John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my distinguished colleague from Nevada, Senator John Ensign, and the cosponsors of our legislation in reintroducing the National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act. The bill we are reintroducing today is the same Cleland-Kerry legislation that was introduced last Congress, and it is the companion to Congressman Sweeney's bill, H.R. 205, which bears the same name as our legislation. The Sweeney bill recently passed the House overwhelmingly, 417-4, with the strong support of the House Committee on Small Business, as it did in the 107th. Our Senate version, which is nearly identical to the Sweeney bill, passed the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship last year but was not taken up by the full Senate. Because Senator Ensign and I are fully committed to helping small business owners understand and navigate complicated government regulations, we are reintroducing this legislation, the National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act. Small businesses, particularly small businesses with very few employees, often face an overwhelming task when seeking advice on how to comply with Federal regulations, especially when implementation varies for different regions of the country, or from state to state. Many small businesses fail to comply with important and needed labor and environmental regulations not because they want to break the law, but because they are unaware of the actions they need to take to comply. Often, small businesses are afraid to seek guidance from Federal agencies for fear of exposing problems at their businesses. One important way to help small businesses comply with Federal regulations is to provide them with free, confidential advice outside of the normal relationship between a small business and a regulatory agency. The Small Business Administration's, SBA, Small Business Development Centers, SBDCs, are in a unique position to provide this type of assistance. Our bill establishes a pilot program to award competitive grants to 20 selected SBDCs, two from each SBA region, which would allow these SBDCs to provide regulatory compliance assistance to small businesses. The SBA would be authorized to award grants between $150,000 and $300,000, depending on the population of the SBDC's state. Under our legislation, the SBDCs would need to form partnerships with Federal compliance programs, conduct educational and training activities and offer free-of-charge compliance counseling to small business owners. Further, the measure would guarantee privacy to those who receive compliance assistance, which is integral to the reaching out to as many small businesses as possible. This privacy provision has also been extended to all small businesses that seek any assistance from their local SBDC. The legislation we are reintroducing today uses only SBA funds and will serve to complement current small business development assistance as well as existing compliance assistance programs. Versions of this legislation introduced in previous Congresses used Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, enforcement funds to pay for these grants. Small businesses can succeed when it comes to complying with Federal regulations, if provided with the necessary tools and information. The National Small Business Regulatory Assistance Act will go a long way toward assisting our Nation's small businesses that want to comply with Federal regulations. I am pleased to say that we have the full support of the Association of Small Business Development Centers, which has been working closely with us since January of last year to draft the Senate version of this legislation, as well as support from National Small Business United, the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and Congressman Sweeney. I want to express my sincere thanks to Senator Ensign for his hard work and continued support on this issue. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today as Ranking Member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship with my esteemed colleague and Chair of the Committee, Senator Snowe, to offer legislation to fix a funding gap that exists for meritorious Women's Business Centers that are graduating from the first stage of the program and entering the sustainability portion. I would first like to thank Senator Snowe for working very closely with me on this issue. Her leadership and support has been invaluable. I would also like to thank our House counterparts on the Small Business Committee, Chairman Manzullo and Ranking Member Velazquez, who have also been working diligently on the issue of sustainability grants as we take on the process of reauthorizing the majority of the SBA's programs. In addition, I want to thank all of the cosponsors of this legislation, all of which have shown resounding support for women entrepreneurs and recognize the positive impact all small businesses have on our national economy. As I have said on more than one occasion, women business owners do not get the recognition they deserve for their contribution to our economy: Eighteen million Americans would be without jobs today if it weren't for these entrepreneurs who had the courage and the vision to strike out on their own. For 18 years, as a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have worked to increase the opportunities for these enterprising women in a variety of ways, leading to greater earning power, financial independence and asset accumulation. These are more than words. For these women, it means having a bank account, buying a home, sending their children to college, calling the shots. And helping them at every step are the Women's Business Centers. In 2002 alone, these centers helped 85,000 women with the business counseling and assistance they likely could not find anywhere else. Cutting funding for any centers would be harmful to the centers, to the women they serve, to the States, and to the national economy. The funding gap for Women's Business Centers in the sustainability portion of the program exists because the Small Business Administration has chosen to adopt a funding policy that short-changes existing, proven centers in order to open new, unproven ones. By incorrectly interpreting the funding formula set up in statute for the Women's Business Center program, the SBA intends to make way for new centers at the expense of those that are already established, operational and successful. This is both bad policy and contrary to congressional intent. As the author of the Women's Business Centers Sustainability Act of 1999, I can tell that when the Women's Business Centers Sustainability Act of 1999 was signed into law, it was Congress's intent to protect the established and successful infrastructure of worthy, performing centers. The law was designed to allow all graduating Women's Business Centers that meet certain SBA standards to receive continued funding under sustainability grants, while still allowing for new centers--but not by penalizing those that have already demonstrated their effectiveness. Currently there are 81 Women's Business Centers in 48 states. Forty- six of these are in the initial program, 29 are already in sustainability, and six more are graduating or have graduated from the initial program and are now applying for sustainability grants. Because the SBA is incorrectly interpreting the funding formula for sustainability grants in order to open new centers, and in order to accommodate funding for potentially six new sustainability centers, those from Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington State, the amount of funds reserved for Women's Business Centers in sustainability must be increased from 30.2 percent to 36 percent. This legislation does just that. It directs the SBA to reserve 36 percent of the appropriated funds for the sustainability portion of Women's Business Centers program--even though the SBA already has the authority on its own to increase the reserve--thereby protecting the established Women's Business Centers from almost certain grant funding cuts and still providing enough funds to open six or more new centers across the country. I want to again express my sincere and steadfast support for the growing community of women entrepreneurs across the Nation and for the invaluable programs through which the SBA provides women business owners with the tools they need to succeed. As a long-time advocate for women entrepreneurs and SBA's programs, my record in support of the SBA's women's programs and for women business owners speaks for itself. I have continually fought for increased funding for the women's programs at the SBA, for sustaining and expanding the women's business centers, and for giving women entrepreneurs their deserved representation within the Federal procurement process, to name a few. With respect to laws assisting women-owned businesses, I have been proud to either introduce the underlying legislation or strongly advocate to ensure their passage and adequate funding. This bill is necessary to continue the good work of SBA's Women's Business Center network, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak to an amendment to fix a funding gap that exists for meritorious Women's Business Centers that are graduating from the first stage of the program and entering the sustainability portion. I would like to first thank Senator Snowe, Chair of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, for working very closely with me on this issue. Her leadership and support has been invaluable. I would also like to thank Senator Bingaman for his support on this issue. As a long-time ally of the Women's Business Centers and all SBA programs, his assistance on this amendment has been very helpful. Last, I want to express my gratitude to Senators Harkin, Edwards, Cantwell, Enzi and Domenici, as well as Congressman McIntyre, for their backing and for their hard work to resolve this issue. As I have said on more than one occasion, women business owners do not get the recognition they deserve for their contribution to our economy: Eighteen million Americans would be without jobs today if it weren't for these entrepreneurs who had the courage and the vision to strike out on their own. For 18 years, as a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have worked to increase the opportunities for these enterprising women in a variety of ways, leading to greater earning power, financial independence, and asset accumulation. These are more than words. For these women, it means having a bank account, buying a home, sending their children to college, calling the shots. And helping them at every step are the Women's Business Centers. In 2002 alone, these centers helped 85,000 women with the business counseling and assistance they likely could not find anywhere else. Cutting funding for any centers would be harmful to the centers, to the women they serve, to their States, and to the national economy. The funding gap for Women's Business Centers in sustainability exists because the Small Business Administration has chosen to short-change existing, proven centers in order to open new, unproven ones. By incorrectly interpreting the funding formula set up in the Women's Business Centers program, the SBA has made way for new centers at the expense of those that are already established. This is both bad policy and contrary to congressional intent. As the author of the Women's Business Centers Sustainability Act of 1999, I can tell you that when the Women's Business Centers Sustainability Act of 1999 was signed into law, it was Congress's intent to protect the established and successful infrastructure of worthy, performing centers. The law was designed to allow all graduating Women's Business Centers that meet certain SBA standards to receive continued funding under sustainability grants, while still allowing for new centers--but not by penalizing those that have already demonstrated their worth. Currently there are 81 Women's Business Centers in 48 States. Forty- six of these are in the initial program, 29 are already in sustainability, and 6 more are graduating or have graduated from the initial program and are now applying for sustainability grants. Because of these potentially 6 new sustainability centers--from Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington State--and because the SBA is incorrectly interpreting the funding formula for sustainability grants in order to open new centers, the amount of funds reserved for Women's Business Centers in sustainability must be increased from 30.2 percent to 36 percent. This amendment does just that. It directs the SBA to reserve 36 percent of the appropriated funds for the sustainability portion of the Women's Business Centers program--even though the SBA already has the authority on its own to increase the reserve--thereby protecting the established Women's Business Centers form almost certain grant funding cuts and still providing enough funds to open six or more new centers across the country. I want to again express my sincere and steadfast support for the growing community of women entrepreneurs across the Nation and for the invaluable programs through which the SBA provides women business owners with the tools they need to succeed. As a long-time advocate for women entrepreneurs and SBA's programs, my record in support of the SBA's women's programs and for women business owners speaks for itself. I have continually fought for increased funding for the women's programs at the SBA, for sustaining and expanding the women's business centers, and for giving women entrepreneurs their deserved representation within the Federal procurement process, to name a few. With respect to laws assisting women-owned businesses, I have been proud to either introduce the underlying legislation or strongly advocate to ensure their passage and adequate funding. This amendment is necessary to continue the good work of SBA's Women's Business Center network, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor this resolution with Senators Snowe, Hollings, and McCain. In 1998 we recognized the International Year of the Oceans, and it is time we underscore the importance of oceans in our daily lives through an annual celebration of National Oceans Week. The global oceans need our attention now more than ever. Today, we are faced with the challenge of sustainably managing our interactions with the marine environment, in the face of increasing pressures from population growth and a global