Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I move to table, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to U.S. Marine Corps LCpl Robert Louis Moscillo of Salem, NH, for his service and his supreme sacrifice for his country. Robert, also called Bobby by family and friends, was a 2003 graduate of Salem High School where he played baseball and was on the wrestling team. On January 22, 2005, he answered a call to serve our country during these tense and turbulent times by enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. He successfully completed recruit training, marine combat training, combat engineer school, and the Martial Arts Program with a Tan Belt and was assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA, where he served as a combat engineer. In February 2006, Bobby deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the following month was promoted to the rank of lance corporal. Tragically, on May 1, 2006, this brave 21-year-old marine was killed in action by an improvised explosive device explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the vicinity of Fallujah in the Al Anbar province of Iraq. His awards and decorations include the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Iraq Campaign Medal, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal. Patriots from the State of New Hampshire have served our Nation with honor and distinction from Bunker Hill to Baghdad--and Bobby served in that fine tradition. Daniel Webster said, ``God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.'' Bobby was one of those proud and dedicated volunteers who believed in fighting for our country and guarding our precious liberty, and for that we will always owe our sincere gratitude. His service and sacrifice are a shining example of the highest caliber of person this country can produce. This athletic and spiritual young man realized a calling and chose to employ his youthful energy and considerable talents for his country. He understood that the freedoms and opportunities provided by this Nation need continuous defense and that they are among the most precious gifts he can give to his family and loved ones. My heartfelt sympathy, condolences, and prayers go out to Robert's parents, Frank and Donna, and his family and friends who have suffered this grievous loss. Robert was, and forever will be, a strong and integral part of his family and will be missed by all. Because of his devotion and sense of duty, the safety and liberty of each and every American is more secure. May God bless LCpl Robert Louis Moscillo. Army Master Sergeant Robert H. West

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like to ask of the chairman of the committee, Senator Cantwell and I have an amendment that has been pending. We were willing to move forward last week, we were willing to move forward today, and we are willing to move forward tomorrow. I am wondering if the chairman can give us a sense of when our amendment can be brought up so we can be heard and whether we can get a commitment from the chairman that we will have a reasonable amount of time, if not an excessive amount of time to debate it--say, an hour or 2 hours.

Mr. GREGG. That would be fine with me if the other side is agreeable to that.

Mr. GREGG. I appreciate the chairman making that representation. My concern, of course, is that it not end up in a vote-arama, should we get to a vote-arama, and that we have time to debate it. With that representation, I will not object.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly on my amendment, which will hopefully be reached at some point here in the next day or so. It is an amendment I sponsored with Senator Cantwell from Washington, and it addresses what we see as an issue that, although not major in the context of the overall immigration debate, remains rather significant. There is today something called a lottery system. It is euphemistically called the diversity lottery system, which really I don't understand why it has picked up that name because it is really nothing like that. It is simply a lottery system. It says essentially that 50,000 people will get the right to become American citizens if they win a lottery and they are from countries which are deemed underrepresented. Most of those countries represent Eastern Europe and Africa. They don't have to do anything other than have a high school education or, alternatively, have worked for 2 out of the last 5 years in order to participate in this lottery. So the essential effect of this lottery system is that we are taking from around the world 50,000 people who simply got lucky. There is no real reason we should take them. There is no policy reason to take them. There is no such thing as an underrepresented country really in our immigration system because of the fact that there are so many illegal immigrants in the country already. For example, if you were to take Poland, there are 47,000 people in this country who under this bill are presently illegal--that is the estimate--who may become legal. From Russia, there are about 46,000 people who qualify in that area. From Africa, there are 120,000 people who fall into that category. So these countries have a lot of people already here--some legally, a lot illegally, and they don't need representation.

Mr. GREGG. As long as I will not lose the floor.

Mr. GREGG. So this lottery system, which was created back a while ago--I think in the early 1990s--in a sense of good will or political correctness, really is not all that productive to us as a nation. So Senator Cantwell and I have taken a look at it and said: Listen, if we are going to have a lottery system, why don't we at least apply it to people we actually need in this country to assist us in being a stronger nation, a more vibrant nation, a more economically successful nation? We know that in our Nation today, we are missing--or not missing, but we know we are not producing and creating enough people in the sciences which are energizing economic activity in this world: the maths, math doctorates, the science doctorates. We know we have a real lack of technical ability in many arenas and that we are falling well behind other nations, such as China, in our ability to produce people in the sciences and math subjects. Why not take this lottery system and say, rather than making it available to the cabdriver in Kiev, whom we may or may not really need in the United States, let's make it available to the physicist in Kiev. Why not say to the doctor in Poland or the doctor in Nigeria: You will have a chance to become an American citizen and have the opportunity to participate in this lottery, rather than saying to the street sweeper in Poland or the miner in Nigeria: It is your chance to participate in the lottery. So we have taken this proposal, which is 50,000 names thrown in a hat from these countries which are allegedly underserved, which are not underserved, and we changed it so that two-thirds of the names thrown in this hat will be of people who have advanced science degrees, which our Department of Commerce and Department of State determine are in need here in the United States. Two-thirds of those lottery winners will have those degrees. The other third will remain people who only need to have a high school education or have worked 2 out of the last 5 years. Basically the lottery system will be changed from being one of, we don't know who is coming in the country and we don't know what they are going to contribute to our society as they come in--we hope they will be people who will be hard-working and committed people, but they may actually be people who are not. In fact, if a person has only worked 2 out of the last 5 years and doesn't have a high school education, they can literally qualify for the lottery. Now I ask you, is that the kind of person we want to have qualified for the lottery? A person who may have been unemployed for 3 of the last 5 years, doesn't have a high school education, but they can get into the United States under the lottery. I think it makes much more sense to say let's have folks who have shown their energy, shown their commitment, shown their willingness to strive within their own communities by obtaining these advanced degrees, let's have those folks participate in the lottery. Some will say the H-1B program already solves this because it is greatly expanded in this bill, and that allows people with advanced degrees to come into this country. That is true. That is good. This bill is excellent in that manner. But as a practical matter, this lottery would go to people who do not qualify for H-1B. In other words, to get an H-1B visa, you have to have a sponsor or, in other words, an employer here in the United States who is going to hire you or you have to have a family member who will sponsor you to come into the country. There are a lot of people out there in these allegedly underserved countries who do not have somebody who is going to employ them because the groups that employ foreign nationals who have advanced science degrees don't go to those countries. They don't recruit in those countries, for all intents and purposes. And they don't have a family member here. So they are out of it. They can't get in. So it makes sense to take the lottery system and convert it to something that is going to be an add-on to America's success. We hear a lot in this Chamber, especially from some of our colleagues, that we are outsourcing jobs, we are outsourcing our jobs to other countries. What this proposal does is it insources people who will create jobs in our country. It says let's go out and find the best and the brightest people around the world and say: Listen, we would like to have you live in the United States and create jobs in the United States, use your ability to produce in the United States. If you don't have a person who wants to employ you and you don't have a spouse here who is willing to sponsor you or a family member who is willing to sponsor you, we still would like you to have a shot at coming here, because most would like to, and we have a lottery system that says you can win it and get into this country. I note that under the present lottery system, we have seen abuses. In fact, the report of the inspector general of the State Department found significant fraud and mismanagement of this program and the fact that people were coming into the country who really should not have come into the country, but they won the lottery or they were relatives of people who won the lottery. Obviously, the most egregious example of that was the terrorist individual who attacked the L.A. airport and shot up the El Al counter. He was in the United States because his spouse had won the lottery. Not a good decision for us. It seems to me that rather than just flipping a coin and