Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be laid aside for the purpose of offering an amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I so yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Nelson of Florida pertaining to the introduction of S. 57 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am introducing the Information Security and Protection Act. It has to do with a subject matter about which we have had breaking news over the course of the last several days, and that is identity theft. Two weeks ago we found out a company named ChoicePoint, a Georgia company, because of the conviction in a plea bargain with someone who had under false pretenses broken into the database of this information broker, had 400,000 individual records stolen and thus subject to the taking of the personal identity of those 400,000 people. Of those we know of, 10,000 of them are in my State, and I can tell you, having met with a group of Floridians we picked at random in the central Florida area I met with a week and a half ago, it has been a tale of extraordinarily horrific circumstances for these Americans when their identity was stolen to, No. 1, stop the theft, and then, No. 2, to reclaim their identity and to get back their identity, for example, with a credit card on which bills have been run up and therefore their credit becomes bad. Trying to get back their good name and their good credit has become a horrific process. One of the central Floridians I met with is a truckdriver who has a special license to drive trucks with hazardous materials. This particular individual is so frustrated because whenever he goes to this Government agency or that Government agency, they always send him to another one, saying we can't help you. There is someone out there with his identity who keeps violating traffic rules and laws all over the country and he keeps getting summonses to courts in States all over the country, and he can't get back his identity. That is just one example. Or take the example of the mom recently widowed, so her grown daughter takes over the paying of her bills, and because the mom has always been frugal, the daughter sees a charge on the credit card for $10,000 and thinks, well, my mom is suddenly going to start spending a little on herself. The daughter continues to pay these kinds of bills until she finally gets a call from a store in San Francisco and the clerk says, I want to see if you will approve this $26,000 charge for your mother. And she says, well, that is not my mother because my mother is not in San Francisco, she is here with me in Cocoa, FL right now. Fortunately, the game was up. They stopped that process, but that daughter had already paid $40,000 worth of bills thinking they were legitimate charges by her mother, and she will never get back that $40,000. These are just a couple of examples of identity theft. But now the problem has gotten to be so much larger because these data collectors, which I call information brokers, with the advance of technology are able to gather billions and billions of records. This particular company that has come to light over the last couple of weeks with the theft of 400,000 records--ChoicePoint is the name of the company--has stored, now listen to this, 17 to 19 billion--that is with a B-- records. With that amount of data, they virtually have information on every American. It is not just credit reports that are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is Social Security numbers and driver's licenses. It is job applications. It is DNA tests. It is medical records. With this kind of information, centralized under the control of one company, if there is a penetration of the security of that company, then you see what the invasion of our privacy is about to cause. Indeed, we are going to be in a situation where no American has any privacy, and we are going to continue to go through this process until we say, enough already, and the people stand up and say: You have to protect our privacy. That is what the bill I am introducing, the Information Security and Protection Act, sets out to do. It is going to require legal safeguards, put some teeth in the law, that is going to require not just credit reports, which is covered by existing Federal law, but it is going to require these collectors of information who sell them for a profit-making business to have the safeguards to protect the consumers. Additionally, it is going to have the safeguards for the consumers so they can have access to those records and see if, in fact, they are correct, and if they are not, correct them and have a list of the people who are seeking the information about them. We had another case come to light a week ago, and that was the case of records that are missing. We do not know if they were destroyed, if they were lost, or if they were stolen, but they are the records of customers of the Bank of America. We are talking about 1.2 million customers. And, oh, by the way, some of those customers are Federal employees who happen to have this particular card. It is the Federal travel card. This card is distributed additionally to the Members of the Senate. On that stolen or missing information is the very personal and private information of 60 Senators in this Chamber. Let's hope we do not become the victims of identity theft and that we have to go through all of these horrific experiences I have heard in talking with some of my constituents. But, in fact, we may. Until we find out what happened to those records of 1.2 million individuals, Federal employees, then we are subject to these kinds of traumas that come from identity theft. Today we have learned of a major breach at the Boca Raton based company called SizeNet. It is a part of Lexis-Nexis. Information that was accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers; not the credit history, medical records, or financial information. This group said--and they put out a statement to the