must prioritize and eliminate programs that can no longer be sustained with limited federal dollars, or where a more cost-effective means of fulfilling those functions can be substituted. The future of USUHS continues to be debated precisely because it does not appear to pass the higher threshold tests which must be applied to all federal spending programs. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Equal Access to Justice Reform Amendments of 2001. This legislation contains adjustments to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) that will streamline and improve the process of awarding attorney's fees to private parties who prevail in litigation against the Federal government. This is the now the fourth Congress in which I have introduced this legislation. I believe these reforms are an important step in reducing the burden of defending government litigation for many individuals and small businesses. I am very pleased to be joined in introducing this legislation once again this year by my friend from Arkansas, Sen. Tim Hutchinson. We hope that by working on a bipartisan basis on this important project we can improve the chances that it can become law. Over the years, members of Congress often speak of ``getting government off the backs of the American people.'' Sometimes we disagree about when government is a burden and when it is giving a helping hand. But all of us in the Senate want to reform government in ways that will improve the lives of people all across this nation. The legislation we are proposing today deals directly with a problem that affects everyday Americans who face legal battles with the federal government and prevail. Even if they win in court, they may still lose financially because of the expense of paying their attorneys. At the outset, it is important to understand what the Equal Access to Justice Act is, and why it exists. The premise of this statute is very simple. EAJA places individuals and small businesses who face the United States Government in litigation on more equal footing with the government by establishing guidelines for the award of attorney's fees when the individual or small business prevails. Quite simply, EAJA acknowledges that the resources available to the federal government in a legal dispute far outweigh those available to most Americans. This disparity is lessened by requiring the government in certain instances to pay the attorneys' fees of successful private parties. By giving successful parties the right to seek attorneys' fees from the United States, EAJA seeks to prevent small business owners and individuals from having to risk their companies or their family savings in order to seek justice. My interest in this issue predates my election to the Senate. It arises from my experience both as a private attorney and a Member of the state Senate in my home state of Wisconsin. While in private practice, I became aware of how the ability to recoup attorney's fees is a significant factor, and often one of the first considered, when deciding whether or not to seek redress in the courts or to defend a case. Upon entering the Wisconsin State Senate, I authored legislation modeled on the federal law, which had been championed by one of my predecessors in this body from Wisconsin, Senator Gaylord Nelson. Today, section 814.246 of the Wisconsin statutes contains provisions similar to the federal EAJA statute. It seemed to me then, as it does now, that we should do all that we can to help ease the financial burdens on people who need to have their claims reviewed and decided by impartial decision makers. To this end, I have reviewed the existing federal statutes with an eye toward improving them and making them work better. The bill Sen. Hutchinson and I are introducing today does a number of things to make EAJA more effective for individuals and small business men and women all across this country. First and most important, this legislation eliminates the provision in current law that allows the government to avoid paying attorneys' fees when it loses a suit if it can show that its position was substantially justified. I believe that this high threshold for obtaining attorneys' fees is unfair. If an individual or small business battles the federal government in an adversarial proceeding and prevails, the government should simply pay the fees incurred. Imagine the scenario of a small business that spends time and money dueling with the government and wins, only to find out that it must now undertake the additional step of litigating the justification of government's litigation position. For the government, with its vast resources, this second litigation over fees poses little difficulty, but for the citizen or small business it may simply not be financially feasible. Not only is this additional step a financial burden on the private litigant, but a 1992 study also reveals that it is unnecessary and a waste of government resources. University of Virginia Professor Harold Krent on behalf of the Administrative Conference of the United States found that only a small percentage of EAJA awards were denied because of the substantial justification defense. While it is impossible to determine the exact cost of litigating the issue of subtantial justification, it is Prof. Krent's opinion, based upon review of cases in 1989 and 1990, that while the substantial justification defense may save some money, it was not enough to justify the cost of the additional litigation. In short, eliminating this often burdensome second step is a cost effective step which will streamline recovery under EAJA and may very well save the government money in the long run. The second part of this legislation that will streamline and improve EAJA is a provision designed to encourage settlement and avoid costly and protracted litigation. Under the bill, the government can make an offer of settlement after an application for fees and other expenses has been filed. If the government's offer is rejected and the prevailing party seeking recovery ultimately wins a smaller award, that party is not entitled to the attorneys' fees and costs incurred after the date of the government's offer. Again, this will encourage settlement, speed the claims process, and thereby reduce the time and expense of the litigation. The final improvement to EAJA included in this legislation is the removal of the carve out of cases where the prevailing party is eligible to get attorneys fees under section 7430 of the Internal Revenue Code. Under current law, EAJA is inapplicable in cases where a taxpayer prevails against the government. I was an original cosponsor of a bill that suggested a similar reform introduced by Senator Leahy of Vermont in the 105th Congress. This provision helps to level the playing field between the IRS and everyday citizens. There is no reason that taxpayers should be treated differently than any other party that prevails in a case against the government. They deserve to have their fees paid if they win. We all know that the American small business owner has a difficult road to make ends meet and that unnecessary or overly burdensome government regulation can be a formidable obstacle to doing business. It can be the difference between success or failure. The Equal Access to Justice Act was conceived and implemented to help balance the formidable power of the federal government. It has already helped many Americans. The legislation we are offering today will make EAJA more effective for more Americans while at the same time helping to deter the government from acting in an indefensible and unwarranted manner. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am very pleased to once again introduce a campaign reform bill with my friend and colleague, the Senator from Arizona. This year we have an important new cosponsor, the senior Senator from Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran, so this bill will be known as the McCain-Feingold-Cochran campaign reform bill. This is the fourth Congress in which Senator McCain and I have introduced a bill. We have made progress each year, and now we are closer than ever to finishing the job for the American people. The time for campaign finance reform to pass the Congress and become law has now come Mr. President. And Senator McCain and I are going to dedicate ourselves to this issue like never before to make it happen. The bill we are introducing today is broader than S. 1593, the bill we took to the floor in October 1999, but narrower than S. 26, the McCain-Feingold bill that was introduced in the beginning of the last Congress. Our bill this year consists of a soft money ban, the Snowe- Jeffords language on issue ads, the Beck provision on union dues, and a few other provisions that will provide credibility to this reform bill as it's passed into law. Very significant in my mind is a clear prohibition on political fundraising in federal office buildings. This is a strong base bill for reform, but we are ready and willing to entertain the suggestions and proposals of all 98 other Senators. Each of us in this body is an expert on this issue, and I know that many of my colleagues have innovative ideas on how to improve our election laws. Any amendment that adds to this bill in a positive way and and doesn't undercut its basic principles will be given every consideration. One provision on which we will not compromise is the ban on soft money. The bill here is as tough and comprehensive as possible, leaving no room for the soft money abuses we have seen in the last decade. Obviously, loopholes will develop over time, but I am satisfied that this bill closes the soft money system down and anticipates at least some of the clever schemes that might be developed to avoid the ban. In the last election cycle, we saw over $500 million in soft money raised by the political parties. This system is a scandal that we must eliminate now. The bill includes the Snowe-Jeffords language on issue ads. This provision will have a major impact on labor union ads, but it is fair and balanced between unions and corporations. It will have minimal impact on established advocacy groups like National Right to Life and the Sierra Club because they have a significant small donor base, but it will prevent corporations and unions from laundering money through such groups. It allows groups to continue to run these ads as long as they use only individual money and disclose the large donors to the effort. The provision covers only phony issue ads on radio and TV, not direct mail, phone banks, or newspapers, or the Internet, but we are open to working with all sides to work out a fair and balanced way to broaden its coverage if that is what the Senate wants to do. Similarly, we are open to proposals that will require additional disclosure of election related spending by unions, corporations, and advocacy groups. But they must treat all players in this system evenly and fairly. That brings me to the issue that has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, so called ``paycheck protection.'' In the past, this has been a poison pill to reform, but with the changes in the Senate, we clearly have the votes to defeat the extreme and one-sided ``paycheck protection proposals that have been offered in the past. We will hold the President and those working with him to the standard that he himself has enunciated any proposal has to be fair and balanced. Our bill is currently fair and balanced. It treats unions and corporations equally. The paycheck protection proposals we have seen in the past are not fair and balanced. They attack only one player in the election system labor unions. Mr. President, I look forward to a real debate early this year, not only on our bill but on amendments that my colleagues want to offer. I am happy to meet with any Senator who wants to discuss a reform proposal. If we all work together, this process can yield a campaign reform bill that we will be proud of, and we can start out this new Congress by cleaning up our elections and ridding our system of the corrupting of soft money.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation to eliminate from the federal tax code percentage depletion allowances for hardrock minerals mined on federal public lands. I am joined in introducing this legislation by my colleagues from Vermont, the senior Senator (Mr. Leahy) and the junior Senator (Mr. Jeffords). President Clinton proposes the elimination of the percentage depletion allowance on public lands in his FY 2001 budget. The President's FY 2001 budget estimated that, under this legislation, income to the federal treasury from the elimination of percentage depletion allowances for hardrock mining on public lands would total $410 million over five years, and $823 million over ten years. These savings are calculated as the excess amount of federal revenues above what would be collected if depletion allowances were limited to sunk costs in capital investments. Percentage depletion allowances are contained in the tax code for extracted fuel, minerals, metal and other mined commodities. These allowances have a combined value, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, of $4.8 billion. Mr. President, these percentage depletion allowances were initiated by the Corporation Excise Act of 1909. That's right, Mr. President, initiated in 1909. Provisions for a depletion allowance based on the value of the mine were made under a 1912 Treasury Department regulation, but difficulty in applying this accounting principle to mineral production led to the initial codification of the mineral depletion allowance in the Tariff Act of 1913. The Revenue Act of 1926 established percentage depletion much in its present form for oil and gas. The percentage depletion allowance was then extended to metal mines, coal, and other hardrock minerals by the Revenue Act of 1932, and has been adjusted several times since. Percentage depletion allowances were historically placed in the tax code to reduce the effective tax rates in the mineral and extraction industries far below tax rates on other industries, providing incentives to increase investment, exploration and output. However, percentage depletion also makes it possible to recover many times the amount of the original investment. There are two methods of calculating a deduction to allow a firm to recover the costs of their capital investment: cost depletion, and percentage depletion. Cost depletion for the recovery of the actual capital investment--the costs of discovery, purchasing, and developing a mineral reserve--over the period during which the reserve produces income. Using cost depletion, a company would deduct a portion of its original capital investment minus any previous deductions, in an amount that is equal to the fraction of the remaining recoverable reserves. Under this method, the total deductions cannot exceed the original capital investment. However, under percentage depletion, the deduction for recovery of a company's investment is a fixed percentage of ``gross income''--namely, sales revenue--from the sale of the mineral. Under this method, total deductions typically exceed, let me be clear on that point, Mr. President, exceed the capital that the company invested. The rates for percentage depletion are quite significant. Section 613 of the U.S. Code contains depletion allowances for more than 70 metals and minerals, at rates ranging from 10 percent to 22 percent. In addition to repealing the percentage depletion allowances for minerals mined on public lands, Mr. President, my bill also creates a new fund, called the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. One fourth of the revenue raised by the bill, or approximately $120 million dollars, will be deposited into an interest bearing fund in the Treasury to be used to clean up abandoned hardrock mines in states that are subject to the 1872 Mining Law. The Mineral Policy Center estimates that there are 557,650 hardrock abandoned mine sites nationwide and the cost of cleaning them up will range from $32.7 billion to $71.5 billion. There are currently no comprehensive federal or state programs to address the need to clean up old mine sites. Reclaiming these sites requires the enactment of a program with explicit authority to clean up abandoned mine sites and the resources to do it. My legislation is a first step toward providing the needed authority and resources. Mr. President, in today's budget climate we are faced with the question of who should bear the costs of exploration, development, and production of natural resources: all taxpayers, or the users and producers of the resource? For more than a century, the mining industry has been paying next to nothing for the privilege of extracting minerals from public lands and then abandoning its mines. Now those mines are adding to the nation's environmental and financial burdens. We face serious budget choices this fiscal year, yet these subsidies remain a persistent tax expenditure that raise the deficit for all citizens or shift a greater tax burden to other taxpayers to compensate for the special tax breaks provided to the mining industry. Mr. President, the measure I am introducing is fairly straightforward. It eliminates the percentage depletion allowance for hardrock minerals mined on public lands while continuing to allow companies to recover reasonable cost depletion. Though at one time there may have been an appropriate role for a government-driven incentive for enhanced mineral production, there is now sufficient reason to adopt a more reasonable depletion allowance that is consistent with those given to other businesses. Mr. President, the time has come for the Federal Government to get out of the business of subsidizing business. We can no longer afford its costs in dollars or its cost to the health of our citizens. This legislation is one step toward the goal of ending these corporate welfare subsidies. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation to eliminate from the federal tax code percentage depletion allowances for hardrock minerals mined on federal public lands. I am joined in introducing this legislation by my colleagues from Vermont, the senior Senator (Mr. Leahy) and the junior Senator (Mr. Jeffords). President Clinton proposes the elimination of the percentage depletion allowance on public lands in his FY 2001 budget. The President's FY 2001 budget estimated that, under this legislation, income to the federal treasury from the elimination of percentage depletion allowances for hardrock mining on public lands would total $410 million over five years, and $823 million over ten years. These savings are calculated as the excess amount of federal revenues above what would be collected if depletion allowances were limited to sunk costs in capital investments. Percentage depletion allowances are contained in the tax code for extracted fuel, minerals, metal and other mined commodities. These allowances have a combined value, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, of $4.8 billion. Mr. President, these percentage depletion allowances were initiated by the Corporation Excise Act of 1909. That's right, Mr. President, initiated in 1909. Provisions for a depletion allowance based on the value of the mine were made under a 1912 Treasury Department regulation, but difficulty in applying this accounting principle to mineral production led to the initial codification of the mineral depletion allowance in the Tariff Act of 1913. The Revenue Act of 1926 established percentage depletion much in its present form for oil and gas. The percentage depletion allowance was then extended to metal mines, coal, and other hardrock minerals by the Revenue Act of 1932, and has been adjusted several times since. Percentage depletion allowances were historically placed in the tax code to reduce the effective tax rates in the mineral and extraction industries far below tax rates on other industries, providing incentives to increase investment, exploration and output. However, percentage depletion also makes it possible to recover many times the amount of the original investment. There are two methods of calculating a deduction to allow a firm to recover the costs of their capital investment: cost depletion, and percentage depletion. Cost depletion for the recovery of the actual capital investment--the costs of discovery, purchasing, and developing a mineral reserve--over the period during which the reserve produces income. Using cost depletion, a company would deduct a portion of its original capital investment minus any previous deductions, in an amount that is equal to the fraction of the remaining recoverable reserves. Under this method, the total deductions cannot exceed the original capital investment. However, under percentage depletion, the deduction for recovery of a company's investment is a fixed percentage of ``gross income''--namely, sales revenue--from the sale of the mineral. Under this method, total deductions typically exceed, let me be clear on that point, Mr. President, exceed the capital that the company invested. The rates for percentage depletion are quite significant. Section 613 of the U.S. Code contains depletion allowances for more than 70 metals and minerals, at rates ranging from 10 percent to 22 percent. In addition to repealing the percentage depletion allowances for minerals mined on public lands, Mr. President, my bill also creates a new fund, called the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. One fourth of the revenue raised by the bill, or approximately $120 million