Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will not yield. I will finish the answer and then I will yield to the Senator. My amendment sets a process in place. We have the Secretary of the Treasury. Now why would we go to the Secretary of the Treasury? Because the insurance commissioners of the 50 States determine if rates are actuarially sound on the basis of an experience or on the basis of data coming from an experience, and the fact is that the insurance commissioners of the 50 States do not have that data and experience. So in the Nelson amendment what we do is put into place a process by which actuarially sound judgments can be made on whether or not the rate hike is just right or whether the rate hike is too high or whether the rate hike is not high enough. You mean it could not be high enough? In fact, that is something we ought to know. We ought to know what is the appropriate hike to cover the insurance risk that is being assumed by the insurance company since most of the terrorism risk is being assumed by the Federal Government. For example, under the Nelson amendment, the Secretary of the Treasury shall promulgate regulations establishing parameters for insurance rates for terrorism risk. That says ``parameters.'' It does not say he sets the rate. It says he sets the parameters. Then what does it say? It says the Secretary of the Treasury is going to consult in developing the regulations of setting those parameters. The Secretary shall consult with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and appropriate Federal agencies. Then we go on to give an escape valve, a safety valve. The Secretary may periodically modify the regulations promulgated, as necessary, to account for the changes in the marketplace. What do we give further on a safety valve? Then we say, under exceptional circumstances the Secretary may exclude a participating insurance company from coverage under any of the regulations promulgated. So we give all kinds of leeway and exceptions, and yet we set up a process by which we can determine if rates are actuarially sound. Now, why is this important? It happens to be important because guess who is going to pay? If there is not an actuarially sound rate, guess who is going to pay. The consuming public. You say, oh, no, this is just on tall buildings. So it is going to be the owner of a tall building, a big business. Not so. That is a cost of doing business that is passed on to the consuming public. So whether it is a football stadium, a shopping mall, a tall building, a short building, wherever it is, a small business, a large business, that cost, that rate hike that so many in the real estate industry have decried because, in fact, they have experienced those rate hikes, as chronicled by this morning's Washington Post, in downtown DC, rate hikes of 160 percent and above since last September, where do we think that is going and who do we think is going to pay it? It is going to be the consuming public. Because of that is why the Consumer Federation of America has endorsed this legislation. This is dated today. They say it would require the Secretary of the Treasury to set parameters for terror insurance rates. This is the Consumer Federation of America. It would require insurers to issue rebates for terror insurance premiums already, and I will explain that in a minute. It would require insurers to separately itemize terrorism rates on the insurance bill. Let's talk about those two provisions. Why would we want to separately itemize terrorism rates on an insurance bill? So the consumer will know how much of their premium they are paying is going to pay for the terrorism risk. It is all a matter of mathematics. It is all a matter of calculations. It is all a matter of what is supposed to be a determination to know if a rate is actuarially sound. If it is, as I hope it will be under the process that we are putting in place in this amendment, then the consumer ought to know how much it is they are paying. If one has a bank statement and they have an extra charge by the bank, certainly they want the consumer to know how much extra that bank is charging and for what. And so, too, with this. We set up a process which says they shall identify the portion of the premium insuring against the terrorism risk on a separate line item on the policy. What we do also, as an accounting mechanism, is we cause the insurance company to deposit the amount of the terrorism rate increase in a separate, segregated account so it does not get mixed in with all the other premiums, so we can keep it highlighted, so we know what it is. Then when funds are disbursed to pay if a terrorist strikes and there is an obligation on the part of the insurance company to pay, then those funds would be distributed from that separate account. The consumer would know how much of their premium they, in fact, are paying. The other thing the Consumer Federation of America pointed out is that this Nelson amendment would require insurers to issue rebates for terror insurance premiums already collected. What do we do there? This is a little complicated, but the essence of it is, if there is a policy in existence and we know that rates have been jacked up already, as has been indicated by this morning's Washington Post story, under the Nelson amendment, if law, the Secretary of the Treasury would say that the rate hike should not be this, which has already been imposed, but instead should be this high. What about the difference over the remaining life of that policy--it may be only a few months left because policies are issued on an annual basis, 1-year policies--that that difference is going to be rebated to the consumer. What does that mean? That means if the insurance company, as so many have already, hiked the rates, as indicated by this morning's newspaper story, up here, but the Secretary of the Treasury comes along and says after evaluating and consulting that the rate hike ought to be here, not here, that for the remainder of the months of that policy the difference is going to have to be rebated to the consumer or to the policyholder, in this case mostly commercial policyholders. So what we have is a commonsense amendment. It is an amendment that not only will help the big real estate properties that have been putting the pressure on the majority leader to bring this to the floor because they are feeling the heat of all these increased rates. I don't blame them. I sympathize with them. They need to understand what we are trying to do. Instead of letting it operate in the sphere of the insurance company determining what the rate should be, the real way to regulate what those rates would be is to collect data through the Secretary of the Treasury that determines if the rate is accurate. This affects the big properties, but it affects little properties as well. This underlying bill applies to commercial property and casualty. Many of these policies are held by small businesses whose insurance premiums have increased exorbitantly, significantly raising the cost of running their business. Commercial policyholders will ultimately pass their premium cost on to consumers in the form of higher prices for products and services. Offering rate protection will allow businesses, large and small, to obtain reasonably priced insurance, eliminating the need to pass their cost on to consumers. Discussing the question of whether or not insurance companies have hiked rates since September 11, we saw in this morning's paper: Property insurance for the firm that manages the office building at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue will cost twice as much as last year's $2 million premium. That is the first paragraph of the story in the newspaper. The second paragraph: At George Washington University, insurers have cut the school's former $1 billion property and casualty policy in half. They cut the coverage in half, and they raised the premium at the same time 160 percent. That is the second paragraph. The third paragraph: The National Geographic has been dropped by its workers' compensation provider because of the perceived threats to large concentrations of employees that are in the D.C. area. This story, as well as many others, can give example after example of how insurance rates have been hiked, which in large part has caused a number of real estate trade associations to start sounding the alarm that the rates have gone up so much, they need some relief. What has been said about this in the insurance industry? I am sad to say what has been said is quite revealing. At the end of November, in a statement quoting a Lloyd's of London investor newsletter quoted in the Washington Post, they said, when talking of the effects of September 11 on the insurance industry premiums: [There is a] historic opportunity [to make profits off of 9/11. Disaster insurance premiums have shot up to a level where very large profits are possible.] Doesn't that make your blood boil, that there would be people in the boardrooms of insurance companies who are considering the tragedy of September 11 as an excuse to hike insurance premiums big time? Doesn't that make your blood boil? Another quote from the CEO of Zurich Financial Services from a Reuters story at the end of November as well: As respects to the terrorist attack of September 11, the industry ``needed it to operate efficiently. The players who are strong, in a responsible manner, and are aggressive, will be the winners of the next 15 years.'' In other words, the industry will profit from the price hikes they are now trying to put in place. Does that concern Members? I come to the floor to offer an amendment on a bill that I question the need for but I did not block because I thought it ought to be aired and discussed and voted on. I come to offer an improvement to that bill on its fatal flaw. The fatal flaw is that it does not have a provision to protect consumers from rate hikes and rate gouging. When dealing with insurance, consumers have to have two provisos: Insurance has to be available, and it has to be affordable. Part of the reason for the bill coming to the floor is that the perception is out there, particularly among large real estate properties, that it is neither available nor affordable. What this amendment tries to do is, in making it available as the underlying bill does, in a huge Federal subsidy--in other words, the Federal Government taking over most of the insurance risk for terrorism risk--we are making it affordable by not letting the hikes go through the roof and all the way to the Moon. Organizations such as the Consumer Federation of America, which point out they endorse this amendment to protect businesses and consumers from being gouged with unjustifiable rates, have endorsed this legislation. The underlying legislation I did not block because I thought it ought to come here, but I question whether this is the way we ought to approach it. It is using a sledgehammer in what otherwise ought to be a much more delicate procedure to solve the problem. What is the problem? The problem is, some 8 or 9 months after September 11 certain properties are still having difficulty getting insurance. Where are those properties? They are generally in highly identifiable trophy properties such as tall buildings, such as highly visited facilities like stadiums, such as tourist attractions, such as ports that have cruise traffic. But there is a large part of America that is not like that. Most of America does not have high-rise buildings. Most of America is not highly, densely urbanized. Most of America is not the financial district of the country; namely, Manhattan in New York City. Most of America is not the seat of Government of the United States, Washington DC. Most of America has found its commercial properties to be insured. Why? Because in the last 6, 7, 8 months, the marketplace has responded. In the last half year, money, capital, investments are flowing into the reinsurance industry. Reinsurance is insurance for insurance companies to insure against catastrophe, such as the terrorism risk. As a result of there being more supply of this money going into the reinsurance marketplace, the price of reinsurance has started to come down. As a result of the price coming down, because there is more capital available, it has started to ease the price that is being charged to most of America. So here we are, coming along with an underlying bill that says basically we are going to hold the insurance company on any future conventional weapons terrorism risk only a little bit responsible. Instead, we are going to shift most of that terrorism risk over to the Federal Government of the United States. For certain properties, I agree there is a legitimate need for the Federal Government to backstop insurance companies. Those are primarily your trophy properties. But because the insurance marketplace has responded over the last half year, we do not need to respond with this kind of legislation, and we surely do not need to respond