Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Senator Gregg has it all wrong. To respond, my amendment says ``duties''--if your duties remain the same, you get overtime. But if your duties change, there is no glass ceiling. If you are a secretary today but you become CEO next year, of course you won't get overtime. That is what my friend from New Hampshire is missing. That is what is wrong with this amendment. He does it job by job. What I say is, if your duties are the same, you ought to get overtime. But there is no glass ceiling. If you go up a ladder, become manager, owner, or CEO of the company, of course you don't get overtime. That is a bogus argument.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I think I have about 50 seconds.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, in my 8 minutes let me try to clear up some points. A couple of Senators talked about my amendment. I listened to them and wondered what they were talking about, that somehow this is convoluted and problematic. Let's be clear. The amendment pending, which I have offered, does what the Department of Labor says they want to do. First, there will be two steps in my amendment. You check the old regulations. If the employee is required to be given overtime under the old regulations, that employee will continue to get overtime under the new regulations because the Department of Labor says they do not want to take overtime away from anyone now making it. My amendment clarifies it. Secondly, if the employee is not getting overtime under the present regulations, but the new regulations allow the employee to get overtime, the employee gets overtime. So we expand it. They want to protect and expand overtime, and that is exactly what my amendment does. It is very clear and very concise. Senator Specter is right, the new rule, at least what we heard about in the hearing this morning, is not a clarification. What we heard in the hearing is more ambiguous, and it is going to lead to much more litigation. Let me also talk about the pending Gregg amendment. First of all, I note that the pending Gregg amendment is an acknowledgment, a real acknowledgment, that there is a long list of occupations and people who are in danger of losing their overtime. Obviously, why else would he have listed those 55. So there is an acknowledgment that a lot of people will lose their overtime. I thank him for that acknowledgment. But he lists in his amendment 55 occupations. Senator Dodd said there are 889 occupations listed by the Department of Labor. Senator Gregg has picked out 55 and said they will get overtime. What about the other 800-some occupations? The Gregg amendment sets up a two-tier system: The 55 who are in and the 834 who are out. That is a big problem with the Gregg amendment. Secondly, it is definitional. For example, the Gregg amendment puts in team leaders, but we do not know what a team leader is because it has never been defined. What is a team leader? The Gregg amendment puts in refinery workers. Does that mean oil refinery or does that cover ethanol plants in Iowa? That is a refinery. Who is covered by that? We do not know. Technicians, what is a technician? There is no definition of a technician. The Gregg amendment covers funeral directors, but how about embalmers? We don't know. It looks as though the Gregg amendment was hastily put together. What they did was list 55 people we have talked about on the floor, but they exclude 834 others. That is a real problem. The other point is what is missing. I just sat down and started drawing up a list of people not in the Gregg amendment: Sheriffs deputies--how about juvenile justice officers? How about correctional officers? How about reporters, bookkeepers, retail clerks, police lieutenants, computer services employees? None of these are covered under the Gregg amendment. I guess they are just out. That is the problem with the Gregg amendment. It is a drastic change in the Fair Labor Standards Act. We have for 50 years said whether or not you get overtime is based upon the job you do, not upon what you are called. Senator Gregg now wants to say you will get overtime or not depending upon what you are called, not upon what you do. That is a big change. These 55 that have been listed, I don't mind listing them. That is all right. But it does not go far enough. It does not cover all of the people who are out there. It narrowly excludes from exemption of overtime 55 occupations, some of which are not even well defined and not defined at all in the Gregg amendment. I would say it like this: If you have a building and you have 10 entrances to that building and none of them are protected, but you want to protect the 10 entrances into that building, say, from terrorist activities--let's say someone comes along and says: I can't protect all 10 of them; I can protect 4. Fine, protect four, but I still have six others I have to protect. That is how I see the Gregg amendment. He protects 55, but there are 834 out there that are not listed. My point is, you can vote for the Gregg amendment--in fact, I will vote for the Gregg amendment. I don't see it is that big a deal. It is kind of ridiculous to list 55, but I will vote for it and move the process along. But if you vote for the Gregg amendment, you can vote for the Harkin amendment, too, because we come in and cover all 10 doors in that building. We make sure all workers are covered, not just 55, not a narrowly construed list of 55 workers. We cover them all. I hope my colleagues will support the Harkin amendment because it does, in fact, ensure that those who get overtime now will continue to get overtime, and it ensures if you don't get overtime now but the new rules allow you to get overtime, you will get overtime. The Harkin amendment covers all workers, not just the narrow list of 55. Mr. President, I reserve whatever time I may have remaining.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand I have 8 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I return to the Senate floor this afternoon to address an issue of utmost importance to working Americans and their families, and that is time-and-a-half overtime pay and the seemingly relentless campaign by the Bush administration to take away the overtime rights of many American workers. This effort to take away time-and-a-half overtime, to jiggle the rules, cloud it all up, is one of the most anti-worker, anti-family proposals to come along in my tenure in the Congress. As most Senators know by now, my amendment serves the simplest of purposes. It lets stand the new threshold of $23,660 below that which all workers are automatically eligible for overtime. My amendment lets that part of the proposal stand. My amendment also guarantees that no worker who currently is eligible to receive overtime pay will lose that right to overtime pay under the new rule. Again, my amendment does two things. It lets stand that part of the final rule that raises the threshold to $23,660. The other part of my amendment also guarantees that no worker who is currently getting overtime pay will lose that right under any new rule. It is very simple, very straightforward. Madam President, this is a subject I feel very deeply about, and I am not alone. Wherever I travel in the United States and in Iowa, people talk to me about what overtime pay means to them and their families. Many become quite emotional about it. They know what the administration is trying to do and they are angry. They want action to be taken to stop these new overtime rules. One of the reasons they are angry is because they know what this chart shows: The average annual working hours of the American worker in the United States is more than any worker anywhere in the industrialized world. It is more than in Canada, Japan, Australia, France, and Germany. Our average annual work hours are more than anyone, anywhere in the world. American workers know that because they are the ones doing the work. Since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, overtime rights and the 40-hour work week have been sacrosanct, respected by Presidents of both parties. Last year, the Bush administration launched a frontal assault on this time-honored principle. The Department of Labor proposes changes to the overtime rules that, according to the best analysis we could muster, would have taken overtime pay eligibility away from up to 8 million American workers. That proposal really was breathtaking. The administration proposed this without consulting Congress, without holding public hearings. It actually took several weeks for many of us to realize the magnitude of what the administration was proposing. In fact, some of the most harmful provisions of the proposed rule were not discovered until months later. Finally, we were shocked to discover that the administration was proposing to strip overtime pay from police officers, firefighters, veterans, nurses, and many others. The radicalism and audacity of this proposal is without parallel in modern day labor legislation. Of course, once the true intent and extent of the proposed rule became known, many of those affected were in open rebellion. As this issue spilled over into this election year, frankly, this became a huge political liability for the administration. Late last year, during consideration of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill, I offered a similar amendment in the Senate--it passed by a margin of 54-45--to block the worst aspects of the administration's overtime proposal. Following that, the House of Representatives, by a margin of 221-203, voted to instruct its conferees to support the Senate's position in conference. Unfortunately, White House officials instructed the conferees to delete my amendment from the Omnibus appropriations bill, and that is why we are back here today. It must be pointed out that since we last debated this amendment, the Department of Labor has issued its final rule on overtime. In this final rule, the Department appears to have had something of an election year conversion. Under extreme pressure from working Americans, as well as critics in Congress, the administration has backed off its attempt to strip overtime from certain high-profile groups, such as rank-and- file police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. I salute the efforts of many individuals and groups and labor unions who have fought hard and forced the administration to abandon several of its offensive and egregious proposals. Let's be under no illusion about this final rule. We have progressed--if that is the right term-- from a proposed rule that was profoundly terrible to a final rule that is just plain terrible. The administration's model seems to be that if at first you don't succeed in limiting the overtime pay of American workers, try, try again and spin like crazy. Again, Madam President, I ask that those who look at this final rule not just compare it to the proposed rule. As I said, we went from profoundly terrible to just plain terrible. So I suppose if you compared the final rule with the proposed rule, you would say it is better. I think the proper yardstick of measurement is to measure the final rule compared to what we have today. Who loses? What happens to our right to overtime in that regard? Make no mistake: Even with the changes from the proposed rule, this final rule is a radical rewrite of the rules governing eligibility for overtime. It would deny time-and-a-half overtime pay to millions of workers earning as little as $23,660 per year. By and large, these are low- to middle-income workers who don't have a strong organized voice, so the administration may feel it can run roughshod over their