London Stock Exchange--that this was information on 32,000 U.S. citizens. It may have been accessed from one of the databases. The company said the breach, made on its legal and business information service, Lexis-Nexis, which had recently acquired this SizeNet unit, was being investigated by staff and U.S. law enforcement authorities. So here we have another 32,000 U.S. citizens who could possibly be the victims of identity theft. Are we going to do anything about it? I sure hope so, and I am hopeful that we are going to have the Congress start to take action on a bill Congressman Markey in the House, a Member of the House Commerce Committee, and I, a Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, have introduced. This bill requires the Federal Government to begin to regulate the products offered by information brokers. Under the legislation, the Federal Trade Commission would pass regulations that would empower consumers to have control over the personal information they have compiled in these databases. Consumers would be given, for the first time, the right to find out what files information brokers keep about them, and they would be given the right to make sure the information in the files is correct. They would be given the right to promptly correct the inaccurate information. They would be permitted to find out which people have asked for copies of their personal information. What would be the responsibility of the information broker? It would require the Federal Trade Commission to come up with standards to ensure that those brokers know to whom they are selling that consumer information and the purposes for which it is being used. Those information brokers would be required to safeguard and protect the privacy of the billions of consumer records they hold. Under present law, there is no protection unless you fall under a law such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act which protects consumer credit records. But all the amassing of this additional data is not protected under current law. This bill I am filing also allows Government law enforcers and consumers to bring tough legal actions against the brokers if they violate the new regulations that the FTC would promulgate. Then it clearly gives a nod to the States to pass their own laws that they believe are necessary to effectively regulate information brokers. This bill is not a catchall bill. This bill is meant to focus very narrowly on information brokers. It instructs the FTC to carve out appropriate regulatory exemptions that are in the public interest. So there is flexibility for the FTC to adjust to different circumstances. After the FTC passes its new regulations, then the FTC, in our oversight capacity, would be reporting back to us and specifically would be reporting to our committees--the Commerce Committees in both the House and the Senate--and then Congress would determine whether further statutory changes were necessary, as is the prerogative to adjust and adapt as circumstances change. I want to work with all the people who are involved in this situation. We do not want something that is overreaching, but were are getting to the point that with the advance of technology, something has to be done or virtually none of us will have any privacy. By the way, there is another reason to pass this legislation. We are in a new kind of war, and that war is against terrorists. The terrorist deals by stealth, and one way is to assume the identity of someone else. If we do not have the protections of all our identities, there is another source for the terrorist. What is it going to take to spur the Congress into action? I thank the time is here. We have three examples in the last 2 weeks-- ChoicePoint, Bank of America, and today Lexis-Nexis. I ask for the support of the Senate in passing the Information Protection and Security Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am introducing the Information Security and Protection Act. It has to do with a subject matter about which we have had breaking news over the course of the last several days, and that is identity theft. Two weeks ago we found out a company named ChoicePoint, a Georgia company, because of the conviction in a plea bargain with someone who had under false pretenses broken into the database of this information broker, had 400,000 individual records stolen and thus subject to the taking of the personal identity of those 400,000 people. Of those we know of, 10,000 of them are in my State, and I can tell you, having met with a group of Floridians we picked at random in the central Florida area I met with a week and a half ago, it has been a tale of extraordinarily horrific circumstances for these Americans when their identity was stolen to, No. 1, stop the theft, and then, No. 2, to reclaim their identity and to get back their identity, for example, with a credit card on which bills have been run up and therefore their credit becomes bad. Trying to get back their good name and their good credit has become a horrific process. One of the central Floridians I met with is a truckdriver who has a special license to drive trucks with hazardous materials. This particular individual is so frustrated because whenever he goes to this Government agency or that Government agency, they always send him to another one, saying we can't help you. There is someone out there with his identity who keeps violating traffic rules and laws all over the country and he keeps getting summonses to courts in States all over the country, and he can't get back his identity. That is just one example. Or take the example of the mom recently widowed, so her grown daughter takes over the paying of her bills, and because the mom has always been frugal, the daughter sees a charge on the credit card for $10,000 and thinks, well, my mom is suddenly going to start spending a little on herself. The daughter continues to pay these kinds of bills until she finally gets a call from a store in