saying: Hey, listen, if you are out there and you want to come to work and you are from one of these countries which are allegedly underserved--which, by the way, they are not underserved, as I pointed out in the early part of my statement--you have a chance to come here. Let's at least say for the majority of the people who have won the lottery that you have to have done something, you have to have shown something, you have to have produced something, you have to have been willing to go out there and show you have the character and the energy and the intelligence to actually be an addition to our society, an add-on, a creator of jobs in our society, a creator of economic activity, a creator of a stronger society rather than just have the good fortune of having drawn a lucky number. That is what this bill does. I cannot really understand the opposition to it. A lottery system--I am not sure it ever really had a good time to exist, but clearly now is not a good time for it to exist. We have 12 million people in this country who arguably won the lottery by coming into this country illegally. I guess you could say that. Under this bill, some of them are really going to win the lottery because they are going to go to the back of the line, but they are getting on the line and obtaining what is called earned citizenship, as the Senator from California was saying. But the simple fact is, we don't need to add to that great mass of people. They are here already. If we are going to add people to our culture from the immigration standpoint, let's add people who we know on the face of it are likely to contribute significantly to making us a stronger and more vibrant nation, especially economically. If we are going to have a lottery, let's just not make it an arbitrary event. Let's make it something that assists not only the person who wins but also our Nation, so that both sides are winners under the lottery, not just one side. The House took a look at the lottery. In their bill, they determined it was so inappropriate, they simply abolished it altogether. So it seems to me if we take this position we will be strongly positioned in conference to present the case that the lottery can work for us as a nation, rather than be a loss leader. That is why this amendment has picked up considerable support. It is bipartisan support. I look forward to having a more extensive debate on it with my cosponsor, Senator Cantwell, who understands. She comes from Washington State where they understand the need to get some top-quality people in our country in the area of science, as the home of Microsoft, which is clearly the engine of the Internet, the engine of the expansion of technology over the Internet and in computer science that has driven the world, not only the United States. They understand uniquely in Washington State, as we all hopefully do, the need to bring smart, intelligence people from across the world into our Nation and keep us competitive with countries such as China that are turning out four or five or six times the number of scientists we are turning out annually. That is why this is important. It is not, obviously, the biggest vote on this stage. There have been a lot of votes dealing with the substance of this bill which has huge implications relative to the numbers of people who come into this country and how they come into this country and how we protect our borders, but it is one part of the system we have to make more rational, better, but to be a system where not only does the immigrant win but America wins. With that, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I hereby submit to the Senate the budget scorekeeping report prepared by the Congressional Budget Office under section 308(b) and in aid of section 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended. This report meets the requirements for Senate scorekeeping of section 5 of S. Con. Res. 32, the first concurrent resolution on the Budget for 1986. This report shows the effects of congressional action on the 2006 budget through May 17, 2006. The estimates of budget authority, outlays, and revenues are consistent with the technical and economic assumptions of the 2006 concurrent resolution on the budget, H. Con. Res. 95. Pursuant to section 402 of that resolution, provisions designated as emergency requirements are exempt from enforcement of the budget resolution. As a result, the attached report excludes these amounts. The estimates show that current level spending is under the budget resolution by $11.785 billion in budget authority and by $4.226 billion in outlays in 2006. Current level for revenues is $6.531 billion above the budget resolution in 2006. Since my last report dated April 6, 2006, Congress has cleared and the President has signed the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, Public Law 109-222, which reduced 2006 revenues. I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying letter and material be printed in the Record.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Of course, I am happy to yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to talk about border security. Obviously it is a topic of hot discussion here in the Chamber, and I just wanted to try to put in perspective what has actually happened and what may happen, especially in light of the President's presentation on Monday night. I have the good fortune, I guess, to chair the appropriations subcommittee which has responsibility for border security. I took this over 2 years ago, a year and a half ago, I guess. When I took the committee over, it became immediately apparent to me that the priorities within the Department of Homeland Security were not necessarily focused on what I consider to be the primary threat. So we reoriented the funding within the Department to look at threat first, the highest level threat being, of course, a weapon of mass destruction which might be used against America. So we started to increase funding immediately in that account. In my opinion, the second highest level of threat was the fact that our borders were simply not secure. They were porous. We didn't know who was coming in. We especially didn't know who was leaving. We knew that we weren't in control of the southern border relative to those folks coming in, and we knew that on the northern border, although we don't have the human-wave issue of illegal immigrants coming into the country, we do have a very serious issue of people who might come across the northern border represent clear and present threats to us, probably even more so than across the southern borders, in some cases. So we reoriented funding within the homeland security programs through the first bill that I was in charge of. At that time, the administration sent up a proposal which essentially continued what I would call the benign neglect of the border security effort in our country. Their proposal in that budget was for 210 additional border agents and essentially no increase in technical capability or in the capacity of infrastructure or the capacity of ICE. There was a proposal in the Coast Guard area, but it was anemic. So we took that proposal which came from the administration and we reoriented that, too. We said: We are going to increase the number of border security agents on the border by 8,000. We are going to spend about 4 years to 5 years doing that. We had to begin slowly because the training facilities simply weren't there for this type of a huge increase in border security staff. So we began with a supplemental number of 500, and then we followed that up with 1,000 additional agents in the next regular bill that came through. So we added 1,500 new agents. In addition, agents aren't the only issue. Boots on the ground is not the only issue. Technology is an issue, but probably even more important is the issue of what you do with an illegal immigrant who has come across our border once you capture that individual on our side of the border. Most of them are Mexican, on the southern border--about 85 percent--and they are immediately put on a bus and taken back across the border. In many instances, they just come back the next day or a week later. But a number of them are non-Mexicans, and those folks were given what was called a catch-and-release status, where you essentially gave them an indictment which said they must return to be heard in a hearing 2 or 3 weeks later, maybe a month later, and then you released these individuals. Of course most of them never come back. Sixty-six percent never return to that hearing. That wasn't working, so we believed we should significantly increase the number of detention beds so we would have the capacity to actually hold people, especially non- Mexicans, who were coming across our border and whom we couldn't immediately return by bus to their country, as we could with the Mexicans. So we started to expand the number of beds, and we increased the number of beds by about I think 2,000 in that first budget cycle. After having done that, it was ironic, and I guess appropriate, that the White House came forward and said: What a great idea. That is our idea. Let's take credit for this idea. So they held a press conference and said: What a wonderful idea you had to increase the number of border agents by 1,500 people and the number of beds by a couple thousand, and we would actually be taking the money and putting it toward border security. That was a year ago. Now the new budget came up again, and this time the administration sent up a budget which was oriented toward border security in that they represented that they were going to increase the number of agents by another 1,500 and the number of beds by another 6,000, and they were going to begin to put more money into the Coast Guard initiative called deepwater. But it is not really deepwater; it would be better called protecting our coastline from threat. ``Deepwater'' makes people think it is somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. It may occur in the ocean, but actually this is threat protection along our coast. So they made these commitments within the budget they sent up. What they failed to do, however, was fund those commitments because they sent up really a hollow budget in that they put in that budget a system for paying for these new Border Patrol agents and these new beds by increasing the fees on people who are traveling on airplanes by about $1.2 billion. Of course, that fee proposal had been rejected the year before. The Chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over that proposal had rejected it out of hand this year when that budget was sent up, and everybody knows that it is not going anywhere, so it is what is called a plug. It happens around here. People send up a budget, and they will put a plug in it, which is basically a number they know they are never going to get, but they put it in to make the budget look correct. This was a plug. Clearly, airline fees, if they are going to be increased, that revenue should go toward airline traffic protection, which is basically TSA activity, maybe some visa activity, but it is not appropriate to put an increase on the airline passenger, on people using the airlines, and then take that revenue and put it on the border. If you want to use a fee on the border, put a fee on the border. Put a 50-cent charge as if you are going through a toll gate. If people want to come across the border, maybe it should cost people 75 cents. But in any event, that wasn't proposed. What was proposed was to raise the airline fee, which everybody knew was not going to be done. It was a plug number. So even though they sent up a budget number to increase the Border Patrol agents by 1,500 and the beds by about 6,000, as a practical matter, it would be very hard for us to do that with the numbers they sent up to back up those commitments, but at least the commitment was there. As the chairman of that appropriations subcommittee, it put me in a very difficult position because basically I have to go out and find that $1.2 billion to fill that hole, to get the additional funding to get those agents, which we wanted to do or had intended to do. That means I have to convince the Chairman of the committee, Senator Cochran, to take money from some other subcommittee in order to do that within the confines of the budget--obviously a challenge to Senator Cochran and clearly a position he shouldn't have been put in, but he has been, as have I. Now, because of the fact that, as we looked hard at the border patrol issue and the securing of the border issue, it became very apparent that not only were boots on the ground an issue but actual physical capital assets were a huge issue--for example, the planes that are flown by the Customs Department, the Customs agents, are 30 to 40 years old and 20 years past their useful life. The helicopters being flown by the Border Patrol agents are 20 years past their useful life. The Coast Guard has a fleet which is very aged and which is not fast. They have one or two planes that are up to snuff, but most of their planes need to be refurbished. In addition, the unmanned technological activity along the border, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles--there was one, but regrettably it crashed 3 weeks ago. That has been discussed a lot on this floor. So there are actually none right now, and there won't be a new one until August. In fact, the surveillance fleet is so bad that about a month ago, the entire fleet was grounded, so we had no planes in the air. Then you have the vehicle issue. These vehicles wear out very quickly because they are used very aggressively in very difficult terrain. Then you have the issue of just simply the training facilities because as you dramatically expand the number of people you are trying to put in the Border Patrol, you need training facilities to do that. Those training facilities are being upgraded and have been upgraded, but they need to be upgraded further to handle the even more people we are going to put in there. So I suggested about a year and a half ago that we do a capital infusion into the border security effort which would essentially accelerate the Coast Guard refurbishment, taking it from completion in the year 2026, which I thought was a little long to wait for the Coast Guard to be refurbished, down to 2016. It would get the new planes for the Customs Agency; get new helicopters for the Border Patrol; and instead of having one Predator, which no longer exists, in the air on the border, have three or four Predators on the border. There are other technologies which are a lot cheaper, actually, than using that vehicle which probably should be pursued, and doing the technology along the border relative to land-to-land detection. In addition, the capital infusion would give the Border Patrol the physical facilities so that when we get all of these Border Patrol agents together in their various facilities, they have a place to sit down, they also have desks at which to work, and they have vehicles that allow them to go out in the field and do their job. To accomplish that kind of refurbishment was in, our estimation, about a $1.9 billion effort. So I initially put that forward in the Defense bill last year. It got knocked out. It went in on the Senate floor, went to conference, and it got knocked out. I then put it in the reconciliation bill, and it got knocked out. I then put it in, with the support of the Senate--the strong support of the Senate--actually Senator Byrd has been a pleasure to work with as the ranking member on this subcommittee. I then put it into the most recent supplemental that came across the floor, $1.9 billion for capital activity. Well, then we had a presentation by the President on Monday night which suggested we bring in the National Guard to basically, I guess, as I understand it, free up Border Patrol agents from desk jobs and get them out in the field--to simplify the statement of what they will be doing, although they will be doing more than that, I am sure--essentially is funded by taking the $1.9 billion and moving it from capital refurbishment over to operational exercises. That, in my opinion, is not necessarily-- well, I will let people assess where that is. In any event, it would mean the capital initiative would no longer exist and the dollars would go to pay for the National Guard and for other activities that are operational in nature, including adding an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents on top of the 1,500, which we did plan to add this year. This would be good if we could actually accomplish that. However, there are technical restrictions on the ability to hire--it takes about 35,000 applications to get 1,000 agents--and the capacity to train is extremely limited. It is limited, not extremely limited--but it is limited so you probably can't do 2,500 agents in the timeframe this proposal has put forward. Maybe you can. I doubt it. The track record of this department in this area is not stellar. Essentially what is happening is that $1.9 billion which was supposed to go to capital improvements to get the planes, so they could fly the helicopters, fly the predators--so they could be up in the air, and the vehicle so they can drive around the border doesn't exist anymore. I was told by the Chairman of the conference yesterday: Good luck in getting this money. If you want to break the President's hard number of $94 billion and claim it as an emergency, you can get the money and get it that way. Of course, as the Chairman of the Budget Committee, when I put this proposal forward I hadn't actually paid for it, and that was the key. I took it out of the across-the-board cut from defense. It was not my first choice on how to pay for it, but at the request of Senators Stevens and Warner, I did that. But, obviously, I am not going to put forward a proposal that exceeds the $94 billion and is unpaid for and there is no way to pay for it from the money paid to the Defense Department in this supplemental as an add-on to the initial $1.9 billion. We need, obviously, $3.8 billion at that point. So this capital improvement exercise is essentially dead as a result of the money being moved, migrated over to the operations side relative to the National Guard. The practical effect of that also will be that the out-year pressure on the budget, on the appropriations account relative to this account, will be significantly higher because we will be putting in place a budget item essentially paying for the National Guard, or the people who replace the National Guard, which will be at least $1.9 billion in costs annually on top of the present appropriated plan. So to do it correctly we should not only use this $1.9 billion for this operational activity, but there should have been a supplemental request for the budget of the homeland security agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to reflect what you might call the expense that is going to be generated by the ongoing cost of putting this type of initiative in the field, if you are going to be sure that initiative will continue and will be robust. I would be very much in support of that, obviously, because clearly that number is going to have to be paid for. As I mentioned earlier in this discussion, I already have a $1.2 billion hole in that budget which I have to pay for in order to get the full 1,500 complement in place of additional agents. Now I will have a $1.2 billion hole plus a $1.9 billion hole on the operational side. And in addition, of course, I will have a $1.9 billion hole on the capital expenditure side because we still have these airplanes that have to be replaced, helicopters that have to be replaced, unmanned vehicles that have to be put in the air, and a Coast Guard that really should not have to wait until 2026 to adequately defend our coastline. I want to outline the specifics of where we are now on the dollars relative to border patrol and border security. When you get down to it, this is not a complex issue, securing our border. We all know that with 8,000 more agents, about 10,000 more detention beds, with decent technology on the border relative to unmanned vehicles and sensors, with a Coast Guard that is up to snuff, with airplanes that are up to snuff, we can essentially control the border to the extent you can control it without a guest worker program in place. A guest worker program still, in my opinion, is critical to any long-term resolution of this program because human nature says people are going to cross the border if they are getting paid $5 in Mexico and $50 in the United States for a day's labor and they have a family to support. So that is an element of it. But the first element to which I think everybody has agreed is decent border security. Decent border security only requires resources. We have the capacity to do it; we have the technology to do it. It would be nice if the Defense Department would share a little more aggressively with Homeland Security, or Homeland Security would, on the other hand, go out more actively to try to get the Defense Department to share it, but we have all the parts sitting there in the box. What we have to do is pay the price of taking them out of the box and putting them in the places they should be. I just wanted to outline where we stand relative to the issue of resources because I think there has been considerable confusion, especially in light of the speech by the President on Monday.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 minutes and the time not be charged to this amendment and that Senator Sessions be recognized upon completion of my statement.

Mr. GREGG. In response to the Senator from Massachusetts, neither he nor Senator Sessions is going to like my response. I come down on the middle on this one. We can have, in that capital allocation, money for a fence. I believe additional fencing is important, especially in the urban areas where the crossing points are basically stepping across a street corner, and you have to put up significant fencing to accomplish that. I honestly don't know the number of miles. But clearly there is going to be a significant cost. I am of the view that we ought to listen to the department as to what the number is relative to the miles of fence that is needed. I would very much oppose a fence that ran the whole length of the border. I think that would be a waste of money, it would be inappropriate, and it would be extremely inhospitable to Mexico. But there are areas of the country that the only way you can do it is by fence. Certainly, the San Diego fence proved to us that fences do work in urban areas. What the distances should be and what the numbers should be, I don't know the answer to that question.

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator and yield the floor and appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Massachusetts for allowing me to speak.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this morning, on behalf of the leader, let me make a statement. This morning we will immediately return to the consideration of the comprehensive immigration bill. Senators Kyl and Cornyn have an amendment pending on which we hope to get a short time agreement. Senators have had overnight to review the language, and I expect us to lock in a time certain for a vote. The chairman has been working on a lineup of amendments, and the leader encourages Senators to be ready with amendments when it is their time. We want to keep the bill moving, and the leader anticipates votes throughout the day.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield me 3 minutes?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment and support Senator Specter and Senator Kennedy's and Senator McCain's position. I think, relative to the effort in this Congress and in the Senate, nobody has put more time into the issue of how we secure our borders relative to the actual physical activity on our borders than I have because I find myself in the jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committee that covers the border security issues. I have come to this conclusion: We can secure our borders. But you cannot do it with just people and money on the border. There has to be a policy in place that creates an atmosphere that lessens the pressure for people to come across the border illegally. The essence of doing that is this guest worker concept. Yes, you have to do everything we can to tighten up the borders in the area of boots on the ground, technology being used, and making sure we have a strong Coast Guard, a strong immigration force, and strong border security force. That type of commitment has been a primary effort of the Senate and myself. We put $1.9 billion into the supplemental that went through here to try to upgrade the capital for the aircraft and cars and unmanned vehicles and the necessary facilities for the Coast Guard, recognizing that border security has to be significantly beefed up. The President made this point last night very well. But that cannot stop the issue--that doesn't resolve the issue of how you secure the border because as long as you have human nature guiding people's actions, and as long as you have the role of supply and demand in play, you are going to have people who are willing to take the risks to come across the border illegally, no matter how many people you have there. If you are paying $5 a day in Mexico and $50 a day in the United States for a job, and you have a family and you are trying to better yourself, you are going to want to seek that job in America. The question is, Isn't there a way to set this process up so that a job seeker can come here, do the job, which the employer also needs them to do because they can't otherwise fill that position--and this bill protects to make sure that is the case, that it is not taking jobs from Americans--isn't there some way to set this up so that a person can come into this country, work a reasonable amount of time, and then return to their country, or be here as a guest worker in a guest worker status? That is what this bill attempts to address. It is one of the three elements of the formula for getting control over our borders. The first element is, of course, strong physical capability on the borders to control the borders. The second element is to make sure we have in place a program where when people come into this country to work, they can come in legally. The third element, of course, is enforcement at the workplace to make sure people who are working have that legal status of a guest worker. That is the essence of this bill, in part, along with the border security elements. I strongly support it and hope we will reject the amendment as proposed. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Mississippi granting me this time on this very important piece of legislation. I want to pick up on the statement made by the junior Senator from California. What are we giving the American people? We are giving them jobs. We are giving them the opportunity to get good jobs in a thriving, growing economy as a result of good policy in the area of tax law. We came out of an extraordinarily serious recession, the largest bubble in the history of the world, the Internet bubble--bigger than the tulip bubble, bigger than the South Seas bubble--which occurred at the beginning of 2000. It collapsed, which should have thrown us into a deep recession. We followed that bubble with a huge disruption of our lives, the loss of human life, which was unbelievable and horrific, as a result of 9/ 11, but also it had a dramatic impact on our economy. Those two factors alone should have led to a fairly significant, deep and painful recession. Why didn't they? They did not because this President and this Republican Congress put in place tax policy which allowed Americans who wanted to be entrepreneurial to go out and invest, take risk--which is the American way--and, as a result, create jobs. The facts are incontrovertible. This chart shows it. This is the period during which we had the Internet bubble and the 9/11 attacks. In 2003, we reduced the taxes on productivity in this country and gave people an incentive to go out and earn more, take risk, and create jobs. As a result, we are seeing a dramatic increase in economic activity and in jobs. Mr. President, 5.3 million jobs have been created since these tax cuts were put in place--5.3 million jobs in those 32 months. Look at this green line on the chart. Those are all new jobs coming into the economy as a result of the tax cuts. There has been a massive explosion in economic activity as a result of these tax cuts. Now, the other side of the aisle will have you believe that the only people who benefited from these tax cuts were the wealthy. Well, all these people who got jobs benefited from these tax cuts. More importantly, the American Government benefitted from these tax cuts because our revenues have climbed dramatically as a result of these tax cuts. The reason that has happened is because assets which had been locked up for years are now being used to create better investments and more productivity. In fact, revenues from income taxes have gone up by 10 percent. They have grown by 10 percent in the last 6 months. Revenues from corporate activity have gone up by 26 percent. This is all a function of putting in place tax rates which essentially said to Americans: You go out and invest. You go out and take risk. You go out and create jobs. And we will say we will benefit your efforts by giving you an incentive to do that. Now, the essence of this whole effort is embedded in this tax bill, and that is the setting of a reasonable tax rate on capital gains and dividends. There is a psychology which is out there, which is human nature: If you say to a person: We are going to take 70 percent of your income, they are not going to have a lot of reason to go out and make an extra dollar because the Government is going to take their money. But if you say to someone: We are going to take 30 percent of your income, then that person has a bigger incentive to go out and work. The same is true for capital investment. If you say to somebody, if you sell that asset you have, we are going to tax you at 30 percent, that person has very little incentive to go out and sell that asset. But if you say to that person, if you sell that asset, we are going to tax you at 15 percent, then that person has a reason to go out and sell that asset, and take that money and do two things. First, they reinvest it so it is being used more productively and generates more economic activity and probably creates more jobs, but, secondly, by selling that asset, they actually end up paying taxes, taxes which they did not otherwise and would not have otherwise paid. If you own some stock or a piece of land or a farm or any asset which is a capital asset, you do not have to sell it, you do not have to generate tax revenue to the Federal Government. That is what was happening. A lot of people were sitting on those assets. But by cutting the capital gains rate, we essentially created an atmosphere out there where people started to turn over those assets. As a result of turning over those assets, they created more productivity in our economy. In fact, we are now at the highest level of productivity that our economy has experienced in the post-World War II period. That additional productivity has created more jobs so that more Americans are working. Mr. President, 5.3 million more Americans are working than were working back in 2003 when these tax cuts began. Equally important, the revenues to the Federal Government have jumped dramatically. In fact, they have jumped so dramatically in capital gains that they have outstripped the estimates by $30 billion each year over the last 2 years. The CBO had originally estimated that we would have about $49 billion of capital gains income in 2005. Well, we got $75 billion. They estimated, in 2006, we would have about $54 billion. We have gotten about $81 billion. That is $60 billion of new revenue that was generated by cutting the capital gains rate to something that was reasonable and caused people to go out an convert capital assets-- whether it is stocks or land or businesses--convert those assets, sell them, pay taxes, and reinvest in a way which would actually create more jobs and more economic activity in the economy. So this concept that cutting capital gains rates somehow benefits the rich cannot be defended on the facts. What it benefits is the American Treasury, the Government's Treasury. What it benefits are the people who have gotten all these jobs, these 5 million new jobs. Now, another chart over there that was used by the other side said: Well, the tax benefit flows to the top 10 percent of the income brackets. Well, that is because the top 10 percent of the income brackets pay most of the taxes. In fact, if you have income over $185,000, that is where 65 percent of the taxes come from. Those are the folks with the highest income, those are the folks paying the most taxes. That is the way it should be. And now they are actually paying a lot more taxes than they were before this tax cut because they are generating activity which is taxable. Before the tax cut, when capital gains was so high, they sat on it. But now, because there is an incentive for them to go out and convert those assets, they are actually paying more in taxes than they were paying before. So the argument that the high-end taxpayer, the high-end income individual is benefiting disproportionately from this simply flies in the face of the facts. They are paying more in taxes. More revenue is coming in from those people than ever before. And a higher percentage, in fact, of Federal revenues now comes from those individuals than ever before. And they are, most importantly--and this is the point that the other side seems to miss completely because they subscribe to the 1930s ``old left'' theory of economic policy--these people create jobs, and the bottom line is, good jobs. That is what they are creating in our economy by going out and taking assets, which were locked down, which were in a less-productive atmosphere, and moving them over to assets which are more productive and creating more opportunity for people to generate jobs. It always amazes me that this concept completely escapes our friends on the other side of the aisle. But this also translates into investment growth. It is ironic that both of these two charts show the exact same thing. And business investment has expanded dramatically. When did it begin to expand? In 2003, when we made these tax cuts. Job creation has expanded dramatically. When did it begin to expand? In 2003, when we made these tax cuts. These are not chance events. These increases in jobs and business activity are a direct function of the fact that we have created a fairer tax climate, where people are willing to be more aggressive, take more risk, be more entrepreneurial, and, as a result, create more jobs. And to at this point take the position we should go back to the old tax rates, which would essentially double--double--we are not talking about a little bit. We are talking about doubling. The position of the other side of the aisle is, they want to double the tax rate on capital investment, on risk takers, on entrepreneurs, the people who create the jobs in our society. To take that position now, in the middle of this recovery, which has been historic in nature, in that we are now at historic levels of productivity--we have had 32 months of expansion. We have more people working today in America than at any time in our history. To take the position we would put this huge, damp cloth on top of this economic expansion in the name of populous tax policy, which has been proved wrong over and over again, ever since it was conceived in the 1930s, as the way to generate revenues--back in the 1930s and 1940s, the policies of the left were that you generated more revenues by raising taxes dramatically. And we had a 90-percent tax rate at one point in this country. Then, we had a 70-percent tax rate in this country. Then, along came a gentleman who, ironically, understood this did not work but, also ironically, came from the other side of the aisle. His name was John F. Kennedy. And he, as President, cut the tax rates because he believed the high tax rates were disincentivizing the American spirit to be productive. He cut rates. And what happened? Revenues went up. And all the people from the left said: Oh, my God, this can't be happening. This must be an aberration. It was not an aberration. It should have put a stake through the policies of the old left, but it did not. So then along came Ronald Reagan, who said: Hey, it worked for John Kennedy. I will try it. He cut rates. And what happened? Revenues did not go down. They went up. And then along came President Bush, and he said: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were right. The way you generate revenues is you create an incentive for economic activity, you create an incentive for people to go out and invest, and you create more jobs. More jobs translate into more taxpayers. As a result, you generate more revenues to the Federal Government. So he put in place his tax cuts in 2003. The facts are incontrovertible. The numbers are coming in at a dramatic rate. We are seeing a 14-percent increase in revenues to the Federal Treasury. Last year, it was the largest single increase in our history in dollar terms; with 11 percent through the first 6 months of this year. It is probably going to be even higher before we finish the year. The practical effect of this is these new revenues, these additional revenues have been generated by a lower tax rate, a fairer tax rate. And they are assisting us in reducing the deficit. In fact, the deficit is coming down precipitously as a result of these additional revenues. And people are getting more jobs because this economy is vibrant and strong as a result of these tax rates. You would think after this approach to tax policy has been proven by three major initiatives by three Presidents, being from both parties, in three different decades, the other side of the aisle would look in the mirror in the morning and say: Listen, the policies of the 1930s and 1940s--which were taught to us as a result of the outgrowth of the theory that if you constantly raise taxes, you generate more revenues-- those policies have been proven wrong. They have been proven wrong by President John Kennedy. They have been proven wrong by President Ronald Reagan. And they have been proven wrong by President George W. Bush. Human nature tells you they are wrong. If you give a person a reason to go out and be productive by putting a lower tax burden on them, a fair tax burden--we are not saying no taxes, we are talking about a fair tax burden. It is obviously not a tax burden that is at zero because we actually have high-income individuals in this country actually paying more in taxes today than they did prior to the tax cuts, significantly more, and also they are bearing a larger percentage of the burden of taxes today than they did before the tax cuts. It is a fairer way to approach tax policy. As a result of that fairer way, you generate more income, more economic growth, and that leads to more jobs, which is the purpose of our efforts. This bill is a critical piece of legislation.

Mr. GREGG. It is a critical piece of legislation that we should endorse, embrace, and recognize that by its passage, we will continue to give the American people the opportunity to be in a vibrant, growing economy where jobs will be created, not lost.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, pursuant to section 313(c) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I submit for the Record a list of material in the conference agreement on H.R. 4297 considered to be extraneous under subsections (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B), and (b)(1)(E) of section 313. The inclusion or exclusion of material on the following list does not constitute a determination of extraneousness by the Presiding Officer of the Senate. To the best of my knowledge, H.R. 4297, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, contains no material considered to be extraneous under subsections (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B), and (b)(1)(E) of section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. As we seen in recent years, our Nation is not immune from major public health and medical emergencies such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11 or Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many of us were living under a false sense of security that the United States was not susceptible to major terrorist attacks. We also believed that our Federal, state, and local governments had all the appropriate emergency preparedness measures in place to handle even the worst-case disasters, like the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina or a pandemic outbreak of avian flu. Prior to 9/11, our Nation's public health system provided passive surveillance to detect and track the spread of infectious diseases and to educate the public on how to better protect themselves. Are we better prepared today to handle a national public health emergency than we were prior to 9/11? I would say yes. But, we need to do more. In the five years since 9/11 our Nation's public health system has begun to transform into a health system able to respond to public health emergencies, whether it is a terrorist attack, such as the anthrax, or a natural event. The Bioterrorism and Public Health Emergency Preparedness Act of 2002, which I co-authored, provided a number of critical provisions to strengthen our Nation's public health infrastructure after we were attacked on 9/11. The act has authorized almost $8 billion for state and local public health and hospital preparedness to increase medical surge capacity and surveillance capabilities. The act created the Office of Public Health and Emergency Preparedness at HHS to coordinate Federal public health and medical emergency preparedness and response, such as significant increases of vaccines, antivirals, and medical supplies, such as gloves, masks and first-aid equipment for rapid deployment anywhere in the U.S. through the Strategic National Stockpile. The act also strengthened border protection authorities, including quarantine and isolation, and food importation and our water supply. While the Bioterrorism and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2002 improved our Nation's public health and medical response infrastructure, much work remain. We still cannot say with any certainty that states are more prepared than before 9/11 because we still do not have meaningful standards to evaluate our level of preparedness. Once states develop preparedness plans, we must test and evaluate them. Individuals throughout all levels of government and the private sector agree that one of the biggest public health weaknesses is the lack of adequate testing and evaluation of the response plans long before an emergency occurs. Now that we've had almost five years to strengthen our capacity to respond effectively to a national emergency, we need to now shift our focus to areas that are especially at a high risk of a terrorist attack or a natural emergency. The Federal government must play a role, but cannot stand alone. The state and local public health and medical first responders will be on front lines during a national emergency. State and local governments have the in-depth knowledge of their own medical surge capacity and response plans and must play a significant role in their own preparedness preparations. We need to do more to encourage states and regions to coordinate and share resources, including personnel, hospital beds and medical supplies during a major emergency. The public health and emergency medical response community agrees that it is critical to establish regional agreements among neighboring states. A regional approach will greatly increase a state's surge capacity to handle a major public health emergency. Incentivizing states to coordinate emergency preparedness planning is critical. My state of New Hampshire, along with Maine and Vermont, have established memo of understanding to share resources, such as medical personnel and hospital beds, during an emergency in the region. Finally, we must establish coordination among all levels of government--from the Federal government all the way down to the city and town leaders. The Federal response during a national emergency is managed by the Department of Homeland Security and guided by the National Response Plan (NRP). The NRP directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to lead the Federal public health and medical response and support the state and local first-responders. It is essential that clear and robust lines of communication are developed between federal agencies to effectively prepare for and respond to national emergencies. Our Nation has certainly had its share of very difficult circumstances to overcome in recent years. I believe these incidents have given us a real wake-up call that we must prepare at all levels of government to provide a rapid and robust response. I believe the bill I am introducing today will focus on all levels of government to be accountable and prepared to better respond to national public health and medical emergencies.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Kansas, and especially with the efforts of the Senator from Wyoming who brought this bill to the floor of the Senate. This is a very significant piece of legislation in our efforts to try to make sure more Americans have the opportunity to get fair, affordable, and good health care insurance. It is a piece of legislation about people. It is directed at people who work in what is termed ``small business.'' That is the person who works as a cook in a local family restaurant or a person who works as a mechanic in a garage or a person who runs a mom-and-pop real estate agency. Literally, there are tens of thousands, millions of these small entrepreneurial centers throughout this country. Most of these folks don't make a great deal of money. They work very hard. They are taking care of their families. One of their biggest concerns is whether they can get health insurance so if somebody should get sick who works with them or should somebody in their family get sick, they will be able to have adequate care. But too many of them are not able to afford health insurance. Approximately 22 million people who are in these small businesses, these small retail businesses, small manufacturing businesses, small entrepreneurial shops, don't have insurance. Another 5 million people, who are sole proprietors and work by themselves, do not have a number of employees working with them, also don't have insurance. That is 27 million people who fall into this category. So Senator Enzi has brought forward a bill to try to address that problem. It is going to try to make it possible for these people who work so hard and who would like to have insurance policies that are affordable to get them. By allowing them to band together in trade groups, so realtors can come together, as well as automobile dealers, garage owners, restaurant associations, and hotel associations can come together and form a large enough group so that they can create enough of a mass of interest and buying power so that they can go out and purchase insurance. That is something they cannot do today as individuals. This bill allows them to do that. It is hard to understand how anybody could oppose this concept. But people do oppose it, and I think most of the opposition comes from folks who either misunderstand the bill or who are using the bill as a way to energize their constituencies with information that is at the margin of believable, to be kind. The biggest opposition today to this bill, other than insurance companies who might see this as a competitor, comes from these groups that represent various different diseases and have compelling stories to tell about their diseases. They have gone to the State legislatures and they have gotten them to put in place what is known as mandates so any policy sold in that State has to cover that disease. As was pointed out by the Senator from Kansas, every time that happens that increases the cost of the insurance in that State. For every 1 percent increase in the cost of insurance--and some of these specific mandates are expensive enough so they by themselves represent a 1-percent increase in insurance premiums. But there are 200,000 to 300,000 people who cannot afford insurance because the insurance bills go up and 200,000 or 300,000 people fall off the rolls. What this bill tries to do is address the issue of the person who has fallen off the rolls, the person who hasn't been able to get the insurance, by giving them an option that they can buy, which they feel is adequate to their needs--it may not have a specific mandate in it because maybe they don't need those mandates to be covered, but at least it gives them the basic coverage they need in order to get through their health insurance risks. The flip side of this coin, which isn't talked about much but which is fairly obvious, is that these people have no insurance at all. When these mandate groups argue, if you pass this bill, you are going to undermine the capacity of people to get insurance for this disease group, that is a totally misleading presentation because the people this is focused on don't have insurance to begin with. You cannot take something away from somebody who doesn't have it. If a person doesn't have an insurance policy, he doesn't have the mandates that the insurance policy requires. If a cook working in a restaurant or a garage attendant working at a gas station or a realtor working in a small mom-and-pop real estate agency doesn't have any health insurance, you cannot take away from them mandated coverage for health insurance because they don't have it to begin with. What this bill tries to do is allow that individual to participate in a group where they will have health insurance as an option. And if they have that option of health insurance, without mandates, they also have to have--that group, that restaurant, that real estate agency, that garage the option to purchase a fully mandated policy. In other words, it is a policy that is, for lack of better terms, a higher option policy, where you have everything covered. It has to track the five States in this country which have the most mandates on their insured. So the bill is balanced in that area of mandates. A second opposition to this bill has been the fact that it moves from community rating to a banding system. What does that mean? It essentially means that on a community rating you basically force everybody to be rated the same, no matter their health risk or age group or occupation. With a rating system, you adjust marginally for what health experience it may be or what age it is. Adjustments can be made, but they are limited by the State. If you have a community-rated system, you inevitably have a much higher cost going in for a lot of those people who are banding together in groups, who maybe don't have as much risk as others. But if you have a rating system, some people are going to be lower in insurance costs and some people will be higher. They are going to be within a relatively narrow band. So this bill allows these policies to be offered with a rating system, with a band. In New Hampshire--and this has been referred to on the floor by the Senator from Massachusetts--they had a very bad experience because, regrettably, New Hampshire did it the wrong way. We had a community rating system and then we went to a band rating system because we recognized that was better policy. I congratulate the State for that, but they didn't go to it correctly. They went sort of cold turkey. The practical effect was that one day people got one type of bill, and the next day they got a different type of bill. For some people it went up, for some people it went down, and it was a rather startling event for them. We looked at that experience in committee and said we don't want to emulate what happened in New Hampshire. We want to make this a much more responsible approach. We put into place a glidepath, 5-year phasing, so there will be plenty of time to adjust and to be able to handle this. That type of opposition to this bill, clearly, in my opinion, has been addressed. It has been addressed specifically because of the New Hampshire experience. So it is a misrepresentation to say that continues to be a major issue with this bill. As a practical matter, there are about 85 million people in this country who work in small businesses. That is a huge number. They deserve the opportunity to have this type of insurance made available to them. They should have the same opportunity as big businesses--the IBMs, the Microsofts, the major manufacturers--in our country, if for no other reason than they happen to be the engine of economic activity in this country. Most of the new jobs are created by small businesses, the moms and pops who are willing to build that restaurant, take on that exciting opportunity, start small and grow. When they do that, they ought to have the opportunity to also have an insurance option available. But many of them don't because it is not affordable, because of the way the States work the system, and because of that these small groups, as individuals, have no buying power. So this bill has addressed that need. It is not the answer. This isn't a magic wand, but it is another opportunity put on, let's say, the cafeteria line of insurance that gives a small businessperson the chance to go down that cafeteria line and say: Yes, this plan works for the five people who work for me, and I am going to buy into the plan because I can afford it. Today, most people who walk down that cafeteria line, if they are small businesspeople, don't choose anything because they cannot afford the price of anything, or many of them are in that capacity, that 22 million. This will take a fairly significant number of those folks and give them the opportunity to purchase health insurance. So it will take people from a noninsurance status to an insured status, from a situation where if they get sick, they don't know how they are going to pay for it, to a situation where if they get sick, they will have coverage. It is very important financially to most people and, obviously, it is important psychologically to everybody. So it is a good bill, something we should support. I do think much of the opposition to it is misguided because it doesn't recognize that the basic goal is to take people who don't have insurance today and get them insurance. Therefore, the arguments around mandates are irrelevant to that group of people and the argument of community rating as I think we will address. I congratulate the Senator from Wyoming for bringing this bill forward. I look forward to working with him on this bill. I want to speak on another matter briefly because there is a lot going on that is very good in this country relative to the economy, and it is not being highlighted. Today, there was an editorial in the New York Times that said we should not extend the tax cuts put into place in 2003. They say those tax cuts should not be extended in the areas of capital gains and dividends. That argument is good in 1930s economics. It is the old left theory of tax policy, which is that you increase revenues by constantly increasing taxes on people. It has been proven wrong this year, last year, and the year before. It was proven wrong by John Kennedy when he put in place the first tax cut. It was proven wrong by Ronald Reagan when he put in place the tax cut of 1980. And it has been proven wrong again. In fact, in the first 6 months of this year, tax revenues jumped 11 percent, $134 billion, and a large percentage of that is the increase in tax revenues from capital gains and the fact that we have reduced the rate on capital gains which causes people to free up assets. Over the last 3 years, revenues have jumped dramatically--in fact, last year by 14 percent, and the year before by 7 percent, and next year they are projected to jump again. Why is that? It is because we are seeing an economic boom which has created 5.3 million new jobs since those tax cuts were put into place. There have been more jobs added in the United States in that period than Europe and Japan combined have created. And those jobs have led to economic activity and, in turn, have led to revenues to the Federal Government. Revenues to the Federal Government are dramatically increasing because the economy is growing, and the economy is growing because the burden on those people who go out and are willing to take risks through capital investment, dividend activity, through income tax activity-- those people are taking risks and creating economic activity and, as a result, creating jobs which, in turn, create taxpayers, which, in turn, increases the Federal revenues. The numbers don't lie. They are huge, significant, and they confirm, once again, that John Kennedy was right, Ronald Reagan was right, and George Bush was right. By making tax rates fair, especially on capital formation, you energize economic activity and, in turn, you create massive increases in Federal revenues. Regrettably, I must say the New York Times is wrong. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I want to speak directly to the issue of the bill that applies to the need of women to be able to access doctors when they are delivering children and generally to get care from OB/ GYNs. The Senator from Massachusetts has characterized this bill. Let me characterize it, as I think the facts are on the side of this bill. The purpose of this bill is to allow women, especially women who are trying to have children, to have adequate health care. There is a crisis in this country today. Large numbers of women either cannot find an OB/GYN to assist them or if they can find an OB/GYN, they only have one choice. If they do not get along with that doctor, if they find they are not comfortable with that doctor, they have no other choice but that doctor. This bill sets up a very clear decision: You can be for the trial lawyers or you can be for women. You can be for the trial lawyers or you can be for doctors who want to deliver babies as their profession. You can be for the trial lawyers or you can be for children, especially children in prenatal situations. That is the choice in this bill. The facts are almost uncontrovertible because they are so clear. The number of doctors practicing and delivering babies is dropping radically. This is especially true--especially true--in rural areas. You cannot--let's put it this way: A trial lawyer cannot deliver a baby. They are talented people. In fact, in the years 2003 and 2004, they contributed over $185 million in political contributions, and as a result, they were able to garnish $18 billion in fees dealing with malpractice activity. So they are talented people. I do not deny that. But a trial lawyer cannot deliver a baby. But we are getting to a point where if you are a young woman or a woman who desires to have a child, you are probably going to have to drive by the courthouse to find your doctor because they are being subjected to so many lawsuits, if they happen to be in the business of delivering babies. New Hampshire is a classic example of this situation. There is only one doctor north of the White Mountains, which is a fairly large amount of area and a great place to live, and people who live there choose to live there because it is a great place to live. There is only one doctor above the White Mountains--that is called northern New Hampshire--who delivers babies. If that doctor is not around or if that doctor is on a break or maybe if you do not like that doctor, you literally are going to have to drive an hour, 2 hours, maybe even longer, in order to see a doctor if you are a woman who wants to get care in delivering your child. And believe me, that can be a dangerous experience, driving in a snowstorm. Hopefully, you can get somebody to drive you if you are about to deliver. But in any event, driving through a snowstorm in northern New Hampshire is a difficult situation. But that is what people are subjected to in that part of the State because the doctors who used to practice up there, who used to deliver babies, cannot afford to deliver babies any longer in that part of the State. Why? Because the population is not large enough to pay their premiums, which have escalated, skyrocketed, doubled--doubled upon doubled--over the last 20 years in the area of delivering children. So they have opted out of the practice. In fact, one doctor simply closed her practice and moved to another State because of the fact that the cost of insurance premiums was so high. Another whole practice in Rochester, NH, with five OB/GYNs, simply picked up their practice and moved across the State line to Maine because of the cost of delivering babies. One of the leading doctors in the State, Dr. Cynthia Cooper, who is head of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine and an OB/GYN, has given up delivering babies, as I understand it. Dr. Patricia Miller from Derry, NH, a town of 38,000 people, has also given up delivering babies, after 15 years. I had a doctor in Laconia, which is in the Lakes region--a beautiful part of the State--who essentially told me he has to deliver babies through November simply to pay the cost of the premium for his insurance. He does it because he feels it is his obligation, his obligation as a doctor, because that region would not have his talent and his care. But believe me, it is hardly an incentivizing event to pursue that type of practice. What drives these premiums? Well, if you listen to the Senator from Massachusetts, it is the evil insurance companies. Insurance companies do not drive these premiums. What a fallacious argument that is. They set the premium in order to be able to afford to pay the costs, which costs are generated by the excessive amount of lawsuits that are being brought and the extraordinary recoveries which, on occasion, are simply out of whack. When trial lawyers in this country are obtaining $18 billion in fees over a 2-year period that could have been money--if the Senator from Massachusetts wants to help out the health care system--that could have been money which could have gone into health care delivery, think of how many OB/GYNs would be practicing out there. Well, one State decided to do something about that, the State of the Presiding Officer: Texas. In an act of considerable clairvoyance, I would say, they decided to take the California model, which has worked pretty well, and improve on it. As a result, they have put in place a tiered system of recovery, which is what the bill does. It essentially follows the Texas model, which was a follow-on to the California model. In both Texas and California, recovery has been reasonable for those people injured. But equally important, doctors have started to practice medicine again, instead of just basically defending themselves from lawsuits. It has become affordable to become a doctor and practice in the State of Texas, so much so that the facts speak for themselves. Mr. President, 3,000 new doctors have moved into Texas since this law was passed, with 81 new obstetric doctors. That is a huge increase in medical opportunity and care, especially for women, women of childbearing years, and for children because Texas had the good sense to take this approach. The same has occurred in California. So progress has been made. We have uncontrovertible facts which show that you can resolve this issue, that you can allow women to have the opportunity, especially women of childbearing age, to see doctors and have choices in doctors and be able to be cared for by doctors who wish to deliver babies and can afford to deliver babies. This is a huge step forward for those two States. It is time the Federal Government, the National Government, address the issue, also. That is why we have brought forward this very targeted bill. The bigger bill, which I also support, is an excellent idea. There are other specialties that need attention: neurosurgeons, emergency room docs, doctors, especially, practicing in underserved areas. If you are a doctor in an emergency room or if you are a doctor practicing in an underserved area, you are not making a lot of money. You are fortunate if you are making anything. I do not know what the hourly rate works out to, but those doctors work massive hours. Considering the huge amount of expense they put into their education and their professional development, their return is not all that high if they have decided to pursue caring for people in underserved areas, rural or urban areas, or emergency rooms. Yet they get hit with these premiums, which essentially make it very difficult for doctors to choose that course of practice, which is so important. So a broader bill does make sense. But it gets attacked, and it has been attacked rather aggressively from the other side, with the footnotes that have been handed to the other side by the trial lawyer groups, as they try to set up the straw dog of the insurance companies or the straw dog of some sort of recovery system that is unfair to the seriously injured. So the bigger argument becomes more complex and more difficult to understand and can be more obfuscated and has been effectively by our friends on the other side and by the trial bar. But it is very hard to obfuscate, it is very hard to get past the simple fact that there is only one OB/GYN practicing in northern New Hampshire. It is very hard to get by the simple fact that if you are a woman in rural Kansas or rural New York or rural Illinois or urban areas within those States or rural Texas, you are going to have a lot of problems finding a doctor when you decide to have children because the doctors have been driven out of the business of the practice by these excessive and unrelenting lawsuits. So this bill is very simple. Rather than getting into the rather convoluted, smoke-filled discussion of the entire medical reform issue, it just goes at one great, important need in our country; that is, if a woman wants to have a child, she should have high-quality medical care so that child is brought into the world in the best possible condition and the woman's health is protected during the childbearing period. This bill will do that, and I hope everyone will support it. At this point, I reserve the remainder of our time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. My friends from Michigan and North Dakota raise important points. I agree the establishment and equipping of the three remaining northern border air wings is a priority. The northern border has long been neglected compared to the southern border. As my colleagues are aware, funds were appropriated in the fiscal year 2006 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act to initiate funding of the third northern border air wing in North Dakota. I am committed to seeing that the establishment of the remaining northern border air wings is accomplished as expeditiously as possible. Emerald Ash Borer

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today with a heavy heart and a deep sense of gratitude to pay tribute to a brave young man, PFC George Ronald Roehl, Jr., of Manchester, NH, for his service and his supreme sacrifice for his country. George was born on January 24, 1985, in Manchester, NH. He graduated from Franklin High School, Franklin, NH, in 2003 and entered the United States Army on November 2, 2004. He subsequently graduated from basic combat training and advanced individual training at Ft. Knox, KY, and was assigned to Bravo Troop, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Hood, TX, where he served as a Scout dismount. George, the oldest of five children, risked everything to fight for the values we Americans hold dear, in a country halfway around the world. Tragically, on April 11, 2006, this courageous young soldier and two of his comrades died as a result of injuries sustained in Taji, Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated near their Bradley Fighting Vehicle and they subsequently came under small arms fire during combat operations. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Combat Action Badge. Patriots from the State of New Hampshire have served our Nation with honor and distinction from Bunker Hill to Baghdad--and George served in that fine tradition. Daniel Webster said, ``God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.'' George was one of those proud and dedicated volunteers who believed in fighting for our country and guarding our precious liberty, and for that we will always owe our sincere gratitude. My condolences and prayers go out to George's family, and I offer them my deepest sympathies. Family, friends, and fellow soldiers will no longer be able to enjoy the company of PFC George R. Roehl, Jr. Yet memories of this young patriot will last forever with those who were fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to know him. He realized a calling and chose to employ his youthful energy and considerable talents for his country. He understood that the freedoms and opportunities provided by this Nation need continuous defense and that they are among the most precious gifts he can give to his family and loved ones. Because of him, the safety and liberty of each and every American is more secure. May God bless George Ronald Roehl, Jr.