Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, will the Senator------

Mrs. HUTCHISON. It is wrong. I think it borders on a personal attack on Senators who I think are doing something they think is in the best interest of this Nation.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska, the chairman of the Energy Committee, who understands this issue and understands the importance of a stable oil and gas supply in our country. It has been said that the States that have the most at stake are against my amendment. I submit for the Record a letter from the Governor of Wyoming, who says: Wyoming, as the largest stakeholder of federal oil royalty receipts (35 percent), supports a fair and workable oil valuation rule. However the current proposed rules contain more uncertainty and will diminish incentives for industry to lease, explore and produce on the immense amount of federal acreage in Wyoming. The Governor of the State of North Dakota wrote: As a major recipient of income from Federal royalties, the State of North Dakota supports reasonable rules for the valuation of federal oil royalties. Unfortunately, the current version of the rules proposed by MMS does not fit that description. The Governor of Montana: The complexity and uncertainty inherent in the proposed MMS rules may be a disincentive for industry, especially Montana's independent producers, to lease and produce oil and gas from federal lands. Such a disincentive will negatively impact the production of oil and gas within Montana, resulting in less royalty revenue for the state. I think that is a very important point because we have been talking about losing $60 million from the coffers of the Federal Government. But in fact, if oil companies cannot drill because they cannot make a profit because their costs will be higher than the price they can charge, then they are not going to drill and there will be no money in the Federal coffers--not $66 million; there will be a diminishing of the amount of money that will come into the Federal Government. I will submit these letters along with letters from the Secretary of Energy of Oklahoma, Commissioner David Dewhurst from the Texas General Land Office, and the California Independent Petroleum Association. They write: Please, Senator Hutchison, pass your amendment. We have a list of the independents who say the MMS rule will be harmful to them. These are the small producers, those with 5 or 10 or 15 employees, the families of which depend on this income. This is an independent producer issue. It comes down to this. Through the last 10 years, the price of gasoline at the pump has increased from $1.21 to $1.29 per gallon. But let's look at where that increase has come from. The increase in taxes has gone from 26 cents a gallon to 40 cents a gallon. The price of the crude oil has actually gone down from 94 cents to 88 cents. So the price has gone up. Why? Because taxes have increased. If we do not pass the Hutchison amendment, taxes are going to increase again, and who is going to pay? It is going to be the hard-working American who fills up his or her gas tank and has to pay a higher price because there are higher taxes put on them in the name of increased royalty rates. If we are going to have a tax increase for whatever purpose --for more education spending, for the environment, for any purpose whatsoever--let's call it a tax increase and let's vote on it up or down. Let Congress take a stand because Congress is the one that will be accountable to the people. Let's not let a Federal agency raise the price of gasoline at the pump by raising taxes on oil in the name of new oil royalty rates. Congress will not stand by and let an unelected Federal agency raise taxes on hard-working people in this country and the price of gasoline at the pump. The Senator from California said she would like to see editorials tomorrow in the paper saying: Congress cleans up its act. I would like to see editorials. I would like to see editorials that say: Congress rejected the rhetoric; it did not listen to arguments about lawsuits on present regulations as if it would affect the future regulations; Congress stood up for its right to make tax policy in this country and not to let tax increases affect the hard-working people of this country. That is the editorial I hope to see tomorrow. I ask unanimous consent the letters I referred to and others be printed in the Record.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, it will raise the price of gasoline at the pump for every working American. I urge a vote for cloture.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today over one-third of the price of a gallon of gasoline is taxable. This chart shows the average price of gasoline, around $1.20; crude oil is 64 cents, the light part of this chart; taxes are 56 cents. Now, what the Senator from California would do is raise the price of gasoline for every working American by raising the taxes to go up and up. In fact, that is what has been happening over the last 10 years. From 1990 to 1997, the average per gallon motor fuel tax has gone from 27 cents per gallon to 40 cents per gallon. The retail price net of taxes has stayed approximately the same, going down from 95 cents to 88 cents. It has actually gone down, but taxes have gone up. Therefore, the price of gasoline in 1990 went from $1.21 to $1.29 per gallon in 1997. What the Senator from California would do is add taxes on expenses. We have always taxed at the wellhead. Today, we would tax the expenses, the transportation expenses, that you have to make to get the oil to its destination, the marketing expenses. Can you imagine the concept of taxing advertising being done by an agency without congressional approval and raising the price of gasoline for every working American? That is what blocking this amendment will do. We have 60 votes to go forward; 60 people out of 100 in the Senate are saying we should go forward and have an up-or-down vote on this amendment. I urge my colleagues to do what is right and let us have an up-or- down vote so that we don't raise the price of gasoline at the pump for every working American. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from New Mexico.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to the senior Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Breaux.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Just finish the statement.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am happy to allow the Senator to be recognized.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for yielding that time to Senator Gorton, but I hope we will not need it. I hope the Senator from California will not continue to hold up the Senate in passing the very important Interior appropriations bill that is important to her State, to my State, and every State in our country. We are now into dilatory tactics. We are now into prolonging something that is already accomplished. It is a matter of letting the Senate do its will. Sixty people in the Senate believe we need an up- or-down vote on this amendment. We are going to have an up-or-down vote on the amendment. I do not see a purpose, other than after an hour or so of legitimate debate--which I think the Senator has already received--of prolonging this. Particularly, I hope there will not be an attempt to prolong it with irrelevant and nongermane discussion. So I am going to go back to the bill because I think it is very important. Our amendment seeks to simplify the rulemaking by the Mineral Management Service. This is what is proposed. Who can figure it out? No wonder there is a dispute between the oil companies and the Federal Government or the State government. If this is what the Federal Government is putting forward, it is not a precedent for anything. I do think we need to simplify. The question is, Do we want to raise gas taxes? That is what the MMS would propose to do in this circuitous route. I want to talk about where we are on the price of gasoline at the pump. Every American who fills up their tank knows that the price of gasoline has gone up. It is estimated that today the average price of gasoline in our country is about $1.20 a gallon. Of that $1.20, the light part of this chart shows how much is taxes--I am sorry, the light part shows how much is crude oil. The light part is 64 cents. That is the cost of crude oil in a gallon of gasoline. But the dark part is 56 cents, and that is taxes. If the Senator from California succeeds in defeating my amendment, gas taxes are going to go up, because the MMS, with the circuitous route they are proposing, in fact, is going to tax the price of gasoline, not at the wellhead, as it has always been and as is the standard in the industry, but instead, after it goes through the marketing process and through the pipelines, after it is transported, all of those costs will be included in what is taxed. Basically, what the MMS is doing is raising taxes on every gallon of gas that is bought at the pump by every hard-working American. That is the essence of what will happen if my amendment fails. The policy of taxing expenses in business is also something very new. I don't think a Federal agency should be able to change tax policy so we now start taxing expenses because that is exactly what happens. If we have the requirement that oil be marketed and transported and we raise the price accordingly and we tax that expense, we are talking about a whole new era. Instead of a Federal excise tax on a Beanie Baby being made when the Beanie Baby comes out of the manufacturing shop, it will be taxed on the retail shelf. That means every Beanie Baby that is marketed in this country and transported by truck to a building, where it can be sold at retail, is going to be taxed. You are going to have to pay the added tax in the price of that Beanie Baby. The price is already going up. We are talking about a whole new concept that the MMS is trying to start with the oil industry, to set a precedent--no vote of any Member of Congress. Then we will see that start happening in other industries as well. It is a very dangerous precedent. This chart shows what has happened to the price of gasoline at the pump in the last 10 years. In 1990, the price of gasoline was about $1.21 per gallon. That was the average price in 1990. Of that, 26 cents was gasoline taxes and 94 cents was the cost of the crude oil in that gasoline that was bought at the pump. Move down to 1997; the retail price has moved up to $1.29. Look at what has happened to the costs. The costs have actually gone down. The cost of the oil in that gallon of gasoline has gone from 94 cents per gallon to 88 cents per gallon. So if that is the case, why has the price of gasoline at the pump gone up? It is because taxes have increased from 26 cents per gallon to 40 cents per gallon. That is why oil prices have gone up in the last 10 years. The Senator from California wants to defeat my amendment, which will have the effect of raising the taxes on oil, which means every American is going to pay a higher tax than 40 cents per gallon. It is going to go up by however