San Francisco and the clerk says, I want to see if you will approve this $26,000 charge for your mother. And she says, well, that is not my mother because my mother is not in San Francisco, she is here with me in Cocoa, FL right now. Fortunately, the game was up. They stopped that process, but that daughter had already paid $40,000 worth of bills thinking they were legitimate charges by her mother, and she will never get back that $40,000. These are just a couple of examples of identity theft. But now the problem has gotten to be so much larger because these data collectors, which I call information brokers, with the advance of technology are able to gather billions and billions of records. This particular company that has come to light over the last couple of weeks with the theft of 400,000 records--ChoicePoint is the name of the company--has stored, now listen to this, 17 to 19 billion--that is with a B-- records. With that amount of data, they virtually have information on every American. It is not just credit reports that are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is Social Security numbers and driver's licenses. It is job applications. It is DNA tests. It is medical records. With this kind of information, centralized under the control of one company, if there is a penetration of the security of that company, then you see what the invasion of our privacy is about to cause. Indeed, we are going to be in a situation where no American has any privacy, and we are going to continue to go through this process until we say, enough already, and the people stand up and say: You have to protect our privacy. That is what the bill I am introducing, the Information Security and Protection Act, sets out to do. It is going to require legal safeguards, put some teeth in the law, that is going to require not just credit reports, which is covered by existing Federal law, but it is going to require these collectors of information who sell them for a profit-making business to have the safeguards to protect the consumers. Additionally, it is going to have the safeguards for the consumers so they can have access to those records and see if, in fact, they are correct, and if they are not, correct them and have a list of the people who are seeking the information about them. We had another case come to light a week ago, and that was the case of records that are missing. We do not know if they were destroyed, if they were lost, or if they were stolen, but they are the records of customers of the Bank of America. We are talking about 1.2 million customers. And, oh, by the way, some of those customers are Federal employees who happen to have this particular card. It is the Federal travel card. This card is distributed additionally to the Members of the Senate. On that stolen or missing information is the very personal and private information of 60 Senators in this Chamber. Let's hope we do not become the victims of identity theft and that we have to go through all of these horrific experiences I have heard in talking with some of my constituents. But, in fact, we may. Until we find out what happened to those records of 1.2 million individuals, Federal employees, then we are subject to these kinds of traumas that come from identity theft. Today we have learned of a major breach at the Boca Raton based company called SizeNet. It is a part of Lexis-Nexis. Information that was accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers; not the credit history, medical records, or financial information. This group said--and they put out a statement to the London Stock Exchange--that this was information on 32,000 U.S. citizens. It may have been accessed from one of the databases. The company said the breach, made on its legal and business information service, Lexis-Nexis, which had recently acquired this SizeNet unit, was being investigated by staff and U.S. law enforcement authorities. So here we have another 32,000 U.S. citizens who could possibly be the victims of identity theft. Are we going to do anything about it? I sure hope so, and I am hopeful that we are going to have the Congress start to take action on a bill Congressman Markey in the House, a Member of the House Commerce Committee, and I, a Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, have introduced. This bill requires the Federal Government to begin to regulate the products offered by information brokers. Under the legislation, the Federal Trade Commission would pass regulations that would empower consumers to have control over the personal information they have compiled in these databases. Consumers would be given, for the first time, the right to find out what files information brokers keep about them, and they would be given the right to make sure the information in the files is correct. They would be given the right to promptly correct the inaccurate information. They would be permitted to find out which people have asked for copies of their personal information. What would be the responsibility of the information broker? It would require the Federal Trade Commission to come up with standards to ensure that those brokers know to whom they are selling that consumer information and the purposes for which it is being used. Those information brokers would be required to safeguard and protect the privacy of the billions of consumer records they hold. Under present law, there is no protection unless you fall under a law such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act which protects consumer credit records. But all the amassing of this additional data is not protected under current law. This bill I am filing also allows Government law enforcers and consumers to bring tough legal actions against the brokers if they violate the new regulations that the FTC would promulgate. Then it clearly gives a nod to the States to pass their own laws that they believe are necessary to effectively regulate information brokers. This bill is not a