Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, throughout America the events of September 11 have touched our people and have brought forth a level of thoughtful eloquence which has contributed to our ability to understand and to be able to deal with the extreme shock and pain of those agonizing images we all hold of the events of September 11. On Sunday, I attended the services at my church, the Miami Lakes Congregational Church, where our pastor, Rev. Jeffrey Frantz, delivered an exceptional sermon. I would like his words and thoughts and message to be made available to a broader audience, and therefore I ask unanimous consent, Madam President, that Reverend Frantz' sermon, ``Proud to be an American,'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Madam President. And to my colleague, Senator Torricelli, I say thank you for your forbearance.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, today I am introducing the Tour Operators Up-front Deposit Relief, TOUR, Act. This legislation codifies a longstanding practice used by the tour operator industry to account for prepaid deposits received in advance of a customers travel. A tour operator puts together travel ``packages'' often involving a number of different elements: airlines, ground transportation, hotels, restaurants, local guides and other services for one or more destinations. Services often include the direct provision of tour components such as motor coaches. The packages are sold to the public, usually through travel agents. Approximately 70 percent of retail travel agent sales involve tour operator packages. A vacation package combines multiple travel elements into an all-inclusive price. A tour is a trip taken by a group of people who travel together and follow a pre-planned itinerary. In both instances, the travel has been planned by professionals whose group purchasing power insures substantial savings. In addition, prepayment covers all major expenses which minimizes budgeting concerns. Tour operators employ a long standing, universally accepted method of accounting which recognizes deposits as income upon the date of departure of the passenger. This treatment defers income recognition while the customer still has the right to cancel the travel without substantial conditions and prior to the tour operator's performing many of the tasks and making many of the commitments required to insure a timely, safe and reliable trip. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, has adopted a position in selected tour operator audits which would, if generally applied, require virtually all tour operators to change their method of accounting for deposits. The IRS position is that tour operators must recognize deposits as income upon receipt even though they may not incur expenses for months, or in some cases, more than a year. This position is in direct contrast to guidance previously provided by the IRS. Revenue Procedure 71-21 acknowledges that accrual basis taxpayers should be allowed to defer advanced payment for services under certain circumstances but has improperly refused to interpret this ruling to apply to tour operators. If the IRS continues to pursue its position, it will raise the cost of operations for tour operators. This added cost will be passed on to Americans seeking to travel. Given the difficulties facing this industry in light of the events of September 11, the IRS position is particularly misguided. The legislation being introduced today clarifies that Revenue Procedure 71-21 applies to the tour operator industry. Under this Procedure, deposits become taxable income on the date the tour departs. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the Senate is considering a resolution in recognition of the outstanding service of our former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Mr. Pete Peterson. I will comment briefly on the exceptional life of Mr. Peterson. Mr. President, Pete Peterson is an American in our proudest tradition. Throughout his adult life, he has served America as a career officer in the United States Air Force, serving with bravery during the Vietnam war, including a period of over 6 years of incarceration in a Vietnam prison after having been shot down in combat. Pete Peterson returned to the United States and to Marianna, FL, after his long period of incarceration in Vietnam and, as a civilian, established his own business but continued his commitment to service, service in the form of being a volunteer at the State's principal school for boys who have the most difficult experience of delinquency. Pete Peterson served as a role model to these young men who were at the point in life where they either were going to recapture a sense of personal responsibility and values or they were likely to spend their own adult life in another form of prison for periods of longer than 6 years, even, that Pete Peterson spent in Vietnam. He performed great service to these young men and, in the course of that service, became aware of the role that service in elective office might have in terms of furthering his interest in America's youth. And so, in 1990, Pete Peterson, in what many considered to be almost a cause without hope, announced that he was going to run for the U.S. Congress. He did, and by the end of the campaign had managed to rally such public support that he defeated an incumbent Member of Congress--a rare feat in these days. He then served 6 years of very distinguished service in the House of Representatives. Having announced in 1990, when he first ran, that he would only serve three terms, at the end of his three terms, in 1996, he indicated he was going to return home to Marianna, having completed that congressional phase of his public career. Little did he know there was yet to be another important chapter before him. And that chapter developed as a result of the Congress and the President--President Clinton--reestablishing normal diplomatic relations with our previous adversary, Vietnam. President Clinton asked Pete Peterson to be the first United States Ambassador to Vietnam in the postwar era. Of course, Pete accepted that challenge to return to the service of the Nation that he so deeply loved. He was an exceptional Ambassador. You can imagine the emotion he felt, as well as the people of Vietnam--to have a man who had spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam now returning as the first United States Ambassador. Any sense of bitterness, any sense of loss that Pete may have felt evaporated. He represented our Nation and reached out to the people of Vietnam with unusual ability and warmth. A