Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 10 a.m., in the 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``The Benefits of Healthy Marriage.''

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, before I respond in a specific way to the amendment before us, everything Senator Graham said about Ottumwa, IA, is accurate, I believe. Obviously, when anyone in America loses a job, it is a very personal hurt to that individual, particularly if they liked their job and if they had been in that job for a long period of time, and particularly if they were older people and not looking to retrain or even spend the time and investment in retraining. So considering those personal hurts, and not without proper regard for the economic consequences of people hurt by being laid off, it is a simple matter, not only in the United States but all over the world, that there are less jobs in manufacturing than previously. It is mostly because of the enhanced productivity in manufacturing. When people can get machines to do work that individuals do, obviously, that enhances productivity and it is done for the sole purpose of being more accurate and cutting down on the number of jobs--also, not to denigrate productivity, because productivity being enhanced is the only way in America or anyplace else in the world you are going to increase the standard of living of Americans. When you increase productivity, people become more productive, they earn more money, and their standard of living goes up. We want that for everybody. So enhancing productivity is very basic to the increasing of the standard of living. Now, there are fewer jobs in manufacturing today than there have ever been. But manufacturing is still a very major component of our economy. It is still around 15, 16 percent of our economy, I believe. If you go back 40 or 50 years, it was probably 20 or 21 percent of the economy. But there was a period of time when we lost 2 million jobs in manufacturing during the 1980s, and we still had manufacturing as 20 percent of the economy. So manufacturing is very important, but it is maintaining its importance with less jobs doing the work that needs to be done to manufacture whatever we want in America. Now, several times on this issue I have quoted former Secretary of Labor Reich from the Clinton administration. He is now a professor at Harvard, I believe. He wrote on December 26 of last year in the Wall Street Journal about the problems of manufacturing and declining employment in manufacturing. Secretary Reich pointed out that, yes, America has 10-percent fewer jobs in manufacturing now than they did in the previous benchmark. But he also pointed out during that same period of time, whereas the United States lost 10 percent of their manufacturing jobs, China had lost 15 percent of their jobs in manufacturing. So you see, even though we are legitimately concerned about outsourcing of manufacturing going to China, we are also seeing China finding ways to be more efficient in their manufacturing. It is quite obvious, if you look at this historically, that this is progress: enhancing productivity to raise wages to raise the standard of living. This is not the era of Luddites, when people are going to go into factories and smash machinery because they think it is taking jobs away from people. If the Luddite philosophy were legitimate, we would still be making the common pin by hand. We are producing by machine so we can enhance productivity to enhance wages to enhance the standard of living. The American people would not be satisfied today with 96 percent of the American population being on farms, as it was in 1790 when this country was a brand new country. Today about 2 percent of the people in the United States are producing the food for the other 98 percent, and each farmer produces for 145 people. The United States exports about 40 percent of its food and farm products, because we cannot consume it domestically. Whether it is in manufacturing or whether it is in farming, if 5 percent of the market is the American people, then we are not going to have a very high standard of living. The other 95 percent of the market are the people outside the United States of America. If we still had 96 percent of the people in America involved in farming, we would have a subsistence level of livelihood. We have to accept the fact that every month in America, 7 million jobs go out of existence and 7 million new jobs come into existence. In that process, people are more productive, make higher wages, and have a higher standard of living, and not just for some of our people but for all of our people. The only people in America who might not have a higher standard of living are those we have kept down, and this Congress is responsible for keeping welfare recipients down, keeping them out of mind, out of sight to the edge of society. But we established a principle of welfare reform in 1996 to move people from the edge of society in welfare to the world of work, to the mainstream of American society, because it is in the world of work where they have opportunities for enhanced productivity, for enhanced wages that will raise their standard of living. Except for welfare recipients, people in the world of work are producing more now than before to enhance their standard of living. It seems to me that when we have 7 million jobs going out of existence 1 month and 7 million new jobs coming into existence in the same month, it says better than anything I can say about how rapidly our economy is changing, much more