John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Export Products Not Jobs Act of 2006. Tomorrow, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing to tackle the issue of tax reform and will hear from the chairman and vice chairman of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The panel's report took a broad look at our current tax law and made numerous recommendations. I agree with some of the recommendations and have concerns about others, but believe that the report provides a good starting place for a thorough discussion of tax reform. In 1994, the IRS estimated that a family that itemized their deductions and had some interest and capital gains would spend 11\1/2\ hours preparing their Federal income tax return. This estimate has increased to 19 hours and 45 minutes in 2004. It is time for Congress to pass bipartisan tax legislation in the style of Tax Reform Act of 1986, which greatly simplified Tax Code. And our tax reform should be based upon the following three principles: fairness, simplicity, and opportunity for economic growth. Our Tax Code is extremely complicated. Citizens and businesses struggle to comply with ru1es governing: taxation of business income, capital gains, income phase-outs, extenders, the myriad savings vehicles, recordkeeping for itemized deductions, the alternative minimum tax, AMT, the earned-income tax credit, EITC, and taxation of foreign business income. I believe that our international tax system needs to be simplified and reformed to encourage businesses to remain in the United States. And today, I am introducing legislation that I hope will be fully considered as we begin our discussions on tax reform. Presently, the complexities of our international tax system actually encourage U.S. corporations to invest overseas. Current tax laws allow companies to defer paying U.S. taxes on income earned by their foreign subsidiaries, which provides a substantial tax break for companies that move investment and jobs overseas. Today, under U.S. tax law, a company that is trying to decide where to locate production or services--either in the United States or in a foreign low-tax haven--is actually given a substantial tax incentive not only to move jobs overseas but to reinvest profits permanently, as opposed to bringing the profits back to re-invest in the United States. Recent press articles have revealed examples of companies taking advantage of this perverse incentive in our Tax Code. For instance, some companies have taken advantage of this initiative by opening subsidiaries to serve markets throughout Europe. Much of the profit earned by these subsidiaries will stay in Ireland and the companies will therefore avoid paying U.S. taxes. Other companies have announced the expansion of jobs in India. This reflects a continued pattern among some U.S. multinational companies of shifting software development and call centers to India, and this trend is starting to expand to include the shifting of critical functions like design and research and development to India as well. Some companies are even outsourcing the preparation of U.S. tax returns. The Export Products Not Jobs Act of 2006 would put an to end to these practices by eliminating tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs overseas and by using the savings to create jobs in the United States by repealing the top corporate tax rate. This legislation ends tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs by: (1) eliminating the ability of companies to defer paying U.S. taxes on foreign income; (2) closing abusive corporate tax loopholes; and (3) repealing the top corporate rate. It removes the incentive to shift jobs overseas by eliminating deferral so that companies pay taxes on their international income as they earn it, rather than being allowed to defer taxes. Last month, the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Revenue held a hearing on international tax laws. Stephen Shay, a former Reagan Treasury official, testified that our tax rules ``provide incentives to locate business activity outside the United States.'' Furthermore, he suggested that taxation of U.S. shareholders under an expansion of Subpart F would be a ``substantial improvement'' over our current system. The Export Products Not Jobs Act of 2006 does just that. Our current tax system punishes U.S. companies that choose to create and maintain jobs in the United States. These companies pay higher taxes and suffer a competitive disadvantage with a company that chooses to move jobs to a foreign tax haven. There is no reason why our Tax Code should provide an incentive that encourages investment and job creation overseas. Under my legislation, companies would be taxed the same whether they invest abroad or at home; they will be taxed on their foreign subsidiary profits just like they are taxed on their domestic profits. This legislation reflects the most sweeping simplification of international taxes in over 40 years. Our economy has changed in the last 40 years and our tax laws need to be updated to keep pace. Our current global economy was not even envisioned when existing law was written. The Export Products Not Jobs Act of 2006 that I am introducing today will not hinder our global competitiveness. Companies will be able to continue to defer income they earn when they locate production in a foreign country that serves that foreign country's markets. For example, if a U.S. company wants to open a hotel in Bermuda or a car factory in India to sell cars, foreign income can still be deferred. But if a company wants to open a call center in India to answer calls from outside India or relocate abroad to sell cars back to the United States or Canada, the company must pay taxes just like call centers and auto manufacturers located in the United States. Currently, American companies allocate their revenue not in search of the highest return, but in search of lower taxes. Eliminating deferral will improve the efficiency of the economy by making taxes neutral so that they do not encourage companies to overinvest abroad solely for tax reasons. The Congressional Research Service stated in a 2003 report that, ``[a]ccording to traditional economic theory, deferral thus reduces economic welfare by encouraging firms to undertake overseas investments that are less productive--before taxes are considered--than alternative investments in the United States.'' Additionally, a 2000 Department of Treasury study on deferral stated, ``[a]mong all of the options considered, ending deferral would also be likely to have the most positive long-term effect on economic efficiency and welfare because it would do the most to eliminate tax considerations from decisions regarding the location of investment.'' The revenue raised from the repeal of deferral and closing corporate loopholes would be used to repeal the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent. The tax differential between U. S. corporate rates and foreign corporate rates has grown over the last two decades and the repeal of the top corporate rate is a start in narrowing this gap. The Export Products Not Jobs Act of 2006 would promote equity among U.S. taxpayers by ensuring that corporations could not eliminate or substantially reduce taxation of foreign income by separately incorporating their foreign operations. This legislation will eliminate the tax incentives to encourage U.S. companies to invest abroad and reward those companies that have chosen to invest in the United States. I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort, and ask for unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today as ranking Democrat on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, in support of a bipartisan bill being reported out of our committee, the Small Business Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2006. This bill, which originated in our committee and which is the product of many Senators' work, was voted out unanimously, 18 to 0. While there are no official cosponsors of the legislation because it is an original bill being reported out of committee, I would have been pleased to be added as an original cosponsor, and Senators Landrieu, Cantwell, Lieberman and Vitter also asked to be added as cosponsors. I would like to thank my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, for making this a bipartisan process. This is the fourth Small Business reauthorization bill I have worked on, having been a member of the committee for 21 years. Our committee has the reputation for working across party lines to put what is important for small businesses first, and I appreciate that the Chair and her staff have worked with us on reauthorization with that goal in mind. The result is a comprehensive approach to reauthorizing the SBA for the next 3 years that includes not Republican or Democratic priorities but instead the priorities of America's small businesses. This reauthorization could not have came at a more opportune time to tackle some of the issues that are eating away at our small business programs and at the core mission of the SBA--which is to foster small business growth and bridge the gaps left by the private sector. One of the most important things we are here to do today is to address the shortcomings and failures of the SBA's disaster loan program. Nearly a year has passed since Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma battered the gulf coast, and in that year I have visited New Orleans on three occasions. I can tell you that many of the streets are still covered in debris, and that many of the region's small businesses are barely keeping their doors open. The SBA needs to be prepared to handle an emergency of this magnitude. Thanks in large part to the hard work of Senator Landrieu and her dedicated staff, this bill provides the tools to respond swiftly and effectively following future large scale disasters. Through federally guaranteed bridge loans, States can offer small businesses short-term access to capital so that they can remain open while they wait for other sources of assistance to come through. We provide the President with the authority to declare a new category of disaster--a catastrophic national disaster--which triggers nationwide economic injury disaster loans for businesses located outside the immediate geographic disaster area. And we improve the way SBA and FEMA coordinate disaster assistance. A greater importance needs to be placed on serving the victims, by making the process of applying for and receiving Federal assistance as painless and user friendly as possible. That is why we give the SBA the authority to work with private lenders to get disaster loans out quickly--an idea that members of our committee tried to get SBA to embrace last year. This will only work if we can ensure that these loans do not come at a high cost to disaster victims. We are hopeful that our approach will keep interest rates down. This bill also addresses the effects that the energy crisis is having on America's small businesses. Gas prices are once again approaching record highs, and for the small businesses that depend on fuel to put food on the table, rising prices mean more than having to decide whether or not to drive to work. Included in the bill is the bipartisan Small Business Energy Emergency Relief Act, a bill which has passed the Senate before, which provides low-interest loans to small businesses dependent on fuel. The loans are triggered when oil prices increase significantly over the average price from the previous two years. This proposal is complemented by Chair Snowe's 7(a) express loans for small businesses that are willing to invest in renewable energy solutions. In looking at our core programs, this bill makes a strong statement about the need for the SBA to fill the lending gap in our minority communities. It is unacceptable that since 2001, while numbers of 7(a) loans have gone up for African Americans, the actual dollars loaned have remained stagnant. In the Microloan program, African Americans received 28 percent of the total number of microloans made in 2001 as compared to only 21 percent of the total number of loans made in 2005. Native Americans went from 2 percent of the total number of microloans made in 2001 to less than 1 percent--a mere .93 percent--in 2005. If this trend continues--Native Americans alone will be completely cut out of the Microloan program. The stagnant lending in these communities represents a failure of this administration to expand access to capital to our underserved communities, communities where conventional lending is not meeting the need. The bill provides an incredible framework for the SBA to reverse this trend. It creates an Office of Minority Small Business Development at the SBA, similar to offices devoted to business development of veterans and women and rural areas, and, it creates a grant program to develop a cross campus curriculum at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions to encourage minority students in a wide range of fields to consider entrepreneurship. There is much to be done to bridge the wealth gap in minority communities and this is one approach worth pursuing. Finally, the bill incorporates legislation from my colleague, Senator Johnson, to provide financial assistance to tribal governments, tribal colleges, Native Hawaiian organizations, and Alaska Native corporations to create Native American business centers. One of the keys to ensuring access to capital is making sure that SBA-backed financing remains affordable to the small business community. As we all know, the administration insisted on eliminating all funding for 7(a) loans and shifting the cost to borrowers and lenders by imposing higher fees. The President's budget reveals that borrowers and lenders already pay too much in fees, generating more than $800 million in overpayments since 1992 because the government routinely overestimates the amount of fees needed to cover the cost of the program. This bill seeks to address overpayments by requiring the SBA to lower fees if borrowers and lenders pay more than is necessary to cover the program costs or if the Congress appropriates money for the program. The bill also reauthorizes the PRIME program through 2009 and includes a provision that Senator Bingaman and I worked closely to develop that will expand PRIME with a separate $2 million authorization to provide technical assistance and counseling to disadvantaged Native American small business owners. The bill also includes technical yet important changes in the Microloan program such as making loans to persons with disabilities as one of the statutorily enumerated ``purposes'' of the Microloan program and changing the average smaller loan size in the Microloan program from $7,500 to $10,000. In reauthorizing one of our other core programs, SBA's 504 loan program, I am pleased that we were able to come up with a bipartisan approach to preserving the local economic development focus of the program. The ability of our certified development companies, CDCs, to expand operations into multiple States, in conjunction with the growing demand for 504 loans, required that we put in place accountability measures. The 504 program was not created for CDCs to expand operations and simply create revenue from one state to another. CDCs are more than lenders and should not act like for- profit banks. This bill allows CDC board members to serve on another CDC board, but institutes safeguards to prevent control of multiple boards. The bill also incorporates legislation I have introduced to create a Child Care Lending Pilot Program to expand the availability of affordable, quality childcare in this country by using the 504 loan program to spur the establishment and expansion of childcare providers. Right now only for-profit childcare businesses are eligible for 504 loans, yet in some States a majority of affordable childcare is delivered through nonprofit providers and in the neediest communities nonprofits are often the only provider. I am pleased that our bill reauthorizes the Women's Business Centers and makes permanent the Women's Business Center Sustainability Pilot Program through the creation of 3-year ``renewal'' grants for centers with sustainability grants, and 4-year ``initial'' grants for new centers across the country. We should not be abandoning our existing centers--many of which leverage Federal dollars to do excellent work in our communities--to run and create new ones. Senator Snowe and I have been fighting for