testimony to his great service is the legislation that this Senate today approved, which is a trade agreement with Vietnam. This is symbolic of the new relationship that will exist between the United States and Vietnam as we rebuild our relationship based on our common interest in advancing the economic well-being of both of our peoples. This trade agreement would not have been before the Senate today but for the exceptional skills, as our Ambassador to Vietnam, which were exercised by Pete Peterson. So, Mr. President, I join those who are taking this opportunity, as we enter into a new era of relationship with Vietnam, to recognize the particular role which our former colleague in the House of Representatives, Pete Peterson, played in making this possible. He is truly an exceptional American, but in the mold of so many generations of exceptional Americans. We are fortunate, as Americans, and those of us who know him also as a Floridian, to have served with and to have lived at the same time with such a special human being as Pete Peterson. I commend him for his many contributions to our Nation, and wish him well, as I am certain he will be pursuing further opportunities for public service. Mr. Nelson of Florida. I ask unanimous consent the resolution and the preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, today I am introducing the Tour Operators Up-front Deposit Relief, TOUR, Act. This legislation codifies a longstanding practice used by the tour operator industry to account for prepaid deposits received in advance of a customers travel. A tour operator puts together travel ``packages'' often involving a number of different elements: airlines, ground transportation, hotels, restaurants, local guides and other services for one or more destinations. Services often include the direct provision of tour components such as motor coaches. The packages are sold to the public, usually through travel agents. Approximately 70 percent of retail travel agent sales involve tour operator packages. A vacation package combines multiple travel elements into an all-inclusive price. A tour is a trip taken by a group of people who travel together and follow a pre-planned itinerary. In both instances, the travel has been planned by professionals whose group purchasing power insures substantial savings. In addition, prepayment covers all major expenses which minimizes budgeting concerns. Tour operators employ a long standing, universally accepted method of accounting which recognizes deposits as income upon the date of departure of the passenger. This treatment defers income recognition while the customer still has the right to cancel the travel without substantial conditions and prior to the tour operator's performing many of the tasks and making many of the commitments required to insure a timely, safe and reliable trip. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, has adopted a position in selected tour operator audits which would, if generally applied, require virtually all tour operators to change their method of accounting for deposits. The IRS position is that tour operators must recognize deposits as income upon receipt even though they may not incur expenses for months, or in some cases, more than a year. This position is in direct contrast to guidance previously provided by the IRS. Revenue Procedure 71-21 acknowledges that accrual basis taxpayers should be allowed to defer advanced payment for services under certain circumstances but has improperly refused to interpret this ruling to apply to tour operators. If the IRS continues to pursue its position, it will raise the cost of operations for tour operators. This added cost will be passed on to Americans seeking to travel. Given the difficulties facing this industry in light of the events of September 11, the IRS position is particularly misguided. The legislation being introduced today clarifies that Revenue Procedure 71-21 applies to the tour operator industry. Under this Procedure, deposits become taxable income on the date the tour departs. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, it has now been 10 days since our Nation was struck by a well-coordinated series of terrorist attacks. It has been 10 days since we all witnessed the horror of hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It has been 10 days since we vowed to track down and bring to justice those who assisted, financed, and harbored these terrorists and to treat them as terrorists. Today, as the investigation proceeds, I believe it is time we begin to look beyond the crisis of September 11. It is time we begin to develop a long-term response to the continued threat of terrorism. Terrorism ultimately is not a crisis. It is a cancerous condition, a condition that all Americans must come to grips with as we strive to return to normalcy. Today, with several of my colleagues, I am introducing a pair of bills that offer a prescription for the condition of terrorism. The first bill will make changes to a number of laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, to enhance our ability to infiltrate terrorist cells, to collect information necessary to guarantee America's security, and to coordinate more effectively our domestic efforts against terrorism. There are four primary goals of this legislation. The first relates to data collection to assure that our foreign intelligence should be brought into line with the laws that control domestic law enforcement actions. In a number of areas, we have different standards if we are collecting information for domestic law enforcement than when we are collecting analogous information for purposes of foreign intelligence. Second, many regulations have not kept pace with the rapid changes we have seen, particularly in communication technology, and need to be updated. Third, as we saw on September 11, most terrorist acts have both a criminal and an intelligence component. Our foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies need to be able to share information in order to protect our citizens. Fourth, there are some strategic changes we need to make in the laws, such as better training of our local law enforcement so that they can play their appropriate role in responding to terrorism before the act to prevent terrorist actions, as opposed to just, as we are doing now at the Pentagon and in New York City, picking up the pieces of the consequences of a terrorist act that has been executed. I emphasize that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been working on these proposals for several months. We have worked closely with the appropriate