John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Moving Company Responsibility Act of 1999 to improve the protections afforded to consumers who hire moving companies to carry their possessions from one state to another. Under current law, consumers whose goods are lost or stolen during transit have no redress against moving companies that deceive or mistreat them during the claims process. This problem was first brought to my attention by my constituents, Jane Rini and John Pucci. In 1990, Ms. Rini hired a moving company to transport her household goods from South Carolina to Massachusetts to attend Smith College's Ada Comstock Program. Among Ms. Rini's possessions were valuable original paintings and art objects that had been passed down through her family. When her belongings were delivered by the driver employed by the moving company, Ms. Rini noticed that the boxes containing the works of art were missing. Although the company's driver was not able to locate the boxes, he demanded that Ms. Rini sign inventory sheets indicating that her goods had been properly delivered and refused to leave her house until she signed for the delivery. Under pressure, Ms. Rini signed the inventory sheets, noting on them that boxes containing the works of art were missing. She was not informed by the company that she should note missing boxes on the bill of lading, nor was she given the pamphlet containing this information, as required by federal law. The next day, Ms. Rini and her family unpacked the boxes that had been delivered and determined conclusively that eleven works of art were missing. They have never been recovered. From that point on, Ms. Rini did everything to obtain redress that reasonably could be expected of a consumer. She filed her claim with the moving company in a timely manner, and she went to great lengths to supply the moving company's claims adjusters with all the information they needed to process her claim. However, her efforts to recover damages for the lost artwork were met with abusive and deceptive tactics seemingly designed to discourage her claim. At the beginning of the claims process, the company demanded that Ms. Rini provide it with documentation such as canceled checks, recent appraisal information, insurance riders, or cash receipts. Ms. Rini had no recent information on the works because they had been handed down through her family for generations, but she was able to supply the company with photographs of most of the missing pieces, and she even paid for professional appraisals of the works based on the photos. She also provided the company with a letter from 1929 which reflected the authenticity of some of the pieces. Mr. President, this should have been more than enough to satisfy the company as to the validity of Ms. Rini's claim, but the company refused to accept appraisals unless they were based upon actual examination of the objects. Meanwhile, Ms. Rini was told by a company representative that a thorough investigation of her claim would be conducted, but the representative negligently failed to interview or take written statements in a timely manner from any of the employees involved in the move who might have been able to substantiate the claim. Almost nine months later, the company denied Ms. Rini's claim on the grounds that all items were delivered and signed for on the bill of lading without a notation indicating missing items; that the company had not received adequate documentation to substantiate Rini's claims; and that the company had not uncovered any evidence that the works had not been delivered to Northampton. Ms. Rini finally took her case to a District Court in Massachusetts. During the trial, the moving company's own expert witnesses testified that reliable and fair estimates of the value of works of art are commonly obtained through examination of photographs, but the company maintained that Ms. Rini's documentary proof was insubstantial and denied that it had a duty to settle the claim. Upon hearing the testimony, the court found Ms. Rini's documentation provided sufficient evidence upon which the moving company should have settled her claim. It further characterized the company's tactics as ``unfair,'' ``unethical,'' and ``deceptive,'' and found that Ms. Rini was entitled to recover damages for injury she suffered as a result of the company's negligence and misrepresentation throughout the claims process. However, the District Court's decision, which was based on Massachusetts law, was overturned by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that state law providing relief to Ms. Rini is preempted by the federal law establishing uniform liability for motor carriers. Mr. President, Ms. Rini's story is just an illustration of the larger problem. Under current law, irresponsible, unethical moving companies are allowed to mistreat those who depend on them for service, and there is no recourse for consumers who are the victims of negligence or deception. Consumers who place their trust in moving companies should have a reasonable expectation that they will be treated with consideration and respect at all times; and when a company fails to deliver on its promise to transport household goods in good condition, consumers' efforts to recover damages should not be met with the kind of abuse and deception that Ms. Rini experienced. No consumer should have to suffer that sort of treatment. Unfortunately, current law provides little or no incentive for moving companies to make sure that customer claims are handled fairly. In fact, under current law, moving companies can act irresponsibly and unfairly with impunity. According to the Department of Transportation, well over 2,500 complaints were filed against moving companies in 1998, the most recent year for which this information is available. That's more than 2,500 consumers who believe they were treated unfairly--and those are just the consumers who actually took the time to file complaints. The time for Congress to act to protect consumers is now, and passage of the Moving Company Responsibility Act is the first step. The Moving Company Responsibility Act would provide customers with a means of redress against unethical companies by allowing them to pursue claims under state law. The penalties and fines available under state laws would serve as an incentive to companies to treat customers fairly throughout the business relationship. This is a simple bill, but it is needed to ensure that consumers are adequately protected when they contract with moving companies. I would like to thank my constituents, Ms. Rini and Mr. Pucci, for bringing this important consumer protection matter to my attention. This bill will provide important protections to consumers, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in supporting it so that we can pass it quickly. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, that is a classic response to simply say the Senator is wrong. But there is no showing to the contrary. The language of the budget is absolutely clear. There is no question it forces $1.1 billion in cuts. But the way to have a debate is--to simply say it is wrong, and question whether the Senator's facts or capacity to even understand the facts are correct, I mean, we could talk about rule XIX here, but I am not going to do that. But I would suggest, we deserve a better debate than that. I yield the remainder of my time to the distinguished manager. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to make a comment, if I may.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, that is not an answer to simply say it is wrong.

Mr. KERRY. My understanding is, $2.3 billion is for a new mandatory program that will not even be spent until the year 2005. That leaves an immediate increase of $2.2 billion. But the Republican budget resolution also assumes the $700 million increase in Pell grants. That brings it up to the President's level. It claims the $2.6 billion increase for elementary and secondary education programs alone, of which $1 billion is reserved for the IDEA. That means you have supposedly a total of $3.3 billion specified for K through 12. But the resolution only allows for a $2.2 billion increase because you do not even have an expenditure permission until 2005 for $2.3 billion. So there is a lot of ``robbing Peter to pay Paul.'' Is that not true?

Mr. KERRY. It is my understanding, reading the Republican budget, that $2.3 billion of the money that the Senator claims is for an increase----

Mr. KERRY. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator from Nevada. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts, whose passion and understanding of this issue provide the most important leadership in the country with respect to the question of education. I join him on the floor of the Senate in an absolute state of incredulity that the Republicans can turn their backs so brazenly and so overtly on the educational opportunities that are needed for young people in our country. We just had a conference in Massachusetts last Saturday with many leaders of what is called the ``new economy.'' I think we are getting lost in all of this talk about a new economy and an old economy. What we are seeing is an economy in transition. It is in transition because we are moving into a very different world --a world where skills are more needed than ever before. Every single day, we talk about the economy and its changes--about the knowledge-based economy. The presumption is that people are able to get the knowledge on which that economy is based, that they are able to get the skills. But at this conference in Boston, which is one of the leading cities in the Nation experiencing the changes in the economy today, we had leader after leader after leader of new technologies, not just the Internet--everybody talks about the Internet and the Internet companies, but there are a host of companies on which this new opportunity is based--but companies in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced materials. You could run down a long list of critical technologies where the United States of America is in the lead today. But guess what. We have a bill before the Senate to raise the number of visas which permit people to come into the country to fill technical slots. They are called H-1Bs. The level of H-1Bs was at 65,000. It was as high as 115,000 for a year or so. Several pieces of legislation are now seeking to enable up to 200,000 people to come in. But the leaders of the new revolution in our economy tell us that we are anywhere from 400,000 to 1 million people behind where we need to be in terms of hiring. Here we are with a bill that might let in several hundred thousand at the end of this year or next year when the demand is 400,000 to a million, and when countless numbers of our citizens are facing a transition in their life--movement from the old kind of job to the new kind of job or the hope that they are going to be able to find some kind of job in the new economy where they can share the higher salaries that so many Americans are beginning to experience. What do the business titans tell us? What are those leaders and entrepreneurs who are breaking the ground of the new economy --who, I might add, are in a voracious race with other countries for the market share. We are not the only people experiencing this. You go to Europe; you have all kinds of companies racing to try to grab their share of the markets. You go to Asia; the one thing leaders in Asia will tell you today is that they are focused on education. The one thing leaders of Europe will tell you they are focused on--and also in Latin America--is education because only by educating Americans ultimately are we not only going to provide the labor pool to be able to fill the jobs of this new economy, but, quite frankly, only by educating Americans are we going to have a citizenry that is capable of managing our own democracy and making the difficult kinds of decisions we will face in the future. So one would think the Senate in facing this reality--it is not a partisan reality. Most of these leaders of industry who are telling us in the Senate to wake up and pay attention to education are Republicans. They will tell us it is long since overdue that the United States make a more pronounced commitment to the education system of the country. I know we don't run the education system at the Federal level, and none of us is advocating that we should. I understand that. I know no one wants Washington telling the local community what to do. I understand that. I don't want to tell them what to do. I would like to empower them to be able to do what they know they want to do but can't do because they don't have the resources. All over this country, there are communities in rural areas and urban centers of the Nation where they don't have the tax base. In the United States of America, for some reason that is beyond me, we still base our school systems on the property tax, which is part of the old agrarian structure we had when we first founded our public school system. And yet, in the urban centers and in many rural centers where they don't yet share in the kinds of salaries or the kinds of opportunities as do other parts of the country, they don't have a property tax capacity to pay the teachers more money, put the equipment into the school, have an extended schoolday, have the kind of laboratories for language that they need, do the kinds of remedial work with students who are troubled, have dance, arts, music, sports, and the kinds of things that are the real stuff of a complete education. What do these districts do? In some cases, they have received help from States because the States have engaged in education reform, and there is a State revenue sharing process. But where is the Federal Government? Where is the great equalizer which, as a matter of national priority, is supposed to help provide the kinds of empowerments to communities that federalism embraces? That is the whole notion of a national government. It is the whole notion of a Federal system of sharing so that all parts of the country are uplifted simultaneously. We have some great public schools in Massachusetts. We have some great public schools in some urban centers where mayors have paid particular attention to help scrounge up enough money. But even in those areas, they are desperate for additional Federal assistance and for more capacity to do the things they know they need to do. Yet here we are with a budget resolution on the floor of the Senate which gives a very meager increase to the special needs side of the ledger. We are happy for some increase on the special needs side, but we fundamentally reduce the capacity of our schools to face this most important mission. It ought to be an acceptable national priority that our citizens are well educated. It may be a responsibility of the local level to actually do it, but it is certainly a Federal priority that it is done. If we have the capacity by leveraging resources to the local communities to empower those local communities to be able to achieve that national priority, we ought to do it. Americans may not be aware that in the budget we are about to spend $1.8 trillion of collected taxpayers' money. People ask, My God, out of $1.8 trillion we cannot find $5 billion additional for education? A lot of that budget obviously goes to pay for the entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare, military retirement, and Federal and civilian disability benefits. We will spend over $1 trillion of the $1.8 trillion on all of the entitlement programs, which no one has suggested we will suddenly cut or stop. Then we have the defense spending as well as everything else the Government does that will come out of the remaining $600 or $700 billion. Out of that $600 billion, we have to make interest payments on the national debt, pay for our defense, build our highways, channel our harbors, finance mass transit, pay for housing assistance, nutrition programs, finance health research, public health programs, fund crime control, drug trafficking, and foreign aid, which is minuscule compared to the total budget. All of these are by choice of our majority, and when measured against other significant choices, it leaves precious little money for education. Why? Because they want to give a $150 billion, 5-year tax break to the wealthiest people in America. Every single tax break they have ever brought to the floor of the Senate has been with 60 percent or more going to the top 20 percent of income earners of America. I have gladly voted for many of the tax cuts we have given over the last years I have been in the Senate. In the year 2000, we are looking at about a 1- million-person gap in the high-skilled labor needs of this country. Kids in our schools test ahead only of Cyprus and South Africa in math and science. Kids in our country are reading at a 1988 level that hasn't progressed since then. Because of the property tax revolution in California, Massachusetts, and a lot of other States, we saw the schools decimated over the last 10 years. Programs were cut, libraries were shut, and teachers' pay was not raised. We now need 2 million additional teachers in the course of the next 10 years. We need 1 million of those teachers over the course of the next 5 years. It is precious hard to find a kid out of most colleges who says, I want to teach, when teaching means starting anywhere from $22,000 though $27,000, and after 15 years of teaching and getting a master's degree you can get into the thirties and the forties, depending on the system in which you are working in this country. Their colleagues from college will be earning $40,000 and $50,000 a year within a couple of years of getting out of college. College graduates today have $50,000 or $100,000 in loans and have to begin paying back those loans immediately. What kid at the top percentile of their class, with $100,000 in loans, will say, yes, I will go into an urban center at $20,000-plus a year, so I never have a chance to send my kids to college unless they get a scholarship or I somehow qualify for assistance? If that isn't a national emergency, I don't know what is a national emergency. Yet this budget does nothing to address the question of how the Federal Government is going to assist these revenue-starved communities to be able to deal with the problem of education in this country. It does nothing to answer the question of executives across the Nation about how they will have a skilled labor pool in the future that will be able to address the question of education. It goes backwards. Under their proposal, there will be a cut. The President has proposed a hiring of teachers to reduce class sizes so we get a nationwide average of 18 students per class. But what happens? Under their proposal, 20,000 new teachers could not be hired in order to do that. It cuts $540 million from the President's request for 21st century community learning centers where approximately 1.6 million school-age children in over 6,000 new centers would have access to before- and afterschool programs. Again, it defies common sense to believe we are going to continue to turn our backs. I do understand some of it. I understand some of our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle don't want to put money into the Federal education system unless it is done in one way--maybe a big block grant that has no targeting whatever with respect to any of the priorities we might embrace as a Federal Government. For instance, if we happen to believe it is important in certain States that Head Start be a priority or that afterschool programs be a priority or early childhood intervention be a priority, and we think as a matter of Federal priorities it is very important that at least the Federal Government say, hey, you go decide how you want to spend the money--if you want to put it into this kind of child care or that kind of child care, that is your business; we just want to make sure some of it goes to child care; that is all we are looking for--we cannot even get that kind of an agreement. The great divide in the Senate is over putting some money into a grant where there is so much discretion that States that have never chosen to do any of these things could continue to choose not to do any of these things. Is that a smart expenditure of Federal dollars? I don't think so. We are not even going to have an opportunity in this budget resolution to guarantee that the kind of dollars that ought to be part of that will be part of it. So we will see reductions in the total amount of expenditure in order to have some huge tax cut as a matter of priority at a time when the Federal component of taxation is at its lowest level since I have been in the Senate. It seems to me we ought to be measuring our priorities a little bit more carefully. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to come to the floor and say: We put additional money into the special needs sector, into IDEA. They have about $1 billion that goes into IDEA. All the other priorities, the real stuff of educating in America today, are in the cities and the rural areas that do not have the tax base. No matter what they say about money that will go into education spending, there is nothing in this budget that will guarantee those communities most in need are going to find the additional funding they need to address the needs of education in the country. We should be talking about putting somewhere between $40 billion to $50 billion over the next 10 years in additional funding for education. We should probably have a significant separate trust fund that guarantees education is going to be the kind of top priority it needs to be, so every school in America has the ability to keep its doors open into the evening so parents--who are working extra hours, many of them single parents who have their kids in child care during the day and would like to have ongoing education--can participate in the new economy and have the ability to use school facilities well into the evening, even while their children may be there also getting their homework done in a secure environment so they can go to school the next day ready to learn. In community after community in the United States, there are kids on waiting lists for Head Start, early childhood intervention--for all those programs that bring a child to the first grade ready to learn. I have talked to so many first grade teachers who tell me they have kids coming into a classroom with 25 kids in a class, 30 kids in a class, and the kids cannot even do the elementary things kids coming to first grade ought to be able to do such as early numbers or recognizing shapes and forms and colors. So they have to step aside and they have to deal with the problem of that child, magnified five, six, seven, eight times over, and try to deal with the mainstreaming of a full class of 25 kids at the same time. We believe the standard of education that requires you have 18 kids and no more in a class is appropriate. These are the kinds of priorities left out of this budget. I regret that enormously. I regret this budget is a negative against even the rate of growth of inflation. I hope we will have a chance to rectify that in the days ahead.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I applaud my colleague from Massachusetts for his tremendous leadership on this subject and for having just pointed out the realities of the situation we find ourselves in on the floor of the Senate. It is hard for anybody, rationally, to think about the problems our seniors face in this country and then measure those problems against what the Republican majority is presenting the country in its budget resolution. I do not understand the rationale. I do not understand how they can come to the floor prepared to guarantee the wealthiest Americans are going to get an extraordinary tax cut. That is absolutely cast in stone. That is going to happen. They saw to it in this budget resolution that there is a certainty as to the tax cut. But at the same time they saw to it that there is no certainty with respect to senior citizens having an opportunity that we take care of their needs for prescription drugs. Their budget pays lipservice to the critical issue of helping seniors afford medications that are prescribed by their doctors. If you measure this, the budget resolution provides a tax cut of over $150 billion over 5 years. Those tax cuts will require we pay $18 billion more in interest payments. So when you add the interest payments to the tax cuts themselves, you have virtually the amount of the entire non-Social Security surplus that is going to be taken off the table and given back. But what is extraordinary is their focus. Here is a major problem. There is not one of us, as Senators, who does not go home to our States and find countless numbers of citizens come to us and say: I cannot afford to buy drugs. I have to choose between paying rent or food and buying the prescription drugs I need to be healthy. We have citizens who are piling into buses going to Mexico and Canada to buy drugs, and yet ``our'' fixation, the fixation of the majority is to absolutely guarantee that the wealthiest people in America who have done the best over the last 15 to 20 years are absolutely going to get a tax cut, but the neediest people in America who need help with prescription drugs, who are paying thousands of dollars a year and are on a fixed income and cannot afford it, have no guarantee in this budget that they are going to have the Senate produce a prescription drug benefit. There is some lipservice to $40 billion, but as my colleague from Massachusetts pointed out, there is no guarantee we are ever going to see legislation. Why is it that there is an absolute certainty as to the tax cut, an absolute guarantee that people who have done the best are going to be helped but people who are the most needy are not going to be helped? The Senate ought to be committed to addressing the importance of working families receiving this kind of help. Why is that so important? It ought to be obvious to every Member of the Senate. When Medicare was created in 1965, the biggest cost concern for patients was a long stay in the hospital. Today, particularly because of the wonders of modern medicine and the biotechnology revolution, patients who once needed surgery now can take drugs; patients who once needed extensive stays in hospitals are now able to take wonder drugs of the modern age to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, stabilize weak hearts, and do extraordinary things, but they cost a lot of money. There has been a remarkable cost-shifting process. It used to be that if one went to the hospital to have an operation and stayed in the hospital, insurance took care of the stay. But now the hospital stay and the long period of convalescence has been supplanted by the miracle drug, and the cost has shifted from the insurance to the individual, and most of these individuals are not able to afford it. Take, for instance, a highly effective drug for hypertension. Sixty percent of the people over the age of 65 have hypertension. The fact is, highly effective drugs to control this typically cost about $40 a month. They greatly reduce the potential of stroke. A stroke, obviously, requires rehab time in hospitals and a variety of in-house costs and services to the medical system. If we can prevent that from happening, we save the system money. But if that cost shifting is to the individual who is on a fixed income, they get stuck with the problem. Prescription drug expenditures in the United States--and I ask my colleagues to focus on this--have grown at nearly double-digit rates almost every year since 1980, with seniors' drug prices growing at four times the rate of inflation. In 1997, prescription drug expenditures had the highest growth rate of all health and human services and supplies. There was a 14.1-percent growth in those costs versus the overall health care expenditure cost that rose at only 4.8 percent--14.1 percent for prescription drugs; health care costs were generally 4 percent. A lot of us will support the increase in the NIH funding because we want to continue this revolution, but the fact is, it does not do a lot of good to put on the shelf drugs from the laboratory that are completely inaccessible to the average American who needs them because they simply cannot afford them. We are missing a historic opportunity in the Senate in terms of our legislating process. The fact is, we have an opportunity to provide 14 million senior citizens, who lack prescription drug coverage, with that coverage. That is, one-third of all Medicare beneficiaries have no prescription drug coverage at all. Three-fifths of all Medicare beneficiaries lack dependable coverage, and one-quarter of all Medicare beneficiaries have retiree drug coverage from their former employer, but the number of firms offering that coverage has declined by 25 percent over the last 4 years. In our state of Massachusetts, there are 982,934 Medicare beneficiaries. 45% of these seniors lack prescription drug coverage. 55% of these seniors have some form of coverage--but, the form that coverage takes is often capped, costly, inadequate or all of the above. Prescription drugs are the largest out-of-pocket health care cost for seniors in Massachusetts and throughout the country. More than 85% of Medicare beneficiaries take at least one prescription medicine, and the average beneficiary fills 18 prescriptions per year. The average annual prescription drug cost for Medicare beneficiaries will reach $1,100 this year. Even beneficiaries with some drug coverage incur high out- of-pocket spending, an average of $700 per year. Increasing costs coupled with the lack of coverage force 1 out of 8 seniors in our country to choose between buying food and medicine. Unless we act, we can only expect these numbers to increase. Americans aged 85 and older represent the fastest growing segment of the population, with expected growth from 4 million people today to 19 million people by 2050. We cannot afford to allow this problem to continue. Medicare was enacted in 1965 as a promise to the American people that, in exchange for their years of hard work and service to our country, their health care would be protected in their golden years. Mr. President, it is past time we deliver on that promise. My hope is that we will adopt the Robb amendment. I congratulate the Senator from Virginia for bringing this amendment to the floor. It requires that we find some methodology by which we will guarantee that Congress will pass a prescription drug program. It seems to me it is as imperative we do that as give a tax cut, considering the fact that the Federal tax burden is the lowest it has been in 20 years. Let's get our priorities straight and do what is correct. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I have enormous respect for the patriotism and the passion which so many of my fellow veterans bring to the effort to protect the flag of our country. Many of them are my friends, and it is never easy to disagree with friends on issues of conscience and emotion. While, obviously, out of approximately 250 million Americans there are a few miscreants, as Gen. Colin Powell says, who might choose to desecrate the flag, the vast majority of Americans know better. Americans rightfully love the Stars and Stripes for all it symbolizes, for all the history, the glory, the promise, and the possibilities that are carried within its four corners. As most Americans, I feel the long honor roll of battles won and lost when I see Old Glory marched in for the presentation of colors. I feel unbridled pride watching her ripple in the breeze when we join together to sing the national anthem. I feel the cloak of patriotism draped over the coffin of a veteran to whom we bid farewell. Our flag is a stunning symbol of all that has made us who we are. In the end, it is a symbol. It is not who we are. Who we are is embodied in the rights and obligations in the Constitution itself. A desecrated flag is replaceable. Desecrated rights are lost forever to those who experience the loss. What makes the United States different and, in many ways, stronger than any other nation is our aspiration for tolerance and diversity. Thanks to our Constitution, we are the leading proponent on the face of this planet for the greatest experiment in freedom that is set forth in words and in practice. At the close of our national anthem, we sing, ``land of the free and home of the brave.'' Were this amendment to pass, make no mistake about it, we would certainly be a little less free and a lot less brave. In the final analysis, there are eight powerful reasons for anyone, but I think particularly for a veteran, to vote against this constitutional retreat. They are: Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, China, Cuba, Syria, and Sudan. These are the nations of the world that have laws banning flag desecration. They used to be joined by the South Africa of apartheid and Nazi Germany. I ask my fellow Senators: Is that what we want to do with the freedom of the United States of America? Is this in keeping with all that our great Stars and Stripes stands for? Is this for what soldiers fought and died, so we could join this list of discredited, dictatorial regimes? Does the United States of America, in response to an occasional act of defiance, ignorance, stupidity, and insolence, want to tremble and, for the first time in an extraordinary 224 years of challenges, alter the Constitution to diminish someone's right to be stupid? Our flag is stronger than any of those individual acts will ever be, quite simply because our country is bigger and stronger than any of those acts, and our country is bigger and stronger because of our Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights. This vote is not a test of patriotism because patriotism is, after all, love of country and loyal support of one's country. Our country is defined by the rights we protect, and my oath as a Senator is to defend the Constitution which defines those rights. That is how I will vote, and that is how I think my colleagues should vote.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont. I know this letter has been referenced previously, but I want to re-reference it in light of what the Senator read from General Schwarzkopf. No less a distinguished general, Gen. Colin Powell, has written a letter to Senator Leahy: I love our flag, our Constitution and our country with a love that has no bounds. I defended all three for 35 years as a soldier and was willing to give my life in their defense. I am skipping down a paragraph: I understand how strongly so many of my fellow veterans and citizens feel about the flag and I understand the powerful sentiment in state legislatures for such an amendment. I feel the same sense of outrage. But I step back from amending the Constitution to relieve that outrage. The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we found outrageous. I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will still be flying proudly long after they have slunk away. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record this letter from Gen. Colin Powell.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to introduce an amended version of the Coastal Stewardship Act, which I offer along with Senators Hollings and Inouye. The purpose of introducing this amended version is to provide a blueprint for how we believe the Senate should address coastal and marine issues in larger proposals that allocate revenues from oil and gas exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to the States for conservation. This amended version creates the Ocean and Coast Conservation Fund with $375,000,000 to address urgent needs in our coastal and marine environment, including wetlands, non- point pollution, fisheries research and management, coral reefs and enforcement. The bill allocates $100,000,000 to Cooperative Fisheries Research and Management. We have a great need to improve our understanding of fisheries and the fishing industry. The National Marine Fisheries Service, regional fisheries councils, states, the commercial and recreational fishing industries and conservationists rely on fishery data to make difficult management and investment decisions. Given the importance of having sound information, Congress requested the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the quality of our fisheries data. NOAA concluded that, ``Despite some regional successes, it is clear that the current overall approach to collecting and managing fisheries information needs to be re-thought, revised, and reworked. The quality and completeness of fishery data are often inadequate. Data are often on inaccessible in an appropriate form or timely manner. Methods for data collection and management are frequently burdensome and inefficient. These drawbacks result in the inability to answer some of the most basic question regarding the state of the Nation's fisheries . . .'' NOAA added, ``Simply put, to manage fisheries at local, state, regional, or national levels requires a much better fisheries information system than the one in place.'' I have heard a similar refrain from almost every person and group involved in our fisheries, whether their interest is fisheries management, commercial or recreational harvest or fisheries conservation. With this legislation, the Governor of any State represented by an Interstate Maine Fishery Commission may make an application to the Secretary of Commerce for funding to support projects that address this critical need. We will establish comprehensive programs to improve the quality and quantity of information available to evaluate stocks, design control measures, develop more environmentally-sound gear and include the fishing community in the process. The Cooperative Enforcement provision allocates $25,000,000 for the Secretary of Commerce to enter joint agreements with coastal states to enhance our coastal and marine enforcement. As with all our laws, our natural resources laws are only effective if they are enforced. These joint ventures allow states and local governments to tailor enforcement procedures to fit local needs and available resources, and allow for collaboration between state and local enforcement agencies and federal agencies, including the Coast Guard. The proposal authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to delegate its living marine resource enforcement authorities to a state marine law enforcement entity and to pay state enforcement costs pursuant to the individual agreements crafted with each participating state. State enforcement under these agreements would extend to requirements of federal or regional fisheries management plans, including those of interjurisdictional fishery management commissions. When first introduced, this proposal was endorsed by the National Association of Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs, the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Northeast Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs Association and others. A total of $250,000,000 is dedicated to Coastal Stewardship. This flexible program allocates funds to states based on coastline, population and need for projects that restore and preserve coastal and marine habitat. Projects must be consistent with the Coastal Zone Management Act, National Estuary Program, National Marine Sanctuary Act, the National Estuarine Research Reserve program and other laws governing conservation and restoration of coastal or marine habitat. In this program, states set priorities and decide how and when projects proceed within broad national goals. The benefits will be enormous. We will preserve and restore wetlands, reduce non-point source pollution, remove abandoned vessels causing environmental damage, address watershed protection, and undertake a range of other projects, all aimed at coastal conservation. Finally, $25,000,000 is set targeted at Coral Reef Restoration and Conservation. We must recognize the importance of maintaining the health and stability of coral reefs which possess enormous environmental and economic value. With this legislation we will fund cooperative projects with States to preserve and restore our coral reefs. A portion of these authorizations is set aside for the Department of Commerce to enhance its National Marine Sanctuaries, coral programs and other critically important conservation efforts. I want to thank Senator Hollings and Inouye for joining as cosponsors. I look forward to working with Senator Bingaman, the Commerce Committee, and Senator Landrieu and others who are working to pass comprehensive legislation to dedicate revenues from Outer Continental Shelf exploration to the conservation of our coastal and marine environment.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to introduce an amended version of the Coastal Stewardship Act, which I offer along with Senators Hollings and Inouye. The purpose of introducing this amended version is to provide a blueprint for how we believe the Senate should address coastal and marine issues in larger proposals that allocate revenues from oil and gas exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to the States for conservation. This amended version creates the Ocean and Coast Conservation Fund with $375,000,000 to address urgent needs in our coastal and marine environment, including wetlands, non- point pollution, fisheries research and management, coral reefs and enforcement. The bill allocates $100,000,000 to Cooperative Fisheries Research and Management. We have a great need to improve our understanding of fisheries and the fishing industry. The National Marine Fisheries Service, regional fisheries councils, states, the commercial and recreational fishing industries and conservationists rely on fishery data to make difficult management and investment decisions. Given the importance of having sound information, Congress requested the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the quality of our fisheries data. NOAA concluded that, ``Despite some regional successes, it is clear that the current overall approach to collecting and managing fisheries information needs to be re-thought, revised, and reworked. The quality and completeness of fishery data are often inadequate. Data are often on inaccessible in an appropriate form or timely manner. Methods for data collection and management are frequently burdensome and inefficient. These drawbacks result in the inability to answer some of the most basic question regarding the state of the Nation's fisheries . . .'' NOAA added, ``Simply put, to manage fisheries at local, state, regional, or national levels requires a much better fisheries information system than the one in place.'' I have heard a similar refrain from almost every person and group involved in our fisheries, whether their interest is fisheries management, commercial or recreational harvest or fisheries conservation. With this legislation, the Governor of any State represented by an Interstate Maine Fishery Commission may make an application to the Secretary of Commerce for funding to support projects that address this critical need. We will establish comprehensive programs to improve the quality and quantity of information available to evaluate stocks, design control measures, develop more environmentally-sound gear and include the fishing community in the process. The Cooperative Enforcement provision allocates $25,000,000 for the Secretary of Commerce to enter joint agreements with coastal states to enhance our coastal and marine enforcement. As with all our laws, our natural resources laws are only effective if they are enforced. These joint ventures allow states and local governments to tailor enforcement procedures to fit local needs and available resources, and allow for collaboration between state and local enforcement agencies and federal agencies, including the Coast Guard. The proposal authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to delegate its living marine resource enforcement authorities to a state marine law enforcement entity and to pay state enforcement costs pursuant to the individual agreements crafted with each participating state. State enforcement under these agreements would extend to requirements of federal or regional fisheries management plans, including those of interjurisdictional fishery management commissions. When first introduced, this proposal was endorsed by the National Association of Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs, the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Northeast Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs Association and others. A total of $250,000,000 is dedicated to Coastal Stewardship. This flexible program allocates funds to states based on coastline, population and need for projects that restore and preserve coastal and marine habitat. Projects must be consistent with the Coastal Zone Management Act, National Estuary Program, National Marine Sanctuary Act, the National Estuarine Research Reserve program and other laws governing conservation and restoration of coastal or marine habitat. In this program, states set priorities and decide how and when projects proceed within broad national goals. The benefits will be enormous. We will preserve and restore wetlands, reduce non-point source pollution, remove abandoned vessels causing environmental damage, address watershed protection, and undertake a range of other projects, all aimed at coastal conservation. Finally, $25,000,000 is set targeted at Coral Reef Restoration and Conservation. We must recognize the importance of maintaining the health and stability of coral reefs which possess enormous environmental and economic value. With this legislation we will fund cooperative projects with States to preserve and restore our coral reefs. A portion of these authorizations is set aside for the Department of Commerce to enhance its National Marine Sanctuaries, coral programs and other critically important conservation efforts. I want to thank Senator Hollings and Inouye for joining as cosponsors. I look forward to working with Senator Bingaman, the Commerce Committee, and Senator Landrieu and others who are working to pass comprehensive legislation to dedicate revenues from Outer Continental Shelf exploration to the conservation of our coastal and marine environment.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, in honor of International Women's Day, I respectfully call upon my friend, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to hold hearings on an international treaty to fight discrimination against women around the world. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations in 1979 and signed by President Carter in 1980. It is a comprehensive and detailed international agreement to promote the equality of women and men. It legally defines discrimination against women for the first time and establishes rights for women in areas not previously covered by international law. More than 160 countries have ratified CEDAW, including all of our European allies and most of our important trading partners. It is well past high-time that the United States Senate take up and ratify this important international agreement. In 1988, I convened field hearings on CEDAW in Massachusetts to highlight the importance of this treaty to American women. In the years that followed, I was pleased to support the efforts of former Senator Claiborne Pell, then-chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to develop a resolution of ratification of CEDAW. In 1994, thanks to Senator Pell's leadership, the Foreign Relations Committee voted 13 to 5 to report the Convention favorably with a resolution of ratification to the Senate for its advice and consent. Despite support for ratification from Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, many state legislatures, the Clinton administration, and from the American public, opponents of this treaty blocked its consideration by the full Senate. The resolution of ratification for CEDAW could be taken up tomorrow, if there was the political will in the Senate to do so. Ratification of CEDAW will strengthen our continuing efforts to ensure that women around the world are treated fairly and have the opportunity to realize their full potential. It will send a clear signal of our commitment to eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and it will underscore the importance we assign to international efforts to promote the rights of women. By allowing us to participate in the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ratification will give us a bigger voice in shaping international policies that affect women. Our failure to ratify has encouraged criticism from allies who cannot understand our refusal to uphold rights that are already found within the provisions of our own Constitution. It has put us in the same category with a small and very undistinguished minority of countries who have not ratified CEDAW, including Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran and Sudan. It is difficult for the United States to criticize the terrible treatment of women in these and other nations when we have not yet recognized those rights as international legal standards. CEDAW is an important human rights document that is largely consistent with the existing state and federal laws of the United States. Senate advice and consent to this Convention will demonstrate U.S. leadership in the fight for women around the world.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for his helpful reassurances. We have the same goal, and that is to have a safe, efficient transportation system that includes rail, aviation, and maritime sectors. His intention and willingness to make this happen gives me every confidence that it will happen.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am gratified to hear the majority leader's commitment to Amtrak and the Coast Guard, as well as his intention to work with the chairmen of the Budget and Appropriations Committees to fully fund transportation needs at least for FY 2001, and hopefully beyond. Both Amtrak and the Coast Guard are absolutely necessary to my constituents. I would like to say a few words about the importance of Amtrak nationwide. This country needs to include passenger rail as part of its transportation mix in the 21st century. We have done a good job ensuring our highways and, now, our skyways get the funding and attention they deserve. Amtrak also needs some of that attention. Passenger rail is critical if we are going to reduce congestion on our highways and in the air, as well protect our environment. People need a choice in transportation, and high speed rail especially can be a viable option for many, not only in the Northeast, but along corridors throughout the country. On January 31, 2000, Amtrak launched Acela Regional--the first electric train in history to serve Boston and New England. This is literally a dream come true for all of us up and down the East Coast who care about jobs, the economy and traffic congestion and the environment. And in its first few weeks of operation, I understand that bookings on Acela Regional are up as much as 45 percent over the Northeast Direct line. This will be extremely helpful in my home state of Massachusetts, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland, where airport and highway congestion often reach frustrating levels. The more miles that are traveled on Amtrak, the fewer trips taken on crowded highways and skyways. Amtrak is not the only transportation priority we need to fully fund. The Coast Guard performs a number of critical missions for our country including search and rescue, environmental protection, marine safety, fisheries enforcement, and drug trafficking. I can't imagine any of our colleagues arguing that any one of these missions is unimportant or should be less than fully funded. Perhaps my good friend will expand upon the importance the Coast Guard's many missions.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, first, I thank the distinguished majority leader for joining me in this important discussion today. I thank him for the vital role he played in shepherding the FAA authorization bill through the conference committee. We have been without an authorization bill for too long and this bill is a critical step in ensuring our skies are absolutely safe and less congested. But, as the majority leader well knows, aviation is not the only important piece of transportation funding this bill may affect. I believe that my friend agrees with me that, as important as aviation is to our country, funding for Amtrak and the Coast Guard are also crucial, and in enacting this bill, we by no means intend to give short-shrift to those parts of our transportation budget. Isn't that right, Mr. Majority Leader?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the amendment I have offered is a serious effort to try to attract qualified teachers in an era when the private sector is making it nearly impossible to draw people out of college and teaching because of the salaries. We really need a special incentive. We have already created an incentive. We have a $5,000 paydown on loans. It is not enough to attract people. I have offered an amendment that would raise the incentive and provide, in essence, a GI bill for teachers. I think it is worthwhile. I will not ask my colleagues to vote on it tonight because we are on automatic pilot. I think it is an idea that deserves better consideration than it will receive under that kind of approach. I don't want it prejudiced in the future by a vote that is on automatic pilot. I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment with hopes we get the ESEA on the floor and we will have an opportunity to consider this in a better, bipartisan, and perhaps more thoughtful mode.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today there was an article on the front page of the Washington Post. I thought the words captured in the caption really summarize the situation that the Senate needs to stop and think about much more seriously as we come into the budget deliberations for this year. The title of the story is: ``A `Life in Chaos' Shaped Young Shooter.'' The description in the story talks about the life: Living in a place where drugs are rampant, where a gun is under a pillow, where parents are not paying attention. Literally, they define this as a life in chaos. I have come to the floor many times over the course of the last few years to talk to my colleagues about exactly that: the difference for children between a life in chaos and a life lived in order, in structure. The fact is, this child in Michigan, who saw fit to pick up a gun and shoot another student of the same age in their classroom, is tragically not an aberration in the context of life in America today. There are countless numbers of children living lives in chaos. One-third of all of our children in this Nation begin life in a deficit because they are born into a parenting situation where there is only one parent, born out of wedlock. With the failure rate of marriages, when you add to the one-third that begin life that way, maybe as many as 45 to 50 percent of America's children are being raised in a single-parent structure. Too many kids who are raised with even two parents are often the victims of lives in chaos, where the parents are not paying attention, where there are not afterschool programs, there are not early start programs, there are not child-care programs. Children, 5 million strong a day, are let out of school to go back to apartments and homes where there is no adult until 6 or 7 in the evening. We know that 5 million children are let out of school and returned to apartments and homes in that situation. I know of cities in Massachusetts where, tragically, because of the situation in a housing project or the situation of a single parent who is struggling with two jobs, working to make ends meet, and they do not have a proper child care situation, children are also being raised in a kind of chaos. Talk to any child psychologist anywhere in the world, and they will tell you the negative impact that kind of chaos or disorder or lack of structure has on children. My prayer is that in the course of the next weeks, when we have the opportunity in this budget, in a year of surplus, in a year where we are talking about huge sums of money in tax rebate, and too much of it going back to people who already have more than most people in America, I hope that in that context the Senate is going to do the business of this Nation in helping parents to be able to parent and helping children to be able to live lives in order, not lives of chaos. There is no greater mission for this country. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Washington Post be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. The Senator is very generous. Knowing the outcome of this vote, I know the Senator does not have to expend a lot of eloquence to defeat me. I am very appreciative for his consideration. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. KERRY. I ask my colleague from Georgia if he would mind if I took a moment, maybe 3 or 4 minutes, to say something about the shooting in Michigan. May I ask for 4 minutes?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia, and I thank the Senator from Nevada for their assistance in moving things along. I will try not to take very long. In fact, I want to say a few words about the schoolchild my friend from Illinois was talking about. Let me try to get through the substance and see where I am timewise before I do that. Whatever the dynamic we are locked into in the Senate, it is clearly not promising or anything substantive to pass. Our friends on the other side of the aisle have decided that nothing substantive with respect to education will fundamentally pass. Yesterday we passed a study on welfare offered by Senator Wellstone, but every other effort to deal with education is preordained. I understand in standing up here the fate of this amendment. Notwithstanding that, I want to make it clear, and I think my colleagues who preceded me have made it clear, that these are the real issues that face the country and these are the choices the Senate ought to be making. If our colleagues simply choose to dismiss them out of hand, then that is a reality the American people, I hope, will begin to digest at the appropriate time, which is obviously election time in this country. There may be another chance when we will deal with some of these issues. We certainly hope there will be. But not being guaranteed that opportunity, we have to take this opportunity now. Everyone in this country knows we have a teacher shortage of remarkable proportions. We are supposed to hire some 5 million teachers over the course of the next 10 years, 2 million of them in the next 5 years. If one looks at an article that appeared in the Washington Post at the beginning of this school year, it tells us the story of some of that hiring. A principal in Northern Virginia was so desperate for teachers to begin the school year that she was wooing shoppers at Wal- Mart in an effort to find people to teach in her school. The last thing the parents of our children and our school administrators want is an unprepared, unqualified, uncertified adult simply there supposedly to fill a quota and ``teach,'' and I put quotes around that. If we continue on our present course, we are going to face many similar stories. But we know because of the pressures of attrition, the pressures of the classroom itself, the lack of pay, and other problems attendant to teaching today, we are losing many more people than are coming into the profession. Thirty to 40 percent of the people who teach leave within the first 3 to 5 years. We have a remarkable rate of loss and a remarkable rate of turnover. We also know we have an incredible shortage of teachers who teach in the field for which they may have gone to school or in which they have a degree. Again, I am not going to take up all the time, but the statistics with respect to teachers who are qualified to teach math or science is extraordinarily distressing, not to mention other subjects that people also come to teach. The amendment I offer today addresses this by seeking to address the question of how do we create an incentive to draw people into teaching. I met with young people this morning, interns in my office, about 15, 16 of them. Not one of them is planning to be a teacher or is even thinking about it. When I speak at colleges and universities there may be whatever number of people in the room, and I ask them: How many of you are planning to be teachers? You are lucky if you get one or two or three hands going up because most people cannot afford to do it based on the loans they have at the end of their schooling. Also, many of them find the opportunities of the private sector simply too great, too alluring, so they are drawn away from teaching. Thirdly, our school systems today, because of the lack of adequate resources, structures, support, curriculum, reform standards, and other things, are not particularly enticing to many young people in terms of a career option. We have to offer greater incentives to attract people, particularly measured against the marketplace. Therefore, the current law already forgives $5,000 in student loans after 5 years in teaching. My amendment seeks to recognize the reality of that principle, which we have already adopted, that an incentive works. But recognizing that, the second reality is that because of the marketplace, the incentive isn't strong enough. So we need to find a way to add an additional incentive. My amendment would provide an additional $5,000 in forgiveness for teachers after 2 years of teaching, providing additional relief for those who are faced with leaving teaching in order to make more money. In addition, we would offer a grant for States to be able to establish a program to provide college scholarships to students with SAT scores or grade point averages in the top 20 percent of each State's high school graduating class. That would be in return for a commitment by the individual to become a State-certified teacher for a period of 5 years. We have always tried to attract people into our military service by offering them, either through the Service academies or through ROTC or through the GI bill, the opportunity to be able to have payment in exchange for a service that we value greatly: Service to country. Here we are trying to apply the same principle, and we are trying to draw some of the top students. Those who have performed the best in high school will have an opportunity to have college scholarships so they can go to college, not come out with the burden of debt and, indeed, dedicate 5 years of their life to teaching in return. In a sense, it is a GI bill for teaching. I hope my colleagues will recognize this principle and the value of it. The teacher shortage our schools are facing now will pale in comparison to what we're looking at over the next 10 years as large numbers of teachers are expected to retire and enrollments are expected to increase. The pressures of attrition, of retirements, will only be compounded by the impact of hundreds of other important education improvement efforts taking root all over the country, whether it's class-size reduction or higher standards for teachers, and that too will exacerbate the teacher shortage. So what do we do about it? We must pass legislation that helps increase the supply, and the quality, of teachers in this country. And to do that, we must make the teaching profession more attractive to our young people and to those many thousands of people who are certified teachers but have left the profession because of financial constraints. The amendment I offer today addresses the teaching crisis plaguing our Nation's schools and impairing our children's ability to learn and succeed. My amendment will provide full-time state certified public school teachers who teach in low-income areas or who teach in areas with teacher shortages such as math, science, and special needs with loan forgiveness of up to $5,000 after 2 years of teaching and an additional $5,000 after 5 years of teaching. I know the Congress believes loan forgiveness is an important way to attract and retain qualified teachers, because current law already forgives $5,000 in student loans after five years of teaching. My amendment would provide an additional $5,000 in forgiveness for teachers after 2 years of teaching, providing relief for teachers who are faced with leaving teaching to make more money, and providing an incentive for them to continue in the field. Coupled with increased ongoing education opportunities that are the focus of so many Senators, particularly my colleague from Massachusetts, who has contributed so much to the education debate over the years, Senator Kennedy, coupled with increased professional development opportunities that I hope we will enact, we have the capability of recruiting and retaining thousands of highly qualified teachers around the country. My amendment would also provide grants for states to establish a program to provide college scholarships to students with SAT scores or grade point averages in the top 20 percent of each state's high school graduating class in return for a commitment to become a state certified teacher for 5 years. States would contribute 20 percent of the funds for the scholarships. This amendment would also establish a national hotline for potential teachers to receive information on a career in teaching. Demand for teachers is so great that it is projected that 50,000 unqualified teachers have been hired annually on emergency or substandard licenses. And the situation is most severe in poor urban and rural areas. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, these districts have such a hard time recruiting and retaining qualified teachers that 39 percent of their teachers have neither a college major or minor in their primary field of course work. What does this mean for our children's education? In urban schools where children are already crippled by an unfair playing field, a lack of adequate resources, too often the teachers they do have are unqualified. And over the next 10 years the situation will get even worse, virtually guaranteeing that the percentage of unqualified teachers in these schools will increase. I ask you this: How are our young people supposed to get engaged in the learning process if they only have warm bodies in their classrooms? Who will answer the questions that children have about their lessons if the teachers themselves are not sure of the answers? I have heard from people all over my state, deans of engineering schools in my state, high school administrators, parents, about a decrease in the number of young people interested in pursuing math, science, and engineering degrees after they graduate from high school. Is it any coincidence then that the greatest shortage of teachers in this country is in the areas of math and science? No wonder our young people are seeking math and science degrees in lower numbers. They aren't excited about these subjects because the teachers weren't there to get them excited, to provide them with good instruction, to encourage them on. And I won't even get into the shortage of hi-tech workers before us now and that we are in dire need of greater numbers, not fewer, of graduates in math, science, and engineering. I can guarantee you that this additional loan forgiveness and a scholarship program are necessary, that the existing laws will not recruit the numbers and quality of students we need. Thirty to fifty percent of all new urban teachers leave the teaching profession within the first 3 to 5 years of teaching. And while we can't be sure that all of these young teachers leave because of inadequate salaries and blossoming student loans, when you look at the data you can be sure looming students loans and low paying comprise a great deal of the incentive for these teachers to leave. We need to attract the best and the brightest teachers into our public schools to cultivate the minds of our children. But can we realistically expect those students graduating from 4-year institutions and saddled with thousands of dollars in student loans--the average private college students graduates with $14,000 of loans that must be repaid--to enter career where they can expect a starting salary that barely reaches the mid-twenties? How can we expect our young people to turn their backs, particularly in this booming economy, on higher- paying jobs as analysts, in technology companies. Consider the case of Bridgewater State College, which was the first college in Massachusetts to obtain accreditation under the new National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education standards. One-fifth of Bridgewater State students go on to become teachers in Massachusetts and throughout the country. But these students graduate with an average of $8,693 in student loans that must be repaid. And that is from a public school, where in-state tuition is just $8,000. A student graduating from a private college, of which there are many in my state, faces a average of $14,000 in loans to be repaid. Now, we all know that first-year teachers are poorly paid. The average starting salary is in the mid-twenties. it is simply too difficult for young teachers to make ends meet when, in addition to paying rent, buying groceries, maybe saving for graduate school, or for a car, they must also pay back these loans. We must act on this legislation now. If not because we are facing an imminent teacher shortage, then because of the rising cost of tuition. From 1990 to 1996, average tuition for a full-time resident undergraduate student rose 43.8 percent, but during that same period, the consumer price index rose only 15.4 percent. And at the same time, Mr. President loans are comprising a greater percentage of student's tuition than grants or income. In the early 1980s, loans covered about 40 percent of total aid. Now, loans cover 58 percent of total aid and during that period, grants went from covering 55 percent of total aid to just 40 percent of total aid. Mr. President, we must address this issue. We must provide assistance to aspiring teachers. We must act now.

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

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 2866 be called up.