with this kind of legislation which, in fact, has no ability to limit the rate hikes that will occur. Thus, I offer my amendment as a means of process. Let me close by saying this: Let's get it to its bottom line. Let's get it to its political raw. I am afraid if you vote for this without the Nelson amendment, you or any Senator vote for this without the Nelson amendment, a legitimate charge can be made that the Federal Government took over the biggest portion of the insurance terrorism risk without a limitation on the insurance premium hikes. I do not think any Senator wants to be accused of that. I say again, the American public does not like you to vote for tax increases, but let me tell you there is something they do not like even more. They do not like people to vote on jacking up their insurance rates. You can make this a much better bill by adopting the Nelson amendment, which will put in place a process whereby the Secretary of the Treasury will determine if the rate is actuarially sound or if it is not. The Secretary of Treasury could be determining maybe it is not enough. But, then again, he could be determining that maybe it is way too much. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I understand the Senator wants to limit my roll, and I do not want you to limit my roll.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, something this important should not have a limit of 10 minutes. I accept the good nature of the prime sponsor of the bill. Basically, we are here talking about making insurance available and affordable. After September 11, we ended up having something that was neither: not available nor affordable. As a matter of fact, one only has to look to the front page of the Washington Post today. This is chronicling what has happened: Insurance rates rise in DC. They soar downtown. Coverage more limited since September 11. That is the headline from today's Washington Post. It points out that in the downtown area, there is a hiking of rates. One example given by the Washington Post is 160 percent. I can give innumerable examples-- and I will in the course of this debate--of multiple hundreds of percent in rate hikes, and thus that brings us to this point of considering this legislation. I want the sponsor of the bill, Senator Dodd, to listen. I want to direct something to him so that he knows my good faith. I was sitting in the chair presiding last evening when this matter was brought up. A unanimous consent request was presented. Even though I was seated in the chair, in my capacity as a Senator from Florida I could have objected. I did not object because of the good faith he and I both have over the issue, that this is an issue that ought to be hashed out, it ought to be discussed, it ought to be thoroughly debated, and then the amendatory process can work its will in the Senate. It is in that atmosphere of good faith that I go forward. I think the bill offered by the Senator from Connecticut is significantly flawed, although I think it is a good-faith attempt. It is trying to address a problem, and the problem is what we all know of September 11. But several things have happened since September 11 in the insurance marketplace. The marketplace has responded. Capital is flowing big time into the reinsurance companies, reinsurance being an insurance for insurance companies against catastrophe; in this case, the terrorism risk. In the aftermath of September 11, when we thought this was going to be a problem endemic to the whole country on any kind of commercial building or large structure that might be a target of terrorists, what we have found in the 8 or 9 months since is that the marketplace has responded. Reinsurance companies have provided the coverage, and the cost of that reinsurance for this kind of catastrophe has been coming down and down as more money has flowed into the reinsurance marketplace. As a result, we do not have to kill a bumble bee with a big stinger with a sledgehammer. Instead of us having a bill that applies across the board, what we ought to be doing is rifleshooting where the problems are. The Senator from New York just stated several examples. Certainly his constituency of Manhattan is a place where they are having difficulty getting insurance for tall buildings. So, too, would be large structures such as a football stadium, a baseball stadium. So, too, would be in my home State major identifiable high-visibility targets, such as the crowds that go to Disney World, major tourist attractions. Airports would clearly be another one, and I can go down the line. That does not mean that every little commercial building, every medium-sized commercial building, every strip mall, every air- conditioned mall, in fact, cannot get terrorism insurance, because they can. The marketplace has responded. We are coming to the floor with a bill that is fatally flawed because it is overreaching the problem, and the problem is certain types of buildings that need coverage from terrorism. Let's examine that. What kind of terrorism? Most insurance policies already have an exclusion for chemical, biological, and nuclear devastation. So if those insurance policies are not covering chemical, biological, and nuclear terrorism, what kinds of terrorism are we talking about that an insurance company would cover? We are talking about the use of conventional weapons; what we so horribly learned on September 11, which is the use of an airplane or the use of explosives as they tried to do in the early nineties at the basement of the World Trade Center. Those are the things about which we are talking. When one takes the application of conventional explosives and applies it to commercial buildings, does the insurance marketplace today respond with the coverage? My contention is, yes, it does. The insurance marketplace is not going to respond to chemical terrorism, biological terrorism, or nuclear terrorism because that is already exempted in most policies, with the result that the bill is overreaching because of it trying to apply to the whole country when, in fact, we have certain structures that are indeed threatened and the marketplace cannot respond to that. That is the first flaw of this bill. The second flaw of this bill is that it contains no provision to protect consumers from rate gouging. It is not there. I am going to offer an amendment later on in the process that will limit the rate increases, that will have the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the insurance commissioners of the 50 States, through their organization, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, set a range of where the rates should be. That, by the way, is very similar to what the insurance commissioners do in the 50 States on commercial policies. They set a range or a band of where that insurance rate premium ought to be. The problem with terrorism insurance is, the insurance commissioners have difficulty figuring out what ought to be the rates, because the traditional way of determining if a rate is actuarially sound is by experience and by data, and we do not have hardly any experience except for what happened on September 11. Therefore, that is why I am going to offer an amendment later on that is going to point out that the best way of determining what the rise in rates ought to be to cover the terrorism risk would be through the advice to the Secretary of the Treasury who is prominent in Senator Dodd's bill as being the place of limiting the rate hikes. The fatal flaw is this bill overreaches and this bill does not have any provision to protect consumers for rate gouging. I see the Presiding Officer is starting to twist in the seat as if my 10-minute time limit is up, which is exactly what I thought was going to happen, but I am just getting into my speech.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I was glad to yield to my colleague, and I hope he will interject these comments so we can have an honest and fair debate about this issue because the very point that the Senator from Connecticut has made is the flaw of this bill. The 50 insurance commissioners of this country usually do not set the rates on commercial policies, and the ones who do, such as the State of Florida, set a range for rates, but that is with regard to all the conventional types of risk--theft, dog bite, slip and fall, and so forth. The fact is that the 50 insurance commissioners, if they were to do what the Senator from Connecticut says, do not have any actuarial data on which to make a judgment about whether or not a rate hike is actuarially sound for the de minimis terrorism risk that the insurance company is now assuming. Wait, wait. Let me finish.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Certainly.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, while some Members are still in the Chamber, I want them to understand an essential truth that a public which is averse to raising taxes is all the more averse to hiking insurance premiums. Let me repeat that. We all know that the consuming public is averse to raising taxes, and we are sensitive to that fact, but equally or more sensitive is the issue of passing legislation that hikes insurance premiums, and that is what we are facing. We have an underlying bill that is trying to solve a problem. The problem is that terrorism has now become an insurance risk. In large part, this bill takes that risk off individual insurance companies and has the Federal Government assume a large part of that risk, so much so in one computation, it is 80 percent of the risk; in another computation it is 90 percent of the risk. In the very complicated formula of the bill, it has the responsibility of each insurance company with a de minimis amount that it would pay out in the case of a terrorism incident and, mind you, this is only a terrorism incident which is using conventional explosives. It does not include--because they are exempt from almost all insurance policies--the terrorism risk when the terrorist uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. As a result, we are talking about a risk, as we learned on September 11, in the totality of the picture of the risk, to the whole country and risk to individuals, businesses, owners of high-rises and large businesses, medium-size businesses and small businesses. We are talking about a risk that, albeit still a substantial risk, it is a risk that in large part is being picked up by the Federal Government. I do not object to that, and I will restate what I said this morning to my good friend and colleague and the sponsor of this legislation, Senator Dodd. If I had objected to that, we would not be on this legislation because I was in the Chamber when the unanimous consent request was propounded last night, and I could have easily entered an objection. I did not, and that is why we are on the bill. I do not object to the Federal Government picking up a major part of the terrorism risk, albeit only the conventional risk; it is not chemical, nuclear, or biological. What I do vigorously object to is that in the underlying bill of the Senator from Connecticut, there is no process in place that can limit the rate hikes of the insurance companies with regard to the terrorism risk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. About 3 hours.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment. It is my understanding the amendment number is 3834.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will conclude my opening remarks. I look forward to the debate. I thank the Senator from Connecticut for bringing this important legislation to the floor. I thank the Senate for this opportunity to be heard on a most important issue, important not only to the businesses of this country but to the consumers of this country as well.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Of course, the Senator from New Jersey is one of the great new bright lights of this body. What a privilege it is for me to serve with him. What a privilege it is to have the value of his opinion. I agree with everything he said. Now the question is, how do we get from here to there, to protect everybody and protect the consumer as well from being gouged with the price hikes, because even though the people who pay these premiums in fact are the owners of these large commercial structures, guess what happens when they have to pay the increase of a premium hike. That is passed on to the consumers. That is the case I am making, that we have to have this insurance available--and we are in large part doing that by the mechanism of this bill, so the Federal Government provides the insurance for the risk to the tune of 80 percent or 90 percent. But in the process of what we are going to charge for the portion that is covered by the insurance company, that is going to be passed on to the consumers. Ultimately, I will offer an amendment that will call for a range, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, as to what can be charged, where that premium, going into an insurance company, will be separated for accounting purposes, it will be segregated, so it will not be mixed up with all the other premiums for a slip and fall and dog bites and all kinds of liabilities. It will be separate, so it will be under the glare of the full light of day as to how much premium is there, and therefore the Secretary of the Treasury, with the advice of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, can determine what is a range--not a specific amount, but what is a range that is fair and affordable. That is the place I am going. The only effective way to guarantee that the rates will be stabilized under this circumstance is to federally regulate the premium rate for the risk of terrorism. Why Federal? Because the 50 insurance commissioners do not have the data to do this. And the Federal Government is picking up the biggest part of the risk under this bill. Remember, it is only the risk, basically, from conventional kinds of terrorism because chemical, biological, and nuclear terrorism is exempt from most commercial insurance policies. So that is not a risk we are going to be protecting. The Secretary of the Treasury is in the best position to consult with the actuaries and to determine the actual financial risk insurers would assume under the bill. If the Congress commits billions of taxpayer dollars and mandates no real rate protection, we will have shirked our responsibility to the taxpayers and to the consumers. We gnash our teeth around here on politically charged issues such as raising taxes. Let me tell you, as an insurance commissioner for 6 years, there is an issue that is more explosive to the consuming public than the raising of taxes, and that is the raising of their insurance premiums. So I call to the attention of the Senate that as you consider a bill such as this that has no mechanism by which to stop those rate hikes, you had better think twice, and hopefully you will think very favorably about the amendment I will be offering later on. We can only rely on the States to monitor rates. State insurance commissioners traditionally do that. That has been carved out under Federal law as a regulation of insurance reserved to the States. State insurance commissioners in fact, however, do not have the data nor do they have the experience of the data with which to be able to judge these rates. On the contrary, in some States they do not regulate the rates of commercial policies at all. In other States, such as my State of Florida, the State of Florida Department of Insurance sets a range of the commercial policies' rates, as to what they may be, without the approval of the Department of Insurance.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. With that understanding, I yield to the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I would propose that to accommodate the Senator, since he has to leave, we yield some time to him with me still retaining the floor so I can finish my remarks. I am trying to be accommodating, but I still have not completed my remarks.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, do I still have the floor?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I ask unanimous consent that I have another 10 minutes.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it was a Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, who, in the early 1900s, established our Nation's first national forests and refuges, and his fifth cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, launched the Civilian Conservation Corps. Then, under Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, our country set aside the first part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Under Richard Nixon, in 1970, we enacted the Clean Air Act to limit air pollution from cars, utilities, and industries. Then, 20 years later, a major expansion of that act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, the father of now-President Bush. For 100 years, Republican and Democratic Presidents alike saw that saving America's natural wonders ought not be a partisan political issue. Yet today we see the present Bush administration, time and again, side, with corporate political interests trying to roll back the time-tested and bipartisan measures aimed at protecting our land, our air, and our water. Let me give some examples. The Federal Superfund Program for cleaning up toxic waste sites is running out of money. It was set up in 1980. It was sponsored, fostered and encouraged under several Presidents. It was set up under President Carter, and continued by President Reagan, then President H.W. Bush, and President Clinton. They all encouraged the use of the Superfund and the concept of the polluter pays. In 1980, an agreement was struck with the oil companies and the chemical companies. The oil and chemical companies would pay into a trust fund, and when a toxic waste site was found--and this happened after the Love Canal situation had riveted the Nation's attention-- there would be money in the trust fund if they could not find the polluter to pay. If the polluter had fled town or had gone bankrupt, there was a fund from which you could then get the toxic waste site cleaned up. I just toured one of these toxic waste sites about 12 miles west of Orlando, a site that has been there for several decades, a site where at one point what I call a witch's brew of boiling DDT, which formed another chemical compound, had flowed into a holding pond. Why was it a holding pond? Because it was a depression in the ground. And where did that go? It was a sinkhole that went into the Floridian aquifer. At one point it spilled out of this holding pond into this creek that ran into Lake Apopka, a lake of thousands of acres that used to have 4,000 alligators, and which has 400 now--and you know how sturdy a beast an alligator is. Yet what the present Bush administration has said is we do not want to continue the polluter pay concept. We want the taxpayer to pay for cleaning up toxic waste sites instead of the polluter. As short as we are on money, with the surplus having evaporated, with the war requiring more and more money, an appropriation from the general fund of taxpayer money for the Superfund may not happen. So sites such as the one 12 miles west of Orlando, are not going to get cleaned up. If we do not re-authorize the polluter pays provisions--which have had bipartisan Presidential support--then we are going to have a serious problem. The site west of Orlando will continue to jeopardize the water supply for all of that part of Florida. That is how serious it is. Let's take another case. We had the matter of arsenic. First, the administration was not going to lower the parts per billion in drinking water. It would remain at 50 parts per billion, a standard set before we knew arsenic caused cancer. Based on years of study, the previous Administration had recommended it go down to 10 parts per billion. There was such an outcry that the public was finally heard. And, before the Congress had to act, the administration, relented and adopted the 10 parts per billion standard. In the Senate 2 months ago, we defeated the administration's attempt to permit oil and gas drilling in the pristine Alaska Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, we were unable to overcome the administration's opposition to improving automobile fuel economy standards. If we are going to get serious about weaning ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil supplies, we are simply going to have to go to where we consume the most energy. The most energy is consumed in the transportation sector. If we don't get serious about increasing the miles per gallon on our automobiles and trucks, we are simply not going to be able to address our dependence on foreign oil. We should follow a balanced approach on the energy question. It should be part production, part conservation, part alternative fuels, part increased use of technology and part renewable fuels. We can use our technology--we have it today--to increase significantly the miles per gallon fuel economy of our transportation sector. It is so hard, because of all the special interests involved, to pass good public policy. A good example is the defeat of our effort to increase corporate average fuel efficiency standards. But mind you--it is going to take a crisis, such as a terrorist sinking a supertanker in the 19-mile-wide, Strait of Hormuz which suddenly stops the flow of oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf to the industrialized world, to give us a major disruption of energy supplies. We will rue the day that we did not increase the corporate average fuel efficiency standards of our cars and trucks because the transportation sector accounts for 42 percent of the oil we consume in this country. Here, again, is another example of where this administration has not faced up to the reality of the environment and of energy. By the way, we have cars today--particularly Hondas and Toyotas--that can get over 50 miles per gallon. These are the hybrid vehicles that shift from gasoline to electric. Because of the computer, the driver and the passengers do not even notice the shift. There is no dimunition of the electrical output of the automobile. Again, it is another example of where we are just on the wrong course with regard to our energy and to our environmental policies. If our energy legislation stalls and the environment remains under siege, is it all lost? I don't think it is. Our citizens and their elected representatives can demand and get better. In the past, we saw an outcry regarding arsenic levels in our drinking water and arsenic used to treat wood. We won on both counts. The arsenic standard for drinking water was dramatically decreased and the wood preserving industry agreed to cease the manufacture of arsenic treated wood for residential uses by the end of 2003. Children's playground equipment will no longer be manufactured with wood treated with arsenic. More needs to be learned about the dangers of arsenic- treated wood but, I will continue to seek answers from the Administration. Last year we were able, fortunately, to scale back the sale of new oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico right off of the coast of Florida--keeping the drilling more than 100 miles from the Florida shores, preventing the spoiling of our coastal environment and protecting the $60 billion a year tourism industry in Florida. Senator Graham and I tried to block that sale altogether and we will continue to battle exploration off Florida's coasts. Floridians, regardless of our individual party affiliations, overwhelmingly oppose offshore oil drilling that threatens our beaches, fisheries and tourist-dependent economy. On saving the environment, our Federal Government today may be split largely along political party lines. But, in Florida, and across the Nation the people are not. I thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts with the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized to address the Senate.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, over the course of the last few days, I have learned some rather disturbing news about U.S. servicemen being used as human guinea pigs. It is a project that was carried out in the 1970s aboard ships, the ships in the Pacific, a project known by the acronym of SHAD--S-H-A-D. It was basically using various biological and chemical agents to expose our sailors, supposedly, in an attempt to have a readiness should that kind of an attack occur upon our troops. At that time we were still involved in the Vietnam war. But with the information that I have received, it is unclear if, in fact, the troops--in this case, the sailors--were told about the test and were, in fact, given the appropriate warnings to get the proper protective gear. The reason this has come to light--and I want to give credit where credit is due--there is a brave and courageous Congressman in California, Congressman Thompson, who has been railing about this issue. But it has recently come to my attention because several of those now retired sailors are being notified by the U.S. Government that they should come in and get examined medically, and some of those former sailors are in the State of Florida. Now, here is the extent of it. There were some 113 tests that were made. The only ones that have been released thus far are some 12 of the 113 tests. According to the sources I have, in those 12, there were a total of 4,300 sailors who were exposed to these chemical and biological agents that were sprayed on or over the ships in the Pacific in the 1970s. Of those 4,300 sailors, only 622 have been notified and have been notified by mail. By the way, how it came to my attention is 51 of those 622 happen to reside in the State of Florida. This, in and of itself, portends some very serious consequences for our country. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I want to know, now some three decades later, that we are contacting these sailors to come in and get checked medically. I want to know the details. I want to know who were the military personnel, were there any civilian personnel, and were there any substances we should know about so that we could give the kind of medical care that would be important as the U.S. Government ought to be protecting the people, particularly the people who served in uniform trying to protect this country. When this came to my attention last week, I wrote to the Secretary of Defense and asked him for an explanation. I have written to our wonderful chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, and asked him to conduct an inquiry and hearing, if necessary, and if it needs to be classified, then we can operate in the Armed Services Committee in a classified manner to find out what the degree of exposure was and what the degree of medical attention should be in order to protect these American citizens. If that is not enough, I have also had my suspicions aroused because in the 1950s there was a test going on in the old Boca Raton airbase. This was an airbase that during World War II was a training base for flyers. After World War II, in the 1950s, there was research going on at this particular airfield to develop a toxin that would attack and kill the Soviet wheat crop. Remember, in the 1950s we were immersed in the cold war. We didn't know what to expect. We had the two nuclear superpowers. We were investigating: Could we develop a toxin that, if the United States were attacked, with which we would be able to attack their agricultural supply. Why was that done in Florida? Well, we don't raise wheat in Florida. So that is one of the reasons Florida was chosen. But in addition to the Boca Raton location, there were other field tests made not only for wheat but perhaps for other substances that I have been able to find out about just in the State of Florida, in locations such as Belle Glade, Fort Pierce, Avon Park, and Panama City. A couple of months ago, I wrote to the Department of Defense and asked for information about this matter, along with the same line of inquiry which I have just spoken about with regard to SHAD, the gassing of the sailors in the 1970s. I wanted to know: Were people at risk? Were military personnel exposed? Were civilians exposed? And on the 85- acre parcel to the north of what is now Florida Atlantic University, built on the Boca Raton airport, a part of the old airbase, an 85-acre area to the north where this testing was going on, were there toxins that were dumped there? Were there toxins buried there? Basically, to my inquiry to the Department of Defense a couple months ago, they said they could not tell me because it was classified. Well, the Senate Committee on Armed Services is not only capable but is quite experienced in handling highly classified matters of the Government. The Defense Department had better be forthcoming to let us know if there is a problem, and if there is, what we are going to do about it. These two issues have come up in the last few days and have certainly aroused my suspicions. I call on the good offices of the Secretary of Defense, who I think personally is doing a very good job, to see that his organization snaps to and produces the documentation the Senate needs in its oversight capacity.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, in just a few minutes we will have a vote on a resolution, thanks to the chairman of our Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, Senator Dodd, and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He so graciously, for me, has set this vote in just a few minutes on a resolution that passed out of the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously commending, as a Senate resolution, the very courageous citizens in the country of Cuba who have put their lives on the line by putting their names and addresses on the line under the Cuban Constitution, petitioning for free elections, petitioning for freedom of speech, petitioning for a release of political prisoners, petitioning to move from a state-controlled economy to an economy of free enterprise. Those 11,000 courageous citizens, operating under the Constitution of Cuba, stepped forth under the constitutional provision that says if over 10,000 petition the Government, the Government will take up the matter in the National Assembly to act on those four freedoms I just mentioned. I want to bring to the attention of our colleagues the fact that these people have put their lives on the line. The Castro government could stop it tomorrow. But today the Senate will send a strong message of support for these courageous citizens of Cuba who are playing by the rules and who want to see the winds of change and the fresh breath of freedom suddenly start to be realized in Cuba. I am so grateful to the chairman of the full committee and the chairman of the subcommittee that they have brought forthwith so quickly this resolution so that the Senate can stand on record to commend these citizens in Cuba. I see my colleague, the chairman of our subcommittee, ready to speak. Few people knew about this project called the Varela Project until President Carter went to Cuba. When he had that chance to speak live to the Cuban people by radio and TV, he spoke about the Varela Project and how courageous these folks were. All the people of Cuba now know what it is. Today, the Senate is going to have a chance to go on record to support them. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I request permission to speak on the bill.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank you for recognizing me. I wanted to come and add my voice to the many that have supported the supplemental appropriations bill, and I want to give a unique perspective, that of Florida law enforcement, as to why we need this bill and not the House bill or the President's request. It is most timely that we examine the question of what we are asking local and State law enforcement personnel to assume in the way of responsibilities for investigation of crime and now terrorist activity. As we face the realistic fact of the threats to our society, not only do we look at the threats from organized crime, drug crime, white-collar crime, all of those kinds of activities on which the FBI has traditionally done its investigation and worked with State and local law enforcement and worked with the U.S. attorneys and State attorneys, now with the additional requirement to protect the homeland, we have to also marshal considerable law enforcement investigative resources to go after the element that would try to tear down our society by terrorist acts. It also adds a much greater burden as we go about the process of investigating the activity of these people we otherwise would call bad guys who are trying to destroy our way of life in this country. So then we get to the point of last week's announcement by the FBI Director that he is going to take 400 of his approximately 11,000 agents and shift them from going after normal criminal investigative procedures and shift them specifically to terrorists. I don't think there is any Member who disagrees. We have to have pause and ask: How are we going to go about the normal job of investigating all the other bad guys besides the terrorists? If we shift this resource of 400 agents, who typically have gone after drug crime and white-collar crime, to going only after terrorists, does that mean we will shift all of that burden of investigation to State and local law enforcement organizations? Unfortunately, I come from a State that has one of the most active criminal investigations, particularly in the Southern District of Florida. The U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida is one of the most active in the country, in large part because we have to prosecute so much drug crime in Florida. I spoke with one of my advisers this past week during the recess, the sheriff of Broward County, the second largest county in our State; he is an elected official. All the sheriffs in our 67 counties are elected. I asked his opinion. He clearly said, who does not support the shifting of these assets in going after the terrorists. In particular the sheriff of Broward County had a tremendous working relationship with the FBI, the DEA, and all the other Federal agencies that work with State and local law enforcement. He wanted to encourage that. However, he pondered how he could have the needed resources for that burden of criminal investigation that the FBI was shifting to State and local law enforcement, particularly a very big police force, a sheriff's department. That is what brings me to the floor today, to speak in favor of this bill, not the House bill and not the President's position. This is a big amount of money in a supplemental appropriations bill, $31 billion; the President requested $27 billion; the House passed $29 billion. There is a $2 billion difference. What are some of the major differences? One of the major differences in the two bills and why we ought to accept the Senate bill is $1 billion for first responder efforts, including firefighting, State and local law enforcement agencies, emergency medical personnel, and particularly in emergency responding to biological, chemical, and nuclear threats. That is important. And there is more funding here than from the House. If this will give law enforcement organizations such as my 67 sheriffs in Florida, our hundreds of police chiefs in Florida, our excellent Florida Department of Law Enforcement, headed by Tim Moore-- and I have had the privilege of working with him for years--if it will give them the resources if the FBI is going to temporarily be pulled over to the bad guy terrorists, that is why we need to pass this Senate bill. Furthermore, it is instructive, when you see the Web site of the FBI, to see what the FBI lists as its priorities. The first three priorities have to do with going after and investigating the activities of terrorists. Priority No. 4 is public corruption and priority No. 5 is civil rights. It is priority No. 6 that involves drug crimes and going after the national and international criminal enterprise, including lots of activities of the mob. Therefore, I want to make sure there is not one Member who does not support these priorities of the FBI. I want to make sure that in the process of supporting the Director as he reorients these 400 agents we have not put an unbearable burden of investigation on State and local law enforcement to the point they cannot handle it and they get overworked and overextended, or that they have to retrench and that those kinds of criminal activities in America go uninvestigated. That would be unacceptable. That is why I come to the floor today, to say to my colleagues that we need to pass this Senate version of the supplemental appropriations bill which passed by a unanimous bipartisan vote out in the Appropriations Committee, led in great bipartisan fashion, as they so often do, by Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens, the two leaders of their respective parties on this Appropriations Committee. We need to pass this bill and get it to a conference committee to iron out the differences with the House and insist on the priorities. There is one other priority that needs to be attended to. I come from Florida. We have 14 deepwater ports in Florida. Fortunately, we are finally waking up to the fact that terrorist activity may well happen in, at, or through one of those ports. Of the myriad containers that come into this country through our ports, only about 3 percent are inspected. Those who want to do bad things clearly have an avenue. Thus, we have to beef up our port security. Within this appropriations bill, there is $970 million that will help increase our security at these ports. That includes, clearly, Coast Guard surveillance. Can we get the Coast Guard to do everything? No. Do we need the Coast Guard to have increased surveillance in our ports? Yes. Do we need the Coast Guard continuing to do drug interdiction on the high seas? Yes. How are we going to do it? We have to provide more resources. I submit to the Senate that this supplemental appropriations bill is a way to do that. I urge my colleagues to get on with it; stop standing around. Don't make us go to a cloture motion to have to cut off debate. Let's get this supplemental appropriations bill passed and into a conference so we can go about the business of the country. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 3570

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I will continue to speak on the amendment, and for whatever reason you all are objecting, I wish you would find out what technical reasons you have for an objection. I assure everyone, this is the identical matter.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I do not want to relinquish the floor. I yield to the Senator from Nevada without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.