Federal agencies, as well as within the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. It is my hope that we will develop a consensus around the proposals other Members of Congress may have that the Attorney General has recently submitted. We do not purport that our list is exclusive. We think it represents a well-researched, solid beginning against a very serious challenge to our Nation, and we look forward to fully reviewing those recommendations that have been made within the last 72 hours by the Attorney General. I also want to make it clear that I am mindful of the concerns we are beginning to hear from various organizations that we might overreact and impinge upon the civil liberties of our people. We would hand the ultimate victory to terrorists if we were to allow them to coerce our great Nation into compromising our highest values, personal freedom, and civil rights. Madam President, in many ways we are here today much as the country was in the 1920s. It was at that time that America launched a national crusade against organized crime. The Nation committed itself to rooting out the corrupt captains of crime who had infiltrated labor unions, run gambling operations, trafficked in illegal drugs and, in the course of their activities, accumulated great wealth and, in many communities, great political influence. We can take pride that over several decades an earlier generation of American leaders managed to put many of these domestic enemies behind bars and diminish their influence and their corrosive effect on our society. I take this experience of the 20th century, our ability to begin to roll back the influence of organized crime in the United States, as a hopeful sign, a sign that we can pass on to our children and our grandchildren a world that has greatly diminished the threat we now face from terrorists. It is our hope that these two legislative proposals will be a step in that direction. Under our proposal, the President will appoint the Director of the National Office for Combating Terrorism subject to Senate confirmation. This individual will be accountable to the President, to the Congress, and to the Nation. One of the key responsibilities of this new office would be budget coordination to assure that all of the agencies--and there are now as many as 40 agencies that have some piece of antiterrorism activity--are operating from a coordinated plan and that resources to carry out their portions of the plan are properly coordinated. To do that will require the statutory authority from Congress. Madam President, the second bill has as its objective to assure that the dozens of Federal agencies that have counterterrorism as one of their missions are working together in a coordinated way to detect and disarm terrorists. There have been over the past several years several independent commissions which have reviewed the issue of terrorism. Two of our former colleagues, Senators Rudman and Hart, have headed one of those commissions. All of those commissions have endorsed the principle of a stronger central coordination of the Federal Government's efforts against terrorism. Just this past week, the General Accounting Office issued yet another study of this issue. I quote a portion of that General Accounting Office study: Key interagency functions are resident in several different organizations, resulting in fragmented leadership and coordination. These circumstances hinder unity of effort and limit accountability. However, the current attention being focused on this issue provides an opportunity to improve the overall leadership and coordination of programs to combat terrorism. In other words, we need to assign responsibility to someone who will be the leader of our national effort to make certain that all of the agencies are on the field, from the Central Intelligence Agency to the FBI, and are following a common set of objectives. I am pleased that President Bush endorsed this approach in his address to the Nation. The President called, by Executive order, for the creation of a position of homeland defense within the White House. He has assigned that responsibility to the current Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge. I believe we should build on what the President has recommended by going a step further and making this position a statutory position.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, it has now been 10 days since our Nation was struck by a well-coordinated series of terrorist attacks. It has been 10 days since we all witnessed the horror of hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It has been 10 days since we vowed to track down and bring to justice those who assisted, financed, and harbored these terrorists and to treat them as terrorists. Today, as the investigation proceeds, I believe it is time we begin to look beyond the crisis of September 11. It is time we begin to develop a long-term response to the continued threat of terrorism. Terrorism ultimately is not a crisis. It is a cancerous condition, a condition that all Americans must come to grips with as we strive to return to normalcy. Today, with several of my colleagues, I am introducing a pair of bills that offer a prescription for the condition of terrorism. The first bill will make changes to a number of laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, to enhance our ability to infiltrate terrorist cells, to collect information necessary to guarantee America's security, and to coordinate more effectively our domestic efforts against terrorism. There are four primary goals of this legislation. The first relates to data collection to assure that our foreign intelligence should be brought into line with the laws that control domestic law enforcement actions. In a number of areas, we have different standards if we are collecting information for domestic law enforcement than when we are collecting analogous information for purposes of foreign intelligence. Second, many regulations have not kept pace with the rapid changes we have seen, particularly in communication technology, and need to be updated. Third, as we saw on September 11, most terrorist acts have both a criminal and an intelligence component. Our foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies need to be able to share information in order to protect our citizens. Fourth, there are some strategic changes we need to make in the laws, such as better training of our local law enforcement so that they can play their appropriate role in responding to terrorism before the act to prevent terrorist actions, as opposed to just, as we are doing