economy. While we have been making significant progress in this arena, there are constant reminders that we have not yet achieved our goal of supporting ocean-related industries while maintaining high ecological standards. The recent oil spill of the Bouchard barge in Buzzard's Bay, MA, vividly demonstrates that we must be ever vigilant in striving for the balance between ecological protection and economic growth--as well as the need to balance competing economic interests--in this case, an important local seafood industry with our need for energy. Although we have seen a marked improvement in the safe marine transport of oil since the passage of the Oil Pollution Act in 1990, all possible care must be taken to ensure that we have a system in place that adequately protects our marine environment. Marine fisheries are also a vitally important component of our coastal economies and culture, especially in the Bay State. We are making progress in restoring our overfished stocks to sustainable levels, and we are committed to staying the course to reduce mortality, improve water quality and restore habitat. But we must press forward to ensure all nations are pulling their weight in providing sustainable fisheries management. Recent reports show international fleets have had a dramatic impact that appears to go largely unchecked. Living marine resources, particularly highly migratory species like tuna and swordfish, know no boundaries, and we cannot tolerate lawlessness by any nation in the management of these stocks. The Marine Mammal Protection Act has proved to be a very successful conservation tool, bringing numerous species back from the brink of extinction. However, there is still much more to be done. I am particularly familiar with the example of the North Atlantic right whales, one of the most endangered species of marine mammals in the world, with a population of approximately 300 individuals. Unfortunately, our local New England waters are often the areas where these endangered whales literally collide with the fishing industry and the marine transportation industry. The plight of the right whales highlights the importance of working with a wide variety of interests to find solutions that will make a difference. Congress has already asked a panel of experts to develop a plan of action for our oceans in the Oceans Act of 2000. This federal mandated U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy will help us understand what steps are needed to advance our knowledge and improve our management of the marine environment. Later this year, the Commission will make recommendations on how we can improve our ocean governance, investment and implementation, research, education and marine operations, and stewardship. Despite these great efforts, there is much more to do. Increased public attention to our Nation's ocean issues is essential if we are to make further headway. This is why, today, I am honored to join Senator Snowe in introducing this resolution to declare the week of June 9, 2003, as National Oceans Week.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I submit into the record a statement to clarify my position on the development of low yield nuclear weapons. Circumstances prevented me from voting last week on the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment to the FY2004 defense authorization bill which would have struck any provisions that might permit research, development, testing, or deployment of low yield nuclear weapons. At the time, my vote was announced as an ``aye'' in favor of a motion to table the amendment. Through no fault of the distinguished Senator from Nevada who announced my vote, if I had been here, I would have voted ``nay,'' and supported the common sense proposal of the Senators from California and Massachusetts. Last week, in a statement entered into the Record, I made clear my opposition to the development of low yield nuclear weapons, as well as the robust nuclear earth penetrator. It is absurd to think the United States will start development on a new generation of nuclear weapons at the same moment we seek the world's support in an effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. Senator Feinstein and Senator Kennedy were correct. These weapons don't make us safer. And I thank them for their continued leadership on this vital issue.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, since December 2002, the Treasury Department has made three requests to Congress for an unspecified increase in the debt limit. Last year, the administration asked for a $700 billion increase, but Congress wisely trimmed it to $450 billion. The $984 billion increase we will pass today will be the largest increase in the debt limit ever, and it is twice as high as the average for the last five increases. This level of increase represents about $3,400 for every man, woman and child in the United States--or more than 17 times what the median American family will receive in tax cuts under the conference agreement passed earlier today by one vote. We need to be clear about a few things here in the Senate. The economy is growing very slowly, and every American has experienced the current slowdown in very personal ways: 2.5 million jobs have been lost, long-term unemployment has skyrocketed; lifetime savings have been wiped out by greed, bad judgment, and criminal activity; personal debt has increased and bankruptcies are up; and the stock market has plunged more than 30 percent. Record budget surpluses have turned into deficits as far as the eye can see--nearly $500 billion this fiscal year alone when Social Security is excluded, the largest deficit in history. We have seen the weakest level of economic growth and business investment in 50 years. We are spending the entire Social Security surplus in every year of the President's budget plan and failing to make necessary investments in education, infrastructure, and homeland security. Yet we have the money to drastically cut the tax on stock dividends, giving millionaires an average annual tax cut of about $90,000. It makes no sense given the current state of the economy and the world. We are governing based on ideology rather than pragmatism. President Bush, who inherited large and rising surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion over 10 years, likes to say that the change in the budget picture--and frequent requests for increases in the statutory debt limit--are a result of a slow economy and September 11. Those factors undoubtedly play a role, but every single independent analysis shows that the largest factor behind the long-term change in the budget outlook is the President's tax policies. The rising deficits and debt that will result in higher taxes on our children can be laid squarely at his feet, because most Republicans in Congress are too afraid to say no to this President. If there are any doubts, just add up the numbers. Not including interest, President Bush has proposed nearly $3 trillion in tax cuts over 13 years since taking office. It is worth pointing out that more than half of this total--$1.63 trillion--was proposed this year, after the budget returned to perpetual deficits. Adding interest, the total jumps to $3.8 trillion. What happened to the promise not to spend the Social Security surplus? We are borrowing from our children for every dollar of these tax cuts--tax cuts that will go predominantly to those earning more than $200,000 per year. And the tax cut we passed today, because of its gimmicky phase-outs that future Congresses may not allow to happen, is really a trillion-dollar tax bill. The Speaker of the House admitted as much. When do we admit that we are cutting taxes too much? What happened to the Republican Party of the 1980s, that railed against deficits and insisted on balanced budgets? What happened to the true conservatives, those who look to cut spending and taxes in order to stand for ``less government''? Where is the principle, when almost every Republican in the Senate votes for every spending increase and every tax cut? We should call it what it is: borrow-and-spend economics. And our kids will pay for it for decades to come.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, women business owners do not get the recognition they deserve for their contribution to our economy: 18 million Americans would be without jobs today if it weren't for these entrepreneurs who had the courage and the vision to strike out on their own. For 18 years, as a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have worked to increase the opportunities for these enterprising women in a variety of ways, leading to greater earning power, financial independence and asset accumulation. These are more than words. For these women, it means having a bank account, buying a home, sending their children to college, calling the shots. As the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I rise today to say a few words about a bill that my colleague on the committee, our chair, Senator Snowe, intends to introduce today, the Women's Small Business Programs Improvement Act. First, however, I commend Senator Snowe for taking this first step in crafting legislation that addresses many of the problems faced by women entrepreneurs in receiving assistance through the SBA's programs designed to assist them. I applaud Senator Snowe for working diligently on these issues and for giving women business owners such attention in this SBA Reauthorization process. Second, I express my sincere and steadfast support for the growing community of women entrepreneurs across the Nation and for the invaluable programs at the SBA that provide women with the tools they need to succeed in business. As a longtime advocate for women entrepreneurs and SBA's programs, my record in support of the SBA's women's programs and for women business owners speaks for itself. I have continually fought for increased funding of the women's programs at the SBA, for sustaining and expanding the women's business centers, for adequately staffing and improving the National Women's Business Council, and for giving women entrepreneurs their deserved representation within the Federal procurement process, to name a few. With respect to laws assisting women-owned businesses, I have been proud to either introduce the underlying legislation or advocate strongly to ensure their passage and adequate funding. Today, it is my sincere regret that I cannot sponsor this bill. Senator Snowe and I both support these programs, agree on many of the changes needed to strengthen these programs, and we have worked together on these issues for many years. However, having only received a copy of the bill this morning, I have not had adequate time to review the proposal and to vet it with the women's business experts that represent the women and the businesses that will be affected by these proposed changes. One example of a troublesome provision in the proposal is its treatment of existing women's business centers. When our committee was considering my 1999 legislation on this subject, the Women's Business Centers Sustainability Act, I fought to secure a nationwide infrastructure of Women's Business Centers that was in jeopardy because their matching grants from the SBA for the most experienced centers were going to expire. The sustainability legislation allowed 29 Women's Business Centers to continue to operate, serving together with new centers 85,000 women-owned business just in 2002. In this new bill, Senator Snowe proposes to build on the success of that law by making the existing centers permanent, and I fully support this. If we had written the bill jointly, I would have done exactly the same. While I praise Senator Snowe for recognizing the success of centers operating with sustainability grants and the need to make them permanent, I understand her legislation will also establish a process that may create additional and unnecessary administration burdens and costs--thus hindering the centers' ability to deliver critical services to eager entrepreneurs. In some cases, this may cause existing Women's business Centers to close their doors, eliminating access to women business owners in those locales to critical services. This and other key issues need to be carefully addressed, and I look forward to working with Senator Snowe and other members of our Committee to do so. I am not alone in my reservations. Just yesterday, both the Association of Women's Business Centers and the National Women's Business Council, while still endorsing many of the bill's concepts, expressed concerns about its details and their desire to work together to craft a bill that addresses those concerns and accomplishes our mutual goal for these important women's initiatives. Once we have had an opportunity to thoroughly examine today's bill, I am confident that all the Democratic members of our Committee stand ready to do just that.