rights. That is why we in Congress must be their voice and their vote on this matter. Of course, the administration denies this. Its public posture is all smiles and happy talk, including the audacious claim that no workers earning less than $100,000 a year will lose their right to overtime. Frankly, at this point, the administration has zero credibility on this issue. As I said, when the proposed rule was issued a year ago, it took months of reading the fine print before one realized how destructive it was, and only belatedly do we discover that the administration was giving tips and advice to employers as to how they could avoid paying overtime to employees under the new rule. Here we go again. Once again, the administration is all smiles and happy talk. Once again, the administration is assuring workers they will not lose their overtime rights. When the Bush administration smiles and says it is here to fix overtime, I have five words of advice for American workers: hold on to your wallets. Why exactly is the administration so eager to ``fix'' overtime? Now I know why many corporations and employer groups want to fix overtime. They want to pay fewer workers overtime. It is very clear. But is anyone clamoring for this? I frequently visit manufacturing plants, and never, ever has a factory worker come up to me and said: You know, Senator Harkin, too many of us are getting overtime pay. It is broken and you need to fix it. I frequently visit hospitals. Never has a nurse come up to me and said: Senator Harkin, it is not right that I am receiving overtime pay when I work 50 hours a week. You need to go back to Washington and fix this overtime mess. Back home in Iowa, I love to go to Dairy Queens. It is something my colleague and I share when we go back to Iowa, Dairy Queen, but no one ever, in a Dairy Queen making hamburgers or Blizzards, or a working supervisor, has come up to me and said: Senator Harkin, I don't deserve time and a half overtime pay. You need to fix it immediately. I will go one step further. Not one employer in my State of Iowa has come up to me and complained about paying overtime pay under existing rules. Not one. Now the Department of Labor is saying to the American workers: Hi, we are from Washington, and we are here to improve your overtime rights. Is there anybody at this point in America who believes that? Working families are not buying it. They have a simple message for the Department of Labor: Keep your hands off our right to overtime pay. Let me repeat the administration's central claim. No workers earning less than $100,000 a year will lose their right to overtime. This claim is demonstrably false. This chart shows in simplest terms the impact of the new rule. It is clear that employees earning less than $23,660 a year, automatically will be paid overtime regardless of what they do. The new rule will make it very easy to exempt most workers making over $100,000. It will not totally, but most will be exempt. We just learned that some of the oil rig workers, for example, in Alaska and off the coast of Louisiana who work under hazardous conditions and are away from their families a lot--some of them may make a little over $100,000. I guess I can't blame them. These are hard-working people and they are away from their families. It is a hazardous occupation. They, too, may be stripped of their overtime rights simply because they make $100,000 a year. I don't think it is correct we should do that. It has come to my attention in the last few hours that oil rig workers would also have their right to overtime stripped. The real gray area is from $100,000 to $23,000. People in that area are saying people will not lose their right to overtime. A careful analysis of the new rule makes it abundantly clear that certain jobs and professional categories in this gray area will be ineligible for overtime. To cite one glaring example, under the new rule, a worker who leads a team of other workers loses his or her right to overtime. Under the old rule, there was no provision concerning so-called ``team leaders.'' There is no such term in present rules. But the new rule, under section 541.203(c) states: An employee who leads a team of other employees assigned to complete other projects for the employer meets the requirements for exemption-- Listen to the following words-- even if the employee does not have direct supervisory responsibility over the employees on the team. Talk about a loophole. This team leader loophole is big enough to drive an Amtrak train through. Team leaders are commonplace throughout the manufacturing and services sectors. They are especially common in factories, refineries, chemical plants, and other places. MIT professor of management Thomas Kochan estimates that this team leader loophole alone could deny overtime rights to as many as 2.3 million workers making above $23,660 a year and less than $100,000 a year--a team leader. Again, I point out that the term ``team leader'' exists nowhere in the present rules. It is now put in the final rule, ``team leader.'' But guess what. There is no definition of a team leader. There is no definition. It is up to the employer to define it. So any employer can define a team leader as they wish. And that team leader, as I pointed out in the rule, does not have to have direct supervisory responsibility over employees on the team. That team leader could be a team leader for, say, 5 minutes a week. Maybe it is a Friday afternoon get-together to discuss what went on the week before, and all of a sudden you are a team leader for that 1 hour of discussion. You are not exempt. Your employer can now exempt you from overtime simply by calling you a team leader. So in the rules there is no definitional structure of what a team leader is. It is a huge loophole. Section 541.303(b) strips overtime rights from nursery school teachers earning more than $23,660. Under section 541.604, registered nurses who are salaried could be denied overtime. Large parts of the financial services industry are no longer eligible for overtime under the new rule. According to an analysis by the Houston Chronicle, labor relations, public relations, human relations, and government relations employees will be ineligible for overtime under the new rule. Funeral directors and embalmers will be ineligible. Insurance claim adjustors will be ineligible. Many outside sales representatives will be ineligible. In addition, many computer services employees will lose their right to overtime, including programmers, network, and database administrators. I would also point out that the new rule includes loopholes and artful language that will strip overtime from several broad occupational categories. For example, the new rule will make it much easier for management to reclassify workers earning as little as $23,660 a year as professional employees. So you could be making $24,000 a year and your employer could reclassify you as professional, and you will be ineligible for overtime. Employees will no longer need college degrees to be considered professionals exempt from overtime. Work experience will be enough. Under the present rules that have existed for many years, it pointed out to get an exemption under the professional status one had to have a 4-year degree. That was sort of the minimum. That was the minimum one needed to be exempt. Now a person does not need that. All they have to have is work experience. For example, section 541-301(d) strips overtime rights from cooks and chefs who have ``substantially the same knowledge'' and perform the same work as cooks or chefs with 4-year culinary arts degrees. In addition, the new rule will make it much easier for management to reclassify workers earning as little as $23,660 as executive employees who will be ineligible for overtime pay. Under the present rule, employees that spend the majority of their time, 50 percent or more, doing administrative, management, or professional work lose their right to overtime under the executive category. Under the new rule, employees who do even a small amount of administrative, management, or professional work can lose their overtime rights. For example, a McDonald's franchise assistant manager who spends most of her time making hamburgers or filling orders, making french fries, but spends 10 percent of her time performing supervisory duties, could be reclassified as executive and be ineligible for overtime. Think about that. In the past, the threshold was 50 percent. One had to spend at least 50 percent of one's time in an executive or an administrative capacity to be exempt from overtime pay. Now there is no threshold. It can be as little as 5 percent, 10 percent; nobody knows. It does not make any difference. It is whatever an employer says. So guess what. A person is now working at a McDonald's franchise. They are making hamburgers and french fries and filling orders, which is pretty tough work. They move pretty fast. They are making $24,000 a year. All of a sudden the owner comes in and says: You are now an executive. Do you not feel good? I am going to put a little name up there, Susan Smith, executive. Now you are an executive. You feel great. There is a certificate. You are now an executive. You can hang that on your wall at home. By the way, you do not get anymore overtime pay. I wonder how many American workers would feel good about that, that now they are an executive but they lose their right to overtime pay. I can go on at great length naming others who will be denied overtime under the new rule, but I have made my point. The administration claims no workers earning between $23,660 and $100,000 a year will be denied overtime. That statement is false. All of these people, veterans, police, nurses--I talked about the team leaders--journalists, I have talked about that, cooks, financial services, computer workers, working foremen, and many others, because they can be reclassified as executive, administrative, or professional, under very ambiguous and clouded procedures or definitions, could lose their right to overtime pay. My second chart is very revealing again as to what is going on. There are 152 pages in the new rule. As the chart goes, only 15 pages are devoted to the highly compensated employees test, which is $100,000 or more, and the minimum salary test, which is $23,660 or less. Fifteen pages are devoted to those two categories, and 137 pages are devoted to those who make between $23,660 and $100,000. I have to tell my colleagues something. If the administration were sincere in its assertion that no worker earning between $23,660 and $100,000 a year would lose their overtime rights, believe me, it would not take 137 pages to say so. The administration could have said it in one or two sentences. Instead, the new rule spends 137 pages spinning a web of artful language, calculated ambiguity, and outright loopholes such as the team leader loophole, a complex web designed to catch workers and strip them of their overtime. It is ironic that one of the administration's main justifications for proposing a new rule on overtime was to bring clarity and reduce litigation. They said this is one of the reasons they are doing it, to bring clarity and reduce litigation. This final rule is shot through with artful, ambiguous language that clearly favors employers. This is guaranteed to lead to scores of lawsuits and years of litigation as workers fight to retain their overtime rights. If increasingly conservative courts rule in favor of employers, countless additional workers will lose their right to overtime. For example, in several places, the final rule broadens what used to be a narrow test. By definition, this will mean less position, less clarity, not more. The