now at the Pentagon and in New York City, picking up the pieces of the consequences of a terrorist act that has been executed. I emphasize that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been working on these proposals for several months. We have worked closely with the appropriate Federal agencies, as well as within the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. It is my hope that we will develop a consensus around the proposals other Members of Congress may have that the Attorney General has recently submitted. We do not purport that our list is exclusive. We think it represents a well-researched, solid beginning against a very serious challenge to our Nation, and we look forward to fully reviewing those recommendations that have been made within the last 72 hours by the Attorney General. I also want to make it clear that I am mindful of the concerns we are beginning to hear from various organizations that we might overreact and impinge upon the civil liberties of our people. We would hand the ultimate victory to terrorists if we were to allow them to coerce our great Nation into compromising our highest values, personal freedom, and civil rights. Madam President, in many ways we are here today much as the country was in the 1920s. It was at that time that America launched a national crusade against organized crime. The Nation committed itself to rooting out the corrupt captains of crime who had infiltrated labor unions, run gambling operations, trafficked in illegal drugs and, in the course of their activities, accumulated great wealth and, in many communities, great political influence. We can take pride that over several decades an earlier generation of American leaders managed to put many of these domestic enemies behind bars and diminish their influence and their corrosive effect on our society. I take this experience of the 20th century, our ability to begin to roll back the influence of organized crime in the United States, as a hopeful sign, a sign that we can pass on to our children and our grandchildren a world that has greatly diminished the threat we now face from terrorists. It is our hope that these two legislative proposals will be a step in that direction. Under our proposal, the President will appoint the Director of the National Office for Combating Terrorism subject to Senate confirmation. This individual will be accountable to the President, to the Congress, and to the Nation. One of the key responsibilities of this new office would be budget coordination to assure that all of the agencies--and there are now as many as 40 agencies that have some piece of antiterrorism activity--are operating from a coordinated plan and that resources to carry out their portions of the plan are properly coordinated. To do that will require the statutory authority from Congress. Madam President, the second bill has as its objective to assure that the dozens of Federal agencies that have counterterrorism as one of their missions are working together in a coordinated way to detect and disarm terrorists. There have been over the past several years several independent commissions which have reviewed the issue of terrorism. Two of our former colleagues, Senators Rudman and Hart, have headed one of those commissions. All of those commissions have endorsed the principle of a stronger central coordination of the Federal Government's efforts against terrorism. Just this past week, the General Accounting Office issued yet another study of this issue. I quote a portion of that General Accounting Office study: Key interagency functions are resident in several different organizations, resulting in fragmented leadership and coordination. These circumstances hinder unity of effort and limit accountability. However, the current attention being focused on this issue provides an opportunity to improve the overall leadership and coordination of programs to combat terrorism. In other words, we need to assign responsibility to someone who will be the leader of our national effort to make certain that all of the agencies are on the field, from the Central Intelligence Agency to the FBI, and are following a common set of objectives. I am pleased that President Bush endorsed this approach in his address to the Nation. The President called, by Executive order, for the creation of a position of homeland defense within the White House. He has assigned that responsibility to the current Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge. I believe we should build on what the President has recommended by going a step further and making this position a statutory position.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I join with my colleagues to stress the importance of adequate funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. When our state and local law enforcement undertake the task of assisting the federal government in areas of complete federal jurisdiction, such as immigration, we need to ensure that we are not unfairly shifting the cost burden of this task to our state and local partners. The incarceration of criminal aliens, when undertaken by state and local governments, should be reimbursed. SCAAP is a good first step--it reimburses some of the costs--we should do more. But at the very least, we should ensure that at least the $565 million allocated in the House bill is available for SCAAP this year. Each of our states receives reimbursement from SCAAP. Our law enforcement community counts on this funding, and it is our obligation to ensure that our federal responsibility is met. I am pleased to be working with so many dedicated colleagues on this matter, and look forward to working with the Committee on an issue of such importance to each of our states.