rapidly today than ever in the history of our country. It might even change more rapidly in the future. For people who abhor the fact that we are losing manufacturing jobs, then you have to ask, what do we do to maintain those manufacturing jobs? The basic bill we are dealing with, the jobs and manufacturing bill, tries to do it two ways: one, to staunch the bleeding in jobs leaving manufacturing. It is enhanced now because we have a European tax on our exports to Europe so that our manufacturers cannot be competitive in Europe and, hence, people are being laid off. That European tax on our exports is legal and started in March. We started debating this bill in March. We could have had this bill passed in March. We could have had the European tax behind us because once we pass this legislation, there is no legal basis for their putting the tax on our exports to their country. In the same vein, the jobs a manufacturing bill will reduce the level of taxation on corporations from 35 percent down to 32 percent. One of the reasons we lose jobs in manufacturing to the global competition is that our cost to capital is very high in relationship to our global competition. So in reducing the corporate tax by 3 percent and doing it in a revenue-neutral way so it does not worsen the deficit, we have an opportunity to create jobs in manufacturing, make what jobs we have more secure, and continue to enhance the productivity of workers in America. I hope we remember that we do have a rapidly changing society. Our people welcome an enhanced standard of living that comes from increased wages, which comes from increased productivity. And they want that to continue. That is why I am concerned about the amendment of the Senator from Florida that is before us. That is why I am going to ask my colleagues to consider my views on this amendment and, hopefully, disagree with Senator Graham and defeat the amendment and move on and get this bill passed. That 5-percent tax put on in March, increased to 6 percent in April, and it is 7 percent now in May. It is going to be 12 percent by election time. Are we going to continue to have an environment where people can be laid off? Senator Graham may have an idea that is legitimate to discuss, but right now in the environment we are in, in which there is an increasing burden put on our exports to Europe, it seems to me we ought to forgo this discussion, which ought to come at another time when Senator Graham's amendment could fit in. We need to get this legislation passed. This legislation is a bipartisan bill. Not often do we get this bipartisan cooperation in the Senate. We ought to take it and run with it. His amendment proposes to enact a new wage tax credit and pay for it by striking the manufacturing rate cut--that cut from 35 percent down to 32 percent about which I just spoke--and he would also strike all of the international provisions that are in this bill, international provisions to which we try to bring a more rational approach to the taxation of American business in international trade. Evidently, the Senator from Florida believes a payroll tax credit that reduces employer contributions to the Social Security trust fund will create more jobs than a manufacturing rate cut. Payroll tax credits have long been controversial. I always thought market demand and the ability to compete in that market is what created jobs. If an employer sees an opportunity and goes after that opportunity, then they will add employees to meet demand, but I do not see how a tax credit creates market opportunity. I thought that tax relief, tax reductions, and the lower burden imposed by having the Government as a silent business partner is what enhances a company's competitiveness, which then in turn would lead to more opportunity. This JOBS bill before us now contains a 3-point reduction in corporate tax for manufacturing, not across the board. The chart behind me shows the corporate tax rates on manufacturing income for the European Union and for the United States. I thought this chart would be interesting for comparison since the United States and the European Union are both highly developed wage and skilled countries. This chart shows that on average the European Union tax rate on manufacturing is 21 percent, while that in the United States is 24 percent. That is averages. So do not get that confused with the 35 down to the 32 I am talking about. It is necessary to pass this 3-point reduction in corporate tax rates which is in this JOBS bill to keep the United States even with these European countries. So being a believer that competitiveness breeds job growth, I fail to see how a wage credit in lieu of a tax cut can produce more jobs if U.S. manufacturers remain burdened with a significantly higher rate of tax than their main competitors. After arriving on the Senate floor, I received a copy of a ``dear colleague'' letter from Senator Graham of Florida and Senator Dayton of Minnesota. That letter says production outsourced to a foreign country qualifies for manufacturing deduction. That is not right. Our bill does not do that. The 3-point rate cut only applies to income from U.S.-based manufacturing. It does not apply to foreign manufacturing of any type. So the fundamental premise of the Graham amendment is in error. Senator Graham also implies contract manufacturing qualifies for the manufacturing deduction. This is not correct. We specifically rejected allowing a company to take a deduction for manufacturing that someone else does for them, regardless of whether the contract manufacturer is located in the United States or offshore. If we allowed contract manufacturing to qualify, it would be a double dip. We were lobbied on this and we rejected that. So, again, a fundamental assumption of the amendment is in error. The Senator from Florida also criticizes the wage limitation. This limit is there to ensure manufacturing jobs are created. If they do not grow jobs, then their manufacturing deduction is diminished. If their assembly lines are filled with robots instead of people, then the deduction is limited. So if one wants more hiring, this is the way to get it done. That is what the wage limit accomplishes. All of the fundamentals underlying his amendment are in error. I think they are a mischaracterization of the underlying bill. There is, however, an even more disturbing aspect of the amendment before us. Senators have heard me come to the floor many times to talk about the bipartisan development of the JOBS bill. Its construction began when Senator Baucus was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Baucus held hearings in July 2002 to address the FSC/ETI controversy within the World Trade Organization. During this hearing, Senator Graham of Florida, now on the Senate floor with us, and Senator Hatch as well, expressed concern about how our international tax laws were impairing the competitiveness of U.S. companies. After some discussion on forming a blue ribbon commission to study this problem, we all decided decisive action was more important than setting up a commission. During that hearing, Chairman Baucus formed an international tax working group that was joined by Senator Graham, Senator Hatch, and this Senator. This bipartisan Finance Committee working group formed the basis for the bill that is now before us. There is not one provision in this JOBS bill that was not agreed to by both Republicans and Democrats, not one. But today a member of that bipartisan working group offers an amendment that would destroy this bipartisan consensus on the provisions of the JOBS bill. Why? The JOBS bill includes the international tax simplification measures that were recommended in the Joint Committee on Taxation April 2001 report on tax simplification. There was no constituency for these simplifications. No governmental affairs representative came to our office to advocate for them. No, the person who asked for them was the Senator from Florida. Senator Graham emphasized the desire to include these simplification measures in the bill, and we did that. The Senator from Florida preferred simplification over restructuring and wanted the emphasis of our bill to be on foreign tax credit reforms. We honored his views because that is what our bill does in the bipartisan spirit of this legislation. That Senator expressed concern about the 90-percent foreign tax credit limit on AMT, the alternative minimum tax, and he wanted the 10- 50 basket problems solved. We did both of these things in this bill. The Senator from Florida even sought reductions on a number of foreign tax credit baskets, but the working group decided that was too significant of an international change to be accepted by the full Senate. I hope when we vote on this amendment the Senator will back up our decision on that because this bill was reported out of committee on a bipartisan 19-to-2 vote. The Senator from Florida voted for this bill in the Finance Committee. Today, these priorities are no longer important. To me, this is very confusing and it is quite a difficult development for me to understand. As I have said before, we acted in the best of faith to produce a bill that protects American manufacturing jobs and ensures our companies remain the global competitors we want them to be. We did this in a fully bipartisan manner. That is what the American people expect us to do on such an important issue as manufacturing jobs and our national economic health. As a practical matter, the only way to get a bill through this Senate is to do it in a bipartisan way. But these efforts are apparently not enough or we would not have this amendment before us. I hope we can defeat this amendment and move on because Senator Baucus and I have a real sense of optimism that this week there is very definitely an optimistic point of view, particularly from the other side, that this legislation needs to be passed and that considering the fact we spent considerable time on it in March, and some time on it in April, and we have had these European taxes going on our exports, growing 1 percent a month. It is a bad situation. We hope the optimism we sensed yesterday will be repeated today, and one way to help us along is to help us defeat this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield to the Senator from Montana whatever time he might consume. I have not asked other people on my side if they want time.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield whatever time the Senator may consume.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes of my time to the Senator from Nevada and 2 minutes to the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for Jill Gotts, a legislative fellow for the Finance Committee majority staff, be granted floor privileges between now and the end of the 108th Congress.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. If you give us 5 minutes sometime during the day.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes, that is correct.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I just spoke for 30 seconds to get in the point that the Business Roundtable had called the offices of the various sponsors of this amendment saying that the Business Roundtable does not support this amendment. We were also told by the authors that the Information Technology Industry Council supported the amendment. I have had contact, through staff, with a Joe Pasetti of the Information Technology Industry Council, who made it clear they have not taken a position on the Wyden amendment. I think it would be incorrect to quote them as saying they support this amendment. There are a couple of points I want to make about the points the proponents have made. The proponents, in opening debate, were concerned about the affordability of coverage. Yet their changes will make coverage less affordable. The amendment creates a back door exception to a requirement to have 3 months of coverage. This requirement is consistent with HIPAA standards and was agreed to when we adopted this original expansion of TAA in August 2002. The changes to the rule will require health insurers to offer coverage to higher risk individuals. Health insurers, like the BlueCross BlueShield plans, will either have to increase premiums or not offer coverage. I have said many times that you ought to be concerned about affordability. The authors of the amendment say they are concerned about affordability, but the amendment will make coverage more unaffordable. Fewer people will be able to use the credit. Proponents of the amendment also have made the claim that I have referred to before where they said only 5 percent of the people are making use of this new program. Well, what do you expect after just 9 months being operational--just 9 months before the massive expansion of this program? But they refer to this 5 percent. They would make it broader and say we have a low uptake rate and that this signals failure of the program we adopted 2 years ago, which is now just being undertaken for 9 months. Let me repeat that this program is a very young program. The enrollment numbers only reflect those who have signed up for the advanceable credit. The numbers don't include dependents. The numbers don't include people who claim the credit on their yearend return. We would not even know that yet. Treasury is trying to analyze that data of the people who claimed the yearend credit. Just like I said, we don't have complete data. What would you expect after only 9 months? I hope our colleagues will take this into consideration when looking at a massive expansion. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, 30 seconds, one to correct and one for thoughtful reaction. The thoughtful reaction is this: When a new program has been in effect for only 9 months, is it unusual that only 5 percent of the people would take part in it? No, they are learning about it. They are going to get involved over a period of time. Only 5 percent in 9 months. Second, as to the Business Roundtable supporting this amendment, I know the Business Roundtable has called some of the offices of various sponsors of this bill to tell them to quit saying the Business Roundtable supports this amendment. I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma whatever time he may consume.

Mr. GRASSLEY. First of all, I hope the proponents of this amendment know that as a conferee 2 years ago when health benefits were added to trade adjustment assistance, I was a conferee and I worked to make sure these health benefits were included. We have a program before us adopted 2 years ago but operational for about no more than 9 months. Now what we are doing is we are being asked to make a dramatic expansion of these programs with only 9 months' experience. It seems to me to be a little bit early to be making these sorts of changes in a program that was a fundamental change in trade adjustment assistance 2 years ago. But of course it was a reasonable change to make because we are always trying to find ways to help people who previously had health insurance, who are unemployed through no fault of their own. We did that through the trade adjustment assistance expansion before. I would like to respond to the first point made by the Senator from Oregon, and that is about the letter from BlueCross BlueShield Association that they have sent to all Members of the Senate voicing their concerns about this very dramatic expansion. I want to make it clear that it is legitimate for them to raise their concerns because it is their members, the Blues, who have stepped up to the plate to serve those eligible for the credit. They are the ones out there serving the public the way Congress intended. So if they have some concerns that they are just 9 months into a program and having a very dramatic change in the program, yes, wouldn't you expect them to voice some concerns? In addition, though, to the BlueCross BlueShield Association, I have had expressed to me--not in letter form, but I hope my colleagues will take this into consideration in voting--I have had expressed concerns about this amendment from the America's Health Insurance Plans and the National Association of Health Underwriters as well. I have to say I reluctantly oppose this amendment. I was hoping we would be able to work out further bipartisan agreement behind this amendment than what has come out. While I am not opposed in general to making some service workers eligible for trade adjustment assistance and to making improvements to the Trade Act health tax credit, this amendment goes too far too soon. I had hoped we could reach a more bipartisan compromise on TAA for service workers, and I am extremely disappointed that we could not do that. This amendment started out with a few pages as a simple and straightforward idea to extend trade adjustment assistance to low- skilled service workers who might be displaced by trade. The original bill, S. 2157, reflected that idea. That idea appealed to me, I say to the Senator from Oregon, and it is certainly something that merits serious consideration today. Yet at some point that idea mutated to something much more than adding service workers to the existing trade adjustment assistance plus the health benefits expansion we adopted 2 years ago. The original Baucus bill, S. 2157, was 10 pages long. In short, by just the number of pages, it was a limited approach but good in substance. This amendment, which purports to do the same thing as the Baucus bill, is, in fact, 57 pages long. Clearly it does not require 57 pages of legislation to extend trade adjustment assistance to service workers. So what happened? How did 10 pages grow to 57 pages? The answer is quite simple. In the guise of extending trade adjustment assistance to service workers, the amendment makes numerous and fundamental changes to the current Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. These changes go so far that I feel the very fabric of trade adjustment assistance for workers is at risk. I will put the changes in context. Just 2 years ago Senator Baucus and I worked together in a bipartisan way to expand and reform trade adjustment assistance. We accomplished this through the Trade Act of 2002. In doing so, we nearly doubled the program and took the unprecedented step of extending trade adjustment assistance to a whole new class of workers called secondary workers. Secondary workers are those whose job loss might not be directly related to imports, so it was a major expansion. We also made a number of other changes to the program, including consolidating trade adjustment assistance programs, increasing the funding cap for training, increasing the job search allowance, establishing a new unprecedented wage insurance program for older workers, and establishing a new Federal health subsidy, a health tax credit to help dislocated workers and pension recipients get health coverage. Now, with these new programs barely up and running, some of them just 9 months, supporters of this amendment want to stretch trade adjustment assistance even further, expanding the program to a whole new loosely defined class of service workers and changing the tax credit in various ways. I am afraid that trade adjustment assistance for workers is being stretched to the breaking point. The definitions being proposed could provide 2 years of income support, health and training benefits to service professionals, including attorneys, accountants, engineers, as well as business consultants and advertising agents. Allowing upper-class highly skilled professionals access to trade adjustment assistance does not make sense. In fact, this could actually hurt the program by seriously slowing the provisions of assisting services and benefits for lower skilled manufacturing workers who truly need skills training under trade adjustment assistance. Can you visualize a lawyer or an accountant with their job loss associated to trade adjustment assistance going back and learning some new skill after they have been through law school? I don't think so. But perhaps what is even more troubling is the number of fundamental and permanent changes that are being made to trade adjustment assistance in the guise of extending the program to service workers. I would like to give you some examples. The amendment expands the definition of downstream products to include testing as well as finishing operations. The amendment creates a special eligibility rule for producers of taconite pellets. It includes a special retroactive rule for producers of taconite pellets to November 4, 2002. It doubles the authorization for training benefits to $440 million annually. It lowers the age for workers eligible to participate in the Wage Insurance Program, basically a wage subsidy for older workers, from 50 years and older, to 40 years and older. Let's look at that. Originally, we wanted to help people who were maybe too old to get some job retraining to move into another industry. Generally, that is 50 years and up. But are you going to offer this wage insurance to people who are 40 years old and have 25 more years to work where the benefit of job retraining is a worthwhile investment? This amendment does that. It establishes a whole new trade adjustment assistance program for communities. It completely reorganizes the trade adjustment assistance for firms by establishing an Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance within the Department of Commerce. It adds a new class of firms--service firms--eligible for benefits under the program. It further relaxes current eligibility criteria for manufacturing workers deemed eligible for trade adjustment assistance. It requires the Secretary of Labor to establish a new performance measuring system as well as a number of other new data collection projects. The program may be pushed to the breaking point. That is the third time I have said it. We have a program that was expanded 2 years ago getting underway 9 months ago. Here we are doing all these things I just mentioned, and doing it on a bill that is meant to create jobs in industry. We are holding up a bill that should have been passed 3 months ago to get jobs in manufacturing. If this weren't enough, the amendment would change the health tax credit. Again, because that program is young, the advanceable credit has only been running for 9 months. We do not know what issues may need to be addressed or the best ways to address them. When is it going to reach the point around here when we pass a law in one Congress, it is in operation one day, and we start changing it? When is enough enough? Or when, at least, is enough enough for a while? Yet here we have an amendment that claims to have some sort of definitive solutions. Changing the rules in a piecemeal fashion, especially now in the early stages, will be unsettling for those at the Federal and State levels who, along with private insurers, are working diligently to get their tax credit off the ground. By accepting this amendment, we would be sending them a loud and clear message: Thanks for all your hard work, but we are going to change the ground rules. By the way, do not be surprised if we come back tomorrow and tell you later that because we have better, more complete information, these changes being made and suggested today aren't somehow the right changes. So we are going to give you more. That information will be coming in the very near term. The General Accounting Office will issue a report in early fall on the health tax credit. I plan to hold a hearing in the Finance Committee to discuss the General Accounting Office's findings and recommendations. Treasury also has survey work underway. It will be important for us to judge the progress of this new program that was adopted just 2 years ago and which has been in effect for 9 months. These reports--when we get them--will better inform efforts to improve the health tax credit at the right time with some information that is worthwhile so we can make a judgment that we will use the taxpayers' money wisely. Now is not the time. This amendment will destabilize the Trade Act tax credit and undermine the availability of affordable coverage choices for people eligible for that credit--the exact opposite outcome that anyone would want. A number of Blue Cross-Blue Shield association members cover those who receive the credit. They wrote: This represents a major and problematic change in a program that has been operational for less than one year. They go on to say: Many Blue Plans would be forced to reconsider offering their products if this amendment passed placing at risk the coverage of many TAA eligibles. Some would say that is a threat coming from somebody who is just looking out for Members in this body who oppose your amendment. But you ought to give some consideration, it seems to me, to people who are offering a service. When we passed this bill 2 years ago, we didn't know we would be prepared to do it, but people have stepped up to the plate. Let us be clear about what is at stake. If we weaken the effectiveness of the Trade Adjustment Program for manufacturing workers, public support for that program will be lost and truly trade- impacted workers may be hurt. If we expand the Trade Adjustment Program and change the health tax credit in a less than a thoughtful and deliberate manner, we could jeopardize programs for current beneficiaries. We should make sure proposals to further expand trade adjustment assistance and to change the health tax credit are done in a fiscally prudent way and that any changes made will work in practice. In other words, approach this the same way that Senator Baucus and I did 2 years ago when we got into the program. What we have in this amendment is a bunch of ideas with no coherent direction except being bigger and bigger, more and more, and higher and higher. Such an approach surely is good politics, but it certainly can result in bad policy. I figure that good policy is the best politics. I am afraid that is what we have in this amendment--bad policy. The price tag for all of these special rules, retroactively, and new benefits, comes to about a $5.3 billion price tag. Where I come from that is a lot of money. I think we have an obligation to make sure it is spent wisely. While well-intentioned, this amendment goes too far. It could weaken the current program, and it could put the recently enacted health tax credit at risk. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to alert me after I have used up 15 minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes. Amendment No. 3114

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. We yield back our 5 minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., in closed session to mark up the Airland programs and provisions contained in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2005.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 4, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a closed mark-up.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., on Reauthorization of the Satellite Home Viewers Improvement Act of 1999 (SHVIA).

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 4, 2004, at 10 a.m., in closed session to receive a classified briefing regarding allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi Prisoners.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Competition, Foreign Commerce, and Infrastructure be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. on Lessons Learned From Security at Past Olympic Games. Committee on Seapower

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 5 p.m., in closed session to mark up the Emerging Threats and Capabilities programs and provisions contained in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005.