much MMS says. But if we start taxing the expenses of marketing and transportation, we could see 50 cents a gallon going into the price of gasoline at the pump and we could start looking at $1.39 being the average price of gasoline per gallon. I think it is very important that we look at where the price of oil has gone up and what is causing Americans to pay higher prices at the pump. Because we import 57 percent of the oil from foreign countries and because OPEC has now limited what they are going to produce, the price of the imported oil is also going up. So put added taxes, which defeating my amendment will achieve, with the higher price of imported oil--you cause oil companies to stop drilling in America because it is now so expensive to do so, and it is going to be more expensive if my amendment fails--and you have the triple whammy. You have our jobs moving overseas, our dependency on foreign oil rising to 57 percent and continuing to go up, and the hard-working American paying higher prices for gasoline at the pump. That is not a good solution. We should not be allowing Federal agencies to raise the price of gasoline at the pump by raising the price of oil, by taxing it at a higher rate, without so much as one vote by a Member of Congress who is accountable to the people. If the Senators who want to defeat my amendment want to pass a tax increase up or down based on the principles they are espousing from the MMS, let them do it. Let them do it on a straight-up vote. Let them come to the Senate floor and defend raising gasoline taxes on every hard-working American. That is what the effect of defeating my amendment will be. Why not do it straight up? I call on the Senators who are trying to defeat my amendment to say: OK, I want higher gasoline taxes; I want hard-working Americans to pay not $1.20 or $1.29 at the pump; I want them to pay $1.39 or $1.49. If that is their goal, let's address it straight on, because that is the effect of defeating the Hutchison- Domenici amendment. I hope we can have a debate that is based on the issues affecting this amendment. Let's talk about raising gasoline prices on hard- working Americans who are seeing prices go up already. Let's talk about what will happen if we have a crisis in the Middle East and we have 5- hour gas lines and we have to pay higher prices to get the gasoline for which we wait 5 hours to fill our tanks. Let's talk about the real issue here, which is raising the price of gasoline at the pump on hard- working Americans. I don't think that is what Congress wants to do. I think that is why 60 Members of Congress said let us have an up-or-down vote. That is the issue today, Mr. President. I reserve the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Louisiana. I think she said it very well. The idea that we would in any way impugn the integrity of anyone in the Senate on this issue is wrong. I do not believe that was meant, but I do think that it came across that way. I am glad she spoke from her heart. I will, too. I had much the same experience. I had not remembered it because I do not count contributions, but I was not supported in the early stages when I first ran because I was running against an incumbent. That did not make any difference; I am representing all the people of Texas and doing what I think is right for America. What I think is right for America is to keep jobs in America. Oil jobs are good jobs. Oil jobs are supporting families all over this country. What we are seeing is more and more jobs moving overseas. They are being lost by Americans and American families. That means we are not only losing jobs in the oil sector, but we are also, unfortunately, depending on imports for more and more of our basic oil needs in our country. We are getting ready to go into winter, and the last thing we need is higher prices on oil. The last thing we need is higher prices on gasoline at the pump. Yet if we do not pass this amendment, that is exactly what will happen. That is exactly what will happen. Every person in America is going to pay higher gasoline prices if we do not pass my amendment. So I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her leadership, and her colleague, Senator Breaux, for his leadership, in showing how important it is. Senator Breaux earlier made a point that I think is very important. It is shown by this chart. We all would like to have a simpler and fairer oil royalty tax on the oil industry so there isn't a dispute. All the lawsuits that are being discussed are about disputes on how much is owed by oil companies. None of us want oil companies to cheat the American schoolchildren or the Indian tribes--none of us. We want the oil companies to pay their fair share. Part of the dispute is because it is so complicated. We would like to see a simpler system. Unfortunately, what the Mineral Management Service has preliminarily proposed is this kind of trying to set oil royalty rates. Not only are they making you have to go through all these hoops, but they do not put out any kind of ruling letter that would allow an oil company, an independent producer to know what the precedent is. So that independent has to spend thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars every time there is a dispute to determine what they owe to the people of our country. Now, Mr. President, I would like to----