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Madam President. I wish to commend you and Senator Smith for the eloquent remarks you have just delivered to the American people. We all are shocked by what occurred on September 11, and we recognize that this will be a demarcation date in the history of America. It will be a date upon which we will recognize our loss of innocence and the new reality of our vulnerability. Not since the Civil War has there been a conflict of such violence committed on the territory of the United States as we experienced on Tuesday. As with Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President John Kennedy, all Americans will forever remember where they were and what was in their mind as they heard of the tragic events of last Tuesday. Today our prayers are with the victims in New York and here in the Pentagon and with their families. Our admiration and good wishes go to the brave firefighters, policemen, doctors, nurses, and all the other emergency personnel who are working so hard to find the survivors and to deal with the pain. We pray for our Nation as well. We have entered a new phase in history, one that will unfortunately be marked by a pervasive sense of insecurity. I am fortunate to be a grandfather of 10 beautiful boys and girls. Their mothers called me Tuesday evening to tell me how frightened the grandchildren were and that they were wondering whether their neighborhood, whether their school, and whether their own brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and friends would be subject to the same thing they had just seen on television. Every time we take a trip, particularly by airline, we are likely to be reminded of Tuesday's incident. We will also face increased security, particularly at airports and seaports. Our border checkpoints will be reinforced. But all of these are necessary changes. Frankly, I believe the vast majority of Americans will agree that there will be reasonable, new restrictions in light of the new period of American history in which we will now be living. To honor the lives of the victims, we must take steps to assure that other Americans will not be subject to the same fate. A first step in that honoring will be to support the President of the United States of America. He will have some extremely difficult decisions to make in the next few days. Clearly, we are not going to allow this horrific act to go unanswered. As has been the case in so many other incidents of conflict, we will enter this commitment to see that those who have committed these deeds will be brought to justice with great enthusiasm. The real test will be whether we are prepared to make the long march that is likely to be required in order to root out the many cells of terrorists around the world that represent a continuing threat to our security. The President will need our support then even more than now. We also need to rebuild some of our institutions that will be on the front lines of our efforts to assure the security of America. One of those with which I feel a particular responsibility is our national intelligence capability. To deal with terrorism, there is no alternative but to have the most effective capacities to anticipate what the motivations and capabilities of our particular adversaries are and then to be able to interdict those capabilities before they can be put into action. We have seen over the past several years a degradation in some important areas of our intelligence capabilities. We will know in the next few weeks whether those shortfalls bear a part of the responsibility for what happened on Tuesday. Illustrative of the areas in which we are going to need to pay renewed attention and additional new resources will be rebuilding our human intelligence. For a long period during the cold war we became increasingly dependent upon technology as the means of gathering information. That played a critical role. But in this new era there is going to be no substitute for having well-trained, diverse in background and language skills, and technologically competent persons who can represent the interests of the United States in getting inside these organizations so that we will have a level of understanding that will allow us to prepare for and to avoid incidents such as Tuesday's tragedy. We also must make some investments in some of our technological areas, particularly the National Security Agency, which for many years had been our prime means of gathering information by essentially eavesdropping on our adversaries. That capability, which was developed to a very high level during the cold war when most of those communications were over the air, has been degraded as countries, including our own, have gone to other forms of communication. As an example, communicating computer to computer does not allow the kind of detection we have relied on in the past. It is going to be important that we make a new commitment and a new investment to build up that capability to what it has been historically. With the permission of the body, I am submitting for the Congressional Record a recent article which appeared in the Washington Post which examines the National Security Agency, some of its immediate challenges, and the pathway to a stronger and more secure future that is being developed under the direction of its leader, LTG Michael V. Hayden. I ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, with a prayer that God will be with us as we enter this next and more challenging period of our Nation's history, I extend the wish that God will bless our Nation and that we will be worthy of his blessings. Thank you.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, today, together with my Finance Committee colleague, Senator Grassley, I am introducing the Professional Employer Organization Workers Benefits Act of 2001. Companion legislation is being introduced in the House by Representatives Cardin and Portman. This legislation expands retirement and health benefits for workers at small and medium-sized businesses in this country. This bill is a narrower version of a bill that I sponsored in the last Congress, S. 2979, the Graham-Mack bill. Our new bill incorporates several improvements recommended by interested parties over the course of the past several years. Most significantly, the scope of this bill has been limited to address technical issues that were raised by the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, and the Labor Department. I think it is fair to say that a much improved version of this proposal has emerged, one that ensures that the legislation's objective of expanding retirement and health coverage is achieved, while also ensuring that other important Federal policies are not affected. I am very pleased that, the Commissioner of the IRS, in a letter sent to one of the House companion bill sponsors recently, has indicated his interest in seeing this legislation enacted in a timely fashion. In brief, this bill would permit certified professional employer organizations, PEOs, to assist small and medium-sized businesses in complying with the multiple responsibilities of being an employer. It does this by permitting the PEOs to accept responsibility for employment taxes and provide employee benefits to workers in small businesses. For many of these workers, the PEO's pension, health and other benefits represent benefits that the worker would not have received otherwise because they are too costly for the small business to provide on its own. PEOs provide the expertise and the economies of scale necessary to provide health and retirement benefits in an affordable and efficient manner. Congress must take every opportunity to encourage businesses to provide retirement and health benefits to their employees. PEOs offer one creative way to bridge the gap between what workers need and what small businesses can afford to provide them. This legislation clarifies the tax law to make it clear that PEOs meeting certain standards will be able to offer those needed employee benefits and collect Federal employment taxes for their business customers. In addition, I would like to make clear what this bill does not do. Unlike certain other bills, this bill applies only to PEOs, i.e., arrangements where the PEO accepts responsibility for all or almost all of the workers at a worksite. It does not have anything to do with temporary staffing agencies or similar arrangements. Further, this bill by its terms applies only to the two areas of the tax law I have mentioned, employment tax and employee benefit laws. It does not affect any other law, nor does it affect the determination of who is the employer for tax law or any other purpose. The bill specifically states that it creates no inferences with respect to those issues. I am hopeful that, with this narrower focus, this legislation can be considered quickly on its own merits, without getting bogged down in the disputes over the so-called contingent workforce and independent contractor issues, issues that are not addressed in this bill. While those are important issues that Congress may want to examine, we should not allow those complex issues to delay resolution of the unrelated PEO issues addressed by this bill. We believe that the changes made by our legislation will help expand retirement and health plan coverage both in the short-term and the longer run. I look forward to working with Senator Grassley and my other colleagues on the Finance Committee and the Administration in moving this bill during this Congress so that we can begin to address the difficulties faced by small businesses and their workers in obtaining benefits and meeting the other challenges of operating in an increasingly globalized economy. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I hope that language to this effect can be included in the conference report.

Mr. GRAHAM. The language on page 51 of the Senate Report (107-38) does not specify that the funding that is made available is provided both for the installation of the previously purchased medium approach lighting systems with runway alignment indicator lights (MALSR) and for future procurement, so as to keep the production line operational. I would like to ask for clarification: is money in this account to be used both for installation and procurement?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am pleased to see that the Senate Transportation appropriations bill has included a provision which makes $33,331,000 available for the Approach Lighting System Improvement Program (ALSIP). I thank my colleague from Washington, the chair of the Subcommittee, Mrs. Murray for her help in securing this funding.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, today I am introducing with my colleagues, Senators Murkowski, Reid of Nevada, Nelson of Florida, Inhofe, Warner and Burns legislation entitled the Spaceport Equality Act. Currently airports, high speed rail, seaports, mass transit, and other transportation projects can raise money through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds. The Spaceport Equality Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to clarify that spaceports enjoy the same favorable tax treatment. The U.S. aerospace industry manufactures nearly 70 percent of the world's satellites, but only 40 percent of the satellites that enter the atmosphere are launched by this country. Our Nation's spaceports are a vital component of the infrastructure needed to expand and enhance the U.S. role in the international space arena. The Spaceport Equality Act is an important step in increasing our competitive position in this emerging industry. This bill will stimulate investment in expanding and modernizing our Nation's space launch facilities by lowering the cost of financing spaceport construction and renovation. Upon enactment, the bill will increase U.S. launch capacity, and enhance both our economic and national security. The commercial space market is expected to become increasingly more competitive in the next decade. The ability to have a robust space launch capability is in our best interests economically as well as strategically. My proposal does not provide direct Federal spending to our commercial space transportation industry. Instead, it creates the conditions necessary to stimulate private sector capital investment in infrastructure. This bill offers Congress the chance to help open a new age to space, where the States and local communities can themselves take part in space transportation. To be state of the art in space requires state of the art financing on the ground. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join us in this important effort by co-sponsoring this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a short summary of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, today I am introducing with my colleagues, Senators Murkowski, Reid of Nevada, Nelson of Florida, Inhofe, Warner and Burns legislation entitled the Spaceport Equality Act. Currently airports, high speed rail, seaports, mass transit, and other transportation projects can raise money through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds. The Spaceport Equality Act amends the Internal Revenue Code to clarify that spaceports enjoy the same favorable tax treatment. The U.S. aerospace industry manufactures nearly 70 percent of the world's satellites, but only 40 percent of the satellites that enter the atmosphere are launched by this country. Our Nation's spaceports are a vital component of the infrastructure needed to expand and enhance the U.S. role in the international space arena. The Spaceport Equality Act is an important step in increasing our competitive position in this emerging industry. This bill will stimulate investment in expanding and modernizing our Nation's space launch facilities by lowering the cost of financing spaceport construction and renovation. Upon enactment, the bill will increase U.S. launch capacity, and enhance both our economic and national security. The commercial space market is expected to become increasingly more competitive in the next decade. The ability to have a robust space launch capability is in our best interests economically as well as strategically. My proposal does not provide direct Federal spending to our commercial space transportation industry. Instead, it creates the conditions necessary to stimulate private sector capital investment in infrastructure. This bill offers Congress the chance to help open a new age to space, where the States and local communities can themselves take part in space transportation. To be state of the art in space requires state of the art financing on the ground. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join us in this important effort by co-sponsoring this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a short summary of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Madam President. And I thank Senator Murray and Senator Shelby for their consideration.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, in October of last year I spoke to the Senate about a specific part of the Transportation appropriations, and that was the earmarking of intelligent transportation systems, or ITS, funds. At that time I expressed my concern that intelligent transportation funds had been earmarked over the last several appropriations cycles, and that earmarking was inconsistent with the purposes and objectives of the underlying legislation which authorized ITS funds which was TEA-21, the current Surface Transportation Act. The Surface Transportation Act clearly stated the money was to be allocated on a competitive solicitation process overseen by the Secretary of Transportation. I discussed this in the last few months with both Senator Murray and Senator Shelby, and raised my concerns. Therefore, I am pleased to say that, while there are still earmarks of ITS funds in this legislation, they, in my opinion, are noticeably less onerous than those earmarks to which I objected last October. I thank Senator Murray and Senator Shelby for their efforts in that direction. Let me give a little history and also point out some of the improvements which have given me encouragement from last year's Transportation appropriations bill. In March of 1998, Congress overwhelmingly approved groundbreaking transportation legislation, TEA-21. This was not only intended to revamp distribution of Federal highway funds but was also to usher America into the completed interstate period of our highway history. We had spent the better part of a half century building the interstate system. By the 1990s, that mammoth national effort, at least as it had originally been conceived, has largely been accomplished. So the question was, Where do we go in the ``after interstate construction'' period? One of the areas in which the Congress clearly believes we needed to go is to make the interstate and our other national highway systems as efficient as possible. As the Presiding Officer, who comes from a large and growing State, I can appreciate the number of interstate lanes you can build through a city such as St. Louis or Kansas City is just about limited unless you are prepared to do very significant demolition of an urban environment. We increasingly are asking ourselves how we make these systems that are already in place operate as efficiently as possible. The 1998 TEA- 21 legislation set aside money for research and development and also for the deployment of components of intelligent transportation systems. The goal was to accelerate our knowledge of how we make these systems more efficient and then to develop sound national policy for dealing with traffic congestion in the 21st century. The Intelligent Transportation Program works to solve congestion and safety problems, improve operating efficiencies in vehicles and in mass transit, in individual automobiles and commercial vehicles, and reduces the environmental impact of growing travel demand. Intelligent transportation systems use modern computers, management techniques, and information technology to improve the flow of traffic. ITS applications range from electronic highway signs that direct drivers away from congested roadways, to advanced radio advisories, to more efficient public transit. This plan, developed by the Environment and Public Works Committee, was thoughtful and had a specific purpose in mind: to foster the growth of ITS, and, in a scientific manner, gather results from new ITS programs so that we could make wise decisions when the next transportation bill is authorized. We might make the decision that ITS has been a failure and we should abandon attempts to improve the efficiencies of our highways. I personally doubt that will be the answer. It is more likely, I hope, that the answer will be that the practical necessities and limitations of other alternatives require us to try to make our existing highways as efficient as possible and that there are some means of doing that. One of my concerns from last year's bill was the small dollar amount allocated to most of the earmarks. If you looked at last year's Transportation appropriations bill under the provision of ITS, you saw almost a mind-numbing list of specific communities with dollar amounts behind them. I know from personal experience that ITS, while a very potentially valuable component of any transportation plan, is not inexpensive. The plan I am most familiar with is Orlando, FL, which is a plan that combines many of the components of a modern ITS system and has had a pricetag in excess of $15 million. Therefore, when I saw many earmarks that were in the range of $500,000, I wondered where they were going to get the ``critical mass'' of funds needed to do an effective ITS system, where there was going to be a critical mass of the various components of ITS that would give us the kind of information we are going to need to make the judgment as to how far we can push this technology and these management systems as an increasingly significant part of our national transportation policy. This year's Senate bill has earmarks. But many of them seem to reach the level of critical mass. That gives me encouragement that we are going to actually learn something from these projects because there are enough resources for a community to do a serious ITS program. A second concern is that there has been little correlation between what we have identified as the Nation's most congested communities and where we have sent our ITS money. In the legislation of last year, as I pointed out in my October statement, almost no money went to the cities that had been designated as among the 70 most congested cities in America. There has