catchall bill. This bill is meant to focus very narrowly on information brokers. It instructs the FTC to carve out appropriate regulatory exemptions that are in the public interest. So there is flexibility for the FTC to adjust to different circumstances. After the FTC passes its new regulations, then the FTC, in our oversight capacity, would be reporting back to us and specifically would be reporting to our committees--the Commerce Committees in both the House and the Senate--and then Congress would determine whether further statutory changes were necessary, as is the prerogative to adjust and adapt as circumstances change. I want to work with all the people who are involved in this situation. We do not want something that is overreaching, but were are getting to the point that with the advance of technology, something has to be done or virtually none of us will have any privacy. By the way, there is another reason to pass this legislation. We are in a new kind of war, and that war is against terrorists. The terrorist deals by stealth, and one way is to assume the identity of someone else. If we do not have the protections of all our identities, there is another source for the terrorist. What is it going to take to spur the Congress into action? I thank the time is here. We have three examples in the last 2 weeks-- ChoicePoint, Bank of America, and today Lexis-Nexis. I ask for the support of the Senate in passing the Information Protection and Security Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Tillie Fowler, a great friend, dedicated public servant, and remarkable woman. It is difficult to think about Florida politics without thinking about Tillie Fowler. She was a woman with strong values, political acumen and honor. I was lucky to have known her and, more importantly, Florida was lucky to have had her represent us in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is an inspiration to Floridians and all Americans, and she will be greatly missed.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Will the Senator yield for a clarification?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, there is one exception the Senate should consider to this bankruptcy bill in filing bankruptcy, and that is when someone incurs debts due to no fault of their own. When someone incurs debts through no fault of their own because their identity has been stolen and they are forced to go into bankruptcy, why should we force them not to take chapter 7 in bankruptcy, instead to go through chapter 13? If you don't think identity theft and bankruptcy therefrom is a problem, look at the top consumer complaints of the Federal Trade Commission and notice 39 percent are identity theft. Don't think you are immune from identity theft. Did you hear the news on Friday night that Bank of America has had the records of 1.2 million Federal employees stolen, including 60 Senators in this Chamber? You are potential victims, including this Senator. I am on the list. So why should we not hear the pleas of people all across the land? A story from Florida where identity was stolen, they ran up $40,000. They can't pay that off. Another case in New York, a friend stole identity and ran up $300,000. The person had no choice but go into bankruptcy. Surely this is an example of an exception to this bill that we should make.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Does the Senator realize that in my amendment anyone who incurs less than $20,000 of debt as a result of identity theft would not be eligible to become an exception under the bankruptcy bill?

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Senator for his question. Yes, the Senator may well be one of the victims that was not announced until after work on Friday afternoon at 5, but we have identified that it is 60 Senators in this Chamber, along with 1.2 million Federal employees. We are talking about this credit card that is provided for official expenses of Government business, and all your personally identifiable information is on that file. So it may well be that a majority of this Senate finds they could become the victims and experience the similar kind of agony of the six people I just met with in Orlando, that it keeps going on and on and they cannot get their identity back. I had one who was a truck driver with special permission to drive hazardous materials. His identity is stolen and there is somebody out there driving a truck of hazardous materials who has stolen his identity. The Senator's specific question is: What does this amendment do? What it does is carve an exemption for the people who have debts that have driven them into bankruptcy because those debts have occurred through no fault of their own. Their identity has been stolen and someone has created a credit card that then runs up bills in their name, that they did not know about, they did not intend, nor could they afford, and as a result, because they cannot get it worked out--and I wish the Senator could hear these victims, how long it takes them to get their identity back--in a timely fashion, they have to file for bankruptcy. My amendment says this is going to be an exception from all the rigors of the bill that say a person cannot file for bankruptcy.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, as we debate the merits on this bankruptcy bill, I offer an amendment, and I believe it is critical to improving this piece of legislation. This amendment will create an exemption from the requirements of this bankruptcy bill for victims of identity theft. The long and short of the amendment is, if you have had your identity stolen and charges have been run up on you because your identity was stolen, and if that causes you to go into bankruptcy, then you are going to have an exemption from the provisions of this legislation that said you would not be able to file bankruptcy. It is carefully tailored as an amendment. It would not apply to every single identity theft victim. Rather, it would require identity theft victims to show they were defrauded out of the minimum dollar amount. There is an epidemic of identity theft that has plagued millions of Americans. There are 60 Senators in this Chamber who had Bank of America Government credit card information lost or stolen over the weekend. 