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I don't think the Senator should be allowed to continue if there is a question that this violates Senate rules.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute of my 5 to the junior Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I will let the Senator from California proceed first.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, the Immigration Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary requests unanimous consent to conduct a markup on Thursday, September 23, 1999 beginning at 2:00 p.m. in Dirksen Room 226.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem be permitted to meet on September 23, 1999 at 9:30 a.m. for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise in support of the VA-HUD appropriations bill. I am a member of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies, and I know the severe funding challenges faced by Senator Bond, our chairman, and Senator Mikulski, our ranking member. They and their staffs have done an outstanding job in meeting the many priorities of this bill: critical health care services for veterans, homeless assistance funding for continued research in space, and funding for important environmental infrastructure projects along the United States-Mexico border. I can't adequately describe the pride I feel in the committee's decision to make veterans programs the highest priority in the bill. The committee provided $1.1 billion above the President's budget request for medical care for veterans. This increase will help address newly emerging health care challenges, such as the high incidence of hepatitis C among veterans, emergency care, technological advances in medicine, patient safety, and long-term and end-of-life care. I appreciate the commitment and sacrifices made by the men and women who served our country in wartime. This increase is worthy of them and worthy of the Senate. I am proud of the committee's decision to fully fund NASA at $13.6 billion. The House dealt NASA a devastating blow in their VA-HUD bill, cutting the programs by almost $1 billion. The funding provided in this bill underscores the Senate's ongoing support for exploration of the final frontier, including the space shuttle and the international space station. The international space station is the most ambitious scientific project ever undertaken. The efforts and resources of 14 nations are involved in the design, construction, and operation of the orbiting laboratory. Assembly of the international space station has already begun. We expect the international space station to provide unparalleled scientific research opportunities. It will enable advances in medicine, materials science and earth observation, new technologies developed in a microgravity environment, and accelerate the technology and engineering in Earth-based industries. Quite simply, the space station will maintain U.S. global leadership in space science and technology. And its successes will be felt by all of us here on Earth. The space shuttle's capabilities and versatility are unmatched by any spacecraft in the world. The space shuttle has been, and will continue to be, a critical element in space exploration well into the 21st century. The shuttle is also the vital transportation link in the assembly and utilization of the international space station. With plans, upgrades, and improvements by both NASA and industry, the space shuttle will continue to play a major role in future space exploration. Finally, we are providing the ongoing support of the Senate for the poorest part of our Nation, the United States-Mexico border. This bill provides $50 million for critical water and wastewater projects on the southwest border, most of which will be administered by the North American Development Bank. As an aside, when I first came to the Senate, I brought up the critical issue of environment and diseases on the border. It was at that time when the now ranking member, Senator Mikulski, was the chairman of the subcommittee and she said, ``This is outrageous in America and we are going to do something about it.'' That was the first funding that we got for the colonias on the border, where citizens of our country are living in filth. I appreciate that. We have added to that $50 million every year since I have been in the Senate, and now under the leadership of Chairman Bond. Washington, DC, is a long way from the border. Recently, I visited colonias--these colonies--along our border that have no infrastructure. I visited colonias near Laredo and McAllen, TX. On rainy days, the unpaved streets in these colonias wash out, making it impossible for schoolbuses to enter the neighborhood. Children walk to school on mud- filled streets and yards, sometimes flooded with human waste that is overflowing from inadequate septic systems. Texas has nearly 1,500 of these subdivisions, with a population of nearly 350,000 people. The numbers in the other southwest border States are equally as staggering. The $50 million we provide in this bill, added to the $300 million that has accumulated in years past, continues the commitment we have made to end this national shame. No person in the United States should live as do the people in these colonias. I appreciate Senators Bond and Mikulski working with me to give this matter the proper attention in our subcommittee. I also want to mention we are working on another amendment that would deal with the phase II stormwater sewer regulations that are so important to our smaller counties around the country. I hope the EPA will work with us to try to make sure we don't put regulations on these smaller counties that they can't possibly accept and do not have the funding to do. The VA-HUD appropriations bill is good for our Nation. I thank the chairman and ranking member for their hard work and sensitivity to the critical issues in this bill. I yield the floor. Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleagues Senators Abraham, Bennett, Roberts, Burns, and Hagel, the American Hospital Preservation Act of 1999. Mr. President, the single biggest Medicare dollar issue facing hospitals today is a recently enacted reduction in the annual inflation adjustment for inpatient hospital payments. Prior to 1997, Medicare provided an annual inflation adjustment for the PPS (prospective payment system) payments it makes to hospitals, according to the patient's diagnosis. The inflation update is calculated using the projected increase in the hospital market basket indicator (MBI), which is just a way to calculate the overall inflation rate for hospital costs. To achieve savings in the Medicare program, the 1997 balanced budget agreement between Congress and the President included a tightening of the MBI to ensure after-inflation savings in Medicare. The bill I am introducing today will ease that tightening somewhat to reflect the savings we've made beyond our original estimate. Specifically, the bill will restore .5 percent of those scheduled reductions in the MBI for FY '00 through '02. This restoration will bring inpatient reimbursement rates closer in line to actual health care inflation, which is necessary given the significant reductions in government and private health insurance plans that providers are increasingly experiencing. The bill will also serve to help hospitals and other institutional providers to adjust to new outpatient payment systems as well as greater than anticipated costs stemming from Y2K compliance, prescription drugs, and blood supplies. Y2K compliance alone is estimated to cost hospitals between $7 billion and $8 billion. To make matters worse, the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) has been making cuts in its payments to hospitals and other Medicare providers that are even beyond the savings Congress originally called for. My bill will provide a temporary shot in the arm to hospitals already hard hit by overall Medicare provider reimbursement cuts, and particularly cuts in outpatient services. As hospitals learn to adjust to the new reimbursement system for outpatient services, continuing to receive inflation adjustments might just mean the difference between disaster and survival. This bill also reflects the recommendation made by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to provide the \1/2\ percent restoration to the inpatient MBI. This legislation is particularly justified considering that, far from the $115 billion originally envisioned to be saved through FY '02, the Medicare system is now projected to be in about $200 billion better shape than anticipated. Savings in Medicare from hospitals alone are estimated to be $20 billion more than first estimated. Mr. President, rural hospitals, and all hospitals for that matter, operate on very slim margins yet manage to bring cutting-edge medical care to the communities they serve. But changes in Medicare payments to hospitals have put many institutions in a bind. Others are fighting for their lives. Rural communities across Texas have felt the impact of hospital closures for more than a decade now. When a rural hospital closes, local residents lose access to routine, preventative care, not to mention emergency services that can save life and limb. Doctors and other highly trained professionals move away. Then people must drive a hundred miles or more in some cases to get the care city dwellers take for granted. Local economies suffer when jobs are lost. Existing businesses may have to move, and new businesses won't locate in places where health care is unavailable. Hospital closure can be a death-kneel for struggling towns. Other rescue efforts are moving forward to preserve the ability of our nation's hospitals and other Medicare providers to provide adequate health care to their patients. I am cosponsoring a number of bills that have been introduced to strengthen hospitals' financial position. one would limit hospitals' losses under the new outpatient reimbursement system; another would increase the reimbursements made to rural hospitals for seniors in Medicare Choice-Plus (managed care) plans. Finally, my successful effort to ensure that states' tobacco settlement funds stay in our state and out of the clutches of the federal government has meant that many hospitals across the country are receiving a financial boost. As a result, hospitals across Texas and health care systems across the country are in line to receive the lion's share of $246 billion in state tobacco settlement payments over the next 25 years and beyond. America's hospitals aren't out of the woods yet, but first aid is on the way. Thank you, Mr. President, and I urge my colleagues to support and pass the American Hospital Preservation Act of 1999. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I commend Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator John Warner and Ranking Member Senator Carl Levin for bringing this important bill to the floor. With the passage of this bill, we will begin to seriously address our military readiness problems. It is a good start. This bill includes many of the provisions of S.4, one of the first bills introduced in the Congress back in January and passed February 24, 1999. With the military having its worst recruiting year since 1979, the Congress needs to send a strong message of support to those who serve. The bill does just that by: Increasing pay for our service members by 4.8 percent, increasing and creating special incentive pays, improving retirement benefits, and improving benefits and management of the military health care program. In am particularly pleased this bill includes two provisions I offered. The first concerns military health care and the second the current high operations tempo of our forces. In February we emphatically recognized our commitment to these dedicated men and women when we passed 100-0 my Military Health Care Improvement Amendment to S.4, the Soldiers', Sailors', Airmen's, and Marine's Bill of Rights. The message is loud and clear from my constituents: The military care benefit is no longer much of a benefit. I have no doubt my colleagues in the Senate have also heard equally valid complaints about access to care, unpaid bills, inadequate provider networks, and difficulties with claims. The promise seemed fairly simple--in return for military service and sacrifice, the government would provide health care to active duty members and their families, even after they retire. But of course it's more complicated than that. In the past 10 years, the military has downsized by over one third and the military health care system has downsized with it. While hospitals and clinics have closed, the number of personnel that rely on the system hasn't really changed. Today, our armed forces have more married service members with families than even before. In addition, those who have served and are now retired were promised quality health care as well. The system these individuals and families have been given to meet their needs is called ``TRICARE.'' TRICARE is not health care coverage, but a health care delivery system that provides varying levels of benefits depending largely on where a member of the military or a retiree lives. Unfortunately, what we find in practice is that the TRICARE program often provides spotty coverage. The point I want to make clear is that regardless of the complications, the promise remains and we must deliver on the promise. When we passed my amendment 100-0, we sent a signal that we care and that we will be vigilant in pursuing this issue. Our purpose is not to throw out the TRICARE system but to fix the problems and improve the health care benefits under the TRICARE program. I am happy to report that the Authorization bill before us today addresses all the issues that were in my amendment to improve access to health care and management under the TRICARE program. These include: Minimizing the authorization and certification requirements imposed on beneficiaries, reducing claims processing time and providing incentives for electronic processing, improve TRICARE management and eliminate bureaucratic red tape, authorize reimbursement at higher rates where required to attract and retain qualified providers, compare health care coverage available under TRICARE to plans offered under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), allow reimbursement from third-party payers to military hospitals based on reasonable charges, and reporting to Congress on each of these initiatives. One of the promises that we made to our forces is to provide quality medical care to those who serve and their families. General Dennis Reimer, the former Chief of Staff of the Army, spoke at the most recent conference on military health care. General Reimer provided a soldiers' perspective of how important health care is to those who serve. He said, ``this is about readiness and this is about quality of life linked together. We must ensure that we provide those young men and women who sacrifice and serve our country so well, and ask for so very little, the quality medical care that is the top priority for them . . . we must help them or else we're not going to be able to recruit this high quality force.'' During the past year I visited our troops in the Balkans and toured every single military installation in Texas. The visits provided marvelous snapshots of our armed forces today and the many challenges they face. At each stop I met with our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and their leaders and discussed their concerns. Health care for them and their families was at the top of their list. We have some truly wonderful young people serving in the armed forces who are very patriotic and ask very little of us in return. But frankly, we haven't done enough for them. I am pleased that the Senate Leadership and the Senate Armed Services Committee have made this a top priority this year. Mr. President, the health care provisions in this bill will go a long way toward breaking down the bureaucracy that exists in the current system. I know that there is no single solution or quick fix to this problem, but we must begin now to ensure we honor our commitments. This is a critical issue to recruiting and retaining qualified people in the military--which is critical to the security of our country. My second provision addresses another issue, which we passed as part of our Defense Authorization Bill. Pay and benefits increases are an important beginning, but we cannot ignore the high operations tempo and its impact on our readiness. Recently the Center for Strategic and International Studies completed a survey of over 11,000 military personnel from the Army and Coast Guard on the subject of military culture in the 21st Century. I participated as an advisor on this study and was just briefed on some of the key findings. The really good news is that those surveyed