dollars, will be deposited into an interest bearing fund in the Treasury to be used to clean up abandoned hardrock mines in states that are subject to the 1872 Mining Law. The Mineral Policy Center estimates that there are 557,650 hardrock abandoned mine sites nationwide and the cost of cleaning them up will range from $32.7 billion to $71.5 billion. There are currently no comprehensive federal or state programs to address the need to clean up old mine sites. Reclaiming these sites requires the enactment of a program with explicit authority to clean up abandoned mine sites and the resources to do it. My legislation is a first step toward providing the needed authority and resources. Mr. President, in today's budget climate we are faced with the question of who should bear the costs of exploration, development, and production of natural resources: all taxpayers, or the users and producers of the resource? For more than a century, the mining industry has been paying next to nothing for the privilege of extracting minerals from public lands and then abandoning its mines. Now those mines are adding to the nation's environmental and financial burdens. We face serious budget choices this fiscal year, yet these subsidies remain a persistent tax expenditure that raise the deficit for all citizens or shift a greater tax burden to other taxpayers to compensate for the special tax breaks provided to the mining industry. Mr. President, the measure I am introducing is fairly straightforward. It eliminates the percentage depletion allowance for hardrock minerals mined on public lands while continuing to allow companies to recover reasonable cost depletion. Though at one time there may have been an appropriate role for a government-driven incentive for enhanced mineral production, there is now sufficient reason to adopt a more reasonable depletion allowance that is consistent with those given to other businesses. Mr. President, the time has come for the Federal Government to get out of the business of subsidizing business. We can no longer afford its costs in dollars or its cost to the health of our citizens. This legislation is one step toward the goal of ending these corporate welfare subsidies. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to re-introduce legislation that would put an end to automatic cost-of-living adjustments for Congressional pay. As my Colleagues are aware, it is an unusual thing to have the power to raise our own pay. Few people have that ability. Most of our constituents do not have that power. And that this power is so unusual is good reason for the Congress to exercise that power openly, and to exercise it subject to regular procedures that include debate, amendment, and a vote on the Record. Last year, the Senate initially voted down the conference report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. As I noted during the debate on that bill, by considering the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill as part of that conference report, shielded as it was from amendment, the Senate blocked any opportunity to force an open debate of a $3,800 pay raise for every Member of the Senate and the House of Representatives. This process of pay raises without accountability must end. The stealth pay raise technique began with a change Congress enacted in the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. In section 704 of that Act, Members of Congress voted to make themselves entitled to an annual raise equal to half a percentage point less than the employment cost index, one measure of inflation. Many times, Congress has voted to deny itself the raise, and Congress traditionally does that on the Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill. And by bringing the Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill to the Senate floor for the first time last year in a conference report, without Senate floor consideration, the majority leadership prevented anyone from offering an amendment on that bill to block the pay raise. The majority leadership tried to make it impossible even to put Senators on record in an up-or-down vote directly for or against the pay raise, nearly perfecting the technique of the stealth pay raise. The question of how and whether Members of Congress can raise their own pay was one that our Founders considered from the beginning of our Nation. In August of 1789, as part of the package of 12 amendments advocated by James Madison that included what has become our Bill of Rights, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution providing that Congress could not raise its pay without an intervening election. Almost exactly 211 years ago, on September 9, 1789, the Senate passed that amendment. In late September of 1789, Congress submitted the amendments to the states. Although the amendment on pay raises languished for two centuries, in the 1980s, a campaign began to ratify it. While I was a member of the Wisconsin state Senate, I was proud to help ratify the amendment. Its approval by the Michigan legislature on May 7, 1992, gave it the needed approval by three-fourths of the states. The 27th Amendment to the Constitution now states: ``No law, varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.'' I try to honor that limitation in my own practices. In my own case, throughout my 6-year term, I accept only the rate of pay that Senators receive on the date on which I was sworn in as a Senator. And I return to the Treasury any additional income Senators get, whether from a cost-of-living adjustment or a pay raise we vote for ourselves. I don't take a raise until my bosses, the people of Wisconsin, give me one at the ballot box. That is the spirit of the 27th Amendment. The stealth pay raises like the one that Congress allowed last year, at a minimum, certainly violate the spirit of that amendment. Mr. President, this practice must end. To address it, I am re- introducing this bill to end the automatic cost-of-living adjustment for Congressional pay. Senators and Congressmen should have to vote up- or-down to raise Congressional pay. My bill would simply require us to vote in the open. We owe our constituents no less. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Dairy Farmers Viability Act, legislation to establish a Commission to provide Congress with legislative and administrative recommendations to address dairy farming prices, stability, and marketplace competition and concentration. As Congress moves to revise the 1996 farm bill, it is of paramount importance that we fashion dairy policies to meet the needs of all dairy farmers. I have taken the floor a number of times to talk about the challenges facing Wisconsin's dairy farmers, and many of those challenges are a result of inequities in the current pricing structure of milk. While I may disagree on many levels with my friend from Vermont, Senator Jeffords, there are a number of issues that face all dairy farmers, whether they are in Vermont, Idaho or Wisconsin. This commission will help Congress address many of these common concerns, such as reducing the concentration in the marketplace, increasing competition in rural America, and improving farm-gate prices. I hope my colleagues will work with us to move this commission forward quickly and help to address the concerns of dairy farmers nationwide. Mr. President, I ask that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation to reduce the number of presidential political appointees. Specifically, the bill caps the number of political appointees at 2,000. The most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates of this measure is that it would save $382 million over the next five years, and $872 million over the next 10 years. The bill is based on the recommendations of a number of distinguished panels, including most recently, the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Presidential Appointment Process. The task force findings are only the latest in a long line of recommendations that we reduce the number of political appointees in the Executive Branch. For many years, the proposal has been included in CBO's annual publication Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options, and it was one of the central recommendations of the National Commission on the Public Service, chaired by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. Between 1980 and 1992, the ranks of political appointees grew 17 percent, over three times as fast as the total number of Executive Branch employees and looking back to 1960 their growth is even more dramatic. In his book Thickening Government: Federal Government and the Diffusion of Accountability, author Paul Light reports a startling 430 percent increase in the number of political appointees and senior executives in Federal government between 1960 and 1992. Mr. President, it is essential that any Administration be able to implement the policies that brought it into office in the first place. Government must be responsive to the priorities of the electorate. But as the Volcker Commission noted, the great increase in the number of political appointees in recent years has not made government more effective or more responsive to political leadership. Indeed, in their report, the Volcker Commission argued that the growing number of presidential appointees may ``actually undermine effective presidential control of the executive branch.'' The report went on to note that the large number of presidential appointees simply cannot be managed effectively by any President or White House. The Commission argued that this lack of control and political focus ``may actually dilute the President's ability to develop and enforce a coherent, coordinated program and to hold cabinet secretaries accountable.'' Adding organizational layers of political appointees can also restrict access to important resources, while doing nothing to reduce bureaucratic impediments. In commenting on this problem, author Light noted, ``As this sediment has thickened over the decades, presidents have grown increasingly distant from the lines of government, and the front lines from them.'' Light added that ``Presidential leadership, therefore, may reside in stripping government of the barriers to doing its job effectively. . .'' The Volcker Commission also asserted that this thickening barrier of temporary appointees between the President and career officials can undermine development of a proficient civil service by discouraging talented individuals from remaining in government service or even pursuing a career in government in the first place. Mr. President, former Attorney General Elliot Richardson put it well when he noted: But a White House personnel assistant sees the position of deputy assistant secretary as a fourth-echelon slot. In his eyes that makes it an ideal reward for a fourth-echelon political type - a campaign advance man, or a regional political organizer. For a senior civil servant, it's irksome to see a position one has spent 20 or 30 years preparing for preempted by an outsider who doesn't know the difference between an audit exception and an authorizing bill. Mr. President, the report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Presidential Appointment Process identified another problem aggravated by the excessive number of political appointees, namely the increasingly lengthy process of filling these thousands of positions. As the Task Force reported, both President Bush and President Clinton were into their presidencies for many months before their leadership teams were fully in place. The Task Force noted that ``on average, appointees in both administrations were confirmed more than eight months after the inauguration--one-sixth of an entire presidential term.'' By contrast, the report noted that in the presidential transition of 1960, ``Kennedy appointees were confirmed, on average, two and a half months after the inauguration.'' In addition to leaving vacancies among key leadership positions in government, the appointment process delays can have a detrimental effect on potential appointees. The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force reported that appointees can ``wait for months on end in a limbo of uncertainty and awkward transition from the private to the public sector.'' Mr. President, as we reduce the number of government employees, streamline agencies, and make government more responsive, we should also right size the number of political appointees, ensuring a sufficient number to implement the policies of any Administration without burdening the Federal budget with unnecessary, possibly counterproductive political jobs. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a measure that will begin to restore to many dairy farmers throughout the nation, part of the market power they have lost in recent years. Mr. President, when dairy farmers across the country voted on a referendum two years ago--perhaps the most significant change in dairy policy in sixty years--they didn't actually get to vote. Instead, their dairy marketing cooperatives will cast their votes for them. This procedure is called bloc voting and it is used all the time. Basically, a Cooperative's Board of Directors decides that, in the interest of time, bloc voting will be implemented for that particular vote. In the interest of time, but not always in the interest of their producer owner-members. Mr. President, I do think that bloc voting can be a useful tool in some circumstances, but I have serious concerns about its use in every circumstance. Farmers in Wisconsin and in other states tell me that they do not agree with their Cooperative's view on every vote. Yet, they have no way to preserve their right to make their single vote count. After speaking to farmers and officials at USDA, I have learned that if a Cooperative bloc votes, individual members simply have no opportunity to voice opinions separately. That seems unfair when you consider what a monumental issue is at stake. Coops and their members do not always have identical interests. We shouldn't ask farmers to ignore that fact. Mr. President, the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act of 2001 is simple and fair. It provides that a cooperative cannot deny any of its members a ballot if one or two or ten or all of the members chose to vote on their own. This will in no way slow down the process at USDA; implementation of any rule or regulation would be able to proceed on schedule. Also, I do not expect that this would change the final outcome of any given vote. Coops could still cast votes for their members who do not exercise their right to vote individually. And to the extent that coops represent farmers interest, farmers are likely to vote along with the coops, but whether they join the coops or not, farmers deserve the right to vote according to their own views. I urge my colleagues to return just a little bit of power to America's farmers, and a little bit of pure democracy to the vote on issues that have such an impact on their future. I urge my colleagues to support the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act, a dairy bill without regional bias. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Equal Access to Justice Reform Amendments of 2001. This legislation contains adjustments to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) that will streamline and improve the process of awarding attorney's fees to private parties who prevail in litigation against the Federal government. This is the now the fourth Congress in which I have introduced this legislation. I believe these reforms are an important step in reducing the burden of defending government litigation for many individuals and small businesses. I am very pleased to be joined in introducing this legislation once again this year by my friend from Arkansas, Sen. Tim Hutchinson. We hope that by working on a bipartisan basis on this important project we can improve the chances that it can become law. Over the years, members of Congress often speak of ``getting government off the backs of the American people.'' Sometimes we disagree about when government is a burden and when it is giving a helping hand. But all of us in the Senate want to reform government in ways that will improve the lives of people all across this nation. The legislation we are proposing today deals directly with a problem that affects everyday Americans who face legal battles with the federal government and prevail. Even if they win in court, they may still lose financially because of the expense of paying their attorneys. At the outset, it is important to understand what the Equal Access to Justice Act is, and why it exists. The premise of this statute is very simple. EAJA places individuals and small businesses who face the United States Government in litigation on more equal footing with the government by establishing guidelines for the award of attorney's fees when the individual or small business prevails. Quite simply, EAJA acknowledges that the resources available to the federal government in a legal dispute far outweigh those available to most Americans. This disparity is lessened by requiring the government in certain instances to pay the attorneys' fees of successful private parties. By giving successful parties the right to seek attorneys' fees from the United States, EAJA seeks to prevent small business owners and individuals from having to risk their companies or their family savings in order to seek justice. My interest in this issue predates my election to the Senate. It arises from my experience both as a private attorney and a Member of the state Senate in my home state of Wisconsin. While in private practice, I became aware of how the ability to recoup attorney's fees is a significant factor, and often one of the first considered, when deciding whether or not to seek redress in the courts or to defend a case. Upon entering the Wisconsin State Senate, I authored legislation modeled on the federal law, which had been championed by one of my predecessors in this body from Wisconsin, Senator Gaylord Nelson. Today, section 814.246 of the Wisconsin statutes contains provisions similar to the federal EAJA statute. It seemed to me then, as it does now, that we should do all that we can to help ease the financial burdens on people who need to have their claims reviewed and decided by impartial decision makers. To this end, I have reviewed the existing federal statutes with an eye toward improving them and making them work better. The bill Sen. Hutchinson and I are introducing today does a number of things to make EAJA more effective for individuals and small business men and women all across this country. First and most important, this legislation eliminates the provision in current law that allows the government to avoid paying attorneys' fees when it loses a suit if it can show that its position was substantially justified. I believe that this high threshold for obtaining attorneys' fees is unfair. If an individual or small business battles the federal government in an adversarial proceeding and prevails, the government should simply pay the fees incurred. Imagine the scenario of a small business that spends time and money dueling with the government and wins, only to find out that it must now undertake the additional step of litigating the justification of government's litigation position. For the government, with its vast resources, this second litigation over fees poses little difficulty, but for the citizen or small business it may simply not be financially feasible. Not only is this additional step a financial burden on the private litigant, but a 1992 study also reveals that it is unnecessary and a waste of government resources. University of Virginia Professor Harold Krent on behalf of the Administrative Conference of the United States found that only a small percentage of EAJA awards were denied because of the substantial justification defense. While it is impossible to determine the exact cost of litigating the issue of subtantial justification, it is Prof. Krent's opinion, based upon review of cases in 1989 and 1990, that while the substantial justification defense may save some money, it was not enough to justify the cost of the additional litigation. In short, eliminating this often burdensome second step is a cost effective step which will streamline recovery under EAJA and may very well save the government money in the long run. The second part of this legislation that will streamline and improve EAJA is a provision designed to encourage settlement and avoid costly and protracted litigation. Under the bill, the government can make an offer of settlement after an application for fees and other expenses has been filed. If the government's offer is rejected and the prevailing party seeking recovery ultimately wins a smaller award, that party is not entitled to the attorneys' fees and costs incurred after the date of the government's offer. Again, this will encourage settlement, speed the claims process, and thereby reduce the time and expense of the litigation. The final improvement to EAJA included in this legislation is the removal of the carve out of cases where the prevailing party is eligible to get attorneys fees under section 7430 of the Internal Revenue Code. Under current law, EAJA is inapplicable in cases where a taxpayer prevails against the government. I was an original cosponsor of a bill that suggested a similar reform introduced by Senator Leahy of Vermont in the 105th Congress. This provision helps to level the playing field between the IRS and everyday citizens. There is no reason that taxpayers should be treated differently than any other party that prevails in a case against the government. They deserve to have their fees paid if they win. We all know that the American small business owner has a difficult road to make ends meet and that unnecessary or overly burdensome government regulation can be a formidable obstacle to doing business. It can be the difference between success or failure. The Equal Access to Justice Act was conceived and implemented to help balance the formidable power of the federal government. It has already helped many Americans. The legislation we are offering today will make EAJA more effective for more Americans while at the same time helping to deter the government from acting in an indefensible and unwarranted manner. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a measure which will serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system. The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For sixty years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a high price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price for fluid milk increases depending on the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, even though most milk marketing orders do not receive any milk from Wisconsin. The bill I introduce today will prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets. This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk. This one change is so crucial to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. By providing disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creating artificial economic incentives for milk production, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk in some parts of the country, the prices have led to excess production. The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down. The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995 some regions of the U.S., notably the Central states and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production, that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin. The market distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in federal orders are manifest in the Congressional Budget Office estimate that eliminating the orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concludes, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions which would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses show that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal Orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions. While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs. Mr. President, that is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is neither the lowest cost production area nor a primary source of reserve supplies of milk. In many of the markets with higher fluid milk differentials, milk is produced efficiently, and in some cases, at lower cost than the upper Midwest. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, specifically California, which now leads the nation in milk production. Fluid milk prices should have been lowered to reflect that trend. Instead, in 1985, the prices were increased for markets distant from Eau Claire. USDA has refused to use the administrative authority provided by Congress to make the appropriate adjustments to reflect economic realities. They continue to stand behind single-basing-point pricing. The result has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because they can't produce a product that can compete in the market place, but because the system discriminates against them. Today, Wisconsin loses dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate of the region. Other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly. In an unregulated market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be fair. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this out-dated system and work to eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am delighted to join with my colleague, the Senior Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) as an original cosponsor of the Federal Energy Bank Act. As a politician, the idea of the federal government ``leading by example'' in the area of energy efficiency has made sense to me for a long time, so much so, in fact, that in campaigning for the Senate in 1992, I included energy efficiency in my campaign platform. I proposed an 82-point plan to reduce the deficit, a series of specific spending reductions and revenue changes which, if enacted in sum total, would have eliminated the deficit. Among those items, as I was a candidate for office after the passage of the 1992 Energy Policy Act and after the United States' signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, was one to encourage the federal government to implement a comprehensive energy savings program for the federal government through energy efficiency investments. After all, I believe that if Wisconsin consumers and business have been converted to the wisdom of compact fluorescent light bulbs, efficient heating and cooling systems, weatherization, and energy saving computers, among the wide range of potential efficiency improvements, that the federal government promoting those actions should also make the same investments to the taxpayers' benefit. Section 152 of the Energy Policy Act mandated that Federal agencies use all cost-effective measures that could be implemented with less than a 10-year payback to reduce energy consumption in their facilities by 20 percent by the year 2000 compared to 1985 consumption levels. Both of the two previous Administrations have been committed to these types of common sense ``no-regrets'' energy savings strategies. After taking office, I have learned that among the most significant constraints to implementing more energy efficient practices in the federal government is the lack of sufficient funds to invest in energy efficient equipment. Section 162 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 directed the Secretary of Energy to conduct a detailed study of options for financing energy and water conservation measures in Federal facilities as required under the Act and by subsequent Executive Orders. On June 3, 1997, the then Secretary of Energy (Mr. Pena) released that study. It documented a need for a $5.7 billion financial investment between 1996 and 2005 to meet the Energy Policy Act and Executive Order goals, a value which could vary from a low of $4.4 billion to a high of $7.1 billion given variability in both energy and water investment requirements. The best estimate, according to the same study of the total federal funding available to spend on energy and water efficiency improvements from various sources, including direct agency appropriations, energy savings performance contracts, and utility demand-side management programs, and appropriations to the Federal Energy Efficiency Fund, to the federal government to meet those needs over the same time period is $3.7 billion. Thus, under DOE's best estimate, at the federal level we face a potential shortfall of funds necessary to achieve our federal energy and water conservation objectives of $2 billion. In order to address this shortfall, I am pleased to join as a co- sponsor of this legislation to create a federal energy revolving fund or ``energy bank.'' I hope this legislation can be one of the items on which we can reach bipartisan consensus in our efforts to develop a national energy strategy this Congress. Some in this body may be concerned that the existence of the current Federal Energy Efficiency Fund alleviates the need for additional federal conservation investment. The problem with the current fund, which operates as a grant program for agencies to make efficiency improvements, is that it does not contribute to the replenishment of capital resources because it does not have to be paid back and is therefore dependent upon appropriations. Under the legislation, I join in cosponsoring with my colleague from Wisconsin today, federal agencies will be required, to deposit 5 percent of their total utility payments in the proceeding fiscal year to capitalize the fund. After 2001, the Secretary of Energy will determine an amount necessary to ensure that the fund meets its obligations. Agencies will then be able to get a loan from the fund to finance efficiency projects, which they will be responsible for repaying with interest. The projects must use off-the-shelf technologies and must be cost effective. The best part of this approach is that the technologies are required to have a three-year pay back period, and, therefore, this legislation achieves some modest savings for the taxpayer. CBO scores this measure as saving $3 million over 5 years. There is a need to improve federal procurement of energy efficient technologies, and this measure is a positive, proactive measure to ensure that federal agencies specifically set aside funds to achieve this goal. The Senior Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl) and I look forward to working with the administration to advance this legislation as a piece of the country's overall greenhouse gas reductions strategy. In conclusion, I look forward to working with my Senior Senator on this issue. I believe that this is a unique opportunity for Senate colleagues to support legislation that is both fiscally responsible and environmentally sound.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am very pleased to once again introduce a campaign reform bill with my friend and colleague, the Senator from Arizona. This year we have an important new cosponsor, the senior Senator from Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran, so this bill will be known as the McCain-Feingold-Cochran campaign reform bill. This is the fourth Congress in which Senator McCain and I have introduced a bill. We have made progress each year, and now we are closer than ever to finishing the job for the American people. The time for campaign finance reform to pass the Congress and become law has now come Mr. President. And Senator McCain and I are going to dedicate ourselves to this issue like never before to make it happen. The bill we are introducing today is broader than S. 1593, the bill we took to the floor in October 1999, but narrower than S. 26, the McCain-Feingold bill that was introduced in the beginning of the last Congress. Our bill this year consists of a soft money ban, the Snowe- Jeffords language on issue ads, the Beck provision on union dues, and a few other provisions that will provide credibility to this reform bill as it's passed into law. Very significant in my mind is a clear prohibition on political fundraising in federal office buildings. This is a strong base bill for reform, but we are ready and willing to entertain the suggestions and proposals of all 98 other Senators. Each of us in this body is an expert on this issue, and I know that many of my colleagues have innovative ideas on how to improve our election laws. Any amendment that adds to this bill in a positive way and and doesn't undercut its basic principles will be given every consideration. One provision on which we will not compromise is the ban on soft money. The bill here is as tough and comprehensive as possible, leaving no room for the soft money abuses we have seen in the last decade. Obviously, loopholes will develop over time, but I am satisfied that this bill closes the soft money system down and anticipates at least some of the clever schemes that might be developed to avoid the ban. In the last election cycle, we saw over $500 million in soft money raised by the political parties. This system is a scandal that we must eliminate now. The bill includes the Snowe-Jeffords language on issue ads. This provision will have a major impact on labor union ads, but it is fair and balanced between unions and corporations. It will have minimal impact on established advocacy groups like National Right to Life and the Sierra Club because they have a significant small donor base, but it will prevent corporations and unions from laundering money through such groups. It allows groups to continue to run these ads as long as they use only individual money and disclose the large donors to the effort. The provision covers only phony issue ads on radio and TV, not direct mail, phone banks, or newspapers, or the Internet, but we are open to working with all sides to work out a fair and balanced way to broaden its coverage if that is what the Senate wants to do. Similarly, we are open to proposals that will require additional disclosure of election related spending by unions, corporations, and advocacy groups. But they must treat all players in this system evenly and fairly. That brings me to the issue that has received a lot of attention in recent weeks, so called ``paycheck protection.'' In the past, this has been a poison pill to reform, but with the changes in the Senate, we clearly have the votes to defeat the extreme and one-sided ``paycheck protection proposals that have been offered in the past. We will hold the President and those working with him to the standard that he himself has enunciated any proposal has to be fair and balanced. Our bill is currently fair and balanced. It treats unions and corporations equally. The paycheck protection proposals we have seen in the past are not fair and balanced. They attack only one player in the election system labor unions. Mr. President, I look forward to a real debate early this year, not only on our bill but on amendments that my colleagues want to offer. I am happy to meet with any Senator who wants to discuss a reform proposal. If we all work together, this process can yield a campaign reform bill that we will be proud of, and we can start out this new Congress by cleaning up our elections and ridding our system of the corrupting of soft money.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Arizona for his kind remarks. I am happy to be back with him on this effort. As John McCain has said many times, we know that every Member of the Senate is an expert on this issue. Every Member has ideas about how we should reform the campaign finance system. What we want out of this is an opportunity for an open amending process so the Senate as a whole can fashion a bill to send to the President.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield the floor.