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Ms. Snowe, to introduce the Fishing Quota Act of 2003, legislation to establish national criteria governing the use of individual fishing quota IFQ systems. Work began in earnest on this bipartisan bill in the Commerce Committee last spring, as the expiration of the national moratorium on the use of IFQs approached, and small boat fishermen voiced concerns that existing legislative criteria governing the use of IFQs would not offer sufficient protection to communities. I would like to thank Subcommittee Chair Snowe for her efforts to work with me and with other members of the Commerce Committee on this legislation, which draws from separate IFQ legislation that both Senator Snowe and I introduced beginning in the 106th Congress. The IFQ moratorium established under the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act was set to expire September 30, 2000. Senator Snowe and I supported a 2-year extension of that moratorium to allow for hearings and full consultation with affected groups on the issues surrounding IFQs. Our discussions focused on the need to provide regional flexibility to use IFQs as a management tool, while providing national ``rules of the road.'' Such rules of the road would ensure IFQ systems developed after expiration of the moratorium are adopted with the support of the fishery, allocate quota fairly and equitably, address region-specific needs, further the conservation and management goals of the Magnuson- Stevens Act, prevent consolidation of quota, address the needs of small fishing communities, and recognize both the public nature of the resource and that issuance of an IFQ does not give rise to a compensable property right. To develop such rules, we worked with fellow Commerce Committee members, including Senators Breaux, Lott, Boxer, Stevens, and Cantwell, consulted with interested groups, and obtained technical advice from the National Marine Fisheries Service. While New England has historically been opposed to IFQs, other regions are interested in utilizing IFQ programs in certain fisheries. I believe the resulting bill provides a balance between the need to provide national policy guidance that considers the concerns of communities and harvesters, but allows for development of IFQ systems, where appropriate, on a fishery- by-fishery basis. This preserves the balanced regional approach to fishery management that Congress intended in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. I also want to clarify that this bill does not authorize the establishment of ``processor quota,'' and relates only to issuance of harvester quota. The bill Senator Snowe and I are introducing today sets forth a set of national criteria that councils wishing to adopt IFQs would follow. Importantly, this bill contains a provision that directs councils to consider the use of community or area-based approaches and strategies that would preserve the vitality of small fishing communities, including the allocation of quota to a fishing community. It also directs councils to consider use of other management measures, including those that would facilitate formation of fishery cooperative arrangements, taking account of the dependence of coastal communities on these fisheries. This bill addresses many of the concerns raised by fishermen, and I understand the many concerns of small fisherman in New England regarding the use of IFQs. I believe this bill gives fishermen the power to decide whether to implement an IFQ program and ensures that those who do will operate under a fair system. First, no region could implement an IFQ system without approval of a two-thirds majority of eligible permit holders through a referendum process run by the Secretary of Commerce. In addition, any IFQ system developed under the legislation would have to meet a set of national criteria. These national criteria would include: (1) ensuring a fair and equitable initial allocation of quota, including the establishment of an appeals process for qualification and allocation decisions, taking into account present and historic participation in the fishery; (2) establishing limits necessary to prevent inequitable concentration of quota share; (3) preventing any person from acquiring an ``excessive share''; (4) considering allocation of a portion of the annual harvest specifically to small fishermen, skippers, crew members, fishing communities, or categories of vessels or gear types; and (5) providing for revocation of quota if the owner is no longer an active fisherman. I also believe this bill responds to concerns that IFQ systems would undermine the national interest in conserving fishery resources held in the public trust. In order to respond to those concerns, the bill would: (1) specify that an IFQ is a permit under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and does not confer any right of compensation or any right, title or interest to any fish before it is harvested; (2) established that the quota expires after 10 years, unless extended by a fishery management plan; (3) require that the systems promote management measures to improve the conservation and management of the fishery, including reduction of bycatch; (4) provide for regular review and evaluation of the system, including specifying actions to be taken for any failure to meet the criteria; (5) require that the systems provide for effective enforcement, monitoring, and management, including use of observers; and (6) require that quota be revoked from individuals found to be subject to civil penalties under section 308 of the Magnuson- Stevens Act. The bill also would require a 5-year recurring independent review of IFQ systems by the National Research Council, to: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of such systems and determine who the systems contribute to improved management, conservation and safety; (2) evaluate the social, economic and biological consequences of the systems, including economic impacts on fishing communities; (3) evaluate the costs of implementation; and (4) provide recommendations to ensure the systems meet Magnuson-Stevens Act requirements and the goals of the plans. I believe this legislation provides guidelines for the use of IFQs that will help ensure the health of our marine fisheries. During the last reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, our Nation's fisheries were at a crossroads, and action was required to remedy our marine resource management problems, to preserve the way of life in our coastal communities, and to promote the sustainable use and conservation of our marine resources for future generations and for the economic good of the Nation. We must stay the course, and this bill will help us do just that. I remain committed to the goal of establishing biologically and economically sustainable fisheries so that fishing will continue to be an important part of the culture and economy of coastal communities throughout Massachusetts, as well as the economy of the Nation.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, there are now nearly 200,000 American veterans today who are forced to wait at least 6 months for their first visit with a Department of Veterans Affairs physician. Despite having served their country and been promised health benefits, these veterans are receiving deferred and rationed health care because of chronic underfunding and bureaucratic red tape. It amounts to a broken promise with men and women who have served in our armed forces. To help ensure that our veterans receive the care they need and have been guaranteed, today I am pleased to introduce the Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003. Veterans enrolled in the VA health care program are entitled to a prescription drug benefit. This is an essential benefit given the importance of pharmaceuticals in health care today. However, there's a bureaucratic catch: the benefit only applies to prescriptions written by a VA physician, and there are nearly 200,000 veterans who now wait 6 months or longer for their first visit with a VA physician. For those veterans in need of medicine and waiting months on end to see a VA physician, the benefit has little value. The VA has reported to Congress that, while it has no exact figure, it estimates that tens of thousands of the veterans now on the waiting list are there primarily to access their prescription drug benefit. In many of these cases, veterans have already seen a private physician and have a prescription. But in order to use the VA pharmacy and receive their prescription benefit, these individuals must duplicate their health care visits and see a VA physician. This delays health care benefits for far too many veterans. The Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003 would permit veterans already on the waiting list to fill a prescription written by a private physician at the VA pharmacy. Specifically, the Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003 would give the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the authority to permit veterans on the waiting list for their first appointment with a VA physician at the date of enactment to use the VA pharmacy to fill prescriptions written by a private physician. It would also preserve the core healthcare mission of the VA by limiting this initiative only to those currently waiting for their first appointment. The proposal calls for a report to Congress in 1 year so that its potential expansion can be evaluated. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs has told Congress that he would support such a proposal, and I look forward to working with Senator Harkin, who joins me in sponsoring this legislation, and my other colleagues in the Senate on this common-sense approach to reducing the lengthy wait-lines for veterans' healthcare. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join with my colleagues, Senators Johnson and Smith, as well as the cosponsors of our legislation, Senators Akaka, Baucus, Bingaman, Cantwell, Daschle, Murray, and Stabenow in introducing the Native American Small Business Development Act. As many of my colleagues are aware, last Congress the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship unanimously passed nearly identical legislation, S. 2335, yet the bill was not taken up by the full Senate. Today, Senator Johnson, Senator Smith and I are reintroducing this bill because we recognize that there is an even a greater need for this legislation on tribal lands across the Nation. The economy continues to slump, access to capital is even more limited, and state funding for small business initiatives is being pulled back. According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ``three year average poverty rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives [from 1998-2000] was 25.9 percent. Higher than for any other race groups.'' With an unemployment rate well above the national average and household income at just three-quarters of the national average, Native American communities need a commitment from the Federal government that we will help them, particularly during these difficult economic times. To reaffirm this commitment, the Johnson-Kerry-Smith bill provides Native Americans the resources they need to take advantage of the opportunities of entrepreneurship. Mr. President, this legislation bears the same name as legislation that recently passed the House, H.R. 1166, which was reintroduced by Congressman Tom Udall, a recognized leader in promoting the interests of American Indians. I would like to thank Congressman Udall for his work in stewarding the Native American Small Business Development Act through the House, this Congress and last, and for his assistance in working with Senators Johnson and Smith and me in drafting the Senate version of our legislation. And I would specifically like to thank Senator Smith for his continued support on this issue. I would again like to thank the National Indian Business Association, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, the Association of Small Business Development Centers, the Oregon Native American Business Entrepreneurial Network (ONABEN), Native American Management Services, Inc., and all of the tribes that met with us or provided information to help in the drafting of this legislation. The Senate version of the Native American Small Business Development Act, while incorporating the heart of the Udall legislation, is more comprehensive and provides greater assistance to Native American communities. Senator Johnson, who serves on the Indian Affairs Committee, and I, as the lead Democrat on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, were able to combine the resources and experiences of our committees in developing this legislation. Mr. President, our need to fashion a more comprehensive business assistance package for Native American small businesses stems in part from a growing lack of commitment from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to our Native American communities under this Administration. While I applaud the Bush Administration for responding to congressional requests by including $1 million in the Administration's FY 2003 budget request for Native American outreach, I was disappointed that it did not seek the full level of $2.5 million requested in a letter I sent with my colleagues Senators Daschle, Wellstone, Johnson, Bingaman and Baucus. Our request specifically sought funding for the SBA's Tribal Business Information Center (TBIC) program, an initiative started and successfully operated under the Clinton Administration. The TBIC program was designed to address the unique conditions faced by American Indians when they seek to start or expand small businesses. Mr. President, I am disappointed that the Administration has eliminated all funding for Native American outreach in FY2004. With an average unemployment rate on reservations as high as 43 percent, it is inconceivable that two years of outreach is sufficient to have met our shared goal of building sustainable economic opportunities in those communities. Mr. President, I do not believe that anyone in this Congress would dispute that economic development in Indian Country has often been difficult to achieve and that one important way to help American Indians who live on reservations is to provide them with assistance to open and run their own small businesses. Helping Native Americans open and run small businesses not only instills a sense of pride in the owner and his or her community, it also provides much-needed job opportunities, as well as other economic benefits. Although underfunded, the TBIC program has provided assistance to a number of small businesses on Indian reservations. TBICs have the support of the American Indian communities they serve because they provide desperately needed, culturally tailored business development assistance in those communities. The Administration should be seeking to strengthen its commitment to programs that assist Native American communities. Unfortunately, the SBA cut off TBIC funding on March 31, 2002, and now 14 months later, has not met a request by a bipartisan group of Senators to begin the reprogramming process in order to keep the TBICs open. The Native American Small Business Development Act will ensure that the SBA's programs to assist Native American communities cannot be dissolved by making the SBA's Office of Native American Affairs (ONAA) and its Assistant Administrator permanent. Our legislation would also create a statutory grant program, known as the Native American Development grant program, to assist Native Americans. It would also establish two pilot programs to try new means of assisting Native American communities and require Native American communities to be consulted regarding the future of SBA programs designed to assist them. In short, this legislation will ensure that our Native American communities receive the adequate assistance they need to help start and grow small businesses. The ONAA will be responsible for helping Native Americans and Native American communities start, operate, and grow small businesses; develop management and technical skills; seek out Federal