been some improvement this year. The source of information the Federal Government looks to to determine where the greatest congestion on the highway exists is a study which is produced annually by the Texas Transportation Institute located at Texas A&M University. They published their annual report for this year in May. The 10 most congested cities in America, based on this analysis, are, in order: Los Angeles; San Francisco-Oakland; Chicago; Seattle; Washington, DC, and suburbs; San Diego; Boston; Atlanta; Denver; and the Portland, OR, area. Unlike last year's appropriations bill, actually some money was allocated this year to these most congested cities: $3.75 million is going to the State of Illinois, assuming some of that will be directed towards the third most congested city in America; $4 million to the Washington, DC, area, the fifth most congested area; $1 million to Atlanta, the eighth most congested area; and $6 million to the State of Washington, again assuming that some will go to the fourth most congested area of Seattle. Having said that, I point out that 6 of the 10 most congested areas did not receive any of the funds. Of the 44 earmarked areas in the Senate bill, 23 are directed towards cities or localities that are in the top 70 most congested areas in America, according to the Texas Transportation Institute study. Even though I personally believe that there should be no earmarks and that we should fully comply with the prospects laid out in TEA-21, I am encouraged to see that the money seems to be directed, more so than in the past, to where the need is the greatest. I again commend Senator Murray and Senator Shelby for that. As I mentioned last year, I am not categorically opposed to earmarks. There may be appropriate areas within a mature transportation program where it is appropriate for Congress to indicate a national priority. As a former Governor, my preference is to allocate these funds to the States so that the States which have the responsibility for managing the transportation systems for all of their citizens can make intelligent judgments as to priorities, and then to oversee to determine that the actual results which led to the appropriations were accomplished. I have grave concerns about where we are earmarking funds in a program that is evolving, where the stated purpose is to be able to enhance our knowledge of how this system operates, so that in the future we can make more informed judgments as to whether it is a program that deserves continued specific Federal support or whether it should be abandoned or whether it should be accelerated because of its demonstrated contribution. I am concerned about the relationship of earmarks to the legislative structure which led to the establishment of these creative and evolving programs. In an effort to allay those concerns about earmarks, I have presented to the managers of this legislation--I am pleased to state that they have accepted--an amendment that I will soon offer. This amendment states that all of the earmarked projects will have to meet the authorization standards that were included in TEA-21 as to their significance and the contribution they will make towards our better understanding of the potential for intelligent transportation. I thank again Senators Murray and Shelby for having indicated their acceptance of this amendment. Let me conclude with a few words of caution. There is a role for the National Government beyond just redistribution of highway funds to the States and territories and the District of Columbia which benefit from those funds. We also have the opportunity, from time to time, to be a national laboratory for new, innovative ideas. There were several of those in TEA-21. There was a new idea about innovative financing, how we could better put national, State, and, in some cases, private funds together in order to finance transportation projects. There was a new idea about streamlining and coordinating the permitting of transportation projects so some of the long delays that we are all familiar with could be avoided in the future. There was the innovative idea of enhancing our knowledge of intelligent transportation systems in order to make our highways more efficient. Most of those involve a specific program, with specific funding authorizations. Most of those were intended to use a competitive process so that the best of the best ideas could be given a chance to be demonstrated in real life, that our knowledge would be accelerated. However, if we proceed in a manner that every time we try to use a national laboratory of innovation, what happens is, the funds that were provided for that end up being earmarked in an unsystematic, I would say in some cases, irrational manner, then what is the point? Why should we try to be a laboratory of innovation if that goal will be frustrated by the manner in which the funds are distributed, that rather than being distributed on a competitive basis, where merit and contribution to the national store of knowledge will be the primary objective, we distribute the money based on who happens to have the most influence within the appropriations process? If that is going to be the pattern, then I, for one, would say, let's abandon the concept of the U.S. National Government as a laboratory, and let's just put all those moneys back into the pool to be redistributed to the States under an established formula. I would personally hope we would not abandon that objective and that important role the Federal Government can play as a laboratory, but it is going to require the kind of discipline that we have made between October of 2000 and now into July of 2001, where there has been progress made in the Senate. We are going to have to continue that discipline as we go into conference with the House of Representatives, which, unfortunately, from my examination, has continued most of the practices that I bemoaned back in the fall of last year--a long list of small projects that do not seem to have the critical mass or the direction towards where congestion has been demonstrated to be the greatest and, therefore, where the opportunities to learn most about these ITS projects is the greatest. So I will hope our conferees will stand strong for the principles they have already adopted and the principles which are represented in the amendment which I offer and ask for adoption.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Andrea Witt and Matthew Baggett of my staff be allowed the privilege of the floor during the duration of debate on this legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask for 15 minutes.