final rule is far from clear. As I said, who can be classified as team leaders? It is not defined. The employer defines that. What is a working foreman? It is up to the employer to decide what is a working foreman. Once they decide, a person is ineligible for overtime. When Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, it anticipated there would be a number of less than honorable employers who would try to cheat workers out of overtime, so Congress included a penalty provision that would act as a strong deterrent. Under the present rule, if an employer is cheating employees out of overtime, the penalty can be massive. If found guilty, all employees in the enterprise, including salaried employees who are exempt from overtime, must be paid time and a half overtime for the period the improper practices were taking place. That is a tough deterrent. In other words, if an unscrupulous employer was cheating an employee out of overtime and they were taken to court and found guilty of doing that, they did not have to pay only that employee back, they had to pay everyone in the enterprise time and a half overtime for the entire periods in question. They even had to pay time and a half to exempt employees who were exempt from overtime. As I said, a very tough deterrent. What does the new rule do? Under the new rule, the penalty is limited to the work unit where the violation was detected. This ignores the fact that in nearly all instances, overtime violations are not limited to a renegade supervisor. They are almost always a result of some companywide practice. So again, if an unscrupulous employer cheats an employee out of overtime and is caught and convicted, the company has to pay that employee back, and whoever is in that little work area, maybe two or three people. Before, they had to pay the entire enterprise. So we can see they have really watered this down. We have gone from kind of a nuclear deterrent under the old rule to kind of a pussycat deterrent under the new rule. Let me summarize. Under the new rule, many workers will legally lose their right to overtime and employers who cheat their workers out of overtime illegally will receive a penalty that amounts to less than a slap on the wrist. No wonder the Wall Street Journal has called the new rule a victory for business groups. It is time for Washington to listen to Main Street and not just Wall Street. Listen to ordinary working Americans. They are telling us loudly and clearly their number one issue is economic security. They are telling us they fear losing their jobs. They fear losing their health care. They fear losing their retirement. Now they fear losing their right to time-and-a-half compensation for overtime. They fear, with good reason, that under the Department of Labor's new rule they will be obliged to work 45, 50, 60 hours a week with zero additional compensation. For millions of working Americans, this is unacceptable, and the last straw. For 65 years, the 40-hour week has allowed workers to spend time with their families instead of toiling past dark and on weekends. At a time when the family dinner is becoming an oxymoron, this standard is more important than ever. As I said earlier, this final rule on overtime is anti-worker and anti-family. Given the fact that we are stuck in a jobless recovery, the timing could not be worse. It is yet another instance of the economic malpractice of this administration. Bear in mind that time-and-a-half pay accounts for some 25 percent of the total income of Americans who work overtime. With average U.S. income declining, the proposed changes would slash the paychecks of countless workers. Moreover, the proposed new rule is all but guaranteed to hurt job creation in the United States. This is just basic logic. If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. Workers without overtime rights are twice as likely to work more than 40 hours a week, according to the current statistics. They are three times as likely to work more than 50 hours a week. With 9 million Americans currently out of work, why in the world do we want to give employers yet another disincentive to hire new workers? It is bad enough to deny American workers their overtime rights, but what is striking is the approach taken by the Department of Labor and the administration on this issue. As I already mentioned, no public hearings were held. There was no consultation with Congress. I have looked back and have done research. Every time I have been able to find in the past when we made changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, Congress always had hearings, consulted with business, consulted with labor, and there was a process by which the public believed they had an input. That is not so this time. Also, something I think that is beyond comprehension, the Department has offered employers what amounts to a cheat sheet. It has offered employers helpful tips on how to avoid paying overtime to the lowest paid workers. I mean these, the ones who make less than $23,600 a year, down here. The administration has basically put out information. They say they want to help these people. They raise it to $23,660 from about $8,000 a year--a good step. I compliment the administration for doing this. But they turn right around and tell employers how they can get by without paying them overtime. They recommend raising a worker's salary slightly to meet the threshold. If you are an employee who is near this $23,660 level, they might want to raise your wages to $23,661. Guess what. Then you are no longer exempt. They also suggest cutting a worker's hourly wage so any new overtime payments will not result in a net gain to the employee. Think about that. You say we are going to raise the threshold. Now, here is what you can do: cut the hourly wages so if you do have to pay them overtime it will all be the same. The employee will get the same amount of money, but the employee would be working 42, 43, 45, 48 hours a week. This is from the Department of Labor. They have actually put this out in print. It is disgraceful. There is one group that is disproportionately harmed by the new overtime rules--women. The fact is, women tend to dominate in retail, services, and sales positions, which would be particularly affected by the new rule. Married women increased their working hours by nearly 40 percent from 1979 to 2000. As women have increased their time in the paid labor market, their contribution to the family income has also risen. These contributions are especially important to lower and middle-income families. Yet now the administration's new rule will take away overtime protections from millions of American women. Women in the paid workforce will be forced to work longer hours for less pay. And, of course, this means more time away from families and more childcare expenses, with no additional compensation. Not surprisingly, prominent women's groups are adamantly opposed to the new overtime rules. The American Association of University Women, the National Organization of Women, the National Partnership of Women and Families, the YWCA, 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women-- among others, are all strongly supporting my amendment. Listen to what Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA, says. She is a single parent working hard to support her family. When she leaves work after a difficult 8-hour shift, she says: My second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes to wash, laundry, and all the other housework that must be done, which adds another three or four hours to my workday. Ms. Perez said something also very powerful. She said: My time at home with my kids and family is truly my premium time . . . it is personal time. . . . it is the most valuable time of my day. So if I am required to work longer than eight hours . . . if I have to sacrifice that premium time with my family . . . then I ought to receive premium pay, that is, overtime pay. I agree wholeheartedly with Sheila Perez. If she is sacrificing personal time, her premium time with her family and her kids, it is only fair she be compensated on a premium basis with time-and-a-half overtime pay. I think there is a broader context for this discussion of overtime. It is sort of a bigger picture. As I said, the No. 1 issue for Americans today is economic security, and with good reason, because it is abundantly clear that America is stuck in a largely jobless recovery. Since the administration took office, nearly 3 million private sector jobs have been lost, including one in every seven jobs in manufacturing. President Bush--George W. Bush--has presided over the greatest job loss of any President since the Great Depression. Yet he remains wedded to policies that make it worse. His administration has praised the outsourcing of jobs as something good for our economy. He has opposed any increase in the minimum wage. He has opposed extending unemployment benefits. Now, this administration wants to destroy the overtime rights of many hard- working Americans. There is no question, I suppose, that those policies have been good for wealthy investors. Corporate profits are rising, the stock market is up, CEO pay is up, and once again the rich are getting richer. But something is missing. Ordinary Americans are not participating in this so-called recovery. In fact, more and more Americans live in fear of losing their jobs, their health benefits, their retirement, and now their right to overtime pay. The truth is, we cannot build a sustainable recovery by exporting jobs, driving down wages, and making Americans work longer hours without compensation. Moreover, such a recovery is not desirable. A true recovery must include all Americans. It can only be built on a foundation of good jobs with good wages in America, not overseas. It can only be built on a foundation that includes a minimum wage that is a living wage and not a poverty wage. And it can only be built on a foundation that reserves Americans' rights to time-and-a-half overtime pay over 40 hours. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to protect the overtime rights of American workers. Again, I repeat, my amendment will let stand the positive provision of the rule which raises the low- income threshold to $23,660 and makes more workers automatically eligible for overtime. Now the administration again says it does not want to take away the overtime rights of anyone earning less than $100,000. If that is the case, then the administration should have no problem embracing my amendment because this amendment has a simple purpose: to guarantee that workers who are entitled to overtime pay now, today, will not lose their right under the new rule. I think the new rule is disingenuous. The administration is being disingenuous about it and knows full well this new rule will strip overtime eligibility for many workers earning less than $100,000. That is the reason it is being pushed aggressively. That is exactly why many corporations and groups are so keen to see this new rule adopted. But it is unfair. It is an attack on a basic right American workers have enjoyed for over 65 years, and it is bad economic policy. It will hurt job creation and reduce disposable income. I want to point out a few statements from others in support of my amendment. The Effect of Final Rules Silence on Police Sergeants. This is an April 28 press release from the International Union of Police Associations, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the International Brotherhood of Police Organizations. The DOL has done nothing to define the line between management and police duties for those above line-level officers. Once the final complex rules go into effect, their very ambiguity regarding the line between supervisory duties and traditional policing duties will undoubtedly shift the ball from the legislature to the courts. That is why they support my amendment. Here is a press release from the United American Nurses. The Effect of Final Rules Silence on Registered Nurses. In the midst of a registered nursing shortage that is projected to reach 808,000 RNs by 2020, it is incomprehensible why this President wouldn't do everything in his power to make sure that RNs are fairly compensated for the life-saving work we do. I mentioned earlier the professional loophole. This is from the code itself. This is the current regulation on learning professionals. As is well known, there are still a few practitioners who have gained their knowledge by home study and experience. Characteristically, the members of the profession are graduates of law schools, but some few of their fellow professionals whose status is equal to theirs, whose attainments are the same and whose word is the same did not enjoy that opportunity. Such persons are not barred from the exemption. The word ``customarily'' implies that in the vast majority of cases, the specific academic training is a prerequisite for transfer into the profession. This is what we have been operating under for years. . . . in the vast majority of cases, the specific academic training is a prerequisite . . . Under the proposed rule, work experience--even the experience you might have gotten in the military--would disqualify you from overtime. I want to make a point on this. I want to make a point on the veterans. When we debated this last year, we pointed out in the proposed rules it specifically mentioned those who were not learned professionals because they had a 4-year college degree but who had learned on-the-job training, including training in the military--those were the words: ``including training in the armed forces.'' We pointed out here on the floor this means someone going into the military and who received training in the Army and came out, because they received training in the military, they would be exempt from the right to get overtime. Guess what the administration did. In the final rule, they took those words out--``training in the armed forces.'' But what they didn't do was change the underlying language which says basically you don't have to have a 4-year college degree; you can have on-the-job training or work experience. It doesn't say they couldn't be in the military. They didn't specifically exempt the military; they took out those four words. Under this final rule, veterans in the future will be different than veterans in the past if they receive training while in the military which they then use on the job later on. They may have their right to overtime pay taken away from them. This is sort of an example of the learned professional exemption. Let's take a look at chefs. It basically says: Chefs, such as executive chefs who have attained a 4-year specialized degree in the culinary arts program, generally meet the duty requirement of the learned professional exemption. The learned professional exemption is not available to cooks who perform predominantly routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work. In other words, an executive chef who has fewer years is automatically exempt, but also if you, for example, at some point in time supervised someone at a McDonald's, or whatever, then you would be exempt. That is the ambiguity of these rules. I could point out more and more. There are all kinds of different workers who are caught up in this kind of web of ambiguity. But I close by saying again the new rule is unfair. This kind of a process should have been done in Congress. It should have been done with the appropriate committees, with appropriate hearings and consultation and being very careful about how we are going to address this. I see nothing wrong--in fact, I see everything right--in what the administration is proposing in raising the threshold to $23,660. It should have been done a long time ago. But most of the rules do not pertain to them. The 137 pages out of 152 pages pertain to those making over $23,660 a year, and it provides one loophole after another to deny the right to overtime pay for employees. I am hopeful we can have a strong bipartisan vote in support of this amendment. We can save the administration from making a terrible mistake. We can protect American workers' right to overtime compensation and we can support an economic recovery that includes all Americans--a recovery that respects and preserves the American dream. Our workers deserve an ironclad guarantee that their overtime rights will be safe and nurtured as they have been in the past and are today. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, after 2\1/2\ years of a largely jobless recovery, the current administration is on track to be the first in over six decades actually to lose jobs during its 4-year term. It is particularly alarming that this country has lost more than one in seven of its manufacturing jobs since this administration took office. More than one in seven. One reason is outsourcing. We have been seeing good, high-wage manufacturing jobs transferred overseas for a number of years. But outsourcing now has accelerated. It has spread to ``knowledge-based jobs''--programming, auditing, accounting, engineering, design, telemarketing, animation, editing, transcription, legal assistance, call centers and even core research. Some economists have argued over the years that free trade helps the United States to concentrate on creating high-wage, high-value-added jobs here in America. But now those jobs are being exported, too. The old rules of comparative advantage have been exploded. As we all know by now, the President's annual economic report, signed by Mr. Bush, explained why we should be celebrating the outsourcing and off-shoring of American jobs. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, summed up the report. He said that ``outsourcing is a growing phenomenon, but it's something that we should realize is . . . a plus for the economy.'' Yes, you heard that right: Outsourcing is ``a plus for the economy.'' Outsourcing of U.S. jobs, however, is just one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is U.S. jobs that are lost because this administration refuses to enforce our existing trade laws--for example, existing laws that protect against sudden surges of imports from abroad which harm particular businesses or sectors here in our country. This refusal threatens U.S. manufacturers and destroys American jobs. Let me offer one vivid example: Clow Valve Company has operated in the town of Oskaloosa, Iowa, since 1878. It manufactures iron pipes, water hydrants and other foundry products. If there's a fire hydrant on your block--and there should be one under most city codes--chances are excellent that it was made by Clow Valve Company. The company was acquired by McWane, Inc., of Birmingham, Alabama in 1985. McWane owns similar facilities in several other states, including Alabama, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Tennessee, employing some 7,000 workers. Last year, McWane, Inc., faced a near tripling of Chinese imports of waterwork pipes compared to the previous year, with Chinese product being sold at prices that severely undercut American producers. Obviously, continued expansion of sales by Chinese companies at this rate could cause serious market disruption. It could threaten all 7,000 jobs in these plants, including the 358 in the Clow facilities in Oskaloosa, IA. Nonetheless, President Bush has steadfastly refused to use his authority under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974 to restrain this surge of imports, even though such a step was unanimously recommended by the International Trade Commission (ITC) last December. I wrote to the administration on two occasions, once to the ITC and once to the President himself, urging that our trade officials utilize existing laws that were enacted for the very purpose of temporarily protecting American jobs from sudden surges of imported products. The President's refusal to enforce our trade laws has profound consequences. In Oskaloosa, it could mean the loss of some or all of the 358 good-quality, high-paying jobs at the Clow Valve Company. In turn, that would have a devastating impact all across Mahaska County. Bear in mind that Clow Valve is now the single largest employer located in the county. It is an employer with deep roots in the community. I imagine there might be some bewilderment among people there about the refusal of the Bush Administration to stand up and defend those jobs. Let me summarize the basic facts: We have a clear case of harmful trade practices on the part of the Chinese--flooding the U.S. market with cut-rate waterwork pipes. In December, the United States International Trade Commission ruled that a surge in imports of Chinese waterwork pipes had caused market disruption and material injury to domestic manufacturers such as Clow Valve Company. The Commission was unanimous in its conclusion that imports from China should be restrained pursuant to section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. The Commission was unanimous in its prediction that, without implementation of an effective relief program, the U.S. waterwork pipes industry may have to close plants and lay off workers. And yet, the White House refused to act. Which leads me to ask: Whose side are they on? Mr. President, it is clear to me that the jobless recovery here in the U.S. is not an accident. It is the result of a productivity surge that has benefited corporate profits, not workers' paychecks. It is the result of corporate America's enthusiastic embrace of outsourcing and off-shoring jobs, with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush administration. And it is the result of the refusal of this administration to enforce our trade laws--its refusal to stand up for American workers, including in the face of seriously harmful trading practices from abroad. We cannot build a sustainable recovery by exporting jobs, driving down U.S. wages to match foreign wages, and allowing nations like China to flood our market with cheap imports. No, a true recovery must include all Americans. It can only be built on a foundation of good jobs and good wages--here in America, not overseas. And it can only be sustained if the administration, at long last, is willing to enforce our trade laws and stand up for American workers.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this evening I want to take a few minutes of the time of the Senate to pay tribute to and to say a public goodbye to Mary McGrory, a friend of long standing to me and my wife Ruth and to our daughters Amy and Jenny. Mary passed away last evening here in Washington after having had a long illness. Mary McGrory was a wonderful, warm, witty, and wise woman. Her death is, indeed, a passing of an era when the written word could carry meaning, when the written word could actually move people, when people looked to a Mary McGrory to give them the kind of inspiration they needed or to give them the in-depth analysis they needed to understand what was going on in Washington. Her writing had such a clarity about it that once I read what Mary McGrory had written, I found myself many times saying: Yes, that's how I feel. Why didn't I think of that? Why couldn't I have said it that way? I think of her passing as the passing of an era, like there is a time and a place and a circumstance that happens in the passing of time when certain individuals do something, make something, or leave an imprint in some way that you know will never happen again, such as the passing of a Michelangelo, a Leonardo da Vinci, a Shakespeare, a time and a place for Shakespeare and his magnificent writings never to be seen again. I think of that when I think of Mary McGrory because we may never see her kind of writing ever again. Oh, with the advent of computers, sound bites, trying to get everything into 30 seconds or trying to make everything so simple that it is reduced to meaningless jabber, it may be that we will never see her kind of writing again. Mary McGrory could make words dance. She could make sentences sing and turn paragraphs into symphonies. But it was not just her writing alone that endeared so many of us to Mary. It was just Mary, such a unique individual. It is hard to describe sometimes. I guess moments like this when you know you will never have her company again, you think about the pleasant times you spent together. Of course, I always think about Mary's annual St. Patrick's Day bash--party, if you will--at her home on Macomb Street. I didn't make every one. Sometimes I was in Iowa on the weekend. It was always on the weekend before or after St. Patrick's Day. Usually before. But I made several of them. They were wonderful affairs. There was, of course, music, a lot of singing, and, of course, Mary McGrory's lasagna which was always kind of odd. One would think that maybe on St. Paddy's Day one would have corned beef and cabbage, an Irish dish or Irish stew, something like that, but we always had lasagna. Mary McGrory was very proud of her Irish heritage, but I always thought she felt a bit confused. While she was Irish to the core, she loved Italy and loved going to Italy, and she loved having lasagna on St. Patrick's Day. She one time said, and I am paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact words: It is too bad the Irish could not have been born in Italy. As I said, she was sometimes, I think, a little confused whether she wanted to be more Irish or maybe more Italian, but she was Irish to the core. Her St. Patrick's Day events were wonderful occasions. There is that wonderful song about when Irish eyes are smiling, and something about the lilt of Irish laughter, you can hear the angels sing. When Mary McGrory's eyes lit up and when she laughed, she was all Irish and you really could hear angels sing. We always had music and songs. Everyone had to perform at Mary's St. Patrick's Day parties. Everyone had to perform. She always had people of talent there to play the piano or some musical instrument. Since I am musically challenged, and she knew this, I was always commissioned to sing. My song always thereafter was Mother McCree. I always substituted the words ``Mary McGrory'' for ``Mother McCree'' which delighted her to no end. Mary McGrory was a clever woman. She knew how to cajole, how to sometimes even plead, ask, prod, and act terribly helpless knowing that someone would pick up her suitcase, carry her belongings, get something for her, and when that happened, and you would retrieve something or carry something for her, do something for Mary, when you finished doing it, there was this twinkle in her eye and you knew you had been had one more time. She was very clever. Mary and my wife Ruth became fast and strong friends over gardening. I enjoyed gardening, although I am not much of a gardener myself. I would sit and listen to them talk about gardening, or Mary would come out to the house and my wife would take her around or ask her about this flower or that flower. Of course, we would go to her place and they would go out and look at Mary's flowers and what was wrong here and what should be planted there. I always felt my job was to go down to Connecticut Avenue and pick up something to eat and come back at the appropriate time when they had finished talking about gardening. Much has been written and much will be written about Mary's background and where she went to school and what got her into journalism, but I think more should be said about the imprint she left on so many people. She was not only a warm, wise, witty, and clever woman, she was an inspirational woman to so many people. After you had been with Mary, or after maybe reading one of her columns, you always felt better. You felt better about the world around you. You felt better about things maybe you thought were going wrong. Maybe you were mad about something the Government was doing in one administration or another. You read her column and you felt no matter how bad things were, it was going to be okay; we were going to get through it; right would prevail; justice would triumph and people of good will would take over. There is an old folk song with this refrain: Passing through, passing through, sometimes happy, sometimes blue, glad that I ran into you. Tell the people that you saw me passing through. Well, Mary, you passed through and in your passing through you inspired us; you made us think; you prodded us to question, and always, to the end, gave us hope and courage that life will be better for those who come after us. So we say goodbye to Mary McGrory, thanks for passing through, thanks for touching each of us so profoundly as you did when you passed through. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, might I inquire as to how much time I would have to speak on the floor now?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last week the Labor, Health, and Human Services Subcommittee of Appropriations held a hearing in my State of Iowa. I wanted to learn more about the medical and financial ramifications of chronic conditions such as obesity, tobacco use, mental illness, and lack of physical activity. I come away from that hearing and other hearings that we have had in Washington, and others we have had going back probably over a dozen years, even more convinced that we need to refocus our health care system toward wellness and prevention. I am convinced now more than ever that we really do not have a health care system in America. We have a ``sick care system'' in America. I will say more about that in a moment. At the hearing and at others before that, we heard the familiar litany of grim statistics associated with these chronic conditions. But we also heard from Iowans, students and adults, who are taking matters into their own hands, doing innovative things to promote wellness and healthier living in their communities. In the United States we spend in excess of $1.5 trillion a year on health care. Fully 75 percent of that total is accounted for by chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes. What these diseases have in common is, in so many cases, they are preventable. In the United States we fail to make an up-front investment in prevention, so we end up spending hundreds of billions on hospitalization, treatment, and disability. This is foolish, and clearly is unsustainable. We need a new paradigm in American health care. We need a prevention paradigm. As I said, right now we have a sick care system in the United States. If you get sick, one way or another you get care, either through health insurance or through Medicaid, Medicare, or something like that. Of course we know we have 43 million uninsured who do not have access, even, many times, to our sick care system. But what we need is a genuine health care system, a system focused on wellness and prevention, a system focused on keeping you healthy in the first place. Consider the cost of major chronic diseases, diseases that in many cases are preventable. The annual costs for cardiovascular disease are about $352 billion; for obesity, $117 billion a year; for diabetes, $132 billion a year; for smoking, more than $75 billion a year; and for untreated mental illness, $79 billion a year. Indeed, major depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States. If I bought a new car and I drove that car off the lot and I never maintained it, I never checked the oil, I never changed the oil, I never checked the transmission fluid, never got it tuned up, I just drove it, you would think I was crazy, not to mention grossly irresponsible. The commonsense principle with an automobile is: Pay a little now, keep it maintained, or you are going to pay a whole lot later for a new engine. It is the same with our national health priorities. Right now our system is in a downward spiral. We are not paying a little now so we are paying a whole lot later. If we are serious about bringing down health care costs, we must get people access to preventive care. We must give people the tools they need to stay healthy. We must build incentives throughout the entire society, incentives for prevention and wellness. This will take a sustained commitment from government, schools, communities, employers, health officials, and of course the food industries. But this can have a huge payoff for individuals and families, for employers, for society, and for the economy at large. One condition in particular is fast becoming our Nation's leading public health threat: being overweight and obesity. Several weeks ago a new study came out that confirms what many of us already know. Obesity, unhealthy diets, and lack of physical activity have made us a nation at risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a study that determined that poor diet and lack of physical activity are now the second leading cause of death in the United States, contributing to at least 400,000 deaths annually. I think this chart shows the startling statistics very clearly. This is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual cause of death in the United States in 1990 from tobacco was 400,000. By the year 2000 the cause of death by tobacco was 435,000. But look at this. Poor diet and physical inactivity, in 1990: 300,000 deaths; by 2000, 400,000 deaths. So while the cause of death from tobacco use had gone up less than 10 percent in 10 years, the cause of death from poor diet, obesity, and physical inactivity went up 33 percent in one decade. It is now the second leading cause of death in the United States. One of the authors of this study was the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Julie Gerberding. The media and the American public increasingly recognize this growing crisis. Seemingly every day I open the paper and read about the public health impacts of chronic disease. A recent cover of the Economist magazine hit the nail on the head. If we don't act now and act aggressively, the progress we have made in promoting health and fighting disease, all of the public health gains we have made in the last couple of hundred years, will be totally wiped away. I thought this illustration from the Economist showed the progress of humankind as we became more and more like modern man--and then here we are, descending into obesity and overweight. That was the cover of the Economist last December entitled ``The Shape of Things to Come.'' Of course, here he is, drinking his supersized soft drink, walking down the road to chronic illness and disease. In 1990, 1997, and 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a State-by-State obesity prevalence study. I am going to show three charts which are startling in how they depict what is happening just in the last 14 years in the United States. The first chart I will put up is obesity in the United States among adults in 1990. In 1990, the dark shaded areas here are obesity rates between 10 percent and 14 percent. The light blue areas are States where we have less than 10 percent incidence of obesity. For the white States we just didn't have data. But as you can see, in 1990 no State had a prevalence of obesity over 15 percent--not one. All of the States were less than 15 percent or less than 10 percent. That was in 1990. Now let's take a look at 1997. By 1997, here we have some orange States coming up now which we didn't see in 1990. The orange States mean that the prevalence of obesity is over 15 percent. Now we have these States with a prevalence of obesity over 15 percent. Remember all those blue States that were less than 15 percent? It is now 15 to 20 percent. So all of the dark areas are now over 15 percent. And only a few States here are from 10 percent to 15 percent, but no State has an incidence of less than 10 percent now. That is just in less than 7 years. That is 1997. Keep in mind now we have these three States, and the majority of the States now are between 15 and 20 percent. Let's take a look at what happened in 2002. Here is the real shocker. Look at all the orange States. These are the States now where the incidence of obesity is 20 percent to 24 percent. Now we have three red States where the incidence is over 25 percent. We have a few States here below 20 percent. Now we have no States less than 15 percent. If I could have the first chart of 1990, I want to show the comparison. Here we have in 1990 no States with an incidence of obesity of over 15 percent. By 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three States are over 25 percent, the vast majority of States are over 20 percent, and the rest of the country over 15 percent. In 1990, we didn't have one State that fit the pattern we see in the United States now. That is what has happened in 14 years. Now we see even some States exceeding 25 percent. We see the trend. Actually, the story is even worse than this. The data on these charts is based on self-reported weight, which tends to be significantly understated, as you might imagine. As catastrophic as this chart of 2002 appears, it actually understates the extent of the obesity epidemic. If you use reported data rather than self-reported, obesity rates are much higher. In fact, using this scientific approach, we learned that almost two out of every three Americans are either overweight or obese. Think about that. Right now, only one in three Americans is within their weight range for their height. Obesity takes a terrible toll on a person's health. It can lead to diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and numerous other chronic diseases. Incredibly, obesity causes more chronic conditions than either smoking or alcoholism. This is what this chart shows. This is again from the Centers for Disease Control. We have a higher incidence of the number of chronic conditions associated with health behavior. The No. 1 incidence of chronic condition is aging. The older you get, the more liable you are to get a chronic condition. Aging from 30 to 50 has the highest incidence of a chronic disease. Second only to that is obesity, and it is almost the same. Being obese is like aging from 30 to 50. If you are 30 years old and you are obese, you might as well be 50 years old in terms of susceptibility to a chronic disease. Here is smoking. It is down here quite a ways. Just being overweight is down here. Drinking, past smoker, and obesity. In fact, right now obesity is, as I said, the second largest killer of people in this country. Thus far, Congress has not been willing to adequately take on the challenge of obesity and the challenge of encouraging healthy choices and lifestyles. It is time for the Senate to lead in a new direction by encouraging wellness and prevention. To that end, I am currently working with others on several initiatives to create a healthier workplace and a healthier environment for our Senate family. In March, I sent a letter to the Senate Rules Committee to request that signs be placed next to elevator buttons and at the entrances to stairwells and at the base of escalators encouraging people to use the stairs. Just the other day, I heard someone on the elevator say they wanted to use the stairs, but they didn't because they couldn't find them. The other day I happened to visit Secretary Thompson down at HHS. They have signs right there by the elevators and the doors encouraging people to take a flight of stairs rather than riding the elevator. I have also been in discussions with the Senate cafeteria on the matter of food labeling. To their credit, they already have food labeling available on their Web site. But I would like to see the Senate cafeteria go the next step by including nutrition information on menus or handouts that customers can pick up when they enter one of the Senate restaurants. If Ruby Tuesday's can do it and put all of the information on their menus, why can't we in the Senate cafeterias? I have also developed what I called the ``Harkin Health Challenge'' to promote wellness for my staff here and back in Iowa. This is a comprehensive workplace wellness program that addresses stress management, nutrition, physical, wellness screenings, and, of course, smoking cessation. Some believe there should be no role for the government in curbing obesity. Some believe this is a matter of personal responsibility. I don't agree. We can take steps to encourage and facilitate healthy lifestyles. We can make sure ordinary Americans have the tools and information they need to make informed healthy choices and be more responsible for their own health. We are about to pass a highway bill of approximately $300 billion for highways, roads, and bridges. We tried to get an attachment to that bill to promote bike paths along our highways. I saw a figure the other day about how much less young people ride bikes today than they did 15 or 20 years ago. Ask yourselves as you drive down one of our busy thoroughfares or streets: Would you ride a bike down there during rush hour traffic? Of course not. You look to the side and there are no bike paths. There are no walkways for people to have access. We have streets now that do not even have sidewalks by them, let alone a bike path. I think when we invest taxpayers' money to build highways, roads, and bridges, we ought to mandate that, as a part of that, there ought to be an access for bike and/or walking paths next to those streets. I have already introduced legislation that would require menu labeling in chain restaurants, but I can already hear objections that this will be too expensive. It will be a burden on businesses, for example, to put all of their information on menus. I mentioned that Ruby Tuesday's already announced plans to implement food labeling in its restaurants. Clearly they don't consider this to be too expensive. They made a hardheaded corporate decision that it was both doable and good for business. I remember the same objections which were raised when Congress first passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act to require labeling of retail foods and packaged foods. But lo and behold, years later, the sky has not fallen. To the contrary, consumers like labeling. When they go into the grocery store, they pick up boxes, cans, and packages and they read the nutrition labeling. They rely on those labels to help them make informed healthy choices. Consumers say they want nutrition information available when they make menu selections at restaurants. Yet, while they have access to excellent nutrition information at supermarkets when they go to buy packaged foods, when they go to a restaurant, consumers have to resort to guessing and estimating. What about our special responsibility to the children? The food industry spends more than $12 billion a year bombarding our kids with advertisements through television, movies, magazines, and the Internet. I don't have to tell you that they are not advertising broccoli and apples and orange juice. The majority of these ads are for candy and fast food--foods that are higher in sugar, salt, fat, and calories. Today, specialty marketing firms have made a science out of influencing children to buy a particular candy or to go to a particular fast-food restaurant. Yes, parents have a responsibility to shield their kids from harmful influences of all kinds. But what about corporate responsibility? What about corporate ethics? What about our Government's responsibility to make sure our children have a healthy environment? Children, especially those under 8 years of age, don't always have the ability to distinguish fact from fiction. The number of TV ads that kids see over the course of their childhood has doubled from 20,000 to 40,000; meanwhile, the percentage of children who are overweight or obese has also doubled. The percentage of overweight or obese teens has, in fact, tripled. The United States right now has a higher percentage of overweight teens than any other industrialized country. We also need to take steps to reduce the junk food that our children are getting at schools. The GAO found that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools have vending machines, school snack bars, or other food sources outside of the school lunch and school breakfast programs. We know that when kids have access to vending machines and snack bars and a la carte lines at school, bad things happen. Kids' consumption of milk, fruits, and vegetables goes down, and their intake of sodas and fried foods skyrockets. This is one more area where Congress has a responsibility to intervene to protect our children. I had this brought home to me the other day when it was pointed out that a 20-ounce size soft drink--Coke, Pepsi, all the soft drinks--has the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar. I ask: As a parent, would you send your kid to school during the day and say, Here are 15 teaspoons of sugar, please eat this. No parent would want to do that. Yet when that kid goes to school and buys a 20-ounce soft drink, that is exactly what they are getting. And they will probably have two of them during the day. That is 30 teaspoons of sugar in 1 day. Go home, take 15 teaspoons of sugar, put it in a cup and see if you would like to eat that. Or do 30 teaspoons, the equivalent of what a lot of kids are drinking today. No wonder obesity among teenagers has tripled. No wonder our teenagers in this country are more obese than teenagers in any other industrialized country in the world. We have a responsibility; parents have a responsibility; schools have a responsibility. But it is Congress that funds the school lunch and school breakfast programs and the nutrition programs. This year we will reauthorize the nutrition program, school lunches and school breakfasts. We will reauthorize that this year. What will we do as Senators and Congressmen to help promote healthier eating and healthier lifestyle choices among our kids in school? Do we have a responsibility? You bet we do. I hope we will step up to that responsibility when the nutrition reauthorization bill comes through the committee to the Senate. In the coming months, I will be announcing a package of bills and initiatives focusing on wellness, focusing on preventing chronic diseases. The emphasis will be on nutrition, physical activity, mental health, tobacco cessation. It will stress prevention, consumer awareness, responsible marketing practices, and wellness programs in schools, communities, and the workplace. We face an obesity epidemic. We face an explosion of largely preventable chronic diseases. We face health care costs and health insurance premiums that are skyrocketing. All of these things are related. We have to meet our responsibilities. We as Senators must set a good example: Walk more, use the stairs more, have information on all of our menus in all of our Senate cafeterias so we know exactly how much trans fats, calories, sodium we are getting with each meal ordered, and also to do what we can in our official capacity to help support wellness and to support healthy lifestyles among our kids in school and at daycare centers. That is where it starts. If we can get the kids and teach them healthier lifestyles, healthier eating choices early on, chances are that is what they will follow when they grow older. It seems to me the golden rule of holes is this: When you are in a hole and you find it is getting up to your shoulders or up to your head, stop digging. We have dug one whopper of a hole in health care in this country by failing to emphasize prevention and wellness. It is time to stop digging. It is time to focus our attention on healthy lifestyle, prevention, wellness, providing incentives for businesses. I hear about tax incentives for business to do this, and that we need more tax incentives for businesses to provide wellness and prevention programs at the worksite for people who work in small and large businesses. We need to provide the kind of support for our public schools to provide better choices for our kids, also. I thank the indulgence of the Chair. I wanted to take this time to talk about this and to alert my fellow Senators that I will be introducing a package of wellness bills and I have been working with the majority leader, a doctor, Senator Frist, on some of these items, especially about getting signs posted about trying to use the stairs more often, about getting Senators wearing pedometers and doing more walking, for us to set a good example for the rest of the country. I am hopeful we can also use the nutrition reauthorization bill this year to make some changes in how we approach how kids eat and what they eat at school and what is available to them in terms of vending machines, soft drinks, sugar, salt, that type of thing, and to get them eating healthier at an early age. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I say to my friend from New Jersey I will not take that long.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand I am recognized for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to talk about the news this morning about the issuance of the proposed final rules on overtime. Before I do that, on a more happy note, I note that an Iowan, of whom we are all very proud, Cheri Blauwet, from Larchwood, IA, crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday in 1 hour 39 minutes 53 seconds to win first place on the women's side in the Wheelchair Division of the Boston Marathon. Last year she finished second. This has added to her long list of accomplishments as a wheelchair competitor in races. She is a three- time Paralympic medalist. Again, she won the Boston Marathon yesterday. As I said, Cheri Blauwet, whom I know well, is from Larchwood, IA. She is now a medical student at the Stanford University Medical School. We are all proud of Cheri and wish her the best as she continues to win more and more marathons.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the news reports of this morning are that the Department of Labor will shortly publish the final regulations regarding changing the overtime rules that have been in existence since 1938. Frankly, given its past track record, the Bush administration is simply not trustworthy on this issue. This administration has gone out of its way, time and again, to undercut working families' rights to time-and-a-half pay for overtime. Now, it is possible that the administration has had an election-year conversion on overtime, but I hope you will pardon me if I remain a little skeptical. I will remain skeptical until I see the regulations and have a chance to analyze them and read the fine print. I have asked the Department of Labor to provide me with a copy of the regulations this morning. I am eager to see them as soon as possible. As of a few minutes ago, they still have not been posted on the Department of Labor's Web site. Let's be clear about one thing: The draft regulations that came out a year ago were a radical rewrite of the Nation's overtime rules and a frontal assault on the 40-hour workweek. Millions of American workers were slated to lose their right to time-and-a-half overtime pay as a result of those proposed regulations. Since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, overtime rights and the 40-hour workweek have been sacrosanct, respected by Presidents of both parties--until now. This administration rammed through these new regulations a year ago without a single public hearing. It has dismissed public opinion polls showing Americans' overwhelming opposition to changes in overtime law. The White House brushed aside the will of the Senate and the House, both of which voted in support of my amendment last year to block implementation of these new rules. There is no question the proposed new rules will hurt job creation. If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will simply push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. With 9 million Americans currently out of work, why give employers yet another disincentive to hire more workers? Again, while a limited number of low-income workers technically were given the right to overtime pay--and that base was increased--at the same time, the Department of Labor also gave employers advice on how to avoid paying overtime compensation to the lowest paid workers. So the administration gave on the one hand and took it away with the other. The Department of Labor is poised to issue its final regulations. But I can assure you, this will not be the final act. We will be back. I look forward to reading them. We will look over the fine print, as I said. For example, last year when the proposed regulations came out, it took some months before everything came out about how bad these proposed regulations really were. So we are going to go over these proposed regulations and take a look at them. But I know the administration yesterday and in a press report today said this is a good deal; they are going to expand the eligibility for overtime pay; this is going to include more people. Well, we heard the same kind of ``happy talk'' a year ago when they first put out the proposed regs. However, public exposure showed the real facts of the proposed regulations. Up to 8 million Americans were going to lose their right to overtime pay. Again, it is just one in a series of assaults on working Americans by this administration. Again, if you look at this chart, the red line is what the White House forecast for job creation for 2002. The blue line is what they forecast in 2003. The purple line is what they forecast for 2004. Here is where we really are down here with the green line. So this is ``happy talk.'' The administration says, oh, they are going to forecast more jobs. It is all going to get better. But the facts are not so. Job creation has stayed stagnant. So when you hear all this ``happy talk'' about how these final new regulations on overtime are going to be so wonderful for everyone working in America, take a look at this chart. It is just more ``happy talk.'' We will look them over. But unless this administration has done almost a complete revision of what they proposed, we are going to still be back on the Senate floor asking that these rules not go into effect, and we will have a vote on that. Finally, I think an article by Bob Herbert in the New York Times of April 5 says it all: ``We're More Productive. Who Gets the Money?'' What Mr. Herbert points out in his article is that an awful lot of American workers have been had, fleeced and taken to the cleaners, as he said. He said: . . . there has been no net increase in formal payroll employment since the end of the recession. We have lost jobs. He said: What happened to all the money from the strong economic growth? Well, he said: The bulk of the gains did not go to workers, ``but instead were used to boost profits . . . or increase C.E.O. compensation.'' Well, it is the first time on record where the bulk of the increase has gone to corporate profits and not to labor. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this article of April 5 be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, we will look over these proposed regulations. But nothing the administration has done in the last couple, 3 years with regard to job creation, with regard to treating labor fairly in terms of getting its fair share of any economic gains, or the proposed regulations last year that would have literally cut off at the knees American workers' right to overtime pay changes my mind; I remain skeptical that this administration really wants to help work workers get overtime pay. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last fall, Central College kicked off a year of festivities to celebrate its sesquicentennial. Founded in 1853 by a determined group of immigrants from the Netherlands, Central College has grown in size and stature during the last century and a half, but remains grounded in the tradition and faith of its founders. This weekend, the celebration continues with the Happy Birthday Dear Central Gala. Currently affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, the college was originally created through the efforts of the Baptists of Iowa. The Iowa Baptist Society worked to establish an ``institution of liberal and sacred learning'' in the early days of our State. An enterprising, open-minded Pella resident, Dominie Scholte, believed in the power of higher education and campaigned to bring the new institution to his community. Scholte, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, sealed the deal for Pella by donating land and money to the new school. The new Central University of Iowa opened its doors on October 8, 1854, with 37 students in a rented buildlng on Washington Street. From a humble beginning, Central College has grown into a state-of-the-art liberal arts college with 1,700 students. The college offers degrees in 36 disciplines and is well known for its ambitious study abroad program. The study abroad program began in the summer of 1962 when a group of Central students ventured to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The program also sent students to Paris, France the following summer and was expanded to a full year of study in 1965. The popularity of the program and the number of foreign locations has increased and now includes England, Wales, Austria, Spain, Holland, China and Kenya. Today, approximately half of Central students spend at least one semester aboard. Central College alumni, students, staff and Pella residents have participated in a variety of special events over the past several months. The sesquicentennial celebration has showcased the strong liberal arts tradition of the college with special performances, lectures, exhibits and social events. As the college community comes together for the Happy Birthday Dear Central Gala, I offer my heartfelt congratulations on 150 years of excellence in the education and my best wishes to Central College for the next 150 years.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the management of National Public Radio has announced that Bob Edwards, the host of ``Morning Edition'' for a quarter century, will be removed from the show at the end of this month. NPR executive vice president Ken Stern explained that getting rid of Edwards was part of ``a natural evolution.'' He says that it was ``a programming decision about the right sound.'' ``Natural evolution?'' The ``right sound?'' I have no idea what these words mean. In fact, I have yet to talk to anyone who knows what those words mean. If NPR's management wants to remove a star broadcaster, enormously popular all across America, you would think they would offer a clear, coherent explanation. But, no, the best we are offered is that they want a different ``sound.'' Well, this is not very sound on the part of NPR management. Think about it: Bob Edwards has been the host of ``Morning Edition'' for 25 years. He has won every radio broadcasting award imaginable, including the 1999 Peabody Award. He has built ``Morning Edition'' into the No. 1 morning show on radio in the United States, with almost 13 million loyal listeners. He has played a major role in doubling NPR's audience over the last 10 years. Now, I didn't go to Harvard Business School. I don't have the business and management credentials of the top executives at NPR. But I have enough sense to heed the oldest and wisest rule of management: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you are fortunate to have the best in the business, a broadcaster who is the heart and soul of the No. 1 morning show on radio, then, for heaven's sake, you don't remove him. You don't dump him. You raise his pay. Characteristically, Bob Edwards was gracious and restrained. He said, ``I would love to have stayed with `Morning Edition.' But it is not my candy store.'' No, ``Morning Edition'' is not Bob Edwards' candy store. Nor is National Public Radio the candy store of Mr. Stern, Jay Kernis, Kevin klose, and the other NPR executives apparently responsible for this decision. I would remind them that NPR's middle name is ``Public.'' National Public Radio and its affiliate stations depend on taxpayer dollars and contributions from ordinary Americans. NPR depends on the public's support. And I have yet to talk to one person, one member of Congress, one listerner of public radio who supports this decision. Americans are speaking up and expressing their unhappiness. NPR has been deluged with telephone calls and e-mails. And I certainly encourage people to call their local NPR station or go to the NPR website at www.npr.org, where you can register your dissatisfaction. Urge NPR's executives to reconsider this unwise decision. Urge them to listen to their listeners. Let me be clear, I do not advocate or support any kind of boycott of NPR. It would be a misguided and counterproductive for people to withhold contributions to their local NPR station. After all, National Public Radio is a national treasure. It is the gold standard of radio news and journalism. And we should do nothing that undermines it. But we have a right to speak up. And we need to speak up. So by all means, send an e-mail to NPR. The address of the ombudsman at NPR is simple enough: ombudsman@npr.org. In addition, call your local NPR affiliate. Urge them to request NPR to reconsider its decision to remove Bob Edwards from ``Morning Edition.'' And if NPR digs in its heels, urge your local affiliate to discontinue ``Morning Edition'' and find alternative programming for the morning time slot. Obviously, I am personally a big fan of Bob Edwards. I listen to him virtually every morning, and have for as long as I can remember. He is a straight-shooter, smart, erudite, witty, and calm. He doesn't shout or rant. In other words, he adds class to radio news reporting and interviews. So I urge executives at National Public Radio to reconsider their decision to remove Bob Edwards from ``Morning Edition.'' And I urge Americans who share my respect for Bob Edwards to make their voices heard.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss my thoughts before this very difficult vote on the Pension Funding Equity Act conference bill. The bill arrives at a reasonable immediate solution to a very complicated problem. However, I do have concerns about the larger problem of pension funding rules in the US, and I have grave concerns about the treatment of multi-employer plans in this conference bill. I supported this bill when it passed the Senate in January by a vote of 86-9. That bill provided a reasonable approach to funding single- employer plans--a 2 year corporate bond rate. I was especially satisfied with the 2-year amortization of losses for multi-employer plans. When the White House wanted this provision struck in conference, an agreement was arrived at by conferees to cover the 20 percent of multi- employer plans most in need. The White House, however, held up these important negotiations and insisted on virtually eliminating multi- employer relief. Clearly, immediate funding relief is needed. We have known that this was coming for well over a year. With the drop in the 30-year treasury rate corresponding directly with declining stock values, pension plans have become drastically underfunded. This situation doesn't just hurt the bottom line right now, it hurts the defined benefit system as a whole and jeopardizes the retirement security of millions of workers. I have been concerned as this bill has evolved that it represents a band-aid approach that addresses immediate funding obligations without fixing the larger problem. There are perverse incentives that actually prevent employers from keeping money in the pension plan when times are good, so that we end up having to bail them out when times are bad. We need to put serious effort in the coming years to work out defined benefit pension plan funding in general. I don't believe we take these long-term problems seriously enough. Two years ago, when we came up with the initial readjustment of the 30- year treasury rate, it was my hope that we would address these problems before the issue came up again. But, here we are--2 years later and no farther ahead. I am afraid that unless we focus on this issue this Congress, we'll be looking at simply extending this rate again in 2 years without any understanding of the impact of this rate on defined benefit pensions, on the economy, or on the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. I am sure that it comes as no shock to my colleagues that the stock market actually falls from time to time. Sometimes, by more than 25 percent. Yet, we allow companies to transfer funds out of their pensions when times are good, leaving only a 25 percent cushion for when times are bad. We offer little in the way of incentives to pad plans in the good years to carry them through the bad years. Many advocates characterize this funding climate as the ``perfect storm.'' I believe that it's a storm that could have been more easily weathered had companies been prepared for a rainy day. However, the onus is reasonably on Congress to establish tax and accounting policies that create positive incentives to do so. I think we should consider increasing the funding level required prior to a section 420 transfer, at the same time, increasing the amount of money that can be kept on hand receiving favorable tax treatment. I look forward to working with my colleagues to find a more precise solution to this delicate balance between making defined benefit pensions attractive for companies, while protecting workers. I share with my colleagues the goal of ensuring the viability of the defined benefit system. Having said that, there is no other answer for the immediate problems facing us than to provide the funding relief provided in this measure. I think we absolutely need to do something now for the companies we can help. We need to help the airlines, we need to help the machinists. Eighty percent of this bill makes sense and is the right policy for the moment. Unfortunately, the White House has chosen to play politics with the income security of workers in multi-employer plans, and of the businesses that participate in those plans. There is no good reason for dropping these plans from the agreement, except to cause pain to certain working families. I plan to work with Senator Kennedy and other colleagues very soon to repair the harm done in this portion of the bill to members of the construction trades, the Teamsters, IBEW, Plumbers and Steamfitters, Sheet Metal, Finishing Contractors, Operating Engineers, Bricklayers and other participants in multi- employer plans. I am supporting this conference bill to help enact its truly necessary provisions--the vast bulk of the legislation which will keep other plans from freezing in the face of the current funding situation. But I will not drop my concern for those who are harmed. (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, how much time is left?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I think the record will show that I asked for consent to continue to speak in morning business, to yield the floor, to then return to the motion to proceed, and that I be recognized to continue to speak on the motion to proceed. That does not have a time limit.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the article went on to point out that Kim Danner used to manage a Family Dollar store with eight employees in Minneapolis. She says: . . . her district manager urged her to erase hours so she never paid overtime or exceeded her allotted payroll. She said her employees could not do all of the unloading, stocking, cashier work, and pricing in the hours allotted, so she altered clock- out times and inserted half-hour lunch breaks, even when employees worked through lunch. She says: I felt horrible that I was doing this. I felt pressured, absolutely. If I refused, I would have been terminated easily. Instead of issuing new rules to officially eliminate overtime for millions of Americans, the Department of Labor ought to be cracking down on these unscrupulous companies. The Department of Labor ought to be enforcing the overtime laws so American workers are not gouged and cheated out of their hard-earned pay. Now we see clearly where the increased productivity is coming from. American workers are working longer hours, they are working through their lunchtimes, but their hours are being shaved. Their time is taken away from them. Sometimes they clock out and they are made to come back to work. Rather than making an example of these companies and going after them, the Department of Labor is coming around the other side and saying, well, that may be illegal, but what we are going to do is make it legal to take away the overtime rights of up to 8 million workers. In fact, even in the proposed rules, the Department offered employers helpful tips on how to avoid paying overtime to the lowest paid workers, the very workers, of course, supposedly helped by the new rules. For example, the Department of Labor, in their own writing, suggests cutting a worker's hourly wage so any new overtime payments will not result in a net gain to the employee. The Department of Labor also recommends raising a worker's salary slightly to meet the threshold at which eligibility for time-and-a-half pay ends. Again, American workers face a double-barreled threat to their overtime rights. They face a threat from unscrupulous employers who deny overtime illegally and now they face a threat from the Department of Labor which wants to deny overtime legally. But the result is the same: an assault on the American worker's right to time-and-a-half pay for hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week. We are going to continue to try to offer this amendment and to try to get a vote on it. In Rollcall today there is an article saying ``Will `Obstructionist' Label Stick?'' Evidently, our majority leader last week said: Obstruction, obstruction, obstruction--every bill. That is according to Majority Leader Frist, at least according to the article in Rollcall. I have the greatest respect for Senator Frist. He knows that. I like him as a friend. But quite frankly, that will not wash. The first ruling on FSC was in 2002. Mr. President, I will continue my remarks later today.

Mr. HARKIN. I also ask unanimous consent that yesterday's article by Bob Herbert be printed in the Record.