procurement opportunities; increase employment opportunities through the start and expansion of small business concerns; and increase their access to capital markets. To be selected to serve as the Assistant Administrator for ONAA, a candidate must have knowledge of Native American cultures and experience providing culturally tailored small business development assistance to Native Americans. Under our legislation, the Assistant Administrator would be statutorily required to consult with Tribal Colleges and Tribal Governments, Alaska Native Corporations (ANC) and Native Hawaiian Organizations (NHO) when carrying out responsibilities under this legislation, which would give Native American communities a true voice within the SBA. The Assistant Administrator for ONAA would be responsible for administering the Native American Development program and the pilot programs created by the Native American Small Business Development Act. The Native American Development program is designed to be the SBA's primary program for providing business development assistance to Native American communities. To offer this support, to the SBA will provide financial assistance in establish and keep Native American Business Centers (NABC) in operation. Financial assistance under the Native American Development program would be available to Tribal Governments and Tribal Colleges. Unlike the SBA's TBIC program, however, ANCs and NHOs would also be eligible for the grants. NABCs would address the unique conditions faced by reservation-based American Indians, as well as Native Hawaiians and Native Alaskans, in their efforts to create, develop and expand small business concerns. Grant funding would be used by the NABCs to provide culturally tailored financial education assistance, management education assistance, and marketing education assistance. The first pilot program under the legislation establishes a Native American development grant. This grant is modeled after the Udall legislation and is designed to bring the expertise of SBA's Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) to Native American Communities. Additionally, any private nonprofit organization, which has members of an Indian tribe comprising a majority of its board of governors or is an NHO or an ANC, may also apply for the grant. Nonprofits were included in the Senate version thanks to the thoughtful input of Senator Cantwell. Many American Indian communities in Washington state are served by an organization called ONABEN, which provides SBDC-like services to Native American communities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California. Organizations like ONABEN, which also has the strong support of Senator Smith, should be encouraged to continue their good work assisting Native American communities, and including them in the grant program available to SBDCs was an important addition to the legislation. Finally, our legislation establishes a second pilot program to try a unique experiment in Indian Country. Grant funding would be made available to establish American Indian Tribal Assistance Centers. These centers will consist of joint entitles, such as a partnership between an NABC, a Native American development center (which receive grants from the Department of Commerce) and possibly an SBDC. The purpose of this grant is to coordinate experts from various entities to provide culturally tailored business development assistance to prospective and current owners of small business concerns on or near Tribal Lands. Mr. President, I would again like to thank Senators Johnson and Smith and all of the cosponsors of this important legislation to assist our Native American communities. I would also, again like to thank Congressman Udall for taking the lead in the House on providing critical assistance for small businesses in Native American communities. I would urge all of my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation to help us fulfill our commitment to Native American communities.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, military planning is about balancing risk and cost. Resources will always be limited. And actions will always incur costs, whether financial or political. In the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization Bill, the Bush administration sought to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons that would risk blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear arms. While the financial cost of this decision would not be insignificant, the political costs internationally--and the costs to America's security-- could be enormous. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States has sought to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have signed treaties, we have cajoled allies, we have threatened adversaries, and, in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we made it the stated goal of the United States to pursue real nuclear disarmament. The President has stated that the spread of nuclear weapons, when taken with the global danger posed by terrorism, represents the greatest threat to America's security. We have fought one war over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We are locked in a perilous stalemate with North Korea over their nuclear weapons program. We remain concerned about the pursuit of nuclear weapons in places like Iran. And we worry that the Indian- Pakistan border might witness the first exchange of nuclear arms. We find ourselves in an increasingly contradictory position. On the one hand the Bush administration says that it will pursue whatever measures might be necessary to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Ye in our own affairs, the administration has broken dangerous new ground. Their Nuclear Posture Review urged the development of new nuclear weapons in order to target deeply buried, hardened targets or chemical and biological agents on the battlefield. Earlier this year, the president signed an order raising the prospect of American first-use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. These are dangerous and sobering developments. They underscore the perils of this new age. But these policies do not make us safer. Indeed, I would argue they risk making us less secure. The greatest challenge to the security of the United States is the threat of terrorist armed with weapons of mass destruction. There is little debate of this assertion. At a time when stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and securing those that already exist is the principal security challenge of our time, it is inconceivable to me that the Bush administration would seek the authority to develop new weapons of our own. It is another example of the administration acting unilaterally and damaging America's long-term interests in the process. The most effective means to thwart the nuclear ambitions of others is our own moral leadership backed by unquestioned military might. That moral leadership is predicated on the way we conduct ourselves. In short, our efforts to keep nuclear arms out of the hands of others will lack international credibility and support--and ultimately success--if we are determined to develop new nuclear weapons of our own. Without international support, our best efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons will be greeted with cynicism and, quite simply, fail. Our unquestioned military might is not predicated on the development of new nuclear weapons or our ability to target underground bunkers with nuclear bombs; rather it flows from our investment in conventional arms, our ability to project power around the world, our demonstrated capability to strike any point on the planet with precision, and the investment we make in the men and women of our armed forces. In fact, the United States alone has demonstrated the ability to achieve near-strategic effects through the use of conventional precision munitions. No other country can do that. No other country is even close. Given that fact, it is not clear why this administration is willing to bear the international costs of developing a weapon that will raise new questions about America's intentions and hinder our leadership in the fight against proliferation without providing any new military utility. The two most likely scenarios in which United States military might use these new weapons, whether low-yield nuclear weapons or larger bunker-busters, are in striking deeply buried, hardened targets and in defeating chemical and biological agents on the battlefield. In both cases, there are conventional alternatives to the use of nuclear weapons. Deeply buried and hardened facilities can be disabled by using conventional munitions to seal their entrances. Other munitions such as incendiary and thermobaric bombs have proven effective in Afghanistan. A nuclear detonation, in contrast, would eject a plume of radioactive debris that would contaminate the surrounding region, sickening civilians in the area and endangering the well-being of American military personnel. Crossing the nuclear threshold to accomplish these missions would be overkill, it would violate accepted norms of behavior, and it would produce a damaging political backlash against the United States and our interests. There has emerged in recent years an American way of war. Different observers have ascribed different characteristics to it, but nearly all recognize that among its features is a concern and respect for non- combatants. The Secretary of Defense has even noted the additional risk taken by our aircrews to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. The use of nuclear weapons, however, would imperil anyone near a target with exposure to dangerous levels of radiation, introducing a new horrific possibility to the euphemism ``collateral'' damage. Some have contended that a low-yield nuclear weapon, detonated at some depth, would provide shielding from the dangerous fallout associated wit nuclear detonation. According to Rob Nelson, a nuclear physicist at Princeton University, however, a nuclear bunker buster with a yield of one-tenth of one kiloton--about two hundred times smaller than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima--would need to penetrate to a depth of 230 feet prior to detonation for the earth to absorb the totality of the blast. To provide some perspective, the Pentagon's only current nuclear earth penetrating weapon can reach a depth of only about 20 feet in dry earth. At this depth, a 0.1 kiloton weapon would eject hazardous debris and likely fail to damage a robust, deeply buried, hardened structure. Finally, by pursuing new, ``usable'' nuclear weapons designs, this administration underscores to every rogue regime in the world the value of nuclear arms, whether that value is real or not. This is the wrong message for the United States to send. In its place, we must find new ways to demonstrate to countries around the world that these weapons are affordable, unusable, and undesirable. Now is the wrong time to consider developing a new class of American nuclear arms. Instead of researching and developing new weapons, we must redouble our efforts to secure the nuclear weapons already in the world's inventories and safeguard the stores of nuclear materials scattered in unsecured facilities around the world. There is simply no compelling need for a new generation of nuclear weapons. They will not add any meaningful value to our arsenal. But they will undermine our efforts to stem the growth of nuclear stockpiles around the world while making America less secure and the risks of war and catastrophic terrorism even greater. The future is not about a return to the city-busting bombs of the past, nor smaller yield nuclear weapons that might blur the distinction--in some minds--between conventional and nuclear arms. Rather, the future is about eliminating the threat posed to us all by such weapons. Our strength and our power at this moment in history is unrivaled. Now is the time for bold leadership that makes the world safer from nuclear dangers, not more eager for new weapons.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Ms. Snowe, to introduce the Fishing Quota Act of 2003, legislation to establish national criteria governing the use of individual fishing quota IFQ systems. Work began in earnest on this bipartisan bill in the Commerce Committee last spring, as the expiration of the national moratorium on the use of IFQs approached, and small boat fishermen voiced concerns that existing legislative criteria governing the use of IFQs would not offer sufficient protection to communities. I would like to thank Subcommittee Chair Snowe for her efforts to work with me and with other members of the Commerce Committee on this legislation, which draws from separate IFQ legislation that both Senator Snowe and I introduced beginning in the 106th Congress. The IFQ moratorium established under the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act was set to expire September 30, 2000. Senator Snowe and I supported a 2-year extension of that moratorium to allow for hearings and full consultation with affected groups on the issues surrounding IFQs. Our discussions focused on the need to provide regional flexibility to use IFQs as a management tool, while providing national ``rules of the road.'' Such rules of the road would ensure IFQ systems developed after expiration of the moratorium are adopted with the support of the fishery, allocate quota fairly and equitably, address region-specific needs, further the conservation and management goals of the Magnuson- Stevens Act, prevent consolidation of quota, address the needs of small fishing communities, and recognize both the public nature of the resource and that issuance of an IFQ does not give rise to a compensable property right. To develop such rules, we worked with fellow Commerce Committee members, including Senators Breaux, Lott, Boxer, Stevens, and Cantwell, consulted with interested groups, and obtained technical advice from the National Marine Fisheries Service. While New England has historically been opposed to IFQs, other regions are interested in utilizing IFQ programs in certain fisheries. I believe the resulting bill provides a balance between the need to provide national policy guidance that considers the concerns of communities and harvesters, but allows for development of IFQ systems, where appropriate, on a fishery- by-fishery basis. This preserves the balanced regional approach to fishery management that Congress intended in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. I also want to clarify that this bill does not authorize the establishment of ``processor quota,'' and relates only to issuance of harvester quota. The bill Senator Snowe and I are introducing today sets forth a set of national criteria that councils wishing to adopt IFQs would follow. Importantly, this bill contains a provision that directs councils to consider the use of community or area-based approaches and strategies that would preserve the vitality of small fishing communities, including the allocation of quota to a fishing community. It also directs councils to consider use of other management measures, including those that would facilitate formation of fishery cooperative arrangements, taking account of the dependence of coastal communities on these fisheries. This bill addresses many of the concerns raised by fishermen, and I understand the many concerns of small fisherman in New England regarding the use of IFQs. I believe this bill gives fishermen the power to decide whether to implement an IFQ program and ensures that those who do will operate under a fair system. First, no region could implement an IFQ system without approval of a two-thirds majority of eligible permit holders through a referendum process run by the Secretary of Commerce. In addition, any IFQ system developed under the legislation would have to meet a set of national criteria. These national criteria would include: (1) ensuring a fair and equitable initial allocation of quota, including the establishment of an appeals process for qualification and allocation decisions, taking into account present and historic participation in the fishery; (2) establishing limits necessary to prevent inequitable concentration of quota share; (3) preventing any person from acquiring an ``excessive share''; (4) considering allocation of a portion of the annual harvest specifically to small fishermen, skippers, crew members, fishing communities, or categories of vessels or gear types; and (5) providing for revocation of quota if the owner is no longer an active fisherman. I also believe this bill responds to concerns that IFQ systems would undermine the national interest in conserving fishery resources held in the public trust. In order to respond to those concerns, the bill would: (1) specify that an IFQ is a permit under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and does not confer any right of compensation or any right, title or interest to any fish before it is harvested; (2) established that the quota expires after 10 years, unless extended by a fishery management plan; (3) require that the systems promote management measures to improve the conservation and management of the fishery, including reduction of bycatch; (4) provide for regular review and evaluation of the system, including specifying actions to be taken for any failure to meet the criteria; (5) require that the systems provide for effective enforcement, monitoring, and management, including use of observers; and (6) require that quota be revoked from individuals found to be subject to civil penalties under section 308 of the Magnuson- Stevens Act. The bill also would require a 5-year recurring independent review of IFQ systems by the National Research Council, to: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of such systems and determine who the systems contribute to improved management, conservation and safety; (2) evaluate the social, economic and biological consequences of the systems, including economic impacts on fishing communities; (3) evaluate the costs of implementation; and (4) provide recommendations to ensure the systems meet Magnuson-Stevens Act requirements and the goals of the plans. I believe this legislation provides guidelines for the use of IFQs that will help ensure the health of our marine fisheries. During the last reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, our Nation's fisheries were at a crossroads, and action was required to remedy our marine resource management problems, to preserve the way of life in our coastal communities, and to promote the sustainable use and conservation of our marine resources for future generations and for the economic good of the Nation. We must stay the course, and this bill will help us do just that. I remain committed to the goal of establishing biologically and economically sustainable fisheries so that fishing will continue to be an important part of the culture and economy of coastal communities throughout Massachusetts, as well as the economy of the Nation.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, there are now nearly 200,000 American veterans today who are forced to wait at least 6 months for their first visit with a Department of Veterans Affairs physician. Despite having served their country and been promised health benefits, these veterans are receiving deferred and rationed health care because of chronic underfunding and bureaucratic red tape. It amounts to a broken promise with men and women who have served in our armed forces. To help ensure that our veterans receive the care they need and have been guaranteed, today I am pleased to introduce the Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003. Veterans enrolled in the VA health care program are entitled to a prescription drug benefit. This is an essential benefit given the importance of pharmaceuticals in health care today. However, there's a bureaucratic catch: the benefit only applies to prescriptions written by a VA physician, and there are nearly 200,000 veterans who now wait 6 months or longer for their first visit with a VA physician. For those veterans in need of medicine and waiting months on end to see a VA physician, the benefit has little value. The VA has reported to Congress that, while it has no exact figure, it estimates that tens of thousands of the veterans now on the waiting list are there primarily to access their prescription drug benefit. In many of these cases, veterans have already seen a private physician and have a prescription. But in order to use the VA pharmacy and receive their prescription benefit, these individuals must duplicate their health care visits and see a VA physician. This delays health care benefits for far too many veterans. The Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003 would permit veterans already on the waiting list to fill a prescription written by a private physician at the VA pharmacy. Specifically, the Veterans' Prescription Drug Reform Act of 2003 would give the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the authority to permit veterans on the waiting list for their first appointment with a VA physician at the date of enactment to use the VA pharmacy to fill prescriptions written by a private physician. It would also preserve the core healthcare mission of the VA by limiting this initiative only to those currently waiting for their first appointment. The proposal calls for a report to Congress in 1 year so that its potential expansion can be evaluated. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs has told Congress that he would support such a proposal, and I look forward to working with Senator Harkin, who joins me in sponsoring this legislation, and my other colleagues in the Senate on this common-sense approach to reducing the lengthy wait-lines for veterans' healthcare. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join with my colleagues, Senators Johnson and Smith, as well as the cosponsors of our legislation, Senators Akaka, Baucus, Bingaman, Cantwell, Daschle, Murray, and Stabenow in introducing the Native American Small Business Development Act. As many of my colleagues are aware, last Congress the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship unanimously passed nearly identical legislation, S. 2335, yet the bill was not taken up by the full Senate. Today, Senator Johnson, Senator Smith and I are reintroducing this bill because we recognize that there is an even a greater need for this legislation on tribal lands across the Nation. The economy continues to slump, access to capital is even more limited, and state funding for small business initiatives is being pulled back. According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ``three year average poverty rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives [from 1998-2000] was 25.9 percent. Higher than for any other race groups.'' With an unemployment rate well above the national average and household income at just three-quarters of the national average, Native American communities need a commitment from the Federal government that we will help them, particularly during these difficult economic times. To reaffirm this commitment, the Johnson-Kerry-Smith bill provides Native Americans the resources they need to take advantage of the opportunities of entrepreneurship. Mr. President, this legislation bears the same name as legislation that recently passed the House, H.R. 1166, which was reintroduced by Congressman Tom Udall, a recognized leader in promoting the interests of American Indians. I would like to thank Congressman Udall for his work in stewarding the Native American Small Business Development Act through the House, this Congress and last, and for his assistance in working with Senators Johnson and Smith and me in drafting the Senate version of our legislation. And I would specifically like to thank Senator Smith for his continued support on this issue. I would again like to thank the National Indian Business Association, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, the Association of Small Business Development Centers, the Oregon Native American Business Entrepreneurial Network (ONABEN), Native American Management Services, Inc., and all of the tribes that met with us or provided information to help in the drafting of this legislation. The Senate version of the Native American Small Business Development Act, while incorporating the heart of the Udall legislation, is more comprehensive and provides greater assistance to Native American communities. Senator Johnson, who serves on the Indian Affairs Committee, and I, as the lead Democrat on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, were able to combine the resources and experiences of our committees in developing this legislation. Mr. President, our need to fashion a more comprehensive business assistance package for Native American small businesses stems in part from a growing lack of commitment from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to our Native American communities under this Administration. While I applaud the Bush Administration for responding to congressional requests by including $1 million in the Administration's FY 2003 budget request for Native American outreach, I was disappointed that it did not seek the full level of $2.5 million requested in a letter I sent with my colleagues Senators Daschle, Wellstone, Johnson, Bingaman and Baucus. Our request specifically sought funding for the SBA's Tribal Business Information Center (TBIC) program, an initiative started and successfully operated under the Clinton Administration. The TBIC program was designed to address the unique conditions faced by American Indians when they seek to start or expand small businesses. Mr. President, I am disappointed that the Administration has eliminated all funding for Native American outreach in FY2004. With an average unemployment rate on reservations as high as 43 percent, it is inconceivable that two years of outreach is sufficient to have met our shared goal of building sustainable economic opportunities in those communities. Mr. President, I do not believe that anyone in this Congress would dispute that economic development in Indian Country has often been difficult to achieve and that one important way to help American Indians who live on reservations is to provide them with assistance to open and run their own small businesses. Helping Native Americans open and run small businesses not only instills a sense of pride in the owner and his or her community, it also provides much-needed job opportunities, as well as other economic benefits. Although underfunded, the TBIC program has provided assistance to a number of small businesses on Indian reservations. TBICs have the support of the American Indian communities they serve because they provide desperately needed, culturally tailored business development assistance in those communities. The Administration should be seeking to strengthen its commitment to programs that assist Native American communities. Unfortunately, the SBA cut off TBIC funding on March 31, 2002, and now 14 months later, has not met a request by a bipartisan group of Senators to begin the reprogramming process in order to keep the TBICs open. The Native American Small Business Development Act will ensure that the SBA's programs to assist Native American communities cannot be dissolved by making the SBA's Office of Native American Affairs (ONAA) and its Assistant Administrator permanent. Our legislation would also create a statutory grant program, known as the Native American Development grant program, to assist Native Americans. It would also establish two pilot programs to try new means of assisting Native American communities and require Native American communities to be consulted regarding the future of SBA programs designed to assist them. In short, this legislation will ensure that our Native American communities receive the adequate assistance they need to help start and grow small businesses. The ONAA will be responsible for helping Native Americans and Native American communities start, operate, and grow small businesses; develop management and technical skills; seek out Federal procurement opportunities; increase employment opportunities through the start and expansion of small business concerns; and increase their access to capital markets. To be selected to serve as the Assistant Administrator for ONAA, a candidate must have knowledge of Native American cultures and experience providing culturally tailored small business development assistance to Native Americans. Under our legislation, the Assistant Administrator would be statutorily required to consult with Tribal Colleges and Tribal Governments, Alaska Native Corporations (ANC) and Native Hawaiian Organizations (NHO) when carrying out responsibilities under this legislation, which would give Native American communities a true voice within the SBA. The Assistant Administrator for ONAA would be responsible for administering the Native American Development program and the pilot programs created by the Native American Small Business Development Act. The Native American Development program is designed to be the SBA's primary program for providing business development assistance to Native American communities. To offer this support, to the SBA will provide financial assistance in establish and keep Native American Business Centers (NABC) in operation. Financial assistance under the Native American Development program would be available to Tribal Governments and Tribal Colleges. Unlike the SBA's TBIC program, however, ANCs and NHOs would also be eligible for the grants. NABCs would address the unique conditions faced by reservation-based American Indians, as well as Native Hawaiians and Native Alaskans, in their efforts to create, develop and expand small business concerns. Grant funding would be used by the NABCs to provide culturally tailored financial education assistance, management education assistance, and marketing education assistance. The first pilot program under the legislation establishes a Native American development grant. This grant is modeled after the Udall legislation and is designed to bring the expertise of SBA's Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) to Native American Communities. Additionally, any private nonprofit organization, which has members of an Indian tribe comprising a majority of its board of governors or is an NHO or an ANC, may also apply for the grant. Nonprofits were included in the Senate version thanks to the thoughtful input of Senator Cantwell. Many American Indian communities in Washington state are served by an organization called ONABEN, which provides SBDC-like services to Native American communities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California. Organizations like ONABEN, which also has the strong support of Senator Smith, should be encouraged to continue their good work assisting Native American communities, and including them in the grant program available to SBDCs was an important addition to the legislation. Finally, our legislation establishes a second pilot program to try a unique experiment in Indian Country. Grant funding would be made available to establish American Indian Tribal Assistance Centers. These centers will consist of joint entitles, such as a partnership between an NABC, a Native American development center (which receive grants from the Department of Commerce) and possibly an SBDC. The purpose of this grant is to coordinate experts from various entities to provide culturally tailored business development assistance to prospective and current owners of small business concerns on or near Tribal Lands. Mr. President, I would again like to thank Senators Johnson and Smith and all of the cosponsors of this important legislation to assist our Native American communities. I would also, again like to thank Congressman Udall for taking the lead in the House on providing critical assistance for small businesses in Native American communities. I would urge all of my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation to help us fulfill our commitment to Native American communities.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I applaud the efforts of Senator Susan Collins, Senator Jim Talent, and my colleague from the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, Senator Carl Levin, for their efforts today on behalf of small businesses. Their amendment to S. 1050, the Department of Defense reauthorization bill, is a step in the right direction towards ending the deleterious effect contract bundling is having on small businesses. Bundled contracts, while seemingly an efficient and cost-saving means for Federal agencies to conduct business, are anticompetitive and antismall business. Further, they will result in increased costs over time. When a Federal agency bundles contracts, it limits small businesses' ability to bid for the new bundled contract, thus limiting competition and the Government's ability to receive better and cheaper goods and services. Small businesses are consistently touted as more innovative, more flexible and responsive to an agency's needs than their larger counterparts. But when forced to bid for megacontracts, at times across large geographic areas, few, if any, small businesses can be expected to compete. This deprives the Federal Government of the benefits of competition and our economy of possible innovations brought about by small businesses. This amendment attempts to close one of the loopholes used by agencies to pool like-kind contracts that were previously awarded to small businesses. The amendment requires the Department of Defense to conduct market research, identify alternative contracting approaches, and determine if the ``consolidation'' is necessary and justified for any ``consolidated contract'' above $5 million. The amendment does not go far enough, however. It only applies to the Department of Defense, is only applicable for 1 year, and still allows a loophole that will allow bundling regardless of quantifiable dollar amounts. I have introduced legislation, S. 633, that would take the necessary steps to further limit the practice of contract bundling. I look forward to obtaining its Senate passage in cooperation with the Senators who advocated on behalf of this amendment and all those who are determined to remove the barriers to small business development created by contract bundling.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a special place on the national mall. Its design has proven moving to millions of visitors, offering a place of reflection, remembrance, and healing. Despite the ``Wall's'' success in honoring those who fell in Vietnam, the memorial lacks an appropriate visitors center, a place where the broader story of America's involvement in Vietnam can be told. The legislation we introduce today would authorize the construction of such a center to provide information on the memorial, and to perform appropriate educational and interpretive activities relating to the memorial. A Visitor's Center at the Vietnam Memorial is important, because the Vietnam War and the men and women who fought it are important. A Visitor's Center can provide a lasting gift of knowledge and understanding to those who visit the memorial, including students--for whom Vietnam is a passage in their history books--and their parents-- for whom the memories of Vietnam remain immediate. Adding a new structure to the national mall is not something we should do without consideration of the impact such an action will have on the open space we so cherish there. This legislation, however, specifies that the Visitor's Center be designed with those concerns in mind--and in fact we expect the structure to be built under-ground. In addition, the design, construction, and operation of this center will be borne by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In this legislation, we seek only to authorize their work--not pay for it. Vietnam left its imprint on a generation. It remains a touchstone of the American experience in the twentieth century. A Visitors Center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will help educate a new generation about the heros who served their country in the Vietnam War, and I am delighted to introduce this legislation with my fellow Vietnam veterans, Senator Hagel and Senator McCain.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a special place on the national mall. Its design has proven moving to millions of visitors, offering a place of reflection, remembrance, and healing. Despite the ``Wall's'' success in honoring those who fell in Vietnam, the memorial lacks an appropriate visitors center, a place where the broader story of America's involvement in Vietnam can be told. The legislation we introduce today would authorize the construction of such a center to provide information on the memorial, and to perform appropriate educational and interpretive activities relating to the memorial. A Visitor's Center at the Vietnam Memorial is important, because the Vietnam War and the men and women who fought it are important. A Visitor's Center can provide a lasting gift of knowledge and understanding to those who visit the memorial, including students--for whom Vietnam is a passage in their history books--and their parents-- for whom the memories of Vietnam remain immediate. Adding a new structure to the national mall is not something we should do without consideration of the impact such an action will have on the open space we so cherish there. This legislation, however, specifies that the Visitor's Center be designed with those concerns in mind--and in fact we expect the structure to be built under-ground. In addition, the design, construction, and operation of this center will be borne by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In this legislation, we seek only to authorize their work--not pay for it. Vietnam left its imprint on a generation. It remains a touchstone of the American experience in the twentieth century. A Visitors Center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will help educate a new generation about the heros who served their country in the Vietnam War, and I am delighted to introduce this legislation with my fellow Vietnam veterans, Senator Hagel and Senator McCain.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am extraordinarily grateful, not just for the yielding by my colleague from Delaware, and my friend of many years here, but I am also very grateful for the comments he just made. I appreciate enormously his acknowledgment of the work that has gone into this legislation from the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Frist and I did start this effort a number of years ago. In fact, we chaired a major bipartisan, frankly apolitical, completely nonpolitical effort nationally, bringing together most of the people involved in this issue for a long period of time to solicit from them their thoughts about the best way to try to put together, for the first time, a comprehensive approach to the issue of AIDS. The reason for wanting to make it comprehensive, obviously, is that everything else was failing. There was and is a sense of implosion in continents and countries as a consequence of what is happening. No country ever had the capacity to provide as much leadership or to provide as much resource as the United States of America to help to deal with this issue. It is good that we are at least on the floor of the Senate today for some brief period of time dealing with this question of the HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act which comes over to us from the House. The scope of the AIDS epidemic really cannot be underestimated. It is now spreading to the Caribbean. It is in East European former Soviet bloc countries. It is in Asia. The nondiscriminating way that AIDS kills women and children, men and boys, young and old alike, tears up families, and destroys human infrastructure, is beyond people's belief, absent an extraordinary effort comprehensively to begin to coordinate a global effort to combat it. It is the worst public health, social, and humanitarian crisis of our age. It is imperative the United States lead the efforts to deal with it. It should not only be on our agenda today, but it needs to be on our agenda in the months and years to come. Obviously, Congress should send to the President legislation that substantially increases funding for our global AIDS programs, and indeed this bill will do that. But we need to leave no doubt in the world's mind that we are going to be at the forefront of that fight in the years to come. To underscore what the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee just said, the President could have had this legislation last year, or even earlier this year, had the administration and Republican allies in Congress wanted it. Last July, the Senate unanimously passed and sent to the House the bipartisan United States leadership effort against HIV/AIDS. I thank the majority leader for his efforts to join me in again a completely nonpartisan effort to try to behave in a globally responsible way and in a way that lives up to the highest values and standards of our country. I introduced that bill a year ago today, along with Senators Frist, Biden, Helms, Daschle, and some 10 other cosponsors. That bipartisan bill was the most comprehensive global HIV/AIDS bill ever introduced in the Congress. It authorized more than double the annual $1 billion level of funding for AIDS, TB, and malaria programs over each fiscal year of 2003 and 2004, it created an HIV/AIDS coordinator in the Department of State, it ensured the Government had a comprehensive 5- year global strategy on HIV/AIDS, and it provided USAID, CDC, and other HHS agencies with the necessary authorities and resources to carry out an effective program of prevention and treatment abroad. The House of Representatives had ample opportunity to act on this bill before Congress adjourned last November, but it failed to even take it up. Nor was the House interested in conferencing the full bill. The administration provided no impetus, no leadership, and no effort in order to try to get the House to do so. Apparently the comprehensiveness of the bill was too much for the House Republicans to handle. Speaking to this point on November 13 of last year, Congressman Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, stated that ``Discussions have broken down between the Senate and the House over the size and the scope of the bill.'' And there was no intervention whatsoever by the administration to try to bring those parties together at any time. It is more than regrettable that our colleagues in the House refused to act last year. Although this bill predated President Bush's AIDS initiative announced this year in his State of the Union Address, that very worthy initiative could easily have been funded and carried out under the provisions of the Senate-passed bill. We had a missed opportunity, one that could have saved lives. As Chairman Hyde wrote earlier this week in his own op-ed in the Washington Post, ``In the five minutes or so required to read this column, another 30 people will die and another 55 will become infected.'' Just think how many people could have been helped had the administration and the House not missed the opportunity offered by the Senate last year to ramp up our efforts. Since the beginning of this year, Senator Biden and I have worked consistently with Senator Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to produce a bipartisan global HIV/AIDS bill. Regrettably-- and I do regret--each step of the way those efforts were repeatedly frustrated by the White House and some Members on the other side of the aisle. Our most recent effort, S. 1009, the United States Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Act of 2003, introduced by Senator Lugar on May 7 and cosponsored by Senators Biden, Daschle, and Sarbanes, was based on the very draft the majority leader, Senator Frist, brought us for consideration after consultation and input from the White House. But that effort, too, died on the vine. The White House and the Senate majority leader have made it abundantly clear that the President now wants the Senate to move quickly to pass the bill without amendment. Having been at the forefront of the legislative effort to combat this, I am delighted the President now wants to have a bill in hand when he meets with the G-8 leaders in June. I agree that we can and must leverage other nations to increase their efforts and their resources to combat the AIDS pandemic. And I am confident the President will be able to tell his colleagues and the Congress that we are united in the fight against AIDS. However, the bill we send him ought to not only provide substantially increased resources to fight AIDS, but it should also embody comprehensive, balanced, and effective policies and programs. The pending House bill does well in resources in terms of authorization--$15 billion over the next 5 years for the three most infectious global diseases, HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria. Like last year's bipartisan Senate bill on which it is modeled, the House bill established an HIV/AIDS coordinator, and it mandates a coordinated, comprehensive, and integrated U.S. 5-year strategy. But the bill remains flawed. If left unaddressed, those flaws will seriously undermine the effectiveness and the comprehensiveness of the U.S. AIDS programs. The House bill provides insufficient resources for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the public-private partnership established in 2001 with the strong support of President Bush and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. The global fund reflects the international community's determination to marshal increased resources to combat not only HIV/AIDS but also TB and malaria. Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services, currently chairs the global fund's board of directors. Whereas the Bush administration's new AIDS initiative is focused on only 14 countries--12 in Africa and 2 in the Caribbean--the global fund's scope is worldwide, covering not only countries where AIDS is rampant, but also countries such as Russia, China, and India, where the epidemic is growing rapidly. The Bush administration's preference for bilateral efforts over multilateral efforts, in my judgment, is discernible because of the way the allocation of funds within the President's announced initiative takes place. The President promised $15 billion over 5 years. But only $1 billion of those funds--that is $200 million a year--would go to the global fund. This annual figure of $200 million a year is already $150 million less than we have provided in fiscal year 2003 alone. The President's proposal provides for no increases over the 5-year period. The House bill authorizes ``up to $1 billion'' for the global fund for fiscal year 2004. On the face of it, that looks like an improvement. It is calculated to look like an improvement, but it is not an improvement. The House bill fails to guarantee any specific funding level, and it caps U.S. contributions at 25 percent of the fund's total contributions. This is simply not adequate. We can, and we should, do more. At a minimum, we should be able to guarantee that our contributions to the fund for fiscal year 2004 are significantly increased over the 2003 level. I know some of my colleagues believe other countries are not contributing enough to the fund. I share that concern, but I am proud that the United States of America is the largest donor to the fund, and we ought to be. In my view, that is commensurate with leadership, and leadership is what is needed. However, other countries can and should do more, and if leveraging our contributions will enable Chairman Thompson and the leadership of the global fund to raise more resources, I am all for that. S. 1009, the Lugar-Biden-Kerry bill that was introduced earlier this month, would authorize $1 billion for the fund for fiscal year 2004, and $500 million of this would be available without any strings attached. To receive the additional $500 million, the fund would have to raise $2 billion in contributions from sources other than the United States. So it provides real leverage, and that is what we ought to be doing. In effect, the United States would be providing one-third of the fund's resources--a figure with which all of us ought to be able to live. I will support changes in the House bill to strike the House language on the fund and achieve those higher funding levels. Second, the House bill mandates that one-third of the funds spent on prevention go only to abstinence-until-marriage programs. Now, none of us disagrees that abstinence is an important component of AIDS education. It is important as a matter of values, and of course we ought to engage in that effort. But the effectiveness of these programs depends literally on their comprehensiveness and on their relevancy to the population you are targeting. That means you need all three components of the so-called ABC model: abstinence; be faithful, which includes reducing the number of partners; and the use of condoms. Obviously, abstinence does not apply to all target populations. For example, take a situation where you have people who are married or they are in a monogamous relationship. It is well and good to promote the concept of abstinence, which we should do, but abstinence-until- marriage programs have their greatest resonance with young people, and I believe we ought to fund those types of programs. But we should not tie the President's hands by specifically earmarking the percentage of funds to be spent on these programs because that denies the reality of what you find on the ground in terms of the targeted population. I will support an amendment to strike this earmark. We ought to be rational enough as human beings to understand that you do not want to just promote abstinence. What happens when somebody falls short of the abstinence, as everyone in the world knows occurs? Then you want at least to have that person also educated as to what the possibilities are to still prevent the spread of the disease. In my view, we should be providing the administration with maximum flexibility to ensure that our assistance programs are well targeted to the countries in which we are working. Regrettably, the House bill contains a number of earmarks and limitations ideologically driven but not practically driven, which reduce the flexibility and undermine the capacity to work with various high-risk populations at the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The House bill guarantees that faith-based organizations may participate in U.S. Government-funded HIV/AIDS programs even if they choose not to participate in all elements of the program. For example, they can be involved in the component that respects abstinence but they may choose not to be involved in providing counseling on safe sex and distributing condoms. Faith-based organizations are on the front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS, and I respect that. We welcome that. And they should be. We need them there. I do not believe we should ask any organization, faith-based or otherwise, to compromise their principles in this effort, and I would not do that. But if the U.S. Government is funding their programs, it is important, with respect to the expenditure of our dollars, that we guarantee that those dollars be spent in the most effective way and that we need to respect the interventions that, in fact, prevent HIV infection, even those they object to on a moral or religious ground. An organization that does not wish to give out condoms should absolutely not be required to do so, but it also ought to be required to give accurate and medically sound advice on the effectiveness of that method. I will support an amendment to the House bill that makes it clear that all organizations that are funded by the U.S. Government in this fight must follow that policy. Last year, the Senate-passed AIDS bill contained a title on debt reduction that was authored by Senators Biden and Santorum. It urged the Secretary of the Treasury to renegotiate the Enhanced HPIC Initiative to provide funds for HIV/AIDS programs through greater debt reduction. The House bill we are now considering contains no such title, despite strong support for it from many quarters, including the Catholic and other churches. This deficiency in the House bill ought to be corrected. I strongly support Senator Biden's amendment to put that title back in the bill. This bill has been a long time in coming. It is here now. Obviously, it is important for the Senate to advance our efforts with respect to AIDS. In my judgment, the amendments that are being offered will improve this legislation in terms of its resources, in terms of its policy, and the flexibility for the President. I hope those amendments will be adopted, notwithstanding the Chair's desire not to have any amendments, because they will provide us with the capacity to have the full measure of the policy we ought to be passing in order to deal with this issue. It is better to have something that is comprehensive and effective than something that merely meets political cosmetic needs and does less than what is needed to address this extraordinary challenge. I also believe there is time yet. There is time, if there is good will on both sides and if there is Presidential leadership, to conference a bill with these amendments. There is no reason we should not make that available to the Senate. We can guarantee the President, on our side, that if we do that in good faith, he will have a bill before he goes to the G-8 summit. But if our efforts to improve this bill fail, I will still support it, Mr. President, imperfect as I think it is, because stemming the AIDS pandemic is the goal and any measure that begins the steps towards that cannot be ignored and is better than none. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I have an amendment which I am not going to ask to vote on, after discussing it with both the chairman and the ranking member, and other colleagues. I thank Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus and particularly Senator Kennedy and Senator Clinton, Senator Schumer, Senator Graham, and Senator Feinstein. This is an amendment that would have affected positively 37 States in the country. Among the top 10 States that would have been helped in a completely nonpartisan way would have been Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, New York, and many others. This refers to the safety net hospitals in our country that are picking up the costs of those who are the most disadvantaged who need health care. Unfortunately, in this amendment the funding under the Children's Health Insurance Program has been cut as an offset in this legislation by some $800 million. There are 2 million additional uninsured in this country. None of them have the ability to be able to get care unless we are providing the so-called disproportionate share allocation to those hospitals. I ask the chairman and the ranking member if they would agree that when the Medicare bill comes up in about a month that at that time it would be appropriate for the Finance Committee to try to rectify what is happening here because the increasing numbers of uninsured are literally flooding the hospitals and urban centers and rural communities where they don't have the capacity to be able to provide the care. It seems extraordinary that we can find the money for those who earn more than $315,000 a year at the expense of those who are the most vulnerable in our society. I hope we will rectify it.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the chairman.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the ranking member. I know they will both work in good faith to try to address this issue. I know the Senator from California wanted a moment to say something.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to express my appreciation and congratulations to Captain Nicholas Perugini of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, Commissioned Corps on the occasion of his retirement. For more than 26 years, Captain Perugini has dedicated himself to the protection of our Nation's oceans and maritime commerce through his exemplary work in NOAA's charting program. He has served aboard three hydrographic survey vessels and a shore-based field party. As commanding officer of the NOAA ship Rude, Nick was in charge of the survey investigation into the grounding of the Queen Elizabeth 2. He was also a member of NOAA teams that assisted in the recovery of the TWA flight 800 and John F. Kennedy Jr. crash sites which occurred off the East Coast of the United States. Captain Perugini's commitment and leadership during these sensitive projects are an example of public service at its best. Nick consistently put aside ego and personal glory to do what is best for the Nation. Captain Perugini now concludes his career as chief of NOAA's Marine Chart Division. A direct result of his tenure as chief was a significant advancement in the longstanding partnership between NOAA and the Coast Guard concerning safety of navigation issues. His vision and leadership led to the advances of new technologies, moving paper charting to the electronic world. Today, mariners know their location, in real time, on an electronic navigation system. This advance was not possible in the paper chart world. With his guidance, NOAA and the Coast Guard entered into a Memorandum of Agreement, which pooled agency resources and greatly accelerated the production of Electronic Navigational Charts, ENC. He made the ENC data available to the public free, via the internet. This relationship not only saved tax dollars, but the improved navigational tools have greatly increased the safety of navigation. Captain Perugini's work has resulted in a significant reduction in marine accidents, which has saved lives, property, and our environment from degradation. From July 1998 to August 1999, I was pleased to have Nick as a member of my congressional staff as a legislative fellow. His amazing work ethic, interpersonal skills, commitment to the job, knowledge of maritime issues, and gracious humility made him an integral part of my office. I want to thank him for his work and commitment to our Nation. I congratulate Captain Nicholas Perugini on his exemplary career and wish him, his wife Lisa, their daughter Katie, and their son Nicholas my best. Through his tireless efforts, he has made a difference and has helped to protect the marine environment and promote safe maritime commerce that is vital to our Nation's prosperity.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I am extremely pleased to join with my colleague Senator Santorum today to introduce the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2003. Senators Ensign, Mikulski, Smith, Murray, Hatch, Lieberman, Brownback, and Corzine have all joined us as original cosponsors of this important legislation. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act would protect workers from on- the-job discrimination related to religious beliefs and practices. It represents a milestone in the protection of the religious liberties of all workers. In 1972, Congress amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require employers to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious practice or observance unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer. This 1972 amendment, although completely appropriate, has been interpreted by the courts so narrowly as to place little restraint on an employer's refusal to provide religious accommodation. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act will restore the weight to the religious accommodation provision that Congress originally intended and help assure that employers have a meaningful obligation to reasonably accommodate their employees' religious practices. The restoration of this protection is no small matter. For many religiously observant Americans the greatest peril to their ability to carry out their religious faiths on a day-to-day basis may come from employers. I have heard accounts from around the country about employers who will not make reasonable accommodations for employees to observe the Sabbath and other holy days, or for employees to wear religiously-required garb, such as a yarmulke, or for employees to wear clothing that meets religion-based modesty requirements. The refusal of an employer absent undue hardship to provide reasonable accommodation of a religious practice should be seen as a form of religious discrimination, as originally intended by Congress in 1972. And religious discrimination should be treated as seriously as any other form of discrimination that stands between Americans and equal employment opportunities. Enactment of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act will constitute an important step toward ensuring that all members of society, whatever their religious beliefs and practices, will be protected from an invidious form of discrimination. Even after September 11, 2001, with a heightened sense of religious sensitivity among the American people, securing greater protections for the religious needs of employees is a major issue. In October 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Muslim woman who was pressured by her employer to stop wearing her head scarf. We must come together now to pass this bipartisan legislation. It is important to recognize that, in addition to protecting the religious freedom of employees, this legislation protects employers from an undue burden. Employees would be allowed to take time off only if their doing so does not pose a significant difficulty or expense for the employer. This common sense definition of undue hardship is used in the Americans with Disabilities Act and has worked well in that context. We have little doubt that this bill is constitutional because it simply clarifies existing law on discrimination by private employers, strengthening the required standard for employers. This bill does not deal with behavior by State or Federal Governments or substantively expand 14th Amendment rights. This bill is endorsed by a wide range of organizations including the Agudath Israel of America, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Americans for Democratic Action, Anti-Defamation League, Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, Bible Sabbath Association, B'nai B'rith International, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Christian Legal Society, Church of Scientology International, Council on Religious Freedom, Family Research Council, General Board of Church and Society The United Methodist Church, General Conference of Seventh- day Adventists, Guru Gobind Singh Foundation, Hadassah--WZOA, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, The Interfaith Alliance, International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, International Commission on Freedom of Conscience, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Islamic Supreme Council of America, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Policy Center, NA'AMAT USA, National Association of Evangelicals, National Conference for Community and Justice, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., National Council of Jewish Women, National Jewish Democratic Council, National Sikh Center, North American Council for Muslim Women, Presbyterian Church (USA), Rabbinical Council of America, Republican Jewish Coalition, Sikh Council on Religion and Education, Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force, Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Traditional Values Coalition, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, United Church of Christ Office for Church in Society, and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. I want to thank Senator Santorum for joining me to lead this effort. I look forward to working with him to pass this legislation so that all American workers can be assured of both equal employment opportunities and the ability to practice their religion.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I am extremely pleased to join with my colleague Senator Santorum today to introduce the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2003. Senators Ensign, Mikulski, Smith, Murray, Hatch, Lieberman, Brownback, and Corzine have all joined us as original cosponsors of this important legislation. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act would protect workers from on- the-job discrimination related to religious beliefs and practices. It represents a milestone in the protection of the religious liberties of all workers. In 1972, Congress amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require employers to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious practice or observance unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer. This 1972 amendment, although completely appropriate, has been interpreted by the courts so narrowly as to place little restraint on an employer's refusal to provide religious accommodation. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act will restore the weight to the religious accommodation provision that Congress originally intended and help assure that employers have a meaningful obligation to reasonably accommodate their employees' religious practices. The restoration of this protection is no small matter. For many religiously observant Americans the greatest peril to their ability to carry out their religious faiths on a day-to-day basis may come from employers. I have heard accounts from around the country about employers who will not make reasonable accommodations for employees to observe the Sabbath and other holy days, or for employees to wear religiously-required garb, such as a yarmulke, or for employees to wear clothing that meets religion-based modesty requirements. The refusal of an employer absent undue hardship to provide reasonable accommodation of a religious practice should be seen as a form of religious discrimination, as originally intended by Congress in 1972. And religious discrimination should be treated as seriously as any other form of discrimination that stands between Americans and equal employment opportunities. Enactment of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act will constitute an important step toward ensuring that all members of society, whatever their religious beliefs and practices, will be protected from an invidious form of discrimination. Even after September 11, 2001, with a heightened sense of religious sensitivity among the American people, securing greater protections for the religious needs of employees is a major issue. In October 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Muslim woman who was pressured by her employer to stop wearing her head scarf. We must come together now to pass this bipartisan legislation. It is important to recognize that, in addition to protecting the religious freedom of employees, this legislation protects employers from an undue burden. Employees would be allowed to take time off only if their doing so does not pose a significant difficulty or expense for the employer. This common sense definition of undue hardship is used in the Americans with Disabilities Act and has worked well in that context. We have little doubt that this bill is constitutional because it simply clarifies existing law on discrimination by private employers, strengthening the required standard for employers. This bill does not deal with behavior by State or Federal Governments or substantively expand 14th Amendment rights. This bill is endorsed by a wide range of organizations including the Agudath Israel of America, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Americans for Democratic Action, Anti-Defamation League, Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, Bible Sabbath Association, B'nai B'rith International, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Christian Legal Society, Church of Scientology International, Council on Religious Freedom, Family Research Council, General Board of Church and Society The United Methodist Church, General Conference of Seventh- day Adventists, Guru Gobind Singh Foundation, Hadassah--WZOA, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, The Interfaith Alliance, International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, International Commission on Freedom of Conscience, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Islamic Supreme Council of America, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Policy Center, NA'AMAT USA, National Association of Evangelicals, National Conference for Community and Justice, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., National Council of Jewish Women, National Jewish Democratic Council, National Sikh Center, North American Council for Muslim Women, Presbyterian Church (USA), Rabbinical Council of America, Republican Jewish Coalition, Sikh Council on Religion and Education, Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force, Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Traditional Values Coalition, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, United Church of Christ Office for Church in Society, and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. I want to thank Senator Santorum for joining me to lead this effort. I look forward to working with him to pass this legislation so that all American workers can be assured of both equal employment opportunities and the ability to practice their religion.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Snowe in introducing the Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act. This legislation will establish mental health care parity in the Medicare program. Medicare currently requires patients to pay a 20 percent co-payment for all Part B services except mental health care services, for which patients are assessed a 50 percent co-payment. Thus, under the current system, if a Medicare patient sees an endocrinologist for diabetes treatment, an oncologist for cancer treatment, a cardiologist for heart disease treatment or an internist for treatment of the flu, the co- payment is 20 percent of the cost of the visit. If, however, a Medicare patient visits a psychiatrist for treatment of mental illness, the co- payment is 50 percent of the cost of the visit. This disparity in outpatient co-payments represents blatant discrimination against Medicare beneficiaries with mental illness. The prevalence of mental illness in older adults is considerable. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, 20 percent of older adults in the community and 40 percent of older adults in primary care settings experience symptoms of depression, while as many as one out of every two residents in nursing homes are at risk of depression. The elderly have the highest rate of suicide in the United States, and there is a clear correlation between major depression and suicide: 60 to 70 percent of suicides among patients 75 and older have diagnosable depression. In addition to our seniors, 400,000 non-elderly disabled Medicare beneficiaries become Medicare-eligible by virtue of severe and persistent mental disorders. To subject the mentally disabled to discriminatory costs in coverage for the very conditions for which they became Medicare eligible is illogical and unfair. There is ample evidence that mental illness can be treated. Unfortunately, those in need of treatment often do not seek it because they are ashamed of their condition. Among our Medicare population, the mentally ill face a double burden: not only must they overcome the stigma about their illness, but once they seek treatment they must pay one-half of the cost of care out of their own pocket. The Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act will phase-down the 50 percent co- payment for mental health care services to 20 percent over six years. By applying the same co-payment rate to mental health services to which all other outpatient services are subjected, the Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act will bring parity to the Medicare program and improve access to care for our senior and disabled beneficiaries who are living with mental illness. I urge my colleagues to join with us to pass this critical legislation. I ask unanimous consent that several letters of support be printed in the Record.