told us: They were proud to serve, they believe the military is important in the world and the jobs they do are important to the mission, they have a deep personal commitment to serve, they believe the military is right to expect high standards of personal conduct off-duty, and they are prepared to lay their lives on the line. Those responses are indicative of the kind of wonderful young people we have serving today in out armed forces, and we have a duty and an obligation to provide them with the equipment and the training and the quality of life they deserve. But they also told us they felt strongly that: Their pay is inadequate, their unites have morale problems, units are often ``surprised'' by unexpected missions, they are ``stressed out'' from the frequent deployments, and they often don't have the resources they need to do their jobs. These responses from soldiers in the field should not come as a surprise to anyone here. We know our troops are dedicated and committed and we also know they are stretched too thin. Secretary Cohen admitted as much last Spring in testimony before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee when he said ``we have to few people and too many missions.'' That fact is beginning to show in wear and tear on our forces and equipment. There are too many deployments that never seem to end. We have troops coming home from a short tour in Korea and heading straight to Bosnia. At Fort Bliss recently one sergeant told of coming off a one year tour in Korea and then spending three short deployments of 5 months, 3 months and one month in Saudi Arabia . . . all in less than two years and she is now scheduled to return to Korea for another one-year tour. Fortunately this young sergeant was single and was not leaving a spouse and children behind, but for others these frequent deployments mean they must choose between the army and their family. The military has a saying--``you enlist a soldier--you reenlist a family.'' We are having a retention crisis because the families aren't reenlisting. And no wonder. They are jerked from one place to another because we are trying to do it all. We will soon begin the fifth year of our supposedly ``one-year'' mission in Bosnia. U.S. troops have just spent their eighth summer in the deserts of southwest-Asia, we have troops in Kosovo and now East Timor. Thankfully, the mission to Haiti will soon end. But these frequent deployments are having a devastating impact on our military readiness and jeopardizing our ability to respond where our national security interests may be threatened in Southwest Asia or the Koran peninsula. We are seeing the effects of this over deployment on our equipment as well as on our forces. We hear of Air Force planes sitting idle for lack of spare parts. Navy ships that deploy without full crews. The Army and Marine Corps are forced to cannibalize equipment to field front-line units. These are not isolated incidents, these problems point to a larger readiness crisis affecting our military forces. the recent Center for Strategic and International Studies' survey tells us that our military is comprised of dedicated and committed young men and women who tell us they are willing to lay down their lives for their country. We in the Congress must ensure that the missions on which they are asked to serve are important national security interests and represent the best use of our forces. To begin to help us meet this responsibility, my provision included in this bill says it is a sense of Congress that the readiness of our military forces to execute the national security strategy is being eroded from a combination of declining defense budgets and expanded missions. It says to the President that we must have a report that prioritizes ongoing global missions. It must distinguish low-priority missions from high-priority missions. That is the basis to effectively manage our commitments, shift our resources, consolidate missions, and end low-priority missions. It is time to assess where we are in the world and why, and to ask the President to prioritize all of these missions. Then Congress can work with the President to determine if we need to ramp up our military personnel strength or ramp down the number of deployments that we have around the world. The testimony of Secretary Cohen and the other Chiefs matches what I have seen and heard myself from our dedicated troops. The answer is one or the other, because the current situation is overextending our armed forces. I am pleased to support this bill and acknowledge the effort and hard work of the members of the Armed Services Committee and their staff in bringing this bill to the floor. It is my hope that this bill will represent a turning point in arresting the decline of our military readiness.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for morning business for the remainder of the today's session, with Members permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for this vote. I think it is important that we fund the District at a responsible level. I hope the President will look at the merits of this bill and let the District have the additional funding that is included. I think the vast majority of the people in the leadership of the District realize this is a giant step forward not only for the people of the District but for every American whose capital this is.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The vote has been called for. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

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