Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, first, we should not be legislating on appropriations bills. We are getting to a point that we cannot pass appropriations bills for all the legislation that is on the appropriations bills, especial something of this magnitude. I understand how easy it is to talk emotionally about children, but there are two things wrong with this amendment. One, it is not relevant, because under the unanimous consent agreement that these would be relevant amendments, this is not. So you have a point there. Second, there is a budget point of order that will be made against the amendment, and therefore we should go ahead and, I guess, get rid of it. But this is just nibbling again. The bill I wanted to try to get through here did not go. I wanted to take care of my farmers a little bit, but no one seems to think about those. It makes it a little bit hard to take. But the amendment invites us to reopen the tobacco debate, and I do not think this is the time or the place. What is next, liability limitations? That would be quite a debate. What next, tax increases? That would be a real debate. What next, new programs? That is what we have here, new programs. We began debating this bill on June 18, 4 weeks ago. It is time we stopped considering legislative amendments that go way beyond the scope of this bill. I received, and I guess all my Democratic colleagues received: Support Harkin amendment to fund FDA's ongoing teen antitobacco initiative. This is no anti-teen-smoking initiative, when you get right down to it. The amendment fully funds the FDA youth and anti-tobacco efforts by imposing a tobacco industry user's fee of $100 million, or approximately $25 per child who uses tobacco products. How do you know that? It is really not $100 million. The amendment says $150 million. Are we into that phrase now, ``a haircut''--you have to raise $150 million to get $100 million? Anyhow, the information I got was it was $100 million. I read the amendment and it says $150 million. This is a tax on adults. This is a tax on adults. It says the tobacco product market share. It has nothing to do with how many teens smoke. We hear about ``spit tobacco.'' The HHS set a level, by the year 2000, of no more than 4 percent of those between 12 and 17 would be using spit tobacco. The rate today is 1.9. The industry is doing a wonderful job--twice the amount that was set by HHS by the year 2000, without any imposition by this legislative body. So now we are putting a tax on adult smokers, trying to fog it up with teen programs. Mr. President, I understand what is going on. This is a new tax being described as a $25-per-kid tax without any basis. It started out with a survey. That is a terrible way to tax. It has nothing to do with youth smoking or how many youth are smoking. This is a $150-million tax increase as assessed based on the share of the adult market--not teenagers, the adult market. It was based on the adult use of the product and taxes adult use of the product. It should not be on an agricultural bill. The amendment raises taxes, not by $100 million that we have heard, but $150 million. It is based on a terrible public policy. We should not be raising taxes on an agriculture appropriations bill anyhow. This amendment should be defeated, maybe not for its purpose, but for its procedure. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I did not say anything about the tobacco program.

Mr. FORD. That is correct.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, may we have order.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am pleased to join in cosponsoring S. 2316, which earmarks a portion of Treasury funds obtained through the privatization of the United States Enrichment Corporation for the clean up of depleted uranium hexafluoride, or so-called uranium ``tails.'' The legislation earmarks roughly $335 million for this cleanup, preserving authority to conduct the treatment and recycling of depleted uranium tails. However, none of the money will be spent unless Congress appropriates such funding. I am pleased that my amendment has been added to this bill which puts the Senate on record in support of fully appropriating funds to implement a cleanup plan to be developed by the Secretary of Energy. It is a two way street, Mr. President. I agree that the Secretary of Energy should immediately develop a plan to clean up the depleted uranium tails. But I also believe Congress should respond quickly to appropriate the necessary funds. Three weeks ago, the Administration announced that the USEC Board had approved the privatization of USEC through an initial public offering of stock in the new Corporation. This will be the largest federal privatization effort since Conrail, establishing a $2.4 billion private corporation to enrich uranium for nuclear power production and compete in world markets. I have been involved in this effort for more than a decade. It directly affects 2,200 workers in Paducah, Kentucky who work at one of the two gaseous diffusion plants operated by USEC. As part of this transaction, a $1.7 billion ``exit dividend'' is to be paid to the Treasury. This legislation assures that an appropriate portion of those funds will be available for clean up at the existing USEC facilities. And it also puts the Senate on record in support of future appropriations for clean up purposes. Among the reasons for obtaining these assurances is the employment situation at the two USEC plants. One of the great myths some are promoting is the suggestion that the privatization is causing 600 job losses at the two plants over the next two years. This is simply not the case. The job losses were apparently likely regardless of whether privatization went forward. As part of the privatization agreement, the new corporation has agreed to operate both existing plants through January, 2005. However, some job reductions will occur. The job impact was likely in the event that USEC remained as a government corporation and did not privatize. And it is equally likely in the short-term if privatization goes forward. They are a reality and we must deal with this situation. The privatization transaction provides $50 million to begin clean up efforts at the two plants. This legislation adds to that amount, earmarking an amount necessary to fully fund the estimated clean up liability for all uranium tails acquired since July 1993. Once enacted, it will be the responsibility of the Secretary of Energy to develop an adequate clean up plan. And just as importantly, it will be the responsibility of the Congress to appropriate funds which are sufficient to fully implement the clean up plan. I believe any individuals who lose their jobs at either of the existing two facilities should be given a preference in obtaining these clean up jobs, and I will be urging the Administration to provide such a preference in the months ahead. A second great myth associated with privatization is that there is a large pot of money laying around which could be spent on clean up. That is not the case. First of all, upon privatization, the authority to spend the so-called ``exit dividend'' will expire unless we pass this bill. Time is of the essence. Second, even if the authority is preserved, none of the exit dividend may be spent unless Congress appropriates the funds. That is why our Sense of the Senate language is important. When we return to this issue in the future, it is essential that Congress act expeditiously to appropriate the funds. So I think this is a timely bill and strongly support its adoption. I also support the privatization decisions which have been made by the Administration and by the USEC Board. There is little question that the current course of action is in the best long-term interest of the employees at the Paducah facility. As a private corporation, USEC will be more efficient. It will be better suited to enter into long-term contracts and recapture its world market share for uranium enrichment. It will be better suited to implement the technology of the future, which many believe will be the Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS) technology. And it will be better suited to provide for the long-term employment of the workers at the two current facilities. Mr. President, I urge the passage of this bill and will continue to work with my colleagues to get this proposal to the President's desk in the days ahead.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Bingaman) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Bingaman) are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Bingaman) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn) are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Breaux), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Glenn), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Torricelli) are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I thank the Chair for the description. Mr. President, it is a great pleasure for me to join with my colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee. He is my friend. He is a gentleman in the best tradition of Virginia. I appreciate the honor that he has proposed for me this morning. It will be the first piece of legislation in 24 years that carries my name. I hope it doesn't impede the progress, however. I am grateful to the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, for his gracious remarks this morning. Hopefully, that tenor will continue through the consideration of this legislation by all of our colleagues, because our heart is right as it relates to the introduction of this legislation. I hope our minds have put together a piece of legislation that will be lasting. But there is one thing about this institution; once it settles in and you find some problems with it, you always have the opportunity to correct those problems. Most of the time, we do not ``throw the baby out with the bath water''; we take the changes and do them in an appropriate way. So I join my colleague in introducing this legislation today to ensure one thing, Mr. President--that the American public continues to have access to the Government information. As my friend has said, it pays to produce. It is the people's access to Government, Government information, that forms the basis of our system of Government and ensures that democracy survives. A Kentuckian that was born in Virginia--we claim him in Kentucky, however--and a statesman, Henry Clay, said: Government is a trust, and the officers of the Government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. This legislation ensures that the decisions of the trustees of Government in all 3 branches will continue to be available for the benefit of the people who placed them there. Since 1813, Congress has assured that our decisions have been available to the public through the depository libraries. In 1857, depository libraries began disseminating other Federal information and, in 1895, the Superintendent of Public Documents was moved from the Department of the Interior to the Government Printing Office. Throughout our history, Mr. President, libraries have been the permanent repositories of the written history of our development as a Nation and the gateways to accessing the decision of its leaders. How important libraries are. You can be self-educated if you could read and go to the libraries and be able to secure information. Books that will do that. For almost 200 years, libraries have been the principal means by which citizens have come to learn of the decisions of their Government. Armed with that knowledge, the American public expresses its will through the democratic election process, which is the bedrock of our society. For over 100 years, GPO has printed or procured the printing of Government information and then automatically--and I underscore ``automatically''--made that information available, at no charge to the American people, through the 1,400 depository libraries located across this great land. And that information is maintained permanently by the regional depository libraries in order to ensure that future generations have access to it. What I am trying to do here this afternoon is to say why this bill is so important. It has been so important to our past and it will be so important to our future. In turn, the depository libraries provide numerous access services, at no cost to the Federal Government, to the public who uses them to keep informed of their Government's decisions. In fact, the depository libraries, and numerous other public and private libraries that work in cooperation with the depositories, are the trustees of Government information for the people. For all of the criticisms of GPO, no one can dispute that a centralized printing and dissemination system for Government information has worked to keep the American people informed about their Government. Mr. President, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, ``To inform the minds of people, and to follow their will, is the chief duty of those placed at their head.'' That is the purpose of this legislation, the very root of the growth of this legislation. We, in a bipartisan manner, a friendly manner, desire to be sure that our citizens are informed, and that is the reason we are introducing this legislation today--to ensure that the American people are informed of the actions of their trustees so they can, in turn, inform us of their will. This constant exchange of Government information and the people's informed will is the cornerstone of our representative democracy, and without the free flow of information about the actions of their Government, the people's will cannot be ascertained, and democracy is jeopardized. While the centralized printing and dissemination system provided through GPO has served us well over the years, advances in technology, and recent Supreme Court rulings regarding separation of powers, have taxed the ability of a central agency to ensure that all Government information gets into the hands of the American public. So what did we do? We sat down, as we are supposed to do, to work out a way to continue to strengthen democracy and work the will of the American people's representatives. Some have responded that it is time to decentralize the dissemination of Government information and disjoin the procurement and dissemination functions. I could not disagree more strongly. Instead, it is time to reform the system and bring it into the 21st century so that both Government and the American people, through the depository library system, can be served for another 100 years through enhanced information dissemination and access. Title 44 and the Government Printing Office have not undergone a major revision in over 30 years. During this time, the Rules Committee has held numerous hearings, as my distinguished friend has said, on Government printing policies and public access to Government information. In the past 2 years, the committee has heard from the general public, those in the library community, and at GPO, and from officials in the executive and judicial branches, about the challenges and also the opportunities facing agencies who must comply with title 44. Mr. President, at the beginning of the 105th Congress--this Congress--I outlined what I believed were the 3 principal issues that had to be addressed by any reform legislation. First, elimination of the constitutional barriers to compliance with title 44 created by the administrative oversight functions of the Joint Committee on Printing; secondly, the expansion of title 44 to recognize the changes in technology, particularly the explosion of electronic publishing and the Internet as a means of disseminating Government information to the people; third, the need for enforcement--I underscore enforcement--of title 44 to ensure that executive agencies comply with the centralized printing and dissemination requirements that otherwise lead to the creation of fugitive documents. I use that word lovingly. The legislation Senator Warner and I are introducing today is designed to address these 3 issues in a manner that will ensure, in my opinion, the continued free flow of information to the public while at the same time recognizing the efficiencies and enhanced opportunity for dissemination that technology creates. The legislation reaffirms congressional intent, and 100 years of experience, that a centralized publishing production and procurement agency best ensures that the American public gets the greatest efficiencies for its tax dollar and the broadest access to Government information. The proposed legislation restructures the Government Printing Office to provide increased accountability and efficiencies, while affording the Congress the maximum oversight of the agency's policies and regulations. This legislation removes the disincentives to compliance with title 44 by eliminating the constitutional problems created by the Joint Committee on Printing. The bill would eliminate the Joint Committee on Printing and download those authorities to the agency, with enhanced legislative oversight--let me underscore that--enhanced legislative oversight and authority over congressional printing by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the Committee on House Oversight. Most importantly, the proposed legislation recognizes the changes in technology and updates title 44 to ensure that as government information moves from printed material to electronically disseminated publications, the American public will continue to be able to access that information, at no charge, through the depository libraries. The role of the depository libraries is ``key'' to the success of government's transition from printed material to new technologies. America's libraries provide the safety net that guarantees that this Nation does not become a country of information ``haves'' and ``have nots.'' Finally, the bill creates enforcement mechanisms that will ensure that agencies comply with title 44 so that the American people continue to have access to the decisions of their government, regardless of whether those decisions are printed, posted on the Internet, or transmitted through some yet undiscovered technology. I congratulate my colleague, the distinguished Chairman, and his capable staff for their dedication and diligence in crafting this legislation. No committee is blessed with better staff. We do fuss and fume every once in a while, but we always come out at the right place. I want to publicly acknowledge the substantial contribution that the library community has made to this effort, particularly the American Library Association and the Inter-Association Working Group on Government Information Policy, chaired by Mr. Dan P. O'Mahony of Brown University. I look forward to hearings on this measure in the Rules Committee and encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this measure and pass it into law. We cannot afford to delay; the very survival of democracy rests on our actions. I want to also say that those who represent the employees, the unions, at the Government Printing Office have been thoroughly involved in this decision and just this morning assured me of their enthusiastic support of this legislation, because they understand that if they don't comply with the needs of the advancement of technology and the desires and hopes of the 21st century, they will not last. Mr. President, I look forward to hearings on this measure in the Rules Committee. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this measure and to very quickly pass it into law, because I feel we cannot delay. We cannot afford to delay. The very survival of democracy rests on our actions here today. I yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I thank the Chair for the description. Mr. President, it is a great pleasure for me to join with my colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee. He is my friend. He is a gentleman in the best tradition of Virginia. I appreciate the honor that he has proposed for me this morning. It will be the first piece of legislation in 24 years that carries my name. I hope it doesn't impede the progress, however. I am grateful to the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, for his gracious remarks this morning. Hopefully, that tenor will continue through the consideration of this legislation by all of our colleagues, because our heart is right as it relates to the introduction of this legislation. I hope our minds have put together a piece of legislation that will be lasting. But there is one thing about this institution; once it settles in and you find some problems with it, you always have the opportunity to correct those problems. Most of the time, we do not ``throw the baby out with the bath water''; we take the changes and do them in an appropriate way. So I join my colleague in introducing this legislation today to ensure one thing, Mr. President--that the American public continues to have access to the Government information. As my friend has said, it pays to produce. It is the people's access to Government, Government information, that forms the basis of our system of Government and ensures that democracy survives. A Kentuckian that was born in Virginia--we claim him in Kentucky, however--and a statesman, Henry Clay, said: Government is a trust, and the officers of the Government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. This legislation ensures that the decisions of the trustees of Government in all 3 branches will continue to be available for the benefit of the people who placed them there. Since 1813, Congress has assured that our decisions have been available to the public through the depository libraries. In 1857, depository libraries began disseminating other Federal information and, in 1895, the Superintendent of Public Documents was moved from the Department of the Interior to the Government Printing Office. Throughout our history, Mr. President, libraries have been the permanent repositories of the written history of our development as a Nation and the gateways to accessing the decision of its leaders. How important libraries are. You can be self-educated if you could read and go to the libraries and be able to secure information. Books that will do that. For almost 200 years, libraries have been the principal means by which citizens have come to learn of the decisions of their Government. Armed with that knowledge, the American public expresses its will through the democratic election process, which is the bedrock of our society. For over 100 years, GPO has printed or procured the printing of Government information and then automatically--and I underscore ``automatically''--made that information available, at no charge to the American people, through the 1,400 depository libraries located across this great land. And that information is maintained permanently by the regional depository libraries in order to ensure that future generations have access to it. What I am trying to do here this afternoon is to say why this bill is so important. It has been so important to our past and it will be so important to our future. In turn, the depository libraries provide numerous access services, at no cost to the Federal Government, to the public who uses them to keep informed of their Government's decisions. In fact, the depository libraries, and numerous other public and private libraries that work in cooperation with the depositories, are the trustees of Government information for the people. For all of the criticisms of GPO, no one can dispute that a centralized printing and dissemination system for Government information has worked to keep the American people informed about their Government. Mr. President, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, ``To inform the minds of people, and to follow their will, is the chief duty of those placed at their head.'' That is the purpose of this legislation, the very root of the growth of this legislation. We, in a bipartisan manner, a friendly manner, desire to be sure that our citizens are informed, and that is the reason we are introducing this legislation today--to ensure that the American people are informed of the actions of their trustees so they can, in turn, inform us of their will. This constant exchange of Government information and the people's informed will is the cornerstone of our representative democracy, and without the free flow of information about the actions of their Government, the people's will cannot be ascertained, and democracy is jeopardized. While the centralized printing and dissemination system provided through GPO has served us well over the years, advances in technology, and recent Supreme Court rulings regarding separation of powers, have taxed the ability of a central agency to ensure that all Government information gets into the hands of the American public. So what did we do? We sat down, as we are supposed to do, to work out a way to continue to strengthen democracy and work the will of the American people's representatives. Some have responded that it is time to decentralize the dissemination of Government information and disjoin the procurement and dissemination functions. I could not disagree more strongly. Instead, it is time to reform the system and bring it into the 21st century so that both Government and the American people, through the depository library system, can be served for another 100 years through enhanced information dissemination and access. Title 44 and the Government Printing Office have not undergone a major revision in over 30 years. During this time, the Rules Committee has held numerous hearings, as my distinguished friend has said, on Government printing policies and public access to Government information. In the past 2 years, the committee has heard from the general public, those in the library community, and at GPO, and from officials in the executive and judicial branches, about the challenges and also the opportunities facing agencies who must comply with title 44. Mr. President, at the beginning of the 105th Congress--this Congress--I outlined what I believed were the 3 principal issues that had to be addressed by any reform legislation. First, elimination of the constitutional barriers to compliance with title 44 created by the administrative oversight functions of the Joint Committee on Printing; secondly, the expansion of title 44 to recognize the changes in technology, particularly the explosion of electronic publishing and the Internet as a means of disseminating Government information to the people; third, the need for enforcement--I underscore enforcement--of title 44 to ensure that executive agencies comply with the centralized printing and dissemination requirements that otherwise lead to the creation of fugitive documents. I use that word lovingly. The legislation Senator Warner and I are introducing today is designed to address these 3 issues in a manner that will ensure, in my opinion, the continued free flow of information to the public while at the same time recognizing the efficiencies and enhanced opportunity for dissemination that technology creates. The legislation reaffirms congressional intent, and 100 years of experience, that a centralized publishing production and procurement agency best ensures that the American public gets the greatest efficiencies for its tax dollar and the broadest access to Government information. The proposed legislation restructures the Government Printing Office to provide increased accountability and efficiencies, while affording the Congress the maximum oversight of the agency's policies and regulations. This legislation removes the disincentives to compliance with title 44 by eliminating the constitutional problems created by the Joint Committee on Printing. The bill would eliminate the Joint Committee on Printing and download those authorities to the agency, with enhanced legislative oversight--let me underscore that--enhanced legislative oversight and authority over congressional printing by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the Committee on House Oversight. Most importantly, the proposed legislation recognizes the changes in technology and updates title 44 to ensure that as government information moves from printed material to electronically disseminated publications, the American public will continue to be able to access that information, at no charge, through the depository libraries. The role of the depository libraries is ``key'' to the success of government's transition from printed material to new technologies. America's libraries provide the safety net that guarantees that this Nation does not become a country of information ``haves'' and ``have nots.'' Finally, the bill creates enforcement mechanisms that will ensure that agencies comply with title 44 so that the American people continue to have access to the decisions of their government, regardless of whether those decisions are printed, posted on the Internet, or transmitted through some yet undiscovered technology. I congratulate my colleague, the distinguished Chairman, and his capable staff for their dedication and diligence in crafting this legislation. No committee is blessed with better staff. We do fuss and fume every once in a while, but we always come out at the right place. I want to publicly acknowledge the substantial contribution that the library community has made to this effort, particularly the American Library Association and the Inter-Association Working Group on Government Information Policy, chaired by Mr. Dan P. O'Mahony of Brown University. I look forward to hearings on this measure in the Rules Committee and encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this measure and pass it into law. We cannot afford to delay; the very survival of democracy rests on our actions. I want to also say that those who represent the employees, the unions, at the Government Printing Office have been thoroughly involved in this decision and just this morning assured me of their enthusiastic support of this legislation, because they understand that if they don't comply with the needs of the advancement of technology and the desires and hopes of the 21st century, they will not last. Mr. President, I look forward to hearings on this measure in the Rules Committee. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this measure and to very quickly pass it into law, because I feel we cannot delay. We cannot afford to delay. The very survival of democracy rests on our actions here today. I yield the floor. Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Bingaman) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan ) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan) is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Wellstone amendment. I am honored to be able to add my name as an original cosponsor to this important amendment. Booker T. Washington wrote that ``success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.'' He might well have been talking about the single, uneducated parents in this country trying to turn their lives around, while ensuring their children grow up in a healthy, safe environment. Things like child care, transportation, and education, become obstacles of insurmountable proportions for these struggling parents, putting jobs that can build secure futures further and further out of reach. As many of my colleagues know, I supported and voted for welfare reform. It's been almost two years since Congress rewrote our welfare laws in hopes of breaking the cycle of dependency that was trapping too many Americans in poverty and despair. Much good has come of that law, including substantial drops in the welfare rolls, saving states like Kentucky $14 million. But despite its good intentions, the new welfare law is penalizing parents trying to improve their chances at getting good jobs. Under the new law, a parent must work 20 hours to continue receiving aid. That might not seem particularly onerous, but the law also limits these single parents to just one year of education before requiring them to find work. Let me just repeat that. But the law also limits these single parents to just 1 year of education before requiring them to find work. As one of Kentucky community college wrote me, ``for even the best prepared traditional students, our community college programs require two years with a full load of course work. The best prepared traditional student, however, doesn't represent our average student. With over 70 percent of our students testing into developmental English, reading or math courses, the extra time needed to prepare for actual college course work is critical to their success. Twelve months is inadequate time for a person to move from a life of dependence upon government assistance to a life of independence and self-sufficiency.'' For most single parents, the burden of going to school full-time, holding down a part-time job, all while trying to raise healthy children, will simply become too much, forcing them to choose a low- paying job with no future over the path to skilled, high-paying work. Leaders in my home state of Kentucky, like Representative Tom Burch, recognized this problem. But their efforts to change the policy have been hampered by fears that the state will lose critical federal funds, further short-changing those who need the aid most. That is why I am pleased to join in offering this amendment which will stop penalizing parents trying to improve their situation. This amendment allows up to 24 months of post-secondary or vocational education, removes the 30 percent limitation on education as a work activity for teen parents, and clarifies that participation in a federal work-study program is a permissible work activity. In my state, nearly 4,000 parents could benefit directly from these changes. But the truth is, they're not the only ones who stand to benefit. With the economy growing in Kentucky, employers are having a harder time finding qualified employees. With good-paying jobs, these parents can provide a much better quality of life for their children, and that adds up to success no matter how you measure it. I urge my colleagues to vote for this worthwhile amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support for the Wellstone amendment from Kentucky's Secretary for Families and Children, Viola Miller; the Honorable Tom Burch; Kentuckians for the Commonwealth; and President Deborah Floyd of the University of Kentucky's Prestonburg Community College be printed in the Record.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I have one other item I would like to put in the Record. It is an editorial from the Lexington Herald-Leader dated July 1, 1998. I only quote a couple of paragraphs from that editorial. It says: We urge Congress to endorse such a change in a welfare policy that right now insists on work first, education later. It makes sense that work be the priority but not at the expense of forcing the most motivated to choose an entry- level job over a career track. It is a shame we have to pass laws to mandate what is common sense. A better education leads to career opportunities and long-term self-sufficiency. And they end that editorial with this paragraph: One thing we do know. In this country, education is the surest route out of poverty. And we shouldn't close off that option by forcing people out of college into any old kind of job just so we can proclaim that we made the transition from welfare to work. I ask unanimous consent that this editorial be printed in the Record.