1.2 million other Americans, including this Senator from Florida, had personal financial information that was lost or stolen. In my particular Senate office, two other of our senior staff members had sensitive financial account information that was compromised in this incident. The lost data tapes could have names, Social Security numbers, and addresses on them. How long down the road before we find that our Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable privileged financial information come into the hands of the thief to be used in stealing our identity, and we suddenly start finding we have charges we never made. This phenomenon of identity theft is happening. We saw it in a big case called ChoicePoint, an Atlanta, GA, company that had hundreds of thousands of records purloined as a result of someone disguised as a regular customer of that information broker, and instead their identities are now stolen. Mr. President, 10,000 of those 400,000 stolen we know are in the State of Florida--at least 10,000. This is a phenomenon that is continuing to occur. Identity thieves typically take advantage of the electronic records to steal people's names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, bank account information, or other personal, financial, and medical data. If you were a customer of something such as ChoicePoint, an information broker, not only do you have information, such as your credit, which is covered under existing law for protection, but you have a lot of other information in there, such as I mentioned, Social Security numbers and bank accounts. What about job applications, what about drivers' licenses, what about DNA tests, what about the records of all kinds of different medical tests? This is the alarming theft that is occurring today, and it is not being done with the hammer and crowbar of a typical thief. It is being done by sophisticated methods as we are living in this technological age. Listen to these alarming statistics. The Federal Trade Commission says 10 million Americans were affected by identity theft last year. Identity theft is now the most common fraud perpetrated on consumers. In 2004, identity theft accounted for 39 percent of consumer fraud complaints, the Federal Trade Commission tells us. And a figure that will blow your mind is that identity theft cost the United States $52 billion last year. Because identity thieves misuse people's personally identifiable information, some individuals are denied jobs, they are arrested for crimes they did not commit, or they face enormous debts that are not their own. Last week, in Orlando, I met with six of those victims of identity theft. One of them was an elderly mother who was there with her daughter who, upon the passing of her husband of half a century, the daughter taking over all the financial records, and paying her mother's bills--her mother had always provided for the children's needs, so when the daughter started getting these credit card bills on the mom's credit card of $5,000 and $10,000, she paid them. It was not until a store owner in California, on the other side of the country from where this couple lives in Coca, FL, an alert store owner called and said: We want to make sure that you are willing to have this charge of $26,000 charged to your mother's credit card. Your mother is standing right here in the store in San Francisco to ring up this charge. The daughter, of course, replied: My mother is sitting right here with me in Florida. Obviously, someone is masquerading as my mother with a stolen identity. The sad result is that even though that $26,000 charge was averted, the daughter had already paid what she thought were the legitimate debts of her mom to the tune of $40,000, and because of that stolen identity, she can never get that back. What happens if that is a debt that would drive a person like that into bankruptcy? Should that be used against them to prevent them from being able to have bankruptcy? I do not think we want to do that in this legislation. The law does not require creditors to automatically erase a person's debt arising from identity theft. Creditors sometimes refuse to erase these debts or they allow credit investigations to drag on for years. This leaves some identity theft victims with no choice but to file for bankruptcy. Let me give some more examples. Last year, a Pennsylvania woman was victimized by a brazen identity theft. This thief was actually renting a room in the lady's house. The identity thief stole her checks, her bank card, her personally identifiable financial information. Then the thief used that information to wipe out the lady financially. One month before Christmas, this woman was forced to file for bankruptcy relief. Shouldn't this bankruptcy reform bill cut people such as that some slack? I think that is the humane thing to do. There is another example. It is in New York. An identity thief stole the personal information of a girlfriend, and then he ran up huge debts in the victim's name. Pretending to be the victim, the identity thief took out three personal loans and even purchased two automobiles. In total, the thief ran up a tab of over $300,000. The local postal inspector in the victim's area called it the worst case of identity theft they had ever seen. In that case, the victim had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. Should not there be an exemption in a case like this? This is a very straightforward amendment. It states that people who have been victims of identity theft and have to file for bankruptcy because of that identity theft should get a break from the stringent means test in the bill. As identity theