Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask the indulgence of the Senate for a brief statement I am going to make. As we all know, Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, and his daughter Marcia, three staff members, and two pilots perished in a tragic plane accident nearly a year ago near Eveleth, MN. The Senate lost an honest, passionate public servant, and we all lost a friend. Senator Wellstone's life was a testament to his compassion and commitment to serve the less advantaged. He was a tireless advocate for people in need. That was never more true than when he began working with children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and their families. In 2001, Senator Wellstone introduced the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance, Research, and Education Amendments of 2001 to intensify Federal investment in Duchenne and other forms of muscular dystrophy. The MD CARE Act asked the Director of the National Institutes of Health to create centers of excellence to conduct basic and clinical research into Duchenne and other muscular dystrophies. That bill was signed into law in December of 2001. About a year later, Senator Wellstone was tragically killed. While we cannot replace the colleague and friend who served with us in this Chamber, we can commemorate his work on behalf of Jacob Gunvalson and others who inspired the late Senator to see this law enacted. In September of this year, the National Institutes of Health will announce the first grantees of its newly created Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers Program. In addition, three NIH institutes--the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development--also set aside $1 million in the MDCRC program as the ``Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers.'' I have an amendment that would rename the NIH Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center program in honor of the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone of Minnesota. I will not read all of it. In part, it says that the designation of the NIH Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers program shall be known and designated as the ``Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers'' in honor of Paul D. Wellstone, who was deceased on October 25, 2002. There is no cost involved. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. I understand it is not an across-the-board cut. Is it from the administrative account of all three Departments or only Health and Human Services?

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have no objection to this amendment. In fact, I am supportive of it. I want to make it clear for the record that the offset on this amendment is not an across-the-board cut. It comes only from the administrative account of the--is it all the Departments, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education--or is it just from the Department of Health and Human Services? I am a little unclear as to from what administrative account it is taken. I want it clear for the record. I just want to get an answer to my question as to which administrative account the offset is taken.

Mr. HARKIN. As ranking member of the subcommittee I agree with my friend from Pennsylvania and will work to ensure that the funding the senior Senator of California is requesting for the Office of Refugee Resettlement will be reflected in the final conference agreement.

Mr. HARKIN. I want to echo the comments of my good friend from Pennsylvania and thank Senator Murray for bringing up this important issue. I, too, am very concerned by the President's elimination of this successful program. I look forward to working with Chairman Specter to restore funding in conference.

Mr. HARKIN. Pardon?

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, last week I offered an amendment to the pending appropriations bill that would prevent the administration from implementing a new regulation that could result in millions of American workers losing their overtime pay protection. My amendment is very straightforward. It would allow the administration to increase overtime pay protection for working Americans but not take it away from those who currently have that protection. I was quite surprised, as a matter of fact, to come to work yesterday and find that on Friday, after we had debated this appropriations bill--we adopted a couple of amendments on the appropriations bill last Friday, and, we all know, at the end of the day, the leader always has unanimous consent requests agreed to that have been worked out on both sides. I was quite surprised to see that last Friday, the Senate passed unanimously, by consent, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution supporting a balance between work and personal life being in the best interest of national worker productivity and families. S. Res. 210 was adopted last Friday. It is sponsored by Mr. Hatch, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Alexander, and I assume others. It expresses the sense of the Senate that supporting a balance between work and personal life is in the best interest of national worker productivity and that the President should issue a proclamation designating October as ``National Work and Family Month.'' I will read a few of the clauses that we all voted for last Friday: Whereas the quality of workers' jobs and the supportiveness of their workplaces are key predictors of job productivity, job satisfaction, commitment to employers and retention. . . . Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less successful in their relationships with their spouses, children, and friends, and tend to neglect themselves, feel less healthy, and feel more stress; Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities off the job; Whereas 46 percent of wage and salaried workers are parents with children under the age of 18 who live with them at least half-time; Whereas job flexibility allows parents to be more involved in their children's lives, and parental involvement is associated with children's higher achievement in language and mathematics, improved behavior, greater academic persistence, and lower dropout rates. . . . Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned about spending more time with their immediate family. . . . Resolved, That-- (1) it is the sense of the Senate that-- (A) reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority; and (B) the month of October should be designated as ``National Work and Family Month''; (2) the Senate requests that the President issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe ``National Work and Family Month'' with appropriate ceremonies and activities. We adopted this resolution last Friday, unanimously. Maybe some did not know about it. I did not know about it either, but I support it. It sounds very good: It is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. We have this resolution, and now we have the proposal by the administration, rolled out this spring under cover of darkness--there was not one public hearing anywhere in the Nation--which changes rules and regulations that will affect overtime protection for over 8 million American workers and their families. It is interesting that the administration did not ask us to change the law. No, they just want to do it by rules and regulations. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying--we all say--we have to reduce the conflict between work and family life, and it ought to be a national priority; that people need to spend more time with their families, and then let the administration implement these changes in rules and regulations which mean that people will have to work longer hours with less pay. That is exactly what it means: longer hours with less pay. I found it so interesting that we have been debating my amendment--it came up last week. I guess we talked about it a couple of times during the week. We talked about it at length on Thursday. We spoke about it on Friday, and yet on the very same day we adopt a sense-of-the-Senate resolution unanimously saying we want to reduce stress on families. We want to recognize that workers need more time with their families. Well, OK, here is a chance to not just have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution but to take concrete action to make sure that happens by telling the administration that we are not going to permit these changes in rules and regulations that would take away overtime protection for up to 8 million people. Again, a quick summary of the Bush administration's proposal is simply this: Eliminate the 40-hour workweek by allowing employers to deny millions of workers overtime pay, workers who are currently guaranteed overtime pay protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938. This proposal is antiworker. It is antifamily. It is the antithesis, the total opposite, of what we passed on Friday as a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is an attack on America's middle and lower income workers. It will not create one job. In fact, just the opposite; it will kill a lot of jobs. Why do I say that? Because employers right now know that if workers work more than 40 hours a week, they have to pay time and a half overtime. So in many cases, they might find it better to go ahead and hire someone new, hire another person, rather than paying that kind of overtime pay. Let's say one changes the rules of the game. No longer is one protected by time and a half. That means their employer can say they need them to work 43 hours this week, 44 hours, 45, but guess what. They do not get any more money. They get the same salary they had before. They just do not get any more money. Now, what is an employer going to do? Why, here is a new pool of labor that is not going to cost him a cent. So why would they go hire someone new to work when they can take an existing person and say work longer at no extra pay? Employers will have a financial disincentive to hire new workers if they can force current workers to work these longer hours without pay. Who are we talking about? We are talking about nurses--again, we have a nursing shortage right now and we are trying to get more nurses-- police officers, firefighters, retail managers, insurance claim adjustors, journalists, medical technicians, paralegals, surveyors, secretaries, and so on. For most of those men and women, the overtime pay they earn is not spare change. It is not for frivolous spending. Sometimes it is essential to help pay the mortgage, feed the children, pay for college, and save for retirement. In fact, I have a recent letter from the National Association of Police Organizations which represents thousands of law enforcement officers from across the country. They oppose the administration's proposal because, as they said: Under such regulations, America's State and local law enforcement officers, already strained by countless overtime hours ensuring community safety from terrorist threats, could lose their basic benefit accorded to them for their efforts. A few days ago President Bush was asked a question about my amendment. He said that basically I was wrong. He said that the proposal would increase overtime coverage for low-income workers. Interestingly enough, part of the proposal does raise the income threshold, and I will get into that in a minute. So he says it is going to cover more people. The other part of the proposal, though, in changing the rules, would result in up to 8 million people losing overtime pay protection. By raising this income threshold, most of the people who are already getting overtime pay are already over that threshold so they are going to be covered anyway. They are covered now. They are going to be covered then. So it is really not going to increase the number of people paid overtime pay because they are already getting it. But do not take my word for it. This is what industry and their consultants had to say about it from Hewitt Associates. On their Web they say their clients include half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. This is what Hewitt Associates said: These proposed changes likely will open the door for employers to reclassify a large number of previously nonexempt employees as exempt-- Meaning exempt from overtime pay. The resulting effect on compensation and morale could be detrimental, as employees previously accustomed to earning, in some cases, significant amounts of overtime would suddenly lose that opportunity. The administration argues the proposal they are putting out is simply to update and clarify current regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Again, the Society for Human Resource Management, which touts itself on its Web site as the world's largest association devoted to human resource management, said the following: This is going to affect every workplace, every employee and every professional. I will explain a little bit about how some of these rules work right now. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, hourly workers are generally guaranteed overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Many salaried workers are also eligible for overtime pay under this law. The administration's proposal will make it much easier for employers to deny salaried workers overtime pay protection. The result: Millions of salaried workers earning more than $22,100 a year would be denied overtime under the proposed changes. This proposal would keep workers from spending time with their families without compensation. Now, we said last week we want workers to spend more time with their families. One of the ways to do that is if they have guaranteed overtime. Maybe the employer says, well, I do not need an employee to work overtime because I have to pay time and a half. Well, now if I do not have to pay them time and a half, they can work 44, 48 hours a week and I do not have to pay anything extra. I have always thought at least--and I think it has sort of been generally accepted as a kind of a social contract in this country--that we wanted people to spend more time with their families, but if an employer needed someone to work overtime, that they would be compensated for that at more than just their regular pay because we were taking away the time they could spend with their family that would be beyond their normal workweek, and therefore we paid time and a half, or on Sundays sometimes double time, for that kind of overtime. Right now, American workers already work longer hours than any industrialized country and nearly all Third World countries. This is a chart that shows that. U.S. work hours increase, over the years, while those in other industrialized nations decrease. Here is the change in annual average hours worked from 1979 to 2000. We see in the United States it went up 32 hours. In Japan, it has fallen 386 hours; Germany, fallen 489 hours; France, fallen 244 hours; Italy, 88; United Kingdom, 107 hours; Canada, minus 31 hours; Australia, minus 44 hours. This is from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001. Already, our workers are working more than their counterparts in all of these countries, from Japan to Australia to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. They have made a decision in those countries that one can still have high productivity and still give workers time off to be with their families, and they have a better social system and stronger families because of it, and because workers are not working so much they are more productive in the time they do work. In America we just keep on working people more and more, longer hours all the time. So already American workers are working longer hours. Under this proposal put out by the Bush administration to take away overtime protection, in a few years this number is going to be skyrocketing. As I said before, it is not enough that we export all of our manufacturing jobs out of this country to Third World countries; now we are importing Third World labor standards into this country: No labor protections and no overtime protection, just work however long your employer wants you to work without overtime pay protection. Major women's organizations, including the National Partnership for Women and Families and the American Association of University Women, oppose the administration's proposal because they fear an increase in mandatory overtime would take time away from families and disrupt the schedules of working parents as well as impose additional childcare and other expenses. I said last week that the first wave of people who will be hit, if this proposed change goes through, will be women. This charts show what I mean and why it will be women who will be hit first and hardest. I am not saying men won't be hit; they will be. But I am saying the first wave of people hit the hardest by taking away overtime pay protection will be women. If we look at the labor force participation rate for men and women from 1948 until today, we see participation of women has climbed dramatically. Women's participation in the labor force climbed from slightly over 30 percent to over 60 percent, and participation rates for men consequently have declined from about 88 percent to about 74 or 75 percent. So it is women who have come into the workforce in the last 30 or 40 years. We see some other statistics here. We find that 61.3 percent of married couples with children were dual earners in 2002. In 1975, 47.3 percent of women with children were in the labor force. In 2002, it was 71.8 percent. Women with children under 3--in 1975, only 34 percent of women with children under age 3 were in the workforce. Now it is over 60 percent of women with children under 3 who are in the workforce. And 66 percent of women with children worked 40 hours or more in 2002. Who are these women? Bookkeepers, paralegals, clerks, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, et cetera, those who are really doing the nitty-gritty hard work to keep our society together. These are the facts right here. Now we are going to tell these women: Sorry, we know you have children in daycare, we know you have to pay a lot for childcare, but we need you to work longer hours per week. Maybe in the past, if these women had worked longer hours, they got time and a half for overtime, but now they will not; they will get the same salary rate. Now they will have to continue to pay for more childcare. Yet they will not get 1 cent more for their labors. This chart also shows what is happening with middle-income families. Remember last week we passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority? We recognized: Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned about spending more time with their immediate family; Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have immediate day-to-day family responsibilities off the job; Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less successful in their relationships with their spouses, children, and friends. . . . That is what we said last week on the Senate floor. Here is what is happening with our middle-income families. Average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children: In 1969, the number of average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children was 78.2. Look at it now, 97.9 weeks per year, average, for a middle-income family in America with children. That is why I showed this first chart, where you see the United States is going up in hours worked and all the other countries are going down. And you wonder why American workers and their families are stressed out, why we are having family strife in this country, why families are breaking up, why the divorce rate gets higher, why our kids don't have parents around after school to help nurture them. We wonder why we are having such trouble in our society. Because we are not letting our working parents spend more time with their families. Columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote in the New York Times: You would think that an administration that has presided over the loss of millions of jobs might want to strengthen the protections of workers fortunate enough to still be employed. But that's not what the Administration is about. Since the Senate overwhelmingly supported the Hatch resolution last Friday, which I just quoted from--passed unanimously--I would think it would be a no-brainer to support my amendment saying the administration cannot take away overtime pay protection for millions of Americans. But I don't know what the situation is right now with the leadership. We wanted to vote on it today. We wanted to vote on it today, but I guess the leadership on that side, on the majority side--I don't know what they are deciding right now, whether or not we can vote on it today or not. But we are all here. The Senator from Pennsylvania earlier mentioned something about Democratic Presidential candidates being gone. That is true. They are running for President. The Senator from Pennsylvania sought the Presidency himself once. So did this Senator from Iowa. You know what it is like when you have to be out there on the campaign trail and attend to your duties here. But it just so happens everyone seems to be here today. So why don't we vote today? Why is there an empty Chamber? Why don't we move ahead and vote--now, later, I don't care when--and we can wrap up this bill by tonight. Again, I don't know why we would want to make it easier to deny American workers overtime pay. Why would we want to make it easier? It seems to me we would want to make it tougher. If we want people to spend more time with their families, reduce that kind of stress, you would think we would want to make it tougher, harder to deny American workers overtime pay. But the proposed regulations of the Bush administration would make it easier. I don't know. Why would we want to do that? How would this help the economy? How does it strengthen families? How does it help people who need to work overtime for extra pay? I read into the Record last Friday a statement by a worker--I forget what State she was from--who had a disabled child, and she was saying she needed the overtime pay for her upkeep and to keep her child home and she relied on her overtime pay. Here it is. Michael Farrar, from Jacksonville, FL. He and his wife need overtime pay to support their 21-year-old disabled son Andy who lives with them. Michael Farrar said: When I took this job, it was clear that I was expected to work more than 40 hours per week. And I agreed to it because I knew I'd need the money. We'd be devastated without the overtime now--we have no more corners to cut. When I took this job it was clear that I was expected to work more than 40 hours a week. And I agreed to it because I knew I would need the money. Michael Farrar of Jacksonville, FL. Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA said: I began my career as a supply clerk earning $3.10 an hour in 1976. I entered an upward mobility program and received training to become an engineer technician with a career ladder that gave me a yearly boost of income. It seemed though that even with a decent raise each year I really relied on overtime income to help make ends meet. There are many more single parents today with the same problem. How does one pay for the car that broke down or the braces for the children's teeth? When I as a working mother leave my 8-hour day job and go home, my second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes to wash, laundry, and all the other house work that must be done which adds another 3 to 4 hours to your workday. When one has to put in extra hours at work, it takes away from the time needed to take care of our personal needs. It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that extra effort. These are not my words. These are the words of Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA. It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that extra effort. Overtime is a sacrifice of one's time, energy and physical and mental well-being. Compensation should be commensurate in the form of premium pay as it is a premium of one's personal time, energy and expertise that is being used. It has been a crime that many engineers and technicians were paid less than even their straight time for overtime worked. It has never made sense to me that the hours I work past my normal 8 are of a lesser value when those additional hours are a cost of my personal time. What do we say to Sheila Perez? What do we say to Michael Farrar? I think what we say to them is that we understand. We passed a sense-of- the-Senate resolution last Friday. That is what we did. We passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that workers are over-stressed and overworked. They are concerned about spending more time with their families. We said it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Yes, Michael Farrar, that is what we said. Yes, Sheila Perez, we said that on your behalf last Friday. But, Michael Farrar; but, Sheila Perez, today, on Tuesday, the week after, we are not going to do one single thing to stop the Bush administration from changing rules and regulations that will take away your overtime pay protection. It is not what we do, Ms. Perez or Mr. Farrar, that is important around here. It is what we say that is important. We said: We are on your side. We understand your problems. Gosh, we think it should be a national priority. But don't count on our votes to make it happen. Listen to what we say but don't watch what we do around this place. It is time for us to stand and be counted and to put into form what we said last week the facts are. These are all nice words on a piece of paper. This is what we believe without actions to back up our beliefs. What I am asking is the Senate now back up those nice words that we said last Friday in this sense-of-the-Senate resolution--back them up with a strong vote saying that we are going to protect overtime pay protection. We are not going to permit overtime pay protection to be taken away. If you do not to strengthen it, or if you want to extend overtime pay protection for more workers, that is fine. But don't take it away from the workers who now have it. That is what this amendment that I have offered is all about. I am hopeful we can get to a vote on it today. We are here to vote. It is Tuesday. It is already 11:30. We haven't had one vote today. Why not? Why don't we vote on this? It is the pending amendment. I don't know why we can't vote on it. But evidently, for some reason, the Republican majority doesn't want to vote on my amendment. The majority, for some reason, doesn't want to bring it up for a vote. Why, I don't know. After all, Republicans, as well as Democrats, voted unanimously last Friday saying that it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Why we don't want to vote on this today, for the life of me, I can't understand. I end my comments now, but I will be back to talk more about this overtime issue because it is a national issue. It is one that strikes at the very heart of the middle-income and middle-class families in this country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of our productivity as a country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of what kind of society we want to be and to become. It strikes at the very heart of working women who have children and who want some time, as Ms. Sheila Perez said, to attend to personal needs and to a second shift at home with their kids and family. That is what it strikes. It is time for us to do our duty, to do our job, to stand up for working families and to stand up for the men and women of this country who are now being overworked and underpaid. If this proposed change in regulations goes through, it will mean more overwork and more underpay. That is the wrong direction for our country. It is time for the Senate to say no to these changes in regulations that would take away overtime pay protection for millions of middle-income Americans. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield for one last question, last week I was talking to one of my colleagues on the Senate floor about my amendment, about this amendment, and about the impact on overtime pay. My colleague said: One of the strange things about this is that I have heard no big movement in my State. There is no uprising in my State about changing the overtime laws. I have not heard from business. I have not heard from workers. I got to thinking: You know, neither have I. I have not had any businesses in my State coming to me saying: Senator, we have to change these overtime laws. They are a terrible burden on us. We have to get rid of them. We have to change them. I have not heard them say that. Where does this come from? I ask my fellow Senators, I ask the Senator from South Dakota, has anyone here been really lobbied hard by anyone in their States to change these overtime laws? Where is it coming from?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am sorry. I don't know who has the floor?

Mr. HARKIN. Four hundred million dollars a day. See, Mr. President, that is why we need a hearing. I thank the Senator from Iowa for proving my point. This is not something that you can roll off the back of your hand going into the 15th hour of the day, a little before 9 o'clock Eastern Standard Time. But whatever the calculation comes out to be, I would strenuously object to tampering with any of the NIH money. And I say that after having put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, along with my colleague from Iowa, on getting the funding up. When the Senator from New Jersey says he is not changing the law, I think he is categorically wrong. If you are stopping the funding so that the change in the formula cannot be worked out, it is conclusively changing the law. This amendment to this appropriations bill is a specific effort to change the law. When you talk about a swing of billions of dollars--and I don't know whether that is right, wrong, or indifferent, but that is the representation made by the Senator from New Jersey--the impact on looking for an offset can hardly be de minimis, can hardly be minuscule, can hardly be irrelevant. You are talking about a swing of billions of dollars. I don't know that is so, but I would like to know a lot more about this amendment and what its impact is. And I would like to know a lot more about this whole idea of reducing student aid based upon some formula. I am not familiar with it. And this is something which I think the Department of Education and the Department of the Treasury would like to comment about. In an effort to peruse this Congressional Research Service document just a bit, I have some bedtime reading. In fact, I have quite a bit-- U.S. News & World Report. But I note a paragraph in this CRS document. It is CRS-8, and it says this: Quantifying the impact of the May 30th revisions to the state and other tax allowance tables will require identification of which students will have their eligibility for federal aid affected by changes in their [expected family contributions] and to what extent. Although it would appear that the levels of federal aid awarded to many students will be affected by these revisions, without substantial and complex modeling, the size of that student population and the financial effect on federal aid programs remain largely undetermined. So to repeat, it says: ``It would appear that the levels of federal aid awarded to many students will be affected by these revisions. . . .'' It does not know it for sure. It says ``without substantial and complex modeling''--which supports what I am talking about, that you need to know what this is really all about, which you should have a hearing on--``the size of that student population and the financial effect on federal aid programs remain largely undetermined.'' I would ask the Senator from New Jersey, since he cites this as his authority, How does he explain this authority saying that it is largely undetermined on the basis of the existing record?

Mr. HARKIN. I know the Senator has been supportive of our efforts to increase funding of NIH. As I understand the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey, it delays until September 30, the last day of the fiscal year, by $200 million, NIH obligations. It is my information that NIH estimates that it will obligate $8 billion next September. In September of next year it will obligate during September, 1 month, $8 billion. I assume they work on a 5-day workweek. I assume that. I know NIH does research 7 days a week, but in terms of this, that is 20 days out of the month, so $8 billion for 20 days. If we could figure out how much that is a day, that is $400 million a day. What the Senator is basically saying, we are just asking for one-half day, to delay until September 30. Now, if, in fact, they do $8 billion in September and do it evenly, which they do not normally do, but if they do, they will be obligating $400 million on September 30 anyway, so the Senator is saying that for purposes of getting the funding we need for this, we are simply going to ask to officially delay $200 million until the last day of the month. They can still obligate it. This gets us the money we need to pay for the Senator's amendment. Am I correct in what I said?

Mr. HARKIN. One last observation. If it is $200 million, we take no money away. They will obligate $8 billion in September anyway. That $200 million is one dollar out of every 40. That is all you are saying they will obligate on September 30. I have to believe it. I have been around NIH now for the 19 years I have been privileged to serve on this committee, and I watched how they obligate money and how they spend money. Quite frankly, it is in this Senator's judgment that asking NIH to obligate $200 million the last day of the month is nothing. That is a no-brainer. They will do that anyway, but it gets us the money needed to make sure we do not shortchange the kids and their families needing help for Pell grants and help meet the needs of our higher education, our institutions so they can get the young people in and pay the tuition. In that regard, I ask unanimous consent to add my name as a cosponsor, and I ask unanimous consent, also, that Senator Reid of Nevada be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator state what that would mean? Give me some idea what that might mean for a family in Iowa that applied for student aid, has been getting student aid, a son or daughter going to a private college--Simpson College or Graceland or Clarke or a number of colleges in Iowa. They have been applying for student aid and all of a sudden they get hit with this change. Give me some idea what that means for that family that is eligible for student aid with a couple of kids in high school and maybe they have a couple of kids in college.

Mr. HARKIN. Is the Senator saying there could be young men and women in Iowa who are in college who are getting Pell grants, eligible for Pell grants today, who, because of this change in this Department of Education regulation--not a law, but a regulation--will be denied access to Pell grants next year?

Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator say further that this change in this regulation not only affects the families that need this student aid, the young people going to college who need the student aid but, again, when they get the student aid, they use it usually to pay their tuition at school, so not only does it hurt the families--it is a double hit-- it also hits the schools, too?

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield for my last question, I want to make sure I am correct that the Senator in his amendment is not taking any money away from NIH; is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the leader yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the leader for yielding. I wish to express my thanks to the majority leader, the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and, of course, my appropriations leader, Senator Specter, for helping to work this out. In good faith, we are going to move ahead on this bill. I concur with everything our majority leader has said. I believe we can move ahead. I believe we can get these votes in tonight. We can have debate on a number of amendments, and we can stack them for votes in the morning. I see no reason why we cannot finish this bill tomorrow night. I will make every effort to make sure that is accomplished. Again, I want to make it clear, that after Senator Durbin offers his amendment and makes his speech, we could then move to four amendments we can vote on quite rapidly. That will be Senator Byrd's amendment on title I, Senator Kennedy's amendment on Pell grants, Senator Dodd's amendment on Head Start, and Senator Durbin's amendment on global AIDS. For those Senators who may be watching in their offices right now and their staffs, we are going to move ahead very aggressively on this bill. We have a number of amendments people have contacted me about, stating they want to offer them and on which they want a vote. If Senators want to offer an amendment and get a vote on it, be here this evening and offer that amendment and debate it. We will stack it in the morning because after tomorrow morning, things are going to move pretty rapidly. We know how things go. I am saying: A word to the wise. If any Senator has an amendment and wants to offer it and wants an up-or-down vote, I respectfully suggest and hope they will come over this evening and offer that amendment so we can vote on it in the morning.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. First, I thank the Senator for his amendment on issues at NIH. I very seldom disagree with my esteemed friend and chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Specter. I may have a slight disagreement here. A couple of questions: First, I noticed on the chart that the deduction for my State of Iowa was 57 percent. That looked to be one of the highest of all the States, if I am not mistaken. Is a 57-percent reduction correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his strong support of working families not only on this issue but on every issue that comes up in the Senate. The Senator from South Dakota has always been there for working men and women and their families, as he is today. I thank the Senator from South Dakota, our Democratic leader, for his stalwart, strong support to make sure we have fairness and justice for our working families. I thank the Senator for his strong support for making sure these workers who are asked to work overtime get paid justly for that. The Senator mentioned a number of the people to be affected, first responders and others. It has been said, and I ask the Senator to respond, that perhaps the first wave of people to be hit by the changes in rules and regulations would be women because so many women have come into the workforce in the last few years. Many of them are salaried and now they would be exempt, they would not get paid for overtime. One of the first waves to be hit is nurses. Right now, we are facing a nursing shortage in our country. I know in South Dakota and Iowa and the Midwest we have a terrible nursing shortage. Nurses under the age of 30 represent only 10 percent of the nursing workforce. By 2010, 40 percent of the nationwide nursing workforce will be over the age of 50, nearing retirement. Right now, nurses are already forced to work mandatory overtime. Go to a hospital anywhere and you will find nurses being told to work overtime. The only good thing is they are paid time and a half now. With these proposed changes, if they were to go into effect, I ask the Senator from South Dakota, since nurses are on salary, if they could be reclassified and they would then have to work mandatory overtime but they would not be paid for it; is that the Senator's understanding?