this for a long time, since I first introduced legislation in 1999: It is time we get this adopted. Our bill also reauthorizes Small Business Development Centers and builds on this excellent resource by creating a pilot program to provide regulatory assistance to small businesses, in addition to the role SBDCs play in the minority entrepreneurship initiative. One area of our bill which does not deal with reauthorizing SBA programs is just as critical to small businesses--Federal contracting. Earlier this month, we heard the new SBA inspector general Eric Thorson testify about the largest impediments to small businesses receiving their fair share of prime and subcontracting opportunities. He explained how many of the problems in applying and enforcing small business contracting statutes are simply due to contracting officer error. Contracting officers do not know or do not care about small business requirements, and small businesses suffer the consequences. This bill seeks to do something about the disregard that is shown to small businesses with respect to federal procurement policy. Procurement center representatives, or PCRs, are responsible for advocating on behalf of small businesses in cases affecting Federal contracting, such as the bundling or consolidation of contracts. Unfortunately, there are not enough of them to effectively get the job done. By requiring the SBA to assign no fewer than one PCR per major procurement center, this bill takes steps to limit the incidence of contractor error referred to by Mr. Thorson. We can no longer tolerate the level of neglect that is currently the norm. It is time for the SBA to staff up and fulfill its responsibility as a watchdog for small businesses. In addition to mandating adequate staffing levels, this bill takes many significant steps to enforce subcontracting and bundling laws already on the books. Firms bidding for small business contracts are required to certify annually as small businesses so we do not have large businesses taking small business contracts, and large prime contractors are required to certify that subcontracting goals will be met. If subcontractors are not paid on a timely basis, Federal agencies are permitted to withhold payments and to pay subcontractors directly. We must stop fraudulent misrepresentation by large firms, and require the administration to start looking out for the interests of small firms that want to do business with the Federal Government. The time has also come to implement the women's procurement program. The administration has postponed implementing a women's procurement program that became law 6 years ago. This bill tells SBA to get it done within 90 days. It also makes clear that America's service disabled veteran small businesses deserve the same advantages as other subgroups with respect to sole source contracting. Our veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and we owe it to them to give them every opportunity at fulfilling the dream of entrepreneurship. Another program sorely needing our attention: The 8(a) program was created to assist socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses, but the financial threshold for inclusion in the program is out dated and too restrictive. This bill allows for an inflationary adjustment to be made so that businesses that belong in this program aren't being shut out. Finally, let me say a few words about SBIR, the Small Business Innovation Research Program. The Small Business Committee had a hearing on SBIR earlier this month, and at that time, I made clear my concern that we were being premature in going ahead with reauthorizing SBIR when the program's authorization doesn't expire until 2008. There is a $5 million National Academy of Sciences study due to come out at the end of this year that I am certain will give us much to consider. Yet, this bill does reauthorize SBIR, making it permanent, and it includes some strong provisions to protect SBIR companies' intellectual property and to reign in excessively large awards--which are a particular problem at NIH. While SBIR Phase IIs are supposed to be $750,000, NIH Phase II are often larger. One Phase II award reportedly equalled $6 million. While the firms getting these large awards may be doing important work, we need to keep in mind that if one firm receives $6 million, there are many firms that are not getting Phase IIs at all. That is why I am glad that we have adopted Senator Bayh's proposal to increase the overall share of SBIR funds from 2.5 percent to 5 percent of Federal research budgets, so that more small businesses will have a chance to compete in this program. I also support several provisions in the bill to encourage commercialization, one of the biggest challenges facing the program. There is one provision in this bill that was added during our committee markup which concerns me, a provision which gives Federal agencies the option to direct 25 percent of SBIR funds to firms which are majority backed by venture capital investment. The firms which will benefit from this provision are primarily biotechnology firms and no one disagrees that they are doing critical work and should receive Federal support. I am committed to finding a way to help biotechnology firms but I am concerned that this set-aside may crowd out small firms that are not blessed with venture capital. SBIR is the only Federal research and development program devoted to small business and it has been universally praised for fostering innovative technologies and lifesaving therapies and medical devices that may never attract the support of venture capital firms. SBIR serves as seed funding for the companies that are willing to take on these research and development projects. It is important to retain the integrity of this program, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to find a way to strike a balance so that we can continue to support cutting edge research that is at so early a stage it has yet to attract the private sector. Mr. President, before I close, I want to note that while this bill is truly bipartisan, so was our last reauthorization bill back in 2003, S. 1375. However, the reauthorization bill that was finally adopted back in 2004, was a notably partisan product, attached to an omnibus appropriations bill, with almost all Democratic provisions dropped. I urge the Senate to maintain today's spirit of bipartisanship as we move forward, so that the final reauthorization bill truly reflects all of our efforts.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I was unfortunately not present to vote on final passage of S. 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006. I would like the Record to reflect that had I been present, I would have voted no on both the July 31 vote on the motion to invoke cloture as well as today's vote on final passage of the bill. This legislation not only fails to address our energy problems, it raids the Federal Treasury and threatens our coastal economies and ecosystems. Opening more of our coastlines to drilling is clearly not the answer to our energy problems, especially given that 80 percent of offshore oil and gas resources are already open to drilling, and oil companies currently hold more than 4,000 untapped leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of despoiling our shores and perpetuating our dependence on oil, I believe Congress should pursue more environmentally friendly solutions, including investments in efficiency, biofuels, and increased use of renewable energy such as wind and solar power. Unfortunately, rather than using American ingenuity to advance a new energy future that benefits both the economy and the environment, S. 3711 continues to promote failed policies of the past. It opens 8 million acres of Florida's gulf coast waters to offshore drilling rigs, including more than 6 million acres that are currently protected by the bipartisan moratorium on offshore drilling that has been in place for 25 years. S. 3711 also diverts tens of billions of dollars in offshore drilling revenues from the Federal Treasury and gives the money to just four States. Furthermore, passing S. 3711 paves the way for a conference with H.R. 4761, the even more harmful House-passed bill that lifts the moratorium on all offshore drilling, including my home State, Massachusetts. For our coasts, our environment, and our economy, I oppose S. 3711, and instead support real solutions to our energy problems.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate considered legislation that proponents claim will reduce the number of abortions. But in reality everyone knows this legislation will do little to lower the number of abortions, and it will do even less to protect the role of parents in our society. In a move that is all too typical of the coarsening partisanship of this city and of this Congress, instead of bringing before the Senate legislation that could actually reduce the number of abortions, the Senate Republican leader decided to just check another on the Republican ``To Do'' list before election day this November. It is sad that the Senate has missed this opportunity to enact legislation to reduce teen pregnancy. Every Senator agrees that we should do more to reduce incidences of teen pregnancy. And yet the bill debated in the Senate today is little more than a political stunt that will do little to reduce the number of abortions. This is not the first time we have faced legislation like this which reflects a political calculus, not a policy consideration. In 1998, just prior to that year's election, the Republican leadership brought forward a similar bill. I opposed that legislation as well, as it failed to take meaningful steps towards reducing abortions and because it threatened to endanger victims of rape, incest, or abusive family situations. If the Senate Republican leadership were really serious about reducing the number of abortions among young women, they'd get serious about efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Research shows that reducing unintended pregnancies significantly reduces the rate of abortion. And the good news is that we know what works to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. In fact, the amendment offered by Senators Lautenberg and Menendez earlier today, which I cosponsored, would take meaningful steps to reduce teen pregnancy. Communities need to provide education for our children so they understand the serious consequences of their decisions; we need to support effective, existing after-school programs that provide academic enrichment for at-risk kids; and we need to invest in new efforts to help reduce teen pregnancy. If the Senate leadership were really serious about reducing the number of abortions, they would get serious about providing support for foster care and adoption. Instead, last year this Congress limited the number of children eligible for foster care and reduced funding for state foster care systems. What kind of family values does that represent? If the Senate leadership were really serious about reducing the number of abortions, we would address the problems that working families face in raising their children. We would increase the minimum wage and extend the earned income tax credit so that the decision whether to have an abortion is not based on whether there is enough money to support the child. This is where we should be focusing our energy--on providing families with the tools they need to raise a family; on providing mothers with the care they need to carry out their pregnancies, and on educating our teens about the consequences of their actions. But then again, the Child Custody Protection Act isn't intended to reduce teen pregnancies. In fact, it accomplishes very little except to risk taking a very young victim of rape or incest--a victim of an abusive family situation--someone who is just plain scared--and putting someone they turn to at risk of criminal prosecution, jail time and fines if they decide to help a minor with one of the most painful decisions a person could be asked to make. It targets the most vulnerable minors-- those needing the most help because of poor family relations or even serious abuse--and makes it more difficult for them to receive critical advice and support. Is it right to punish a victim of incest by forcing her to get consent from the very person who impregnated her? What rational person wouldn't agree that she has been victimized enough already? Is it really smart, or fair, or right to punish and remove the caring adult who a young woman in this situation is relying on to get her through such an ordeal? Is it right to consider sending a grandparent, a clergy member, a doctor, or a counselor to prison if a terrified young woman has nowhere else to turn? This discussion isn't about most families. If one of my daughters were in a terrible situation, I believe they could and would turn to me or to their late mother. I know they could. I think every one of us in the Senate know our children would turn to us in a time of desperation. That is how we raised our kids. Ideally all young women facing an unplanned pregnancy will turn to their parents for guidance when faced with this kind of decision. And in most cases they do. In fact, one study found that the overwhelming majority of parents in states without mandatory parental involvement laws knew of their child's pregnancy. But 30 percent of young women who did not tell their parents about their decision did so out of fear of violence in the family or fear of being forced to leave home. What does that tell you about these situations? It tells you this bill does not address the real-life tragic situations in which awful decisions are being made. This bill is not the way we should be addressing the problem of unwanted pregnancies. We should not be criminalizing grandparents or clergy or doctors who try to help young women in horrible situations. We should not be criminalizing that small percentage of people willing to accompany a minor-in-need to obtain an otherwise legal abortion. Here's the bottom line: If this bill had simply made exceptions for young women in abusive situations--like rape, or incest--and ensured that children who were endangered if they turned to their parents would have a responsible, caring adult to turn to, I would have voted for it. And I guarantee so would all of my colleagues. Mr. President, 100 to 0, that's the kind of statement we could have made--but that kind of unity was sacrificed on the altar of Republican wedge-issue politics. Of course, parents should be fully involved in all decisions regarding their children, but refusing to take into account possible family dysfunction, including abuse or incest, would be both unconstitutional and unacceptable. It would be dangerous. It would be anything but pro-life. Not every child is lucky enough to have a supportive family, and I can't imagine that any person would fail to understand that it just doesn't make sense for a 16-year-old who has been raped or abused by a parent to get consent from that abuser. There must be a way to bring a supportive and nurturing adult into that difficult decision. This bill forecloses that possibility.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 10 minutes and, following me, Senator Boxer be permitted to proceed for 15 minutes, and following her, Senator Schumer for 5 minutes.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for his discussion of an important way of having accountability in voting. I must say that I saw how that works out in Oregon. It works well. It works brilliantly, as a matter of fact. People have a lot of time to be able to vote. They don't have to struggle with work issues or being sick or other things. They have plenty of time to be able to have the kind of transparency and accountability that makes the system work. There are other States where you are allowed to start voting early--in New Mexico and elsewhere. It is amazing that in the United States we have this patchwork of the way our citizens work in Federal elections. It is different almost everywhere. I had the privilege of giving the graduation address this year at Kenyan College in Ohio, and there the kids at Kenyan College wound up being the last people to vote in America in the Presidential race in 2004 in Gambier, at 4:30 in the morning. We had to go to court to get permission for them to keep the polls open so they could vote at 4:30 in the morning. Why did it take until 4:30 in the morning for people to be able to vote? They didn't have enough voting machines in America. These people were lined up not just there but in all of Ohio and in other parts of the country. An honest appraisal requires one to point out that where there were Republican secretaries of state, the lines were invariably longer in Democratic precincts, sometimes with as many as one machine only in the Democratic precinct and several in the Republican precinct; so it would take 5 or 10 minutes for someone of the other party to be able to vote, and it would take literally hours for the people in the longer lines. If that is not a form of intimidation and suppression, I don't know what is. So I thank the Senator from Oregon for talking about the larger issue here. He is absolutely correct. The example of his State is one that the rest of the country ought to take serious and think seriously about embracing. This is part of a larger issue, obviously, Mr. President. All over the world, our country has always stood out as the great exporter of democratic values. In the years that I have been privileged to serve in the Senate, I have had some extraordinary opportunities to see that happen in a firsthand way. Back in 1986, I was part of a delegation that went to the Philippines. We took part in the peaceful revolution that took place at the ballot box when the dictator, President Marcos, was kicked out and ``Cory'' Aquino became President. I will never forget flying in on a helicopter to the island of Mindanao and landing where some people have literally not seen a helicopter before, and 5,000 people would surround it as you swooped out of the sky, to go to a polling place where the entire community turned out waiting in the hot sun in long lines to have their thumbs stamped in ink and to walk out having exercised their right to vote. I could not help but think how much more energy and commitment people were showing for the privilege of voting in this far-off place than a lot of Americans show on too many occasions. The fact is that in South Africa we fought for years--we did--through the boycotts and other efforts, in order to break the back of apartheid and empower all citizens to vote. Most recently, obviously, in Afghanistan and Iraq, notwithstanding the disagreement of many of us about the management of the war and the evidence and other issues that we have all debated here. This has never been debated about the desire for democracy and the thrill that everyone in the Senate felt in watching citizens be able to exercise those rights. In the Ukraine, the world turned to the United States to monitor elections and ensure that the right to vote was protected. All of us have been proud of what President Carter has done in traveling the world to guarantee that fair elections take place. But the truth is, all of our attempts to spread freedom around the world will be hollow and lose impact over the years in the future if we don't deliver at home. The fact is that we are having this debate today in the Senate about the bedrock right to vote, with the understanding that this is not a right that was afforded to everyone in our country automatically or at the very beginning. For a long time, a century or more, women were not allowed to vote in America. We all know the record with respect to African Americans. The fact is that the right to vote in our country was earned in blood in many cases and in civic sweat in a whole bunch of cases. Courageous citizens literally risked their lives. I remember in the course of the campaign 2 years ago, traveling to Alabama-- Montgomery--and visiting the Southern Poverty Law Center, the memorial to Martin Luther King, and the fountain. There is a round stone fountain with water spilling out over the sides. From the center of the fountain there is a compass rose coming back and it marks the full circle. At the end of every one of those lines is the name of an American with the description, ``killed trying to register to vote,'' or ``murdered trying to register.'' Time after time, that entire compass rose is filled with people who lost their lives in order to exercise a fundamental right in our country. None of us will forget the courage of people who marched and faced Bull Connor's police dogs and faced the threat of lynchings, some being dragged out of their homes in the dark of night to be hung. The fact is that we are having this debate today because their work and that effort is not over yet. Too many Americans in too many parts of our country still face serious obstacles when they are trying to vote in our own country. By reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, we are taking an important step, but, Mr. President, it is only a step. Nobody should pretend that reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act solves the problems of being able to vote in our own country. It doesn't. In recent elections, we have seen too many times how outcomes change when votes that have been cast are not counted or when voters themselves are prevented from voting or intimidated from even registering or when they register, as we found in a couple of States, their registration forms are put in the wastebasket instead of into the computers. This has to end. Every eligible voter in the United States ought to be able to cast his or her ballot without fear, without intimidation, and with the knowledge that their voice will be heard. These are the foundations of our democracy, and we have to pay more attention to it. For a lot of folks in the Congress, this is a very personal fight. Some of our colleagues in the House and Senate were here when this fight first took place or they took part in this fight out in the streets. Without the courage of someone such as Congressman John Lewis who almost lost his life marching across that bridge in Selma, whose actions are seared in our minds, who remembers what it was like to march to move a nation to a better place, who knows what it meant to put his life on the line for voting rights, this is personal. For somebody like my colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, who was here in the great fight on this Senate floor in 1965 when they broke the back of resistance, this is personal. We wouldn't even have this landmark legislation today if it weren't for their efforts to try to make certain that it passed. But despite the great strides we have taken since this bill was originally enacted, we have a lot of work to do. Mr. President, I ask for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, on this particular component of the bill, there is agreement. Republicans and Democrats can agree. I was really pleased that every attempt in the House of Representatives to weaken the Voting Rights Act was rejected. We need to reauthorize these three critical components especially: The section 5 preclearance provisions that get the Justice Department to oversee an area that has a historical pattern of discrimination that they can't change how people vote without clearance. That seems reasonable. There are bilingual assistance requirements. Why? Because people need it and it makes sense. They are American citizens, but they still may have difficulties in understanding the ballot, and we ought to provide that assistance so they have a fully informed vote. This is supposed to be an informed democracy, a democracy based on the real consent of the American people. And finally, authorization for poll watching. Regrettably, we have seen in place after place in America why we need to have poll watching. A simple question could be asked: Where would the citizens of Georgia be, particularly low-income and minority citizens, if they were required to produce a government-issued identification or pay $20 every 5 years in order to vote? That is what would have happened without section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Georgia would have successfully imposed what the judge in the case called ``a Jim Crow-era like poll tax.'' I don't think anybody here wants to go back and flirt with the possibility of returning to a time when States charged people money to exercise their right to vote. That is not our America. This morning, President Bush addressed the 97th Annual Convention of the NAACP after a 5-year absence. I am pleased that the President, as we all are, ended his boycott of the NAACP and announced his intention to sign the Voting Rights Act into law. But we need to complete the job. There are too many stories all across this country of people who say they registered duly, they reported to vote, and they were made to stand in one line or another line and get an excuse why, when they get to the end of the line, they can't vote. So they take out a provisional ballot, and then there are fights over provisional ballots. There are ways for us to avoid that. Some States allow same-day registration. In some parts of America, you can just walk up the day of an election, register, and vote, as long as you can prove your residence. We have this incredible patchwork of laws and rules, and in the process, it is even more confusing for Americans. We need to fully fund the Help America Vote Act so that we have the machines in place, so that people are informed, so that there is no one in America who waits an undue amount of time in order to be able to cast a vote. We have to pass the Count Every Vote Act that Senator Clinton, Senator Boxer, and I have introduced which ensures exactly what the Senator from Oregon was talking about: that every voter in America has a verifiable paper trail for their vote. How can we have a system where you can touch a screen and even after you touch the name of one candidate on the screen, the other candidate's name comes up, and if you are not attentive to what you have done and you just go in, touch the screen, push ``select,'' you voted for someone else and didn't intend to? How can we have a system like that? How can we have a system where the voting machines are proprietary to a private business so that the public sector has no way of verifying what the computer code is and whether or not it is accountable and fair? Just accounting for it. Congress has to ensure that every vote cast in America is counted, that every precinct in America has a fair distribution of voting machines, that voter suppression and intimidation are un-American and must cease. We had examples in the last election of people who were sent notices--obviously fake, but they were sent them and they confused them enough. They were told that if you have an outstanding parking ticket, you can't vote. They were told: Democrats vote on Wednesday and Republicans vote on Tuesday and various different things. It is important for us to guarantee that in the United States of America, this right that was fought for so hard through so much of the difficult history of our country, we finally make real the full measure of that right. I yield the floor. I thank the Chair and I thank my colleague for her forbearance.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which will help prevent the child exploitation by, among other things, creating a national system for the registration of sex offenders. Included in this legislation is a very important provision that I authored with Senator Isakson called Masha's Law. Masha's Law is named after a very brave 13-year-old girl-- a Russian orphan who was adopted by a Pennsylvania man at the age of 5 and sexually exploited from the moment she was placed in his care. Masha suffered unspeakable atrocities in the hands of her abusive father, a man with a history of child exploitation. She continues to suffer as photographs of this abuse, taken by her father and posted on the Internet, are downloaded every day. Yet Masha does not cower in fear. She is taking a stand. She is using her experiences to demonstrate why the law must change. And it is because of her that we are now closing unacceptable loopholes in our child exploitation laws. Masha's photographs are among the most commonly downloaded images of child pornography. Law enforcement estimates that 80 percent of child pornography collections contain at least one of her photographs. In fact, it was the high volume of images being distributed by this one individual that raised suspicions and led law enforcement officials to the home of Masha's adopted father. While he is currently in jail accused of sexual abuse and facing Federal charges, the damage to Masha continues every day as her pictures continue to be downloaded. Masha has sought compensation through a little used provision in the Child Abuse Victims' Rights Act of 1986 that provides statutory damages for the victims of sexual exploitation. Nothing will ever compensate Masha for the horrific experiences she has had, but the penalties provided in current law are embarrassingly low--they are one-third of the penalty for downloading music illegally. According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, child pornography has become a multibillion dollar Internet business. With the increasingly sophisticated technology of digital media, child pornography has become easier to produce, transfer, and purchase. We are not doing enough to deter those who post and download child pornography. Masha's Law would do two things; first it would increase the civil statutory damages available to a victim of child exploitation; and second, it would ensure that victims of child pornography whose images remain in circulation after they have turned 18 can still recover when those images are downloaded. The injuries do not cease to exist simply because the victim has turned 18. They continue and so should the penalties. These changes are long overdue. I am proud that the Senate has passed this important legislation, and I am grateful to Masha for having the courage to stand up and make her voice heard.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am joined today by my colleagues Senators Snowe, Akaka, and Talent to introduce the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006. This legislation is the product of lengthy bipartisan discussions about how we might be able to restore and revitalize the mission of The Veterans Corporation. Established in 1999 through Public Law 106-50, The National Veterans Business Development Corporation, commonly known as The Veterans Corporation, TVC, is charged with the task of assisting the men and women who have served this country in the military by helping them create and expand their own businesses. There are over 5 million veteran entrepreneurs across the country--over 550,000 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts alone--and approximately 200,000 veterans are expected to retire in 2006. Additionally, 2004 data from the Small Business Administration, SBA, shows that approximately 22 percent of veterans in the U.S. household population purchased or started a new business, or were considering doing so. This legislation ensures that necessary steps are taken to continue fostering entrepreneurship and business ownership among a veterans population that can clearly benefit from such assistance nationwide. My distinguished colleagues and I feel that TVC is an organization worth reinvigorating. In fiscal year 2005, TVC reached out to over 18,000 current and potential veteran entrepreneurs, and opened three Veteran Business Resource Centers in Boston, MA; Flint, MI; and San Diego, CA, in addition to the flagship location in St. Louis, MO. In my home State of Massachusetts, TVC has close to 100 business owners and over 400 registered members. Yet, in recent years, TVC has come under criticism for its overall performance. Many within the veterans community, and indeed some of my colleagues in Congress, do not believe TVC has produced results that warrant the millions of dollars in funding the organization has received. I understand this sentiment, and share in the desire to ensure taxpayer dollars are well-spent. This was among my primary concerns as we approached reauthorizing TVC. However, my colleagues and I came to the conclusion that by reauthorizing the organization, Congress could ensure greater oversight and accountability on the part of TVC and its use of Federal dollars--ultimately resulting in better service for our veterans. This is exactly what the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006 aims to do. This legislation builds on the preexisting TVC program in order to expand its reach nationwide, so that more veterans can have the tools they need to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations. Through a series of provisions that target the weaknesses of TVC and develop sound policies to strengthen them and clarify the organization's mission within the veterans community it serves, this bill makes several key improvements to the corporation. In its inception, we envisioned that TVC would establish centers across the country to help assist veteran entrepreneurs with their small business needs. Unfortunately, the organization has shifted its primary focus toward the development of online programs in recent years. Although it is a good thing that TVC has four centers across the country, clearly more needs to be done to build upon these and develop a substantial number of new centers and networking opportunities for veterans nationwide. That is why this bill clarifies the role TVC should have in local communities. In rewriting the purpose of TVC in this capacity, our legislation explicitly states that the organization should be actively working to form more centers in order to build and create a national network linking veterans to the information, counseling, and assistance they need in starting and maintaining their businesses. A recurring frustration that echoes from many veterans nationwide is that they are often unable to gain access to the Federal contracting and procurement realm. It is downright shameful that so many servicemen and women feel as though a government they fought so hard to protect all but abandons them--continuing to award myriad contracts to big businesses. By law, the Federal Government has a 3-percent contracting goal for service-disabled veterans. However, in 2004 only 0.38 percent of government contracts were awarded to service-disabled veterans. Patterns such as this are all too common--replaying themselves year in and year out. Clearly, more ought to be done to help those veterans who are looking to gain access to Federal contracts. Given this, our legislation directs TVC to assist veterans, particularly service- disabled veterans, with Federal contracting opportunities. We received numerous complaints from veterans about the way the administration has chosen to interpret the current law such that it severely limits Congress's role in appointing board members. In this, TVC had experienced significant staffing changes on its Board of Directors since 1999. Our legislation ensures that the President works with the chair and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and/or the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and their House counterparts, to appoint nine members of the board with 4-year terms. Additionally, our legislation dictates that in this nomination process, the President and Congress consult with veterans groups nationwide. Furthermore, the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006 stipulates that no more than five of the nine board members be from the same political party and that all have business experience, knowledge of veterans issues, as well as the wherewithal to raise private funds for TVC. I firmly believe that this provision will ensure that TVC has top-notch board members, who can offer the best service to those who have already served our country. This legislation authorizes $2 million in Federal funds annually from fiscal years 2007 through 2009. Additionally, because TVC was originally to become a self-sustaining entity, our bill requires that for all Federal dollars received, the organization match those dollar amounts with private funds. Since its authorization expired in 2004, TVC's original matching requirement vanished, and the organization instead received Federal funding without any private fundraising requirement. We felt that this matching requirement needed to be reinstated to better enable TVC to become fully self-sustaining. Thus, our legislation forces TVC to function in a way similar to the SBA's Women's Business Centers and Small Business Development Centers. The leveraging of Federal dollars enables TVC to expand its donor base so that it can achieve the goal of self-sustainability. Additionally, it has come to our attention through conversations with the veterans community, that servicemen and women are being charged high fees for using TVC services. That was never the intention when this program was conceptualized, and it is wrong for TVC to earn its private funds on the backs of veterans. We fix that in this bill by limiting the amount of non-Federal funds that TVC can raise in the form of fees to veterans to no more than 33 percent of the organization's total revenue. In addition to the matching-fund requirement within our bill, it also requires that TVC develop a comprehensive plan for privatization within 6 months of the enactment of the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006. To ensure that TVC is in full compliance with the provisions in our bill, and that its self-sustaining plan demonstrates a certain degree of feasibility, we have asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the organization no later than one year after date of enactment. Finally, this bill extends the SBA's Veterans Advisory Committee, which the administration planned on terminating as of this year. Originally established through Public Law 106-50, this committee was to advise and counsel the SBA Administrator and the agency's Associate Administrator for Veterans' Business Development on the entrepreneurial needs and concerns of veteran small business owners and to monitor public and private plans that have the potential to impact veteran entrepreneurs from obtaining capital, credit, and to access markets. Additionally, it was to roll into TVC by September 30, 2004. However, when this date came around, it was clear that TVC was in no position to take on more responsibilities. Thus, Congress reauthorized the Veterans Advisory Committee and postponed the transfer date until this year. As the deadline closes in, we thought it best to reauthorize Veterans Advisory Committee and again postpone the transfer. America's veterans and service-disabled veteran communities deserve a resource to assist them in bringing their entrepreneurial ideas into fruition. Nationwide, more and more veterans are turning to small businesses as a means of carving out their piece of the American dream, despite the many barriers they face upon reentering civilian life. The strengthening and revitalization of TVC that this legislation proposes, is one way that Congress can help in this effort and ensure greater effectiveness and accountability within the organization in the years ahead. I urge my colleagues to join in support of this bipartisan Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006--because in helping TVC succeed, we are ultimately helping veterans succeed and prosper.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am joined today by my colleagues Senators Snowe, Akaka, and Talent to introduce the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006. This legislation is the product of lengthy bipartisan discussions about how we might be able to restore and revitalize the mission of The Veterans Corporation. Established in 1999 through Public Law 106-50, The National Veterans Business Development Corporation, commonly known as The Veterans Corporation, TVC, is charged with the task of assisting the men and women who have served this country in the military by helping them create and expand their own businesses. There are over 5 million veteran entrepreneurs across the country--over 550,000 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts alone--and approximately 200,000 veterans are expected to retire in 2006. Additionally, 2004 data from the Small Business Administration, SBA, shows that approximately 22 percent of veterans in the U.S. household population purchased or started a new business, or were considering doing so. This legislation ensures that necessary steps are taken to continue fostering entrepreneurship and business ownership among a veterans population that can clearly benefit from such assistance nationwide. My distinguished colleagues and I feel that TVC is an organization worth reinvigorating. In fiscal year 2005, TVC reached out to over 18,000 current and potential veteran entrepreneurs, and opened three Veteran Business Resource Centers in Boston, MA; Flint, MI; and San Diego, CA, in addition to the flagship location in St. Louis, MO. In my home State of Massachusetts, TVC has close to 100 business owners and over 400 registered members. Yet, in recent years, TVC has come under criticism for its overall performance. Many within the veterans community, and indeed some of my colleagues in Congress, do not believe TVC has produced results that warrant the millions of dollars in funding the organization has received. I understand this sentiment, and share in the desire to ensure taxpayer dollars are well-spent. This was among my primary concerns as we approached reauthorizing TVC. However, my colleagues and I came to the conclusion that by reauthorizing the organization, Congress could ensure greater oversight and accountability on the part of TVC and its use of Federal dollars--ultimately resulting in better service for our veterans. This is exactly what the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006 aims to do. This legislation builds on the preexisting TVC program in order to expand its reach nationwide, so that more veterans can have the tools they need to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations. Through a series of provisions that target the weaknesses of TVC and develop sound policies to strengthen them and clarify the organization's mission within the veterans community it serves, this bill makes several key improvements to the corporation. In its inception, we envisioned that TVC would establish centers across the country to help assist veteran entrepreneurs with their small business needs. Unfortunately, the organization has shifted its primary focus toward the development of online programs in recent years. Although it is a good thing that TVC has four centers across the country, clearly more needs to be done to build upon these and develop a substantial number of new centers and networking opportunities for veterans nationwide. That is why this bill clarifies the role TVC should have in local communities. In rewriting the purpose of TVC in this capacity, our legislation explicitly states that the organization should be actively working to form more centers in order to build and create a national network linking veterans to the information, counseling, and assistance they need in starting and maintaining their businesses. A recurring frustration that echoes from many veterans nationwide is that they are often unable to gain access to the Federal contracting and procurement realm. It is downright shameful that so many servicemen and women feel as though a government they fought so hard to protect all but abandons them--continuing to award myriad contracts to big businesses. By law, the Federal Government has a 3-percent contracting goal for service-disabled veterans. However, in 2004 only 0.38 percent of government contracts were awarded to service-disabled veterans. Patterns such as this are all too common--replaying themselves year in and year out. Clearly, more ought to be done to help those veterans who are looking to gain access to Federal contracts. Given this, our legislation directs TVC to assist veterans, particularly service- disabled veterans, with Federal contracting opportunities. We received numerous complaints from veterans about the way the administration has chosen to interpret the current law such that it severely limits Congress's role in appointing board members. In this, TVC had experienced significant staffing changes on its Board of Directors since 1999. Our legislation ensures that the President works with the chair and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and/or the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and their House counterparts, to appoint nine members of the board with 4-year terms. Additionally, our legislation dictates that in this nomination process, the President and Congress consult with veterans groups nationwide. Furthermore, the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006 stipulates that no more than five of the nine board members be from the same political party and that all have business experience, knowledge of veterans issues, as well as the wherewithal to raise private funds for TVC. I firmly believe that this provision will ensure that TVC has top-notch board members, who can offer the best service to those who have already served our country. This legislation authorizes $2 million in Federal funds annually from fiscal years 2007 through 2009. Additionally, because TVC was originally to become a self-sustaining entity, our bill requires that for all Federal dollars received, the organization match those dollar amounts with private funds. Since its authorization expired in 2004, TVC's original matching requirement vanished, and the organization instead received Federal funding without any private fundraising requirement. We felt that this matching requirement needed to be reinstated to better enable TVC to become fully self-sustaining. Thus, our legislation forces TVC to function in a way similar to the SBA's Women's Business Centers and Small Business Development Centers. The leveraging of Federal dollars enables TVC to expand its donor base so that it can achieve the goal of self-sustainability. Additionally, it has come to our attention through conversations with the veterans community, that servicemen and women are being charged high fees for using TVC services. That was never the intention when this program was conceptualized, and it is wrong for TVC to earn its private funds on the backs of veterans. We fix that in this bill by limiting the amount of non-Federal funds that TVC can raise in the form of fees to veterans to no more than 33 percent of the organization's total revenue. In addition to the matching-fund requirement within our bill, it also requires that TVC develop a comprehensive plan for privatization within 6 months of the enactment of the Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006. To ensure that TVC is in full compliance with the provisions in our bill, and that its self-sustaining plan demonstrates a certain degree of feasibility, we have asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the organization no later than one year after date of enactment. Finally, this bill extends the SBA's Veterans Advisory Committee, which the administration planned on terminating as of this year. Originally established through Public Law 106-50, this committee was to advise and counsel the SBA Administrator and the agency's Associate Administrator for Veterans' Business Development on the entrepreneurial needs and concerns of veteran small business owners and to monitor public and private plans that have the potential to impact veteran entrepreneurs from obtaining capital, credit, and to access markets. Additionally, it was to roll into TVC by September 30, 2004. However, when this date came around, it was clear that TVC was in no position to take on more responsibilities. Thus, Congress reauthorized the Veterans Advisory Committee and postponed the transfer date until this year. As the deadline closes in, we thought it best to reauthorize Veterans Advisory Committee and again postpone the transfer. America's veterans and service-disabled veteran communities deserve a resource to assist them in bringing their entrepreneurial ideas into fruition. Nationwide, more and more veterans are turning to small businesses as a means of carving out their piece of the American dream, despite the many barriers they face upon reentering civilian life. The strengthening and revitalization of TVC that this legislation proposes, is one way that Congress can help in this effort and ensure greater effectiveness and accountability within the organization in the years ahead. I urge my colleagues to join in support of this bipartisan Veterans Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2006--because in helping TVC succeed, we are ultimately helping veterans succeed and prosper.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin, for his long leadership on this and other issues of importance to research and to people with disabilities. For each of us, and for millions of Americans, this is a very personal issue. It is impossible to separate it from our own experiences. I have heard colleagues on the floor talking about grandparents and other members of their family and the experiences they have had. I will never forget, personally, almost 2 years ago standing in an amphitheater in Denver, talking to many people--many of them in wheelchairs, many who had lost loved ones to disease, many who knew a cure would never come in time for them--who held out hope, nevertheless, that stem cell research might save a loved one, might save someone else in similar circumstances. What they wanted, above all, was leadership. They wanted someone back in Washington to fight for them. I promised them that I would do all that I could, and I will never forget the look of yearning and hope in their eyes, the pleading, if you will, that people would come to a place of common sense. They placed enormous hope in all of us in the Congress. When I think about them and I think about people all over the country who are so personally invested in this issue, I am deeply troubled to see that today we find ourselves in a place of division, where we could have been united. We are divided principally by the promise of President Bush to veto a bipartisan bill that funds stem cell research. In more than 5 years, President Bush has not vetoed a single bill-- not one. He signed 1,129 bills into law, without raising his pen to veto one--not a bill that overspent, not a bill that moved in any other direction that he disagreed with. Now he wants to use the first veto of his Presidency to stomp on the hopes of millions of Americans suffering from devastating illnesses. A veto now would send a profound message to all Americans that, on crucial issues, our differences are greater than our shared convictions. It would also tell the world that America no longer wants to be the country that leads the world in scientific knowledge and discovery. The bipartisan legislation before Congress shows that Congress has found a way to take the politics out of the debate on stem cell research. It is time that the White House does the same. Our current policy is eroding America's national advantage on stem cell research. We are tying our scientists' hands. We are holding back our doctors. We need a policy that is not driven by a narrow view but, rather a broader, consensus-driven approach to life and to science itself. We need a Federal policy that builds on the advances being made in our States, in our universities, in our private foundations, and research centers. I believe that Senate passage of H.R. 810, with vetoproof majorities, can put us on that path. What a tragedy it would be if the first veto of the Bush Presidency were used as a political wedge. This is something that Washington and the rest of America overwhelmingly supports, regardless of political party. It is a promise that offers hope to millions and could put America on the path to leading the world in the discovery of cures. This is not a wedge issue. This is about common sense and about people's lives. For all of us, the issue of stem cell research is personal, as I mentioned. Yes, it does raise profound moral questions and nobody should skip by those questions. I am not seeking to. But I do believe that any legitimate examination of conscience and any legitimate examination of the moral questions about life that are at stake can be resolved in a way that respects life and that properly puts morality on the side of the decision we are making. When it comes to stem cell research--and all scientific research--we ought to demand no less than that kind of effort. I acknowledge, yes, there are those moral and ethical issues. But I believe the legislation that was passed by the House of Representatives with bipartisan support does provide strong ethical guidelines, strong ethical safeguards, and it limits what this research would do in a way that does respect those moral questions that are at issue. First of all, federally funded research with respect to embryos would only go to, or be limited to, those that are donated by in vitro fertilization clinics, so you don't create some new business or create some disrespectful effort that is outside the effort of reproduction and of life itself. Second, they would only be permissible when created specifically for fertility treatment--which is going to occur anyway, which does occur anyway--and which is in keeping with our efforts to respect life. In addition, we live in a situation today where those embryos that are created in the context of in vitro fertilization are either going to be used for the purpose of creating life or those numbers that are in excess are going to be discarded. That is the fact. That is what is going to happen. So this legislation limits the use of those embryos only that are donated by treatment-seeking individuals who provided written and informed consent and who were not offered financial inducements in order to do so. As the Los Angeles Times editorialized 2 years ago: The moral decision is between putting those few so-called embryos in the trash or using them to possibly bring back lost memory, keep people out of wheelchairs or free them from the life of insulin injections. It is not a simple decision, but it is also not a close call. Growing numbers of conservatives, from John McCain, Bill Frist, and Orrin Hatch to Nancy Reagan, have looked carefully at the scientific facts and searched their own consciences and arrived at the same conclusion: Opposing stem cell research, with the restrictions and the appropriate ethical guidelines that have been put in place, is the opposite of a pro-life policy. In the Senate and across the country, Americans are approaching an ethical consensus that bans human cloning while protecting stem cell research. The stakes could not be higher. More than 100 million Americans suffer from illnesses that one day might be cured with stem cell therapy. Stem cells could replace damaged heart cells or cells destroyed by cancer. They could offer a new lease on life to those with a diagnosis that once came as a death sentence. Research has the potential to slow the loss of a grandmother's memory, calm the hand of an uncle with Parkinson's, save a child from a lifetime of daily insulin shots or permanently lift a best friend or a colleague from a wheelchair. There is a young woman on the floor of the Senate who shares this hope. Her name is Beth Kolbe. She is a summer intern in my office, and she has followed the stem cell research debate very closely over the years and especially this week. Beth has spent the last 2 days watching the debate on the Senate floor, and her presence now is a silent, powerful reminder of what is at stake. At the age of 14, Beth was in a car accident and suffered a terrible spinal cord injury. In that instant, she was paralyzed from the chest down. After two neck surgeries, 2 weeks in intensive care, 2 months as an inpatient in a rehab hospital and 2 years as an outpatient in physical therapy, she is now living a very full life. She just told me that she is in the Paralympics as a swimmer, and she lives her life and loves her life as a junior at Harvard, studying biology and health care, navigating the campus in her wheelchair. But she told me also that it would be a lie to say that there are not challenges that she would like to have overcome. She wants more, not just for her but for others. Here is what she said: Since that day 6 years ago, my family and I have been following stem cell research because it can help so many people. I'm just one of the millions who can be helped. As a person in the disability community, I've met so many people whose main goal is just to get better, and stem cell research is their one opportunity to find a cure. I hope to be a face that the Senators can see, so that they can see what they are voting for. Beth is here because she wants to see the Senate vote for hope. Some of the most pioneering treatments and miraculous cures could be at our fingertips, right around the next corner, but because of politics they could remain beyond reach. Every day we wait, more than 3,000 Americans die from diseases that might someday be treatable because of the discoveries made through stem cell research. Americans have been presented with a false choice between the sanctity of human life and the scientific knowledge that can save it. The President's veto rests on the false assumption that we have to choose between our dreams and our principles. I believe we can have both and we can protect both. We can support our scientists, help the sick, and ensure that our legal and ethical boundaries continue to reflect our unshakable sense of human dignity and the value of human life. If we get votes from 72 out of 100 Senators--then we can send the President a vetoproof message. Stop tying our scientists' hands, put down your veto pen, stop being part of the problem and become a part of the solution. The American people believe in stem cell research for many of the same reasons as a remarkable woman I met at a town hall meeting on stem cell research. She stood up in the back of the room. I will never forget it. Her body was shaking. She was petrified, but her body was also shaking because of the disease she had. She pleaded, with tears, for her government to embrace stem cell research. It was the moral clarity of her message that will stay with me forever. Many Americans know a woman like her--maybe it's a grandparent with Alzheimer's or a friend in a wheelchair. ``It's too late for me,'' she said, ``but we need to do this for those who still have hope.'' It's too late for my and Tom Harkin's friend, Christopher Reeve, who passed away in 2004. But it's not too late for this President to change his mind before tying the hands of doctors, scientists, and ethicists with a preemptive veto. Chris would agree that it's not too late to give millions of Americans what they want most of all, which is hope. And in closing, I want to share one more story. It's from Lauren Stanford of Plymouth, MA. She is 14 years old and has suffered from juvenile diabetes for 9 years. She and her mother, Moira McCarthy, came down to Washington, DC each year as citizen lobbyists in support of stem cell research and finding a cure for diabetes. I want to read you a few passages from an essay she wrote as follows: For as long as I can remember, I've had to take a lot of leaps if faith. I've had to believe my parents when they told me taking four or five shots a day and pricking my finger eight or more times a day was just ``a new kind of normal.'' I've had to smile at the world and say I really don't mind wearing the insulin pump that's now connected to my body 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yes, in my nine years of life with Type 1 diabetes, I've learned to accept a lot of it is and the way it things as ``just the way it is and the way it has to be.'' But when I watched, with my parents, President Bush's decision on Stem Cell research in the summer of 2001--and his vows now to veto the bill--I just could not accept it. You see the one thing that has helped me accept all I've had to accept these years is the presence of hope. When I feel like I might just scream if I have to live another day fighting this endless disease, I think about all the researchers out there working to help me be cured. Now, it might seem corny to think of a teenage girl dreaming about researchers in labs, but that's what kids who have incurable diseases do. Stem cell research could mean I can go to college without a machine attached to my belly keeping me alive. It could mean I can have children just like anyone else; not with teams of doctors working with me daily just to make it happen. . . . It might mean my children won't even know what diabetes was. President Bush talks about protecting the innocent. I wonder, what about me? I am truly innocent in this situation. I did nothing to bring my diabetes on. . . . How, I ask my parents, is it more important to throw discarded embryos into the trash than it is to let them be used to hopefully save my life--and to give me back a life where I don't have to accept a constant, almost insane level of hourly medical intervention as ``normal?'' How could my nation do this to me? Her hopes are here today, and I hope the Senate will do the right thing.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, in 1999, President Clinton unveiled the New Markets Investment Initiative to counter an unmet challenge in the 21st century: building economically vibrant communities in underserved places such as inner cities and distressed rural areas, where there is a great need for jobs and economic development. The goal was to build a bridge between Wall Street and our untapped markets in Main Street America. In that same year, Senators Paul Wellstone, Jeff Bingaman, Paul Sarbanes, Carl Levin, Max Cleland, and I introduced the Community Development and Venture Capital Act to spearhead this innovative New Markets initiative in the Senate. In 2000, our New Markets initiative was enacted with bipartisan support in Congress as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001. The New Markets Venture Capital Program, NMVC, which specifically promotes the creation of wealth and job opportunities in low-income areas, was only one part of the initiative agreed to by Speaker Hastert and then-President Clinton. The other elements of that agreement included the New Markets Tax Credits, NMTC, additional empowerment zones, and a new program: Community Renewal Zones. The overall goal of the legislation was to provide a number of different approaches to alleviating poverty so that we could better understand what works best. With the exception of the NMVC Program, all of the other programs have moved forward. However, the NMVC Program has not been given the opportunity, the funding, or the support to reach its full potential as Congress intended. The NMVC Program has had many successes since its inception 5 years ago. CEI Community Ventures, Inc. from Maine--close to my home State of Massachusetts--has invested venture capital funds in Look's Gourmet Food Company, which manufactures and sells all-natural, high-quality, shelf-stable seafood products under the ``Bar Harbor T'' and ``Atlantic T'' brands. Another example can be found in Vermont, where Carolyn Cooke and Poppy Gall founded Juno Rising/Isis Women's Apparel, an outdoor clothing company targeting the needs of today's active women. Their products can be found in outdoor stores throughout the country. Today, I rise to introduce legislation that will not only reauthorize the New Markets Venture Capital Program for 3 years, but will provide critical components for success: providing appropriate funding authorization levels, expanding the NMVC program into all regions of the country, encouraging investment in small manufacturers, making the NMVC Program consistent with the NMTC as Congress intended, incorporating the operational assistance grant model from the Rural Business Investment Program, and establishing a long-overdue Office of New Markets Venture Capital. The legislation is a companion to H.R. 4303, introduced by Representatives Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Hal Rogers of Kentucky. While few differences exist between our bills, both send a clear legislative signal that there is strong bipartisan and bicameral support from Congress to reauthorize this program. Mr. President, this program has a history of strong bipartisan support. In fiscal year 2001, together we appropriated $150 million for debenture guarantees and $30 million in grant financing to support up to 15 NMVC companies. Unfortunately, only half of this money was obligated to support 6 NMVC companies, and the remaining funds were rescinded in the Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act Conference Report. Now today this program faces further challenges with the President's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request asking for no funding for the NMVC Program. This is the sixth year in a row the President has not backed this program, although Congress restored funding in 2002 and initially provided funding in 2003. The Small Business Administration's, SBA's, failure to obligate the remaining funds and the President's lack of support for funding the NMVC Program raises an important question: Has the challenge in the 21st century of improving local economies in low-income urban and rural communities been met? All evidence says no. A 2006 report on America's Children by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics stated that in 2004, 17 percent of children live in poverty--a total of 12.5 million. In addition, 42 percent of children with single mothers and one in three African-American children live in poverty. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in areas such as Flint, MI, where the NMVC has not yet had the time or resources to reach, the unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, well above the national average of 4.6 percent. Congress must use this reauthorization process as an opportunity to stimulate business activity in all communities and create jobs for low-income residents throughout the entire country. Prior to the creation of the NMVC Program, Congress attempted to fill this unmet need through various programs. In fact, Congress created the NMVC Program based on the SBA's Small Business Investment Company Program, SBIC. Since its beginning in 1958, the SBIC Program has provided approximately $46 billion of long-term debt and equity capital to more than 99,000 small U.S. companies. Although the SBIC Program has been popular, it does not sufficiently reach the underserved areas of our country that need economic development the most. The NMVC is targeted specifically to very low-income areas, including historically underutilized business zones--HUB Zones--and low-income rural and urban neighborhoods, which are overlooked by traditional venture capital investors. I do not have an NMVC Company in my State, and I am sure that many Sates, like Massachusetts, could benefit from the opportunities that the NMVC creates. To ensure that the NMVC Program expands into diverse areas around the country, the legislation encourages the SBA Administrator to establish not fewer than one company from each of the 10 geographic regions of the country. In addition to diversifying the geographic distribution of NMVC companies to our underserved communities, there is a great need to diversify the types of investments approved by the SBA, particularly in the area of manufacturing. According to a 2004 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the most recent recession in the business cycle hit U.S. manufacturers and their workers hardest--a downturn that first was felt in 2000. The manufacturing community lost 2.6 million jobs, accounting for all of the net job losses from the fourth quarter of 2000 through the third quarter of 2003. Much of the manufacturing sector continues to operate well below its previous peak and potential. For example, in places such as Milwaukee, where in 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 59 percent of working-age African-American males were either unemployed or out of the workforce. Milwaukee has also lost 33,000 manufacturing jobs in the past 5 years. We need to do all we can to bring back these lost manufacturing jobs, and the NMVC Program could play a role. Relying on the market to bring venture capital funding to Milwaukee and other manufacturing hubs is not the solution. According to a study by the University of Kansas, Milwaukee ranks 49th out of the 50 largest U.S. cities in terms of venture capital dollars. Imagine the difference that a venture capital investment could make in this area, creating one job for every $15,000 invested. As I mentioned previously, this legislation is a companion to the bipartisan legislation introduced by Representatives Moore and Rogers in the House. Both of our bills include small manufacturers in the mission of the program, by encouraging the SBA Administrator to select at least one NMVC company that is primarily involved in the investment and development of small manufacturing firms. Mr. President, the legislation also makes the NMVC Program and the NMTC consistent in defining low-income geographic areas. Both programs were designed to work together--the NMTC was intended to be a tool to encourage NMVC companies to raise private investment capital in low- income communities. Conforming their definitions will assure a smooth coordination between the two programs for future investors. The nexus between the NMVC Program and the NMTC is only one aspect that makes this program unique among all of the SBA's programs. Another unique aspect is the operational assistance grant program that fund managers can use to assist entrepreneurs in low-income communities to develop a business plan, manage employees, or market their products and services. These grants are an essential tool for fostering community development using venture capital firms because investors are able to reach out into communities not served by conventional investors. Many of the NMVC companies are also members of the surrounding community, therefore, they will have the local expertise and guidance for entrepreneurs to start and sustain a viable business. Some NMVC companies are having a difficult time meeting the SBA requirement that each company raise an upfront dollar-for-dollar match in order to obtain an operational assistance grant. To avoid this unnecessary burden, the legislation incorporates a provision modeled after the joint SBA/Department of Agriculture Rural Business Investment Program which does not require a match from the company and limits the amount of the grant. Mr. President, these improvements to the NMVC Program are important but they cannot be implemented without dedicated staff at the SBA. In October 2005, I wrote a letter to the SBA expressing my concern about the lack of staffing and resources devoted to the NMVC office within the SBA's Investment Division. The SBA informed me that staff members within the Office of SBIC Operations were getting cross-trained on the NMVC Program to ensure adequate staffing and provide ample support to meet the needs of the six NMVC companies currently assigned to the Office of New Markets Venture Capital within the SBIC Program. Reshuffling SBA staff to assist six companies is not sufficient. If this program grows to its originally intended potential of 15 companies, there needs to be staff dedicated solely to administering the NMVC Program. This legislation establishes an Office of New Markets Venture Capital within the Investment Division of the SBA, headed by a Director appointed by the SBA Administrator. The Director would be responsible for administering and encouraging investment in small manufacturing firms and working to expand the number of small businesses participating in the NMVC Program. This bill is urgently needed now to expand the good work of the NMVC Program, and I urge all of my colleagues to show their support for the small but growing number of businesses that promise both financial returns for their investors and social returns to low-income people and distressed regions in which they invest. This double bottom line distinguishes the NMVC Program from any other SBA program, and we cannot afford to let it expire.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, in 1999, President Clinton unveiled the New Markets Investment Initiative to counter an unmet challenge in the 21st century: building economically vibrant communities in underserved places such as inner cities and distressed rural areas, where there is a great need for jobs and economic development. The goal was to build a bridge between Wall Street and our untapped markets in Main Street America. In that same year, Senators Paul Wellstone, Jeff Bingaman, Paul Sarbanes, Carl Levin, Max Cleland, and I introduced the Community Development and Venture Capital Act to spearhead this innovative New Markets initiative in the Senate. In 2000, our New Markets initiative was enacted with bipartisan support in Congress as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2001. The New Markets Venture Capital Program, NMVC, which specifically promotes the creation of wealth and job opportunities in low-income areas, was only one part of the initiative agreed to by Speaker Hastert and then-President Clinton. The other elements of that agreement included the New Markets Tax Credits, NMTC, additional empowerment zones, and a new program: Community Renewal Zones. The overall goal of the legislation was to provide a number of different approaches to alleviating poverty so that we could better understand what works best. With the exception of the NMVC Program, all of the other programs have moved forward. However, the NMVC Program has not been given the opportunity, the funding, or the support to reach its full potential as Congress intended. The NMVC Program has had many successes since its inception 5 years ago. CEI Community Ventures, Inc. from Maine--close to my home State of Massachusetts--has invested venture capital funds in Look's Gourmet Food Company, which manufactures and sells all-natural, high-quality, shelf-stable seafood products under the ``Bar Harbor T'' and ``Atlantic T'' brands. Another example can be found in Vermont, where Carolyn Cooke and Poppy Gall founded Juno Rising/Isis Women's Apparel, an outdoor clothing company targeting the needs of today's active women. Their products can be found in outdoor stores throughout the country. Today, I rise to introduce legislation that will not only reauthorize the New Markets Venture Capital Program for 3 years, but will provide critical components for success: providing appropriate funding authorization levels, expanding the NMVC program into all regions of the country, encouraging investment in small manufacturers, making the NMVC Program consistent with the NMTC as Congress intended, incorporating the operational assistance grant model from the Rural Business Investment Program, and establishing a long-overdue Office of New Markets Venture Capital. The legislation is a companion to H.R. 4303, introduced by Representatives Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Hal Rogers of Kentucky. While few differences exist between our bills, both send a clear legislative signal that there is strong bipartisan and bicameral support from Congress to reauthorize this program. Mr. President, this program has a history of strong bipartisan support. In fiscal year 2001, together we appropriated $150 million for debenture guarantees and $30 million in grant financing to support up to 15 NMVC companies. Unfortunately, only half of this money was obligated to support 6 NMVC companies, and the remaining funds were rescinded in the Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act Conference Report. Now today this program faces further challenges with the President's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request asking for no funding for the NMVC Program. This is the sixth year in a row the President has not backed this program, although Congress restored funding in 2002 and initially provided funding in 2003. The Small Business Administration's, SBA's, failure to obligate the remaining funds and the President's lack of support for funding the NMVC Program raises an important question: Has the challenge in the 21st century of improving local economies in low-income urban and rural communities been met? All evidence says no. A 2006 report on America's Children by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics stated that in 2004, 17 percent of children live in poverty--a total of 12.5 million. In addition, 42 percent of children with single mothers and one in three African-American children live in poverty. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in areas such as Flint, MI, where the NMVC has not yet had the time or resources to reach, the unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, well above the national average of 4.6 percent. Congress must use this reauthorization process as an opportunity to stimulate business activity in all communities and create jobs for low-income residents throughout the entire country. Prior to the creation of the NMVC Program, Congress attempted to fill this unmet need through various programs. In fact, Congress created the NMVC Program based on the SBA's Small Business Investment Company Program, SBIC. Since its beginning in 1958, the SBIC Program has provided approximately $46 billion of long-term debt and equity capital to more than 99,000 small U.S. companies. Although the SBIC Program has been popular, it does not sufficiently reach the underserved areas of our country that need economic development the most. The NMVC is targeted specifically to very low-income areas, including historically underutilized business zones--HUB Zones--and low-income rural and urban neighborhoods, which are overlooked by traditional venture capital investors. I do not have an NMVC Company in my State, and I am sure that many Sates, like Massachusetts, could benefit from the opportunities that the NMVC creates. To ensure that the NMVC Program expands into diverse areas around the country, the legislation encourages the SBA Administrator to establish not fewer than one company from each of the 10 geographic regions of the country. In addition to diversifying the geographic distribution of NMVC companies to our underserved communities, there is a great need to diversify the types of investments approved by the SBA, particularly in the area of manufacturing. According to a 2004 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the most recent recession in the business cycle hit U.S. manufacturers and their workers hardest--a downturn that first was felt in 2000. The manufacturing community lost 2.6 million jobs, accounting for all of the net job losses from the fourth quarter of 2000 through the third quarter of 2003. Much of the manufacturing sector continues to operate well below its previous peak and potential. For example, in places such as Milwaukee, where in 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 59 percent of working-age African-American males were either unemployed or out of the workforce. Milwaukee has also lost 33,000 manufacturing jobs in the past 5 years. We need to do all we can to bring back these lost manufacturing jobs, and the NMVC Program could play a role. Relying on the market to bring venture capital funding to Milwaukee and other manufacturing hubs is not the solution. According to a study by the University of Kansas, Milwaukee ranks 49th out of the 50 largest U.S. cities in terms of venture capital dollars. Imagine the difference that a venture capital investment could make in this area, creating one job for every $15,000 invested. As I mentioned previously, this legislation is a companion to the bipartisan legislation introduced by Representatives Moore and Rogers in the House. Both of our bills include small manufacturers in the mission of the program, by encouraging the SBA Administrator to select at least one NMVC company that is primarily involved in the investment and development of small manufacturing firms. Mr. President, the legislation also makes the NMVC Program and the NMTC consistent in defining low-income geographic areas. Both programs were designed to work together--the NMTC was intended to be a tool to encourage NMVC companies to raise private investment capital in low- income communities. Conforming their definitions will assure a smooth coordination between the two programs for future investors. The nexus between the NMVC Program and the NMTC is only one aspect that makes this program unique among all of the SBA's programs. Another unique aspect is the operational assistance grant program that fund managers can use to assist entrepreneurs in low-income communities to develop a business plan, manage employees, or market their products and services. These grants are an essential tool for fostering community development using venture capital firms because investors are able to reach out into communities not served by conventional investors. Many of the NMVC companies are also members of the surrounding community, therefore, they will have the local expertise and guidance for entrepreneurs to start and sustain a viable business. Some NMVC companies are having a difficult time meeting the SBA requirement that each company raise an upfront dollar-for-dollar match in order to obtain an operational assistance grant. To avoid this unnecessary burden, the legislation incorporates a provision modeled after the joint SBA/Department of Agriculture Rural Business Investment Program which does not require a match from the company and limits the amount of the grant. Mr. President, these improvements to the NMVC Program are important but they cannot be implemented without dedicated staff at the SBA. In October 2005, I wrote a letter to the SBA expressing my concern about the lack of staffing and resources devoted to the NMVC office within the SBA's Investment Division. The SBA informed me that staff members within the Office of SBIC Operations were getting cross-trained on the NMVC Program to ensure adequate staffing and provide ample support to meet the needs of the six NMVC companies currently assigned to the Office of New Markets Venture Capital within the SBIC Program. Reshuffling SBA staff to assist six companies is not sufficient. If this program grows to its originally intended potential of 15 companies, there needs to be staff dedicated solely to administering the NMVC Program. This legislation establishes an Office of New Markets Venture Capital within the Investment Division of the SBA, headed by a Director appointed by the SBA Administrator. The Director would be responsible for administering and encouraging investment in small manufacturing firms and working to expand the number of small businesses participating in the NMVC Program. This bill is urgently needed now to expand the good work of the NMVC Program, and I urge all of my colleagues to show their support for the small but growing number of businesses that promise both financial returns for their investors and social returns to low-income people and distressed regions in which they invest. This double bottom line distinguishes the NMVC Program from any other SBA program, and we cannot afford to let it expire.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I support the fiscal year 2007 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill before us today. Our Nation faces a serious terrorist threat and we need to adequately fund our security agencies. I am concerned, however, that the bill falls short in some areas of what is needed to effectively protect the homeland. For instance, the bill makes significant cuts to State grant programs from FY 2006 levels and does not ensure that funds are distributed using risk as the guiding principle. Although DHS Secretary Chertoff has assured us that the Department would follow the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and distribute funds based purely on risk, when funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative was released in May the cities most at risk--New York, Washington, and Boston among them-- received the deepest cuts. I supported amendments during consideration of this bill that sought to rectify this problem and I hope that the bill can be improved in conference to ensure that funding is distributed where it is needed. I am also concerned that the bill calls for shutting down a large portion of the LORAN navigation system infrastructure, limiting it to Alaska and the northwest and northeast coasts. Although I realize that this is the result of a compromise, I strongly support maintaining the LORAN system nationwide and intend to work with Senator Stevens, Senator Murray and others in conference to prevent the premature shutdown of this important asset. Mr. President, we must take steps to secure the border, though I opposed Senator Sessions' amendment to appropriate additional funds to construct fencing along the southwest border because it would have raided discretionary funds used to hire more border patrol agents, buy more detention beds, train first responders, and fund other pressing needs. Although I support some limited fence construction, I do not believe we should be undermining critical homeland security programs to finance them. I remain committed to passing balanced immigration legislation that protects the border and allows immigrants to earn citizenship, and I hope that the Congress can reach an agreement to accomplish that in the upcoming weeks. Finally, I am pleased my amendment to repeal the Transportation Security Administration's exemption from Federal contracting laws was accepted. TSA has a record of mismanaging contracts and wasting billions in taxpayer dollars and it should not continue to be exempt from the same level of accountability that we require of every other Federal agency. I thank the managers for working with me to pass this amendment, and I hope that it is included in the final conference report. I hope that some of these important issues can be worked out in conference and that we can send the best bill possible to the President.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to celebrate the life and work of a special individual. At the end of this year, Mr. Israel Horovitz will retire as artistic director of the Gloucester Stage Company, and as he prepares to do so I am proud to join with his colleagues, family, and fans in celebrating more than 25 years of sustained artistic contributions to Massachusetts and the country. Modern American theater has much to celebrate as a result of Israel's leadership at Gloucester Stage. Born in Wakefield, MA, he returned to his home State to found the Gloucester Stage Company after holding such prestigious posts as the Royal Shakespeare Company's Playwright-in- Residence. Since the inception of Gloucester Stage in 1979, the theatre has premiered the works of esteemed playwrights such as Terrence McNally, Wendy Wasserstein, and in the years since has brought real meaning to Horovitz's vision of a theatre that serves as a ``safe harbor for new writing.'' In the course of bringing the works of new, undiscovered playwrights to life, Gloucester Stage has hosted over 35 world premieres of plays, many of which went on to successful runs on Broadway and beyond. In addition to celebrating Israel as the artistic director, we must also celebrate his writings. Horovitz is the author of more than 50 plays and he stands as one of the most internationally acclaimed American playwrights of our time. He was presented with the prestigious Elliot Norton Prize celebrating his work with the theatre. And his plays and screenplays have earned him many of the industry's most prestigious awards, such as the OBIE, which he earned twice, the Prix du Jury of the Cannes Film Festival, the Prix du Plaisir du Theatre, an Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from B'Nai Brith, among many others. On March 29, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts honored Horovitz with a Governor's Leadership Award and under his leadership Gloucester Stage has received numerous Best of Boston awards as well as the New England Theatre Conference Award. I am proud to represent a State where Israel's artistry has blossomed, inspired young and old minds alike, entertained generations, and lifted lives. He is one of our true cultural treasures, and he has honored the best traditions of the theater by asking difficult questions and using them to illuminate and celebrate the human condition. I wish Israel and Gillian the very best as they look back on so many achievements and contributions to modern American culture, and I wish them the very best as they begin this new chapter in life.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and celebrate the work of a great man whose work has an impact on lives throughout this country and all over the globe. This month hundreds of scientists will gather at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to celebrate one of their own, Doctor Robert Langer, and I am proud to join them in doing so. Most Americans will never meet Dr. Langer, but chances are his research has already affected their life. One of America's most brilliant scientists, Dr. Langer has been on the front lines of the fight to cure cancer and continues to push the envelope of biomedical engineering. Dr. Langer studied chemical engineering in college after being inspired by the gift of a chemistry set as a child. He went on to receive his doctorate from MIT in 1974. Doctor Langer accepted a postdoctorate fellowship at Children's Hospital in Boston with Judah Folkman, a leading cancer researcher. Dr. Langer's return to MIT as a professor of chemical engineering resulted in the creation of the Langer Lab, one of the most cutting- edge biotechnology laboratories in the world. Researchers at the Langer Lab study ways to utilize polymers to deliver life-saving drugs to patients with diseases such as diabetes and cancer, and the success of Doctor Langer's work earned him a place as one of CNN's ``100 Most Important People in America.'' In 2004, Parade magazine selected him as one of six ``Heroes whose research may save your life.'' Dr. Langer's genius has been recognized repeatedly by his scientific peers as well. He is the recipient of over 140 major awards, including in 2002 the premier award in science, the Charles Stark Draper prize. In 1998, he was awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for invention, and in 2006 he was inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame. He holds nearly 550 patents, 180 of which are licensed to medical, chemical, or pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Langer is one of a select few elected to all three of America's National Academies--the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences--and at age of 43, was the youngest man to be so honored. Massachusetts has a long and rich history of technological innovation, global leadership in health care, and advancing insight into the human condition. Dr. Langer's genius and creativity have kept the faith with that history through 30 years of providing cutting-edge solutions to the medical problems of today and tomorrow. Along with his colleagues, family, and friends, I thank him for his contributions and look forward to many more years of his work on behalf of people all over the globe.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, as the ranking member on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I rise today to join my colleague and chair, Senator Snowe, in introducing the Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006. This legislation reauthorizes and strengthens vital small business programs for women entrepreneurs nationwide. Small businesses are the driving force behind innovation and national economic prosperity in the United States. Employing over 19 million workers, while pumping some $2 trillion into the economy, America's 10.6 million women-owned businesses play an integral role in this endeavor. However, despite their critical contributions to our Nation, women entrepreneurs still face many obstacles in the business world. Without the support and guidance of Women's Business Centers and other women small business ownership programs, which provide necessary tools to ensure the long term success of women-owned firms, many female entrepreneurs would not be able to open their doors and stay in business. Given women-owned businesses' contributions to our society, it is imperative that we continue to advocate on their behalf, and this legislation does just that. In recent years, the Small Business Administration, SBA, has seen its annual budget repeatedly slashed by the Bush administration--the most out of any other Federal agency. The fiscal year 2007 proposal was no different. Among the various programmatic cuts within the President's fiscal year 2007 budget, technical assistance funding was set at just $104 million--down from his proposals of $108 million in fiscal year 2006 and $111 million in fiscal year 2005. This funding plays a crucial role in the development and sustainability of Women's Business Centers in states across the country. The SBA provides grants from technical assistance funding to help support over 80 Women's Business Centers Nationwide. One such example is the Center for Women and Enterprise, which has served the greater Boston, Worcester, and Providence areas since 1995. In that time, the center has certified over 150 women-owned businesses and served as a catalyst in helping entrepreneurs create over 15,000 new jobs. More centers such as this ought to be in place in areas spanning the Nation. That is why I made it a priority to author and pass the Women's Business Center Sustainability Act of 1999, to help successful centers remain open and viable in the areas they serve. This bill was signed into law as a means of safeguarding successful centers with proven results by authorizing continued funding for a set time period under sustainability grants. The theory behind this bipartisan legislation was to continue to allow for new centers, but to also ensure that those with a proven track record would continue to be helped. And yet, since its enactment, Senator Snowe and I have had to fight each year to ensure that there is sustainability funding through the passage of numerous temporary extensions and a series of exchanges with the SBA. These centers are vital in equipping women entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed in business, and it is unfortunate that this administration has attempted to eliminate sustainability funding since President Bush took office. It is high time that all centers demonstrating proven results year in and year out receive this sustainability funding. The legislation I am introducing today, guarantees the future of the Women's Business Center Program and bridges it with other SBA-related women's initiatives to ensure there exists a unified and cohesive mission driving the programs forward for women entrepreneurs across the country. In this, the bill not only makes permanent the Women's Business Center Sustainability Pilot Program--through the creation of 3-year ``renewal'' grants for centers with sustainability grants, and 4-year ``initial'' grants for new centers across the country--but it also increases the program's authorization levels. Furthermore, our legislation calls for the Office of Women's Business Ownership to make all Women's Business Center grants at $150,000 and to work in consultation with Women's Business Centers whenever making improvements to the program. Additionally, this legislation calls for a more streamlined approach for the Women's Business Center Program's data collection, grant application, and selection criteria, in an effort to ensure a smooth transition from sustainability to the newly established program. The Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006 also contains privacy protections for the Women's Business Council, Women's Business Centers, and their small business clients. The bill's provisions make several minor, yet significant, changes to both the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise, as well as the National Women's Business Council--enabling both entities to serve as a better resource for not only the administration and Congress, but the larger small business community as well. In order to increase and strengthen women business owners' representation in the Federal Government, the bill reestablishes the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise, and creates a Policy Advisory Group to aide the committee's chairperson in the development of policies and programs under this act. It also creates three subcommittees similar to those created under the National Women's Business Council. Additionally, in order to afford the National Women's Business Council more flexibility in its use of funds, the bill gives it cosponsorship authority, and directs it to act as a clearinghouse for historical data. I would like to remind my colleagues that similar legislation drew wide bipartisan support in the 108th Congress. Despite arriving at a bipartisan Women's Business Center compromise on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, the Republican majority failed to include this compromise in the last SBA reauthorization package. I would like to thank Chair Snowe for her work in addressing the needs of America's female entrepreneurs, and for her steadfast support for this legislation. She is a true advocate for women-owned small businesses. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, as the ranking member on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I rise today to join my colleague and chair, Senator Snowe, in introducing the Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006. This legislation reauthorizes and strengthens vital small business programs for women entrepreneurs nationwide. Small businesses are the driving force behind innovation and national economic prosperity in the United States. Employing over 19 million workers, while pumping some $2 trillion into the economy, America's 10.6 million women-owned businesses play an integral role in this endeavor. However, despite their critical contributions to our Nation, women entrepreneurs still face many obstacles in the business world. Without the support and guidance of Women's Business Centers and other women small business ownership programs, which provide necessary tools to ensure the long term success of women-owned firms, many female entrepreneurs would not be able to open their doors and stay in business. Given women-owned businesses' contributions to our society, it is imperative that we continue to advocate on their behalf, and this legislation does just that. In recent years, the Small Business Administration, SBA, has seen its annual budget repeatedly slashed by the Bush administration--the most out of any other Federal agency. The fiscal year 2007 proposal was no different. Among the various programmatic cuts within the President's fiscal year 2007 budget, technical assistance funding was set at just $104 million--down from his proposals of $108 million in fiscal year 2006 and $111 million in fiscal year 2005. This funding plays a crucial role in the development and sustainability of Women's Business Centers in states across the country. The SBA provides grants from technical assistance funding to help support over 80 Women's Business Centers Nationwide. One such example is the Center for Women and Enterprise, which has served the greater Boston, Worcester, and Providence areas since 1995. In that time, the center has certified over 150 women-owned businesses and served as a catalyst in helping entrepreneurs create over 15,000 new jobs. More centers such as this ought to be in place in areas spanning the Nation. That is why I made it a priority to author and pass the Women's Business Center Sustainability Act of 1999, to help successful centers remain open and viable in the areas they serve. This bill was signed into law as a means of safeguarding successful centers with proven results by authorizing continued funding for a set time period under sustainability grants. The theory behind this bipartisan legislation was to continue to allow for new centers, but to also ensure that those with a proven track record would continue to be helped. And yet, since its enactment, Senator Snowe and I have had to fight each year to ensure that there is sustainability funding through the passage of numerous temporary extensions and a series of exchanges with the SBA. These centers are vital in equipping women entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed in business, and it is unfortunate that this administration has attempted to eliminate sustainability funding since President Bush took office. It is high time that all centers demonstrating proven results year in and year out receive this sustainability funding. The legislation I am introducing today, guarantees the future of the Women's Business Center Program and bridges it with other SBA-related women's initiatives to ensure there exists a unified and cohesive mission driving the programs forward for women entrepreneurs across the country. In this, the bill not only makes permanent the Women's Business Center Sustainability Pilot Program--through the creation of 3-year ``renewal'' grants for centers with sustainability grants, and 4-year ``initial'' grants for new centers across the country--but it also increases the program's authorization levels. Furthermore, our legislation calls for the Office of Women's Business Ownership to make all Women's Business Center grants at $150,000 and to work in consultation with Women's Business Centers whenever making improvements to the program. Additionally, this legislation calls for a more streamlined approach for the Women's Business Center Program's data collection, grant application, and selection criteria, in an effort to ensure a smooth transition from sustainability to the newly established program. The Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006 also contains privacy protections for the Women's Business Council, Women's Business Centers, and their small business clients. The bill's provisions make several minor, yet significant, changes to both the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise, as well as the National Women's Business Council--enabling both entities to serve as a better resource for not only the administration and Congress, but the larger small business community as well. In order to increase and strengthen women business owners' representation in the Federal Government, the bill reestablishes the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise, and creates a Policy Advisory Group to aide the committee's chairperson in the development of policies and programs under this act. It also creates three subcommittees similar to those created under the National Women's Business Council. Additionally, in order to afford the National Women's Business Council more flexibility in its use of funds, the bill gives it cosponsorship authority, and directs it to act as a clearinghouse for historical data. I would like to remind my colleagues that similar legislation drew wide bipartisan support in the 108th Congress. Despite arriving at a bipartisan Women's Business Center compromise on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, the Republican majority failed to include this compromise in the last SBA reauthorization package. I would like to thank Chair Snowe for her work in addressing the needs of America's female entrepreneurs, and for her steadfast support for this legislation. She is a true advocate for women-owned small businesses. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the Women's Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate is considering a free- trade agreement with Oman. And here we are, once again, facing a free- trade agreement with an important ally that is the product of a failed process, an inattentive administration, and a basic neglect of the will of Congress. I think this is a decent agreement with Oman, and I am not interested in harming relations with an important Middle East ally because of my frustration with the administration. Economic integration of the Middle East is too critically important a goal and vital to our efforts in the war on terror. I understand that deficiencies remain in this agreement. I will monitor Oman's remaining commitments on worker rights very closely. We must continue to engage this volatile region of the world economically if we expect to make progress on a number of fronts. I have said repeatedly to the administration that our trade agreements must include the basic International Labor Organization, ILO, standards within the four corners of the trade agreement and that those standards must be enforceable. I have said that we must address other abuses such as the recent reports of abhorrent working conditions in Jordan. So what have we done? On CAFTA, I offered an amendment calling on the administration to require equivalent dispute resolution procedures for workers' rights as we provide for patent violations. And even though that vote failed on a 10 to 10 tie, the administration did not even consider strengthening the standards. On Oman, Senators Conrad, Bingaman and I offered an amendment to strengthen slave labor laws. The committee adopted the amendment unanimously. Inexplicably, the administration has returned the implementing bill without the language--without an explanation--without justification. It is absolutely inconceivable that the administration would not support a ban on the importation of goods produced with slave labor. At a time when America is attempting to restore its image around the world, this certainly sends the signal that as long as this administration is in place, we should not anticipate common sense in Government. But I will say that the intransigence demonstrated by the administration this week does not bode well for renewal of fast-track authority. Under the Constitution, Congress is empowered to manage our economic relationships. We grant that power to the administration so that we may present the world with one voice in our economic diplomacy. But we must evaluate under what conditions we grant this authority in the future--if we grant it at all. There is no doubt that the system is broken. And I will be actively engaged as we reevaluate this strategy.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship unanimously reported the President's nomination of Steven Preston to serve as Administrator for the Small Business Administration. I would like to thank Chair Snowe and her staff for their work on this nomination. Mr. Preston brings keen business sense and a wealth of management experience to an agency woefully in need of better management. From the disaster loan program to oversight of federal contracting, the SBA has failed small businesses under the current administration. Hurricane Katrina is now 10 months behind us, and still we are witnessing delays in getting loan money to the residents of the Gulf Coast. Deep budget cuts have bled the agency of key staff. Efforts to eliminate key programs like the Microloan program, PRIME and New Markets Venture Capital have undermined access to capital and business counseling for small businesses, especially the smallest of firms. As Mr. Preston stated many times throughout the nomination process, morale at the SBA is dangerously low. There is a vacuum of leadership into which Mr. Preston now steps, and there is much for him to do to reinvigorate this agency. I am hopeful that Mr. Preston will prove to be an aggressive advocate for small business. His career and his actions demonstrate that he is not a political person, and I hope his instincts lead him to do the right thing rather than the political thing. With investment, commitment, and most of all, strong leadership, the SBA can make a real difference in people's lives. I am also hopeful that as Administrator, Mr. Preston will fight for realistic budgets. The budget delivered to Congress by President Bush this past year had no basis in reality. The former SBA Administrator's reaction was to travel the country to support Administration proposals that often had little to do with the needs of small businesses. Meanwhile, the SBA budget was being slashed. The SBA needs someone who will consider the impact of the budget on small businesses and disaster victims and will fight budgets that hurt these communities. The President is proposing to assess unprecedented administrative fees on small business loans, on top of the high fees that are already passed on to small businesses in this zero subsidy environment. He is also trying to balance the Federal budget on the backs of disaster victims by raising interest rates on disaster loans. These are not recipes for helping small business, and I hope Mr. Preston recognizes that. The SBA also needs to be a more vigilant watchdog for small business contracting. The record of the last few years is appalling. Federal small business contracting numbers have been manipulated and overstated to score political points. The SBA's office dedicated to veterans contracting has been shut down. Implementation of the women's contracting program has been delayed for 6 years. The SBA IG reports and GAO reports make it clear: There is a pattern of neglect when it comes to SBA's oversight of federal contracting to ensure fair access for small firms. Report after report indicates that there needs to be more staff to oversee federal contracting, and the agency continues to deny our efforts to get more accurate small business contracting numbers. This is a serious problem, and through this nomination process, Mr. Preston has been made well aware that I and my fellow committee members expect it to be addressed. Above all, I am tired of hearing the administration's claim that it is doing ``more with less.'' At some point, this catch phrase gives way to the reality that an agency can no longer even fulfill its mandate with any less. It is my belief that we have reached that point. Small Business Development Centers have been forced to reduce services. Women's Business Centers are on the verge of shutting down. Lending to minorities has been generally flat or has gone down, particularly dollars loaned to African Americans and women. This agency has a unique role to play in fostering entrepreneurship in underserved communities. It is clear from his history of charitable involvement that Mr. Preston understands the needs of these underserved communities, and I hope that this spirit is evident in his work at the SBA on behalf of underserved and disadvantaged businesses. I have served on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship for 21 years, as ranking member or Chairman since 1997, and I have worked with a number of SBA Administrators. Too often, a nominee comes before the Committee and says all the right things to get confirmed. My hope for Mr. Preston is that he will not simply talk the talk, but that he will walk the walk. By living up to his promises, I think Mr. Preston will see that he and Congress can work side by side to help small businesses across the Nation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am proud to cosponsor the Healthy Families Act, S. 932 and S. 1085, introduced by my friend, Senator Ted Kennedy. This legislation will provide full-time employees with up to 7 paid sick days a year so that they can take care of their own medical needs or the medical needs of family members. Part-time employees would receive a prorata amount of paid sick leave. All employers--public and private--with at least 15 employees would be covered by the Healthy Families Act. Today, 86 million workers in the United States do not have paid sick days. Thus, when faced with either a personal or family medical issue, they are forced to choose between caring for themselves or their loved ones and going to work to keep food on the table and a paycheck in the mail. This is not acceptable. People get sick every day. They should have the right to get medical treatment without jeopardizing their jobs or harming the people around them. The Healthy Families Act would guarantee them that right. According to Harvard University's Global Working Families Project, 139 nations provide some sort of paid sick days; 177 of those nations guarantee at least a week of annual sick pay. The United States, however, has no such guarantee--the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides only unpaid sick leave for serious personal or family illnesses. This lack of paid sick leave puts our Nation's workforce, both present and future, at risk. As ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am extremely conscious of the regulatory burden that our businesses face particularly our small businesses. I believe that government should avoid weighing down small businesses with unnecessary regulations. However, the more I have examined this issue, the more obvious it becomes that this legislation benefits both employees and employers. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that healthy employees are the key to a productive and vibrant economy. Healthy employees are more productive and often more efficient. But, without paid sick days, many employees will go to work rather than take time off to get regular preventative medical checkups or to recover from an attacking illness or to care for a sick child. Thus, they will get sick more often, and their illnesses will spread. Employees who opt to come to work when sick can make their condition worse or even spread their illness to coworkers. For a business, it is far more costly to cope with a depleted staff or to search for a replacement when an employee is suffering from an extended illness than it is to provide just 7 sick days. Providing employees with a small number of paid sick days is a simple and commonsense fix that will save businesses time and money. In addition, I have heard--my staff has reported--that small businesses often complain that they want to offer this benefit, but are unable to and need a level playing field. This legislation would offer them just that. Mr. President, I hope that my colleagues will take a look at the Healthy Families Act and will join me in cosponsoring it.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that whatever time he uses be charged to the majority and I reserve our time appropriately.

Mr. KERRY. Only 5 minutes of the total?

Mr. KERRY. Is that on the half hour?

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, would it be possible, because we got pushed back a little bit, that I could have 10 or 15 minutes on my time and then slide it back the other way? Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 10 minutes.