Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to close out my amendment. There were a lot of speeches, but not too many on my amendment. I would like to bring it back a little bit, anyway. I again point out that the pending amendment is one that basically says we are going to authorize it, but we are going to authorize it for a period of time. I say to my good friend from Oregon--and he is my good friend--I know he and others worked so hard on this bill and got a good compromise. I understand that, but I don't think that putting a time on this bill violates any compromise. As I pointed out, earlier bills have had a 5- year time limit. I know my friend from Idaho talked about monitoring, the fact we monitor bills. Of course, we monitor bills. There is that old saying: Nothing focuses one's attention like the hangman's noose. When you find that something is expiring, that is when a committee starts to act, review, and get into it, perform its responsibilities. It is in that nature I have offered this amendment. I don't think it does anything to hurt the bill or change it. It doesn't change one thing in the bill. All it says is at some point down the track, 5 years--I picked 5 years because that was in earlier bills--the appropriate committee--in this case the Agriculture Committee--will reauthorize it. Sometimes a reauthorization goes through by unanimous consent. That may be the case with this bill. I don't know. Maybe if this bill works as everyone says it will, it might go by unanimous consent or maybe we will want to change something. At least it will force the committee to do something at that time, and that is in the nature of why I offered this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to discuss S. 139, the Climate Stewardship Act and lay out the reasons I am supporting this bill. The chief reason I support this bill is that I believe, as do the majority of scientists, that global climate change is occurring, and is due in part to human activities. I also believe that the U.S. has a responsibility to provide international and domestic leadership on this issue, and to begin to take action. This body, the U.S. Senate, has now passed three separate Sense of Congress Resolutions, this year and last year, urging U.S. leadership and reengagement in the international process to address global warming, and meaningful U.S. domestic action to begin to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Two of these resolutions were included in the comprehensive energy bills passed by this body this year and last. Despite these resolutions, the United States remains inactive on these issues. We are not displaying enough leadership on combating global warming, either domestically or abroad. And we are beginning to see some early warning signals about the consequences if we persist in our inaction. The World Meteorological Organization, WMO, in July of this year issued an unprecedented alert, saying: ``Record extremes in weather and climate events continue to occur around the world. Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase.'' They go on to say that: ``New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes has been increasing.'' And, ``(w)hile the trend towards warmer globally averaged surface temperatures has been uneven over the course of the last century, the trend for the period since 1976 is roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a whole.'' In the United States, the WMO cited record-breaking statistics in a particularly dangerous category of extreme weather events: nationwide, 562 tornadoes occurred in May, 2003, resulting in 41 deaths--a record for the number of tornadoes in any month, far surpassing the June, 1992 U.S. record of 399 tornadoes. In Iowa, as in much of the midwest, we have been experiencing a drought--a drought that is hurting my states' farmers, and farmers across the midwest and west. These dramatic weather events that we are experiencing--the tornadoes, the drought, the warming--these are exactly what scientists have been predicting would occur with unmitigated global warming. These events should not come as a surprise to any of us, they have been predicted for some years now. The bill we are debating, the Climate Stewardship Act, will take the first, modest steps to put into place a U.S. system to begin to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to begin to take action. It will respond to the science, and it will do it in a manner that this administration has failed to do--with meaningful policies that will not harm the U.S. economy, but will at least put us on the right path. Now I know some Members of this body and of some organizations and industries have expressed concerns that taking action will harm the U.S. economy, and will impact energy supplies. While their concerns are legitimate, they are misplaced, because scientists, economists and analysts in this administration and in the private sector agree that this bill that we are debating will not be onerous for the overall economy or for the various industries it impacts. The Energy Information Agency in the Department of Energy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in separate assessments of the bill, indicate it will have minimal impacts on fuel prices and will even lower fuel prices in the case of natural gas, for instance, by generating efficiencies and providing market signals to drive efficiency. Furthermore, the bill has specific provisions to encourage clean, renewable fuel production from the agricultural sector and other sectors, which would not only reduce our reliance on imports of oil, but would also benefit the agricultural economy and the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I support those provisions. Some critics have said that this bill would prevent the burning of coal, and would force coal-burning utilities to switch to using only natural gas. That is simply not true. Under this bill, coal use will actually increase, and financial incentives for clean coal technologies are also provided. According to the MIT analysis of the bill, coal use will continue to expand 12 percent over current usage levels, out to 2025, which is the time frame that MIT looked at. Additionally, coal prices per metric ton are expected to drop 4 percent by 2015, and 5 percent by 2020. A portion of the proceeds from the auctioning or sale of allowances in the bill will go to technology deployment programs. Specifically, integrated coal gasification systems will receive significant financial incentives. Such clean coal technologies are not only beneficial to the environment, but will ensure continued usage of this valuable fuel source well into the future, in an environmentally benign manner. The agricultural sector and rural areas will continue to bear the brunt of severe weather events that can devastate farmers and rural economies as long as our inaction continues. However, U.S. agriculture can also make important, cost-effective contributions to offset a portion of U.S. emissions of greenhouse gasses in the near- and medium- term. With the proper incentives, agriculture can provide a low-cost bridge to a less fossil-fuel and greenhouse gas intensive future, while improving the sustainability and perhaps the profitability of this vital economic sector. The Climate Stewardship Act, provides some of these incentives. A provision in the bill that I particularly support is financial incentives, through the auctioning of permits to capped sectors, to agricultural practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including clean, renewable energy sources, such as wind power. Agriculture can play an important role in mitigating global warming, and can provide valuable benefits to society. Carbon is a commodity already being traded and sold in this country and others, and farmers can not only ``farm'' for carbon, they can reap the rewards under this bill, and help keep costs of action down. To make sure farmers can take advantage of this opportunity, I have negotiated with Senators McCain and Lieberman to guarantee that a specific portion of the credits that can be sold into this cap-and- trade system in the bill will be set aside for soil carbon sequestration. Soil carbon sequestration reduces U.S. net emissions of greenhouse gasses but also improves air and water quality by reducing run-off, and improves soil moisture retention. Soil carbon sequestration occurs through improved management practices such as no- till or reduced-till farming, the use of shelterbelts, grass waterways, wetland restoration, and improved irrigation systems, to name but a few. But most importantly for the farm sector, soil carbon enhances agricultural sustainability and profitability. We know this because agricultural and soil scientists have studied this issue for years--not because of global warming, but because of the associated environmental improvements and the improved crop productivity associated with greater soil carbon. These are complementary objectives with nice overlap. As a key benefit soil carbon sequestration has the potential to offset fully 10 percent of U.S. annual carbon emissions. To help ensure that farmers and others in the agricultural sector thoroughly understand the issue of climate change, and that they can benefit from an emerging carbon market, we have negotiated additional language to institute an education and outreach initiative within USDA. The program would provide detailed information as well as technical assistance to these individuals and groups, as well as allow for the creation or utilization of existing centers on climate change. This is a win-win policy for agriculture, for our citizens, and of course for our environment. That is why I support this bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, these are the concerns that I and many others have with the legislation before us, and I hope those who have amendments will come to the floor and offer them. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have another letter from the American Sportfishing Association, the American Fisheries Society, the Izaak Walton League of America, Orion: The Hunter's Institute, Trout Unlimited, Wildlife Forever, and the Wildlife Society. The letter is dated July 16, 2003. I will be clear to point out they did not say they were opposed to the bill, but they have serious concerns about some areas of the bill. I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I will talk about the bill pending and share some thoughts and concerns I have about the bill. This is not a matter of light substance that is before the Senate. This is not a bill that we can take a wink and a nod and let it go because everyone agrees this is a unanimous consent bill. It is true that it did come out of our committee, the Agriculture Committee, on a voice vote. We reached agreements to go ahead and get it to the floor. There are a lot of things in the bill I can agree with, that I think are good and necessary; there are some other things about which I have concerns and a lot of Senators have concerns. This is a bill that is open for amendment. There will be a number of amendments offered to this bill to try to strengthen it and to answer some concerns people have. I am somewhat amazed when we come out with legislation and it deals with sensitive environmental issues and we are told certain environmental groups have concerns and we will hear about the environmental issues so that somehow, if you are a member of an environmental organization, you are opposed to progress, you are opposed to jobs, you are opposed to doing things that might make life better for some people in certain areas. It is almost as if ``environmentalist'' is a bad word. I don't think it is. I think being pro-environment and being an environmentalist is a positive attribute. I compliment those in our country, many of whom work for nonprofit organizations. I have a number of letters from them that I will have printed in the Record. They toil endlessly, tirelessly, sometimes for no pay, sometimes for little pay, to ensure that future generations of Americans have a good, healthy environment, that those who like to hunt have areas in which we can hunt, where we have healthy wildlife areas. I am proud of the fact that in our last farm bill we had the biggest increase ever in conservation, an 80 percent increase. To me, this is not only pro-environment; it is pro-economy; it is pro-jobs; it is pro- growth but growth in a way that is sustainable, not just for our time and our place but for future generations. That is why the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 is not something that can be lightly passed through. We have to look at it and talk about it. I compliment those who have worked hard to reach agreements and tried to reach compromises on this legislation. That is all well and good. I compliment Members on both sides of the aisle. They have worked very hard to get to a point where we have a bill that has broad support. I don't deny the bill has broad support. That does not mean those who have some concerns about certain aspects of the bill could be stopped from talking about it and offering amendments. That is what the legislative process is all about. We will proceed in that regard deliberately, not in a way to stop anything. This is not a method of slowing down the bill or taking an undue amount of time, but it is ensuring that we do look at the bill carefully; that the public is generally aware of what is in the bill; that those who perhaps do not spend a lot of time looking at these things--and I am the first to admit this is not an area of my expertise, but as the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, charged with the responsibility of legislation that impinges upon our national forests that comes under our jurisdiction, I make sure I have good staff who understand the impact of forest legislation. And I have taken the time to study it myself to the extent I have had the time to do so. I do not pretend to know all the ins and outs of forest legislation as much as my friend from Oregon, for example, who has spent his adult life working on this, or the Senator from Idaho and others who I know have put a great deal of time in this. But that does not lessen my concern about certain aspects of the bill and its impact on our environment. So we will have a discussion and we will have amendments. Preventing damage and injury to communities is of paramount concern to all of us, especially now with the tragic wildfires in California that show clearly the dangers these communities face. Of course, our hearts and our thoughts go out to all those families in those communities that are affected by these wildfires. Now, again I point out that this bill passed by a voice vote to allow us more time in order to reach a consensus on this agreement, and that is the substitute amendment offered by Chairman Cochran. The vote out of the committee was not--and I wish to state this very clearly--any kind of unanimous endorsement of the bill as a whole. It was merely our agreement to move the process forward. The legislation before us purports to focus the Federal Government's efforts to reduce the dangers of wildfire and improve forest health. Now, of course, all of us want to achieve this goal so that our communities out west can be better protected from catastrophic wildfires, so that forest areas around the country can better cope with the onset of disease and insect infestation, and so that we can improve the overall health of our national forests and public lands. I am heartened that several Senators from both sides of the aisle have endorsed a legislative compromise to title I of the bill. This, of course, is the title that has drawn the most focus because it covers hazardous fuel reductions on Federal lands, and, as such, it is also the most controversial portion of the legislation. I believe it is a step in the right direction. I believe it comes up a little short, and that is why we will have some amendments in that area. Again, I will say that much of the bill is worthy of support. In addition to title I, there are seven other titles, ranging from watershed forestry assistance to rural community forest enterprise programs, with others, and again the bulk of these provisions are non-- I will not say not debatable, but they raise no really contentious issues. But I would like to take this time to talk a little more about title I. Simply put, I still continue to have some serious concerns about this section. For one, the bill lacks sufficient targeting to conduct hazardous fuel work in the areas that need it the most, which likely might waste limited Government dollars. The Forest Service's own research has concluded that the areas immediately surrounding homes and structures are where the fuel cleanup should be done, as it is the most effective and cost-efficient method for reducing fire risk. The language in the bill requires that only 50 percent of the hazardous fuel dollars be spent in what is known as the wildland/urban interface. Again, because of the bill's loose definition of the interface or of the community protection zone, land miles away from homes and other structures could qualify. Ensuring that a higher percentage of this work would be done in the areas at risk to human life and property would vastly enhance our community protection efforts. Again, there is no definition of the size of a community. So one has to ask: Just what kind of communities are we talking about? Well, I happen to come from a town of 150 people. I live there. To me, that is a community. Two or three houses out someplace, to me, is not. As I was saying to my friend from Oregon earlier, if someone wants to build a house out in an area that is on the ocean, that is subject to hurricanes and tidal waves and weather such as that, they take their own risk. If they want to do that, they are at risk. If they want to go where the floods happen and a hurricane comes up and wipes a house away, well, it is not primarily the Federal Government's responsibility, it is not primarily the taxpayers' responsibility to go out and build seawalls to protect that house. If someone wants to build a house in an area where there are mud slides all the time, it is not our responsibility to come in and build up structures to protect that house from a mud slide. If they want to build it on the side of a cliff, God love them. If they can get the insurance for it, fine, but it should not be the taxpayers' responsibility. So if someone wants to build a house out in a wilderness area, fine, I have no problem with that. They can do that. But I do not know that we then have the responsibility as taxpayers to come in and say we are going to spend millions of dollars to protect your house from a wildfire. Now, where that cutoff is, I do not know. I am not here to say the cutoff is 150 people or 200, but there has to be some better definition of structure for communities. The way the bill is right now, we could spend a lot of money going out and cleaning out the brush. And, by the way, I will have something to say about that. We are not talking about brush. We are talking about trees. It could be miles, tens of hundreds of miles, away from any community. So again I question whether that is where we want to put our resources. I understand there may be an amendment, or there will be an amendment offered to raise that 50 percent threshold to something more akin to 70 or 75 percent, which I think is maybe more where we ought to focus our resources, with the very few dollars that we have. Secondly, the bill could also be interpreted to allow logging on virtually all Federal lands other than wilderness or wilderness study areas. This means national monuments and other areas could be logged in the name of wildfire prevention. The old growth language contains numerous exceptions so large that even ancient trees, trees that were around before our country was a country, could be logged. The President traveled around the West this summer arguing that we need to remove small trees and brush from damaged forests. The scientific community agrees with him. But these same scientists tell us that cutting bigger and older trees can actually make fire risks worse. Logging, after all, is a part of what created the fire conditions that this bill is supposed to address. Now, you might say: Well, how can that be? If you cut down trees, how can you have forest fires? Well, by logging, by taking out certain trees, you leave a lot of brush, you leave a lot of stuff on the ground; plus, you take out some of the overhang of the ancient trees that tend to keep the risk of brushfires down; plus the fact, when you do logging, of course, you put in roads. Whenever you have a road, then you have people coming in. When you have people coming in, they are building campfires and doing things such as that, and that also increases the risk of fire. Another problem I have with this legislation is the lack of protection for roadless areas, those areas of our national forests that have wisely been left free from most logging and roadbuilding to ensure their protection. In fact, this bill does not restrict roadbuilding at all--at all. So you could have permanent roads built anywhere under this bill. If we did restrict some of this roadbuilding, we would have less fire risk, and greater ecosystem benefits. This is because the forests in these undeveloped areas have experienced less damage by past management practices. They are much less in need of remedial work themselves. And they tend to be the furthest away from homes and communities. Moreover, scientists tell us that fires are more common and larger in developed forests. As I said earlier, roads bring people. People bring accidents that start fires. While I am a strong believer in access to public lands, it depends on what kind of access we are talking about. We have to realize building roads to reduce fire risks can be very self-defeating. So I am concerned about a lack of protection from the building of roads in currently roadless areas. Some people say this is a contentious issue. It is an important issue. It is one that concerns a number of environmentalists and other people around the country, especially those who have tried to protect our natural forests that have been left free from logging. The bill also limits the reach of what may have been called the heart of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. I know there are some who would like to get rid of NEPA completely, just get it off the books. There are some who would like to see that happen. But NEPA is the heart of our environmental policy. Simply put, it requires the Federal Government to look at a reasonable range of alternatives to any proposed course of action. Yet the language in this bill arbitrarily restricts a full and robust environmental analysis to only the agency's preferred alternative, a no-action alternative--which is really not an alternative because a no-action alternative means you don't do anything--and possibly one additional alternative. It boils down to the fact that NEPA would be required to look at two alternatives, not a reasonable range of alternatives but two. The one alternative doesn't even have to be environmentally preferable. It could be a proposal for more and heavier logging of big trees. Again, this effectively undermines what has been called the heart of NEPA; that is, to look at a reasonable range of alternatives to a proposed agency course of action. What this bill basically could leave us with is one alternative. That is not what NEPA was intended to do. It calls for a reasonable range of alternatives. This effectively undermines a landmark law of immense value--a landmark law that has been in existence for about 30 years. We will hear from some who say that the NEPA analysis takes time; it costs money. What we won't hear is how important this time and money is for realizing better outcomes. NEPA analysis is designed to ensure that more effective or more efficient approaches are considered before an agency reaches a final decision on how to proceed with a project. Too little attention has been paid to date to the fact that thinning may or may not be effective in reducing fire risk. The scientists tell us that it needs to be designed carefully and in light of many site-specific factors, if it is likely to succeed. There is the general perception that if we just go out and clear out all that underbrush and take out trees, certain trees, it is going to protect us from forest fires. That may or may not be true, depending upon the site and the specificity of what they are doing. That is exactly why we need good, solid NEPA--National Environmental Policy Act--analysis for this work, particularly the larger the projects and trees involved and the more sensitive the places. Otherwise, if we don't consider alternatives, we will be wasting time and taxpayers' money that we can't spare on projects that don't help and may even hurt in terms of protecting against wildfire. We ought to look more closely at the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management inefficiencies in carrying out their NEPA obligations rather than attacking what has been referred to as the Magna Carta of environmental law. Routine forest health projects can confidently proceed without lengthy environmental review, as long as they stick to small trees and brush, developed forests, and no new roads. Once you get into that, that is when we need the environmental review. I also want to make clear from the beginning that you will hear a lot of talk about small trees and brush. It is my understanding that these small trees can go up to 12 inches or greater in diameter and that these are the trees that loggers want now. These seem to be what is in demand. I am not a contractor. I don't build houses and stuff like that. But I am to understand that these are the ones most in demand right now, trees up to 12 inches and greater in diameter. That is a pretty good size tree. That is not brush. But that is what we are talking about here, going out and clearing those trees. That is why we need a good, healthy NEPA analysis of what we are talking about, what the alternatives could be. The bill before us also exempts hazardous fuel projects from the normal administrative appeals process for what we are told will be something similar to the BLM's appeals process. This predecisional process, it is argued, will help expedite projects toward their completion by making projects more collaborative and less confrontational. But this new, undefined process threatens to cut out or unfairly limit citizen participation in agency decisions. The bill currently does not have meaningful standards for the new process to ensure that all the talk we hear about preserving public participation is fulfilled. Let me repeat that. The bill before us does not have meaningful standards to ensure that we preserve public participation to the fullest. This is not good public policy. These national forests belong to us all. They belong to you and they belong to me. They belong to you and they belong to our kids and our grandkids and future generations. The public ought to be participating and should be heard and should have meaningful participation in agency decisions regarding forest policy. The bill should spell out the Forest Service appeals process. It does not do that. So we don't really know how the public is going to be involved. The language may provide too much discretion and too little accountability to the public. This needs to be cleared up. Let me say a few words about the judicial review provisions of the legislation. I do not believe they represent a major response to the situation. Among other things, the bill limits preliminary injunctions to 60 days. You do have the right to renew, but it limits it to 60 days and stipulates that courts balance the short- and long-term effects of undertaking and not undertaking a hazardous fuels reduction project. The limit on injunctions will make additional work for judges that could actually slow them down in reaching a final decision. The balance-of-harms language in the bill is unnecessary and intrusive, as courts have always done this. Moreover, the presence in this bill of that language could be read as implying direction to change the current process in some way. This could tilt the scales to one side or another regardless of the facts in a particular case. Again, let me point out something else we hear about: the flood of lawsuits. There is no flood of lawsuits clogging up the courts and preventing us from moving ahead in hazardous rules reduction projects. The GAO study of hazardous fuel reduction projects found that only 3 percent of all fuels cases were litigated in 2000 and 2001, covering only 100,000 acres. I will repeat that. Our GAO--our investigator--found only 3 percent of the hazardous fuels cases were litigated in 2000 and 2001, and plaintiffs were often not environmental groups but local communities, outdoor enthusiasts, and timber interests. Of the 762 cases, only 4 were delayed by court order during the litigation. Again, out of 762 cases, only 4 were delayed by court order during the litigation, and that is about five-tenths of a percent of all the cases. Yet we are told we have to do something here to clean up the plugging up of our courts by all these environmentalists, that litigate and come to court to stop the agency from proceeding. Nonsense. With regard to appeals of agency decisions, the argument that there is some sort of crisis holding up these projects simply doesn't hold water. The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management's own database lists about 3,500 fuels reduction projects they conducted between 1998 and 2002. About 250 were appealed. Out of 3,500 projects, 250 were appealed. This is about 7 percent. There is a 7-percent appeals rate for all of their fuels reduction projects nationwide. In other words, by the agencies' own count, 93 percent of their projects went through with no appeal whatsoever. Yet we are told there is some sort of ``appeal crisis.'' Well, the facts just don't support that. The GAO and similar studies have found the main reasons that projects could not proceed were weather related and the diversion of funds to fight wildfires. Now we are getting to the crux of it. Roughly a third of the delays were due to a shift in money from preventative projects to firefighting, which last year cost more than $1 billion. That is why we need more resources out there--not to shift the resources we have now but to have more resources out there for preventative projects. Again, the main reason the projects could not proceed, according to the GAO, is weather related and the diversion of funds for wildfires. Other reasons include public resistance, regulatory demands, unpredictable funding, and inadequate staffing within the agencies. Yet the administration and some of my colleagues would have us believe the agencies cannot get the work done due to appeals and litigation by environmentalists and environmental organizations. This simply is not true. Well, are there some problems getting the work done? Yes, there are. Does this bill have provisions, including new programs, that are worthwhile? Yes, I have already stated that to be the case. There are a lot of good aspects to this bill. Is this bill the best way to protect our at-risk communities and the environment from wildfire, disease, and pest infestation? Well, I don't think so. I think there could be some changes made to this bill that would make it even better. What is even more troubling about the legislation is that it comes on the heels of some very harmful actions recently taken by the administration and the Forest Service to weaken environmental protections, weaken public participation or public scrutiny of agency action--the cumulative effect of which could be to seriously degrade the health of our national forests and public lands that the bill's proponents seek to protect. The Administration, through regulation, has ``categorically excluded timber'' sales up to 1,000 acres from NEPA analysis as long as trees are cut in the name of fire prevention. So you can go in--a thousand acres would be pretty substantial in some areas. You can go in and cut down 12-inch or greater diameter trees in the name of fire prevention. No NEPA analysis is needed. They are shelving administrative appeals for these projects under NEPA; they are curtailing environmental analysis for entire forest management plans and ending public appeals of the plans. Proponents of this bill are even cutting out endangered or threatened species consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, and preparing to jettison protections for roadless areas. In other words, the administration has taken a largely one-sided view of Federal forest management. That is, thin or cut first and minimize environmental protections and public input through the regulatory and legislative process. The upshot is that, combined with this bill as it now stands, we could see widespread, heavy logging of mature trees, even in pristine roadless areas, without the benefit of public environmental review, pursuant to overarching plans that also lack NEPA compliance, bereft of interagency consultation or meaningful public appeals, and subject only to modified judicial review. In this scenario, there could be a major increase in Federal timber sales with little public understanding or input and even less agency accountability. I believe this is bad governing, bad policy, pure and simple. Now, while I recognize the legislation probably has the votes to pass, I believe we can and should do better. There will be amendments to attempt to do this. We have seen several alternative bills offered in the past several months. We should better target funds to have work done in this wildland/urban interface, as it is called, or the community protection zones. We should vastly increase funding for hazardous fuels work on Federal and non-Federal lands. That is the crux of it. We should have more comprehensive protection of old-growth and large fire-resistance trees. We should avoid unnecessary and largely unprecedented attacks to our independent judiciary. And we must maintain full and vigorous public participation in the care of our national forests and public lands, while expediting projects to reduce wildfire risks to at-risk communities. As I have said before, these public lands and these national forests belong to us all, not to a timber company, not to someone who builds a beautiful home out in the middle of a wilderness area and wants us to spend taxpayer dollars to protect them from a wildfire. These national forests belong to all of us, and public participation and agency decisions dealing with public lands and public forests ought to be in the forefront, not in the background. Otherwise, if we move ahead in this manner, we are inviting the waste of limited time and resources that it is our responsibility to ensure are directed at stated priorities of community protection and removal of small trees and brush. As drafted, I am concerned that this bill will not accomplish that urgent goal, will not ensure adequate public participation, and will not help to end the controversy and gridlock that has plagued this issue for some years. I hope we will have a reasonable debate on this bill. Certainly, there will be amendments to it; I don't know how many and who will offer them. Some have come to me saying they had amendments to offer. I think they will take some time to dispense with, which is appropriate given the significance of the policy changes proposed in H.R. 1904. We must carefully scrutinize what is in the bill and see if there are ways to improve it. I ask my colleagues on both sides to wait and see how these amendments proceed before judging the ultimate merit of this legislation. Madam President, in closing, I wish to have printed in the Record some material. First is an editorial that appeared this morning in the Washington Post called ``Fire Damage.'' I ask unanimous consent that the editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, the editorial basically states that what is happening in California is a genuine national tragedy and one that shouldn't be misused for political purposes. But, unfortunately, that is a distinct possibility, the editorial says. It says the fires happened to arrive just as the Senate is wrestling with a bill supposedly designed to help prevent catastrophic fires. The editorial goes on to question whether or not the bill before us really does accomplish that goal. Also, I have a series of letters from different environmental groups. When I say ``environmental groups,'' I do not use it in a pejorative sense. I use it in a very supportive sense. First is a letter from about 200 different environmental groups alphabetically from the Alaska Wilderness League to the Yosemite Area Audubon, California--from A to Z--that basically are opposed to this version of the bill. I ask unanimous consent that letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have a letter from the Forest Stewards Guild urging a vote against the Senate version of the bill, H.R. 1904. I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have a letter from the League of Conservation Voters urging opposition to H.R. 1904. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Lastly, the Forest Roads Working Group, which includes Wildlife Forever, Trout Unlimited, Wildlife Management Institute, Izaak Walton League of America, Outdoor Industry Association, the Wildlife Society, and International Paper, also wrote a letter dated October 28, 2003. It is not in total opposition, but it expresses their concerns about certain parts of the bill saying the ``fire legislation should endorse the prohibition of new roads into inventoried roadless areas.'' I ask unanimous consent that their letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I have another letter from a number of individuals who basically represent firefighters, smokejumpers--12 individuals who have written urging opposition to H.R. 1904 which they say is misnamed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and instead support S. 1453, the Forestry and Community Assistance Act. I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask consent that Darcy Zotler on my staff and Evan Notman on my staff be permitted floor privileges for the duration of the debate on the healthy forests.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, in the middle of the last decade, a group of business and education leaders in Cedar Rapids, IA convened a stakeholder group to discuss community concerns. This group identified the need for a highly skilled and well-educated workforce as a top priority. The fact that this group identified the need to improve workforce development is not news. Nor is the problem they identified unique or isolated to eastern Iowa. What is news and what is unique is the response. In 1998, area employers, educational institutions and community organizations partnered with Kirkwood Community College and Grant Wood Area Education Agency to create the Workplace Learning Connection to facilitate work-based learning for area students. This project is a winner for everyone involved. Teachers and students get more information about local career opportunities and the skills needed for those careers. Students get experience in relevant, work-based learning activities. Employers get workers with the skills that match the jobs they have. The Workplace Learning Connection has been recognized as one of the 11 best Tech Prep programs in the Nation, is one of the top 25 school- to-work programs in the country and has been cited in national publications as an exemplary program. Over the past 5 years, TWLC has worked with over 700 employers to organize over 8,000 job shadow experiences and 750 internships; provided professional development activities for teachers impacting thousands of students in 35 area school districts in 7 counties; and facilitated hundreds of business tours and classroom speakers. The Workplace Learning Connection has been an unqualified success and the community is celebrating the fifth anniversary of this project on October 30, 2003. In commemoration of this event, I wanted to bring this organization to the attention of the Senate and the Nation.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Again, I thank the manager and the ranking member for working out the language. This may seem like a small thing but, believe me, this is big. This is going to say--and we look at other criteria-- but we will look at a country to see what they are doing to provide for people with disabilities. Quite frankly, this country ought to be taking the lead around the world in that area because we have a lot to talk about in what we have done in our own country since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. What we have done is shown that people with disabilities can provide economic stimulus to a country. They can provide part of that economic engine that a country needs. We have shown conclusively, no matter where you are, no matter what country, that if your policy is one of exclusion of people with disabilities, keeping them institutionalized, materialized, not fully participating in society, it costs that society more to do that than it does to include them in education, for example, transportation, employment, and cultural affairs. My amendment was designed basically to implement what the National Council on Disability concluded when they said, ``The inclusion of people with disabilities in United States foreign policy will be achieved only when specific language is enacted to achieve that purpose.'' That is what we have done this evening with the inclusion of this amendment. I only hope when we go to conference with the House that we can have the support of the administration. As I said, President Bush had an enlightened policy on people with disabilities when he came in in 2001. I hope the White House will take that inclusion policy of theirs and make sure we keep it in this foreign operations appropriations bill for the next year and that they will use the Millennium Challenge Account to promote and to stimulate other countries in thinking about how they can provide for the inclusion of people with disabilities. I thank Senator McConnell, Senator Leahy, and their respective staffs for working on this issue. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. I have an amendment but I am not seeking time on this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator for accepting an amendment for the managers' package that deals with making sure we have something in the criteria for the Millennium Challenge Account, assistance dealing with people with disabilities. Basically, the amendment makes a small but significant change to the Millennium Challenge Account ensuring that one criteria used in determining a country's eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Account funds is their commitment to providing opportunities for the inclusion of people with disabilities. This account represents one of the largest increases in foreign aid spending in half a century, about $1 billion this year and an additional $4 billion within the next 3 years. People with disabilities have been left out of our foreign assistance programs for too long. This amendment does not require they do anything new. Since 1996, over 100 countries, including the United States, have submitted reports to the United Nations under implementation of 22 rules to equalize opportunities for people with disabilities. President Bush has implemented a new freedom initiative in this country on behalf of people with disabilities. In 2001, he charged each agency with reviewing their policies to remove barriers that promote inclusion of people with disabilities in American society. I commend and I compliment President Bush for taking this step. This amendment takes this initiative and extends it basically to our foreign assistance programs. I have a report from the National Council on Disability, dated September 9, 2003. It is titled: ``Foreign Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil Rights Protections To Ensure Inclusion of People with Disabilities.'' In the cover letter from the chairperson of the National Council on Disability to President Bush, Mr. Lex Frieden pointed out that in 1996: NCD recommended a series of policy changes to ``ensure the inclusion of people with disabilities in all foreign assistance programs. . . . He goes on to say: Seven years later, NCD has concluded that inclusion of people with disabilities in U.S. foreign policy will be achieved only when specific legislation is enacted to achieve that purpose. That is what we have done. We have added specific legislative language to ensure in the Millennium Challenge Account one of the criteria to be used is whether that country is trying to provide opportunities for the inclusion of persons with disabilities. In the executive summary of this report filed by the National Council on Disability, it says: Individuals with disabilities are subject to a broad pattern of discrimination of segregation in almost every part of the world. In most countries, people with disabilities and their families are socially stigmatized, politically materialized and economically disadvantaged. The economic cost to society of excluding people with disabilities is enormous. No nation in the word will achieve its full potential for economic development when it leaves out people with disabilities. No society will be a complete democracy unless people with disabilities can participate in public life. Failure to respond to the concerns of people with disabilities ignores one of the great humanitarian and human rights challenges of the world today. The United States is well positioned to lead the world in demonstrating how to build on the tremendous human potential of people with disabilities. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) represents a sweeping commitment on the part of the U.S. government to abolish discrimination against people with disabilities in all walks of life. At present, U.S. foreign policy does not reflect the great accomplishments of people with disabilities within the United States. U.S. citizens with disabilities cannot serve in many embassies abroad because these buildings are physically inaccessible. Qualified and talented individuals may be excluded from U.S. government service abroad based on their medical history. The U.S. National Council on Disability (NCD) calls on the Executive Branch and Congress to create a new foreign policy that ensures access by people with disabilities to the benefits of democracy and economic development around the world. I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of the National Council on Disability's report be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. I also ask unanimous consent that the cover letter preceding that by Mr. Lex Frieden also be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Darcy Zotter, a fellow on my staff, be allowed the privilege of the floor during debate on this bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will vote to confirm Michael Leavitt to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, but I want to emphasize that I am hoping that Governor Leavitt will bring change to the sorry record that this administration has had on the environment. I am concerned by the direction that our Nation's environmental policy is headed. We need an active Environmental Protection Agency, working to protect the health of our people. This administration has been active, all right--actively rolling back the environmental progress our country has made, actively working to narrow the reach of Federal environmental policy, actively working to promote oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas and actively cutting funding for conservation and anti-pollution enforcement efforts. Under this administration, we've seen cuts in funding for the EPA. We've seen an increased focus on cutting sweetheart deals with polluters. And we've seen a failure to move forward on new, innovative programs that will help our environment. While environmental regulation requires action and distributes responsibility among Federal, State and local authorities, Governor Leavitt needs to recognize that the Federal EPA is the backstop. The environmental buck will stop on Governor Leavitt's desk. If a State is not acting responsibly and protecting the health and safety of its citizens, Governor Leavitt must step in. I hope that Governor Leavitt will fight for the environment, rather than fighting for the priorities of the White House. I have concerns with this nominee. A number of environmental watchdog groups have expressed their disappointment about Governor Leavitt's record on environmental protection during his tenure as Governor of Utah. He has a record of supporting a number of projects that were environmentally questionable, such as the Legacy Highway Project in Davis County, UT. It is my understanding that this highway project as originally conceived would harm a significant migratory bird habitat. But in the end, I decided that Governor Leavitt has the background and qualifications necessary to do this job. As a governor who has a distinguished background not only leading his own State, but also the National Governors Association and the Western Governors Association, he will bring an experienced hand to the leadership of the agency. Further, as the Vice-Chair of the National Governors Association, he pushed through a bipartisan policy supporting working out environmental issues through a collaborative process. In the area of agriculture, the Administration has delayed the implementation of the Conservation Security Program, a fresh farmer- friendly approach to farm policy that uses incentives to help farmers do what's best for their land and for the air and water they and their neighbors breathe and drink. This bipartisan, bicameral program was a key part of the 6 year farm bill passed last year. Yet, it is still not implemented. We've also seen a serious pullback from the Clean Water Act. In the face of the SWANCC decision limiting federal jurisdiction on certain isolated wetlands, the EPA has released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and policy guidance that pulls back even further. The intent of Congress for the CWA is clear--to protect the waters of the United States, and to reach all waters within Federal constitutional jurisdiction. The court's decision in SWANCC has removed jurisdiction from intrastate, non-navigable waters where jurisdiction was based solely on the so-called ``migratory bird rule.'' The contemplated changes to the rules pull back much further and would relinquish jurisdiction that the Federal Government clearly has and needs to protect waters of the United States. One of Governor Leavitt's achievements at the National Governors Assocation was the adoption of a set of environmental principles he calls ``enlibra.'' The term means ``balance,'' and refers to a process of bringing in all the stakeholders in environmental issues together to try to work issues out. I hope that, as EPA Administrator, Governor Leavitt will truly strive for balance--because, unfortunately, there has been very little balance in the environmental policies of the administration he is joining.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I join with my colleagues here on the Senate floor today to mark the 1-year anniversary of the tragic death of our friend and beloved colleague, Paul Wellstone, and his wife Sheila. As I look around the Chamber here in the Senate today, I see men and women of remarkable talents and ability. It is kind of a family here in the Senate. Regardless of our ideological beliefs or party preferences, we all understand what we went through to get here and how we work and what we have to do. We have our differences. We meet, we argue, and we vote. But underneath it all, the Senate is kind of a family. That is good. Like all families, we may have our squabbles, but like a family, I have a strong sense there is kind of a void in our midst. A very special Senator, a Member who played a unique role in this body, is missing. It is as though we are suffering from the phantom-limb syndrome. The phantom-limb syndrome is when a person loses a limb, and even as time goes on, sometimes it feels like it is there. When an issue of moral urgency and an issue of conscience comes to the Senate floor, I still expect to see Paul standing over there chopping the air with his hands, speaking with his own unique special passion, and urging us to do the right thing. Yes, it is like we have the phantom- limb syndrome. Once in a while, you expect to hear Paul speaking out here. He was truly the soul of the Senate. No one wore the title of Senator better or used it less. He loved ordinary folks. Strangers would come up to him and call him Paul. I can't tell you how many times I would walk off the Senate floor and down the steps with him. We would go together back to the Hart Building or someplace. Policemen would come up. They might say Senator Harkin, but they always called him Paul. People working on the grounds called him Paul. He took that as a sign that ordinary people knew he was one of them; that he was approachable; that he cared, all of which was Paul Wellstone to the core. Paul had so many friends in my State of Iowa. Iowans knew him personally, and many more Iowans felt they knew him personally. I often said before his death and after that he was one of my best friends in and out of the State. But in truth, Paul Wellstone was one of those rare souls who so many saw as their best friend. He had a powerful authenticity about him that made a miner on the Iron Range know he was as important to Paul as the President of the United States. Paul never had to proclaim his decency. It shone forth in great acts of political courage and in small acts of human kindness. He never had to say he cared. He never had to proclaim his compassion. We saw these qualities in him every day in dozens of ways--from his passionate speeches here on the Senate floor, standing up for those who otherwise had no voice, to the countless people he reached out to hug and to hear and to help all across Minnesota and all across the Nation. Thirty years later, he retraced Robert Kennedy's journey to places of hunger and hurt in the heart of America. The hard-working folks he cared about most didn't have lobbyists or influence or money. But they had Paul Wellstone, and he truly was their best friend. Paul always had a great sense of humor and a sense of perspective. He never took himself too seriously. One of his favorite stories, which I heard him tell many times, was the story of one of his early Senate speeches which he thought was rather eloquent and passionate. You can read about it in his book, ``Conscience of a Liberal.'' Our friend, the senior Senator from South Carolina, who sits across the aisle from me, Fritz Hollings, approached him after the speech and said, ``Young man, you remind me of Hubert Humphrey.'' Paul, as he told the story, swelled up with pride and thought this was wonderful until Senator Hollings said, ``You talk too much.'' Paul would love to tell that story. He would get that big grin and his eyes would squint and he would roar with laughter. As I said, he never took himself seriously. Paul may have talked a lot, but he meant every word. He showed us that way to lead is by following your conscience. When injustice was proposed or unfairness was advancing or selfishness was on the march, Paul would go into battle. It was OK with him if he went into battle all by himself. Paul Wellstone may have suffered from a bad back, but he had a spine of steel. Paul was the soul of the Senate. He believed politics could truly be a noble profession, putting principle above polls. Sometimes he cast votes that even some of his friends disagreed with--on war, welfare, education. And when he did, he was the mirror in which we, his colleagues, looked at ourselves and searched our own hearts as to the correctness of our own positions. So 1 year later, we remember this political science professor whose measure of truth was never in political theory but in the impact our decisions have on real people. We remember the community organizer, the farm organizer, who understood how to bring people together, rural and urban, environmentalists and labor, Republicans and Democrats and, as I have often said, even Minnesotans and Iowans. We remember a leader, a proud Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a liberal who constantly reminded those who are Democrats that the real center of gravity of our party, the progressive ground of our being, is everyone should have a chance to reach their full potential. We remember a man of principle who for all his convictions also had the rarest of gifts in politics: Paul actually sometimes came to the conclusion that the other person was right. He could partner with Ted Kennedy or Pete Domenici. He could fearlessly oppose Senator Jesse Helms' views yet become Jesse Helms' friend. It was all perfectly consistent with his guiding star. The decency Paul Wellstone demanded of society was the decency he lived out in his own life. Paul once said politics is about what we create about what we do, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine. Paul Wellstone did not just dare to imagine a better America, he helped to build one. Sure, he was willing to fight the lonely fight if he thought it was the right thing to do, but he also knew how to turn idealism into ideas and ideas into actions to improve people's lives: investing in education, expanding health care, fighting killer diseases like Parkinson's, helping homeless veterans and veterans exposed to radiation. Thanks to his hard work in the Senate, farmers have a better future. Because of what he demanded, mental illness will some day be treated equally in our health care system. Because of who he married, Sheila, and because of Sheila's passionate charge, more women and children will find safe harbor from the scourge of domestic abuse. Paul was a hopeful man. His campaign colors were always green. I always thought that was the color of springtime. It is also the color of hope. This picture captures Paul and Sheila Wellstone, standing on that green bus with all kinds of people around him, smiling, with Sheila standing by his side, and the American flag over his head waving proudly, with a big smile on his face. That was Paul Wellstone. He bought this bus 13 years ago and used it in his campaigns time and time again. I often said he got that bus on his journey to build a better America. But he never wanted to be on the bus by himself. He never meant it to be a solo voyage. He wanted us all on board that bus. Although Paul is no longer with us, we all must get on that bus, the bus of hope, the bus leading to a better America, a bus that is on a journey for justice, equality, a bus that is on a journey to ensure every individual in our society, no matter the circumstances of birth, has the potential to reach his or her full potential. As we listen to the tributes this morning, it is clear our memories of Paul Wellstone remain rich and warm. His spirit is still very much with us. He still inspires us. He still calls us to conscience. He still makes us smile when we think of his puckish humor. Today, 1 year later, let's agree that our period of grieving has passed. The darkness has dissipated. What remains is the light Paul radiated every day in this Chamber. He was truly the finest of human nature. In addition to Paul and Sheila, six other wonderful people died in that plane crash 1 year ago. Paul would not want us 1 year later to just remember him or to just remember him and Sheila, because as he always said, we are all part of his family, the campaign workers, the people who flew him around. So we remember them, too: Their daughter, Marcia; Tom Lapic, who died, and was Paul's long-time trusted aide and served many years in Paul's Senate offices here in Washington and St. Paul. We remember and miss Tom today. He was also a member of our Senate family. We remember Mary McEvoy, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Minnesota, always by Sheila Wellstone's side; Will McLaughlin, 23 years old, Paul's driver. Again, Paul always reached out to bring young people into politics. We remember the two pilots, Richard Conry and Michael Guess, of that ill-fated plane. Finally, there is one piece of Paul's legacy that is not complete, and it has been spoken of by the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Dayton, and I just heard Senator Reed speak about it, and I know Senator Lautenberg spoke about it: the issue of mental health parity. Paul worked tirelessly to overcome the barriers to mental health treatment. Specifically, he championed legislation that would require group health plans to treat mental health benefits as generously as they do surgical or medical benefits. If Paul were here this morning, he would remind us how crucially important this is to millions of Americans. He and Sheila never faltered on this issue. I can think of no better way to honor Paul's memory and to complete his legacy than to pass the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act in this Congress. This bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly in the last Congress. It was attached to the appropriations bill in Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee. We took it to conference and the conferees would not agree to adopt it, but we were given assurances this would be addressed. Paul Wellstone was given assurances this would be addressed, that we would pass it in a form--maybe not in an appropriations bill-- but pass it in a form that would then go to the House. The bill today is supported by an overwhelming number of Senators. Madam President, 67 Senators now are supporting this bill, Republicans and Democrats, including 18 Republicans--at least that is my count on it anyway. So with that many supporting the bill, you would think we would not have much problem getting it through. The American people want this bill desperately. They have waited too long for its passage. According to the Surgeon General's report, mental disorders collectively account for 15 percent of the overall burden of disease from all causes, and it is even more than the burden associated with all forms of cancer in our society. And yet, how many people burdened with mental disorders cannot get the help they need because their insurance carrier does not cover it and they cannot afford it? We all know what happens. We know what happens when people have mental problems and they are not treated--things degenerate, families break up, domestic abuse happens, people lose their lives. Sometimes people are thrown in prison for long periods of time because in the beginning they did not get mental health treatment. I have seen some figures that indicate that close to half of the people serving long-term prison sentences today are there because they have mental disorders--depression, schizophrenia, bipolar illnesses-- which led them through a series of stages that culminated in probably some heinous crime. But in the beginning they did not get the mental health they needed. So we have waited too long. It is critical we find an opportunity to bring up this bill and pass it before we adjourn this year. Next week, the HELP Committee, of which I am a member, will be marking up legislation that will provide for parity in insurance coverage for recreational activities, such as riding a motorcycle or skiing. In other words, your insurance carrier has to give you the same coverage for any kind of injury that would happen to you if you were skiing or riding a motorcycle, or something like that, as if it happened purely accidentally some other way. It begs credulity that somehow we can cover that but cannot give mental health parity to people who, through no fault of their own, are suffering from mental illness in our country. It is this Senator's intention to try to attach this bill to this piece of legislation. We have waited too long. I have been hearing all year that soon we are going to bring up this bill. We have 67 Senators on it. We have waited too long. It is the legacy of Paul Wellstone. We are going to get it passed. And yet, days go by, weeks go by, months go by, and nothing happens. Now, I am too respectful of the Senate and of the agreements that are reached here to ask unanimous consent that we bring it up and pass it today. Some have suggested we do that in honor of Paul Wellstone, but I know that most Senators are not present. We are not voting today. But I will say this. There will be some time before we leave this year when I intend to bring up the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act and seek a vote on it, either through committee or on the floor, and somehow try to get it into a conference with the House before the year ends. President Bush said last spring that he supported mental health parity. So if the White House supports it and the President supports it, and we have so many Senators and Members of the House support it, what is stopping us? I know some of the big insurance companies and others are kind of opposed to it, but all of the studies we have seen show this is cost- effective. According to SAMHSA, undertreated and untreated mental disorders are costing this Nation over $200 billion a year in lost work, crimes, and incarceration. It is a huge impact on our society, and we have to respond. That is why we have to bring up this bill and get it passed. I can think of no better time in which to talk about it--and to state, unequivocally, we are going to have a vote on this bill this year--than on this the first anniversary of the death of our beloved colleague, Paul Wellstone, his wife, and those who were with them on that tragic day. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise today to support my friends from Maryland and Louisiana, who have offered an important amendment to get rid of unfair rules that disadvantage Federal Workers. I want to talk about one group of Federal Workers in particular--those with mental disabilities who are at risk of losing their jobs if these outsourcing rules are allowed to stand. I joined both of my colleagues from Maryland in sending a letter to Mr. Bolten, the Director of OMB, and to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, expressing our outrage about workers at one workplace in Maryland, and urging them to adopt a government-wide policy protecting these workers and others like them from losing their jobs. Senator Mikulski has spoken about employees with mental disabilities working at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, mentioned in a Washington Post article earlier this month. These 22 workers in the hospital kitchen are providing dependable and reliable service in very hard-to-fill positions. In return, the Navy provided them with a steady paycheck and the ability to lead independent, productive lives. This relationship is mutually beneficial, but it is being jeopardized by outsourcing. And these workers could lose much more than their jobs. They could lose their independence. That is what is at stake for these workers. As the author of the ADA and longstanding advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, I am shocked that the administration would consider outsourcing these jobs and reversing decades of Federal policy protecting people with disabilities from discrimination and ensuring that the Federal Government serve as a model employer. These workers have been hired under a longstanding program that encourages the employment of individuals with mental disabilities. The program has operated under presidents from both parties and has been well implemented. No one has ever thought to attack it, until now. In 2000, the government employed 1,734 workers with mental retardation, about \1/10\ of 1 percent of the 1.8 million Federal workers. If this outsourcing is allowed to continue, that number could shrink dramatically. Our Senate report on committee-passage of the ADA in 1989 noted this sad truth ``According to a recent Louis Harris poll not working is perhaps definition of what it means to be disabled in America.'' Thirty-two percent of people with disabilities are working full or part time compared to 81 percent of people who don't have a disability. The administration ought to be doing more to increase the number of workers with disabilities, not outsourcing the jobs of the few who are employed. I am proud to support the amendment of the Senators from Maryland and Louisiana.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill for accepting this amendment. Again, this amendment is going to send a strong signal that both bodies want to work with the Treasury Department to establish a fair and equitable rule on pensions. I thank the managers.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this amendment has some history in the Senate and the House. I will try to enlighten Senators as to the background and what it is about. Hopefully, we can have support for the amendment and adopt it. Basically, it stops the Treasury Department from moving forward with a regulation that would allow companies to convert from a traditional defined benefit pension plan to a cash balance plan in a way that would hurt older workers. We are not saying they can't promulgate a rule that wouldn't allow a company to go from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan. We are just saying, they should not do it in a way that hurts older workers. Let me talk about that a little bit and what is behind it. I am not totally opposed to cash balance plans. Some designs can be very good. Some can be a great deal better for younger workers, for example, than an uninsured defined contribution plan. Some are not. I am not saying we should prohibit any cash balance plans from existing. However, we need to make sure employers put in place a fair and equitable manner for treating these. I have been following this issue closely for several years. In the mid-1990s, a groundswell of companies started converting from traditional defined benefit plans to hybrid plans, including cash balance plans. A couple of years later, some older workers who were nearing retirement started looking at the effect of this conversion on their account. They were shocked to find they hadn't been accruing any benefits for years. In other words, workers who were, say, in their forties or early fifties when the company converted from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan, didn't really know how the conversion would affect them. Then after several years, these older workers looked and found out they had been working for several years and their pension had not increased one penny, even though they had been working. Yet younger workers, age 20, 25, saw their pension plans increase. A lot of workers nearing retirement, thinking they were going to get what they had assumed was going to be their retirement and their pension, all of a sudden found out their pension had been worn away over several years. It turned out that employers were freezing the accounts in the old plan, then they established a lower opening account balance in the new plan which meant, simply, that the longer you were in the plan, the longer you were working without earning any new benefits. That became a term called ``wearaway.'' In other words, your pension benefits wore away. Many people said: This is nothing less than age discrimination. In other words, I am working for the company. I have been there for 20 years. They switch their pension program. A younger person gets more in their pension program than I get in mine. A new 25-year-old employee would be getting more money contributed to their pension account, while a 45-year-old who had been loyal to the company for 20 years would not get anything. I was shocked and appalled to learn about this practice, and so were thousands of loyal, hard- working Americans. In 1999, I introduced a bill to make it illegal for corporations to wear away the benefits of older workers during these conversions. We raised the profile of this issue. We raised it with Treasury. In September of 1999, the Treasury Department issued a moratorium on conversions from defined benefit plans to cash balance plans. The momentum against these unfair conversions was building as more and more companies changed, as more and more workers found their pensions were worn away. In April of 2000, we in the Senate passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution without objection, stating that the wearing away of current benefits during cash balance conversions is unfair and wrong--a unanimous sense-of-the-Senate resolution in April of 2000. Well, now we go to 2001 and 2002, and not much is happening. That moratorium stayed on, by the way, through 2000, 2001, and 2002. However, last December, Treasury issued a regulation that would turn the clock back, undo the moratorium, allow more businesses to go forward with conversions in this wrong manner--the manner that would wear away the pensions of older workers. Very soon after that, 191 members of the House of Representatives, and 26 Senators signed a bipartisan letter to President Bush asking that we do not reopen the floodgates, that we withdraw this rule and promulgate a rule that is fair and equitable. Well, now, as you might imagine, during this period of time some of these workers who found that their pensions had been worn away went to court. In August, a district judge in East St. Louis, in the case of Cooper v. IBM--IBM was one of the larger, well-known companies that engaged in this practice-- ruled in favor of the plaintiff on her age discrimination claim. Now, on September 9--I am talking about last month, and this case was decided in August--the House of Representatives voted 258 to 160--again bipartisan, with 65 Republicans voting for the amendment--saying that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling by the district judge in East St. Louis. So now we are into October. I might just say that all of these have been positive steps. We had a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in 2000. We had the moratorium. Last December, the Treasury Department--I might add, if I am not mistaken, I don't think there was a Secretary of the Treasury at that time in place--issued this rule to turn the clock back, and 196 members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw this rule and have one that is fair and equitable. In August, there was the district court ruling. On September 9, last month, the House voted 250 to 196 that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling. There have been a lot of positive steps, but this regulation is still hanging out there. One other thing happened. Last January, Senator Durbin and I indicated that we might place a hold on the nomination of Mr. John Snow to be Secretary of the Treasury. Well, Mr. Snow was a very popular person and we didn't have anything personally against him; I want to make that clear. But we wanted to raise this issue. So Mr. Snow, a fine gentleman and outstanding business executive, someone who has gotten high accolades for his tenure in business as a business executive, met with Senator Durbin and me in my office. He said on this critical issue he would let fairness guide the regulatory process. Mr. Snow had talked about what they had done at CSX, the company he had been CEO of, and how they had, I believe, instituted a cash balance plan, and a choice between the old plan and the new plan, which sounded fair and reasonable to me--let the worker decide what they want, which means many younger workers would probably pick the cash balance plan, and older workers might stay with a defined benefit plan. Mr. Snow said he would let fairness guide this regulatory process. That is the way we ought to go. The fairness ought to be in working with Congress to develop this new regulation. So I think the best way to ensure that we do this is to ensure, No. 1, that Congress speaks on this issue; that Congress is involved in working with Treasury to make sure we come up with a fair and equitable rule dealing with pensions. Secondly, I think the best way to make sure this happens, and to make sure that Congress is able to work and have a seat at the table is to adopt this amendment. This regulation must be withdrawn. We need to work together to find a reasonable, bipartisan legislative solution to this complex problem. This is an incredibly important issue to American workers. It is very important for them to know that we stand united behind them in this struggle for fairness. Mr. President, I spoke about this many times on the Senate floor. In terms of what distinguishes the American workplace in so many ways from others around the world, we have always valued loyalty and productivity in the American workplace--loyalty and productivity. If you are hard working and you are productive and you are loyal, U.S. companies have always valued that--at least they used to. That is one of the reasons companies have offered defined benefit pension plans. The longer you work and the more loyal you are to the company, you get a bigger pension. It makes sense. So the longer you work someplace, the better you do your job, the more you learn about it, the more productive you are, that is what we value. We value that productivity and loyalty. Now if companies are able to just break these promises at random, what kind of a signal does that send to U.S. workers? It tells workers they are foolish to be loyal because their employer could just change the rules of the game at any time and leave them out in the cold. It destroys the kind of work ethic that we have come to value and that I believe built this country, which distinguishes us from other countries around the world. We value fairness when it comes to workers. A deal is a deal. I offer this analogy. Let's say I am offered a job. The employer says to me: OK, Senator Harkin, we are going to hire you and we are going to have a 5-year job here for you to do. If you stay with us for 5 years and you work for 5 years, we will give you a $50,000 bonus. I think that is a pretty good deal, so we shake hands, and I agree on that. So I worked at the company for 3 years, then my boss comes to me and says: Harkin, you know that deal we made where we said if you would work here 5 years, you would get a $50,000 bonus? Well, you have been here for 3 years and, guess what, the deal is off. Just like that, the deal is off. But I went to work for that company depending upon that. That is what happens to a lot of people. They depend upon the kind of pension program the company has. That is one of the things, when companies recruit workers out of college or vocational schools, people look at what kind of pension program they have. Well, if after a certain amount of time they say, sorry, it is off, you don't get any of this, what does that say about loyalty and productivity? I don't think that is the way we want to treat workers in this country where the employer holds all the cards and can change the deal anytime they want. Again, I didn't have any stake--but, Harkin, you didn't contribute anything to that bonus. We said if you worked here 5 years, we would give you a $50,000 bonus, but we paid you the salary we agreed upon, did we not? Yes. You didn't put anything into that $50,000 bonus; that is something we were going to give you. Now we reneged on it. You don't have anything to gripe about. Wait a minute. I have given 3 years to this company. I worked hard. I was productive because I wanted to get that bonus for 5 years, so it is not true to say I didn't put anything into the bonus. This is like saying you didn't put anything into the pension plan. This is something the company offered you. Oh, yes, you did. You may have put in 20 or 25 years of loyal, hard work and diligence. If you had known 20 years ago they were going to pull the rug out from underneath you, would you have stayed with that company or would you maybe have gone someplace else? Again, I hope people disabuse themselves of the idea that somehow a pension is just what the company offers you and you don't have any stake in it. You have a big stake in it. It is what they promised you when you went to work there, and you went to work there relying upon that promise. I am not saying they can't change their pension programs. Times change, conditions change, the workforce changes. I understand all that. New kinds of pension programs come on the market dealing with existing circumstances or what the future might be. That is fine, just as long as, No. 1, they treat workers fairly, and No. 2, that a deal is a deal. It seems to me if you work for a company for 20 years and they want to switch their pension plan, but you made a deal on one and you want to stick with that one, they ought to at least let you continue to work and retire under that plan. If you want to switch, it ought to be up to the worker. That is what this amendment is all about. It is simply about saying to the Treasury Department they can't issue this proposed rule they have come up with which, as I said, last month the House voted 258 to 160 to say no to and which earlier this year 191 Members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw the rule. That is what this amendment does. It simply says: Withdraw this rule; work with Congress. Let's have something that is fair and equitable for our workers. Again, I urge my colleagues to join in support of this amendment in fairness to American workers. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the AARP dated October 23, 2003, be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to congratulate Catherine Bertini, former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, for her selection as recipient of the 2003 World Food Prize, presented in a ceremony in Des Moines, IA on October 16. Ms. Bertini has worked long and hard and with innovation and creativity to rid the world of the scourge of hunger. For her efforts this recognition is richly deserved. As the leader of the World Food Program between 1992 and 2002, Ms. Bertini directed programs responsible for addressing hunger around the world, providing assistance to an estimated 700 million people during that period. Because of her dedication and leadership, millions are alive today whose need for assistance would otherwise have been ignored. Catherine Bertini is the twenty-first recipient of the World Food Prize, and the second civil servant so honored. During her tenure at the World Food Program, or WFP, Ms. Bertini reorganized the agency and improved its logistical capacity, while focusing attention on delivering food aid through women in the developing world, and thereby nourishing women and girls both in nutrition and education. As she wrote in the Des Moines Register, ``The key to ending hunger may lie in a little girl's hands. In her left, she holds a bowl of rice; in her right, her school books.'' I strongly support these goals, and share Ms. Bertini's desire to fund fully for fiscal 2004 the McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which we included in the 2002 farm bill. Even as we celebrate her achievements, Catherine Bertini is focused on the challenges that lie ahead. She may have left her position at the WFP, but her long-time work to defeat global hunger and poverty continues. Only a few months after her departure from the WFP, she was asked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to work for him in New York, as Under Secretary General for Management. Prior to her selection as WFP Executive Director, Ms. Bertini served as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Consumer Services in the first Bush Administration. Ms. Bertini exemplifies the best ideals of public service and reminds us that our fundamental work is not to leave the world as we found it, but as we know it should be--free of deprivation, devoid of want and with equal opportunity for all regardless of who they are or where they are. For her efforts, I salute Ms. Bertini and her dedication to the cause of helping the needy around the world. The World Food Prize was established in 1986 to provide international recognition for individuals who have made vital contributions to ``improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food throughout the world.'' The World Food Prize embodies the vision of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, an Iowa native who received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his development of dwarf wheat. Through the adoption of dwarf wheat varieties in the 1960's, developing countries doubled their wheat yields in what became known as the Green Revolution. Dr. Borlaug's achievements and devotion to eliminating world hunger exemplify the ideals honored by the World Food Prize. Within a few years after the World Food Prize was created, it lost critical sponsorship and its future was in serious doubt. In short, the Prize badly needed a committed benefactor. Iowa businessman and philanthropist John Ruan stepped forward to provide critical funding and to establish a headquarters for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, IA. Under Mr. Ruan's stewardship, and with the leadership of its president, Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn, the Prize now rests on a solid foundation. The annual awarding of the Prize serves as the anchor to a two-day international symposium and many other activities in support of defeating world famine and hunger. It is a sobering reality that the world is still plagued with staggering levels of hunger and poverty. The World Food Prize heightens awareness of that reality, but it also inspires hope by recognizing that progress has been made and that much more can be done. Dr. Borlaug and Ms. Bertini, along with previous World Food Prize laureates, serve as examples to inspire and motivate us all to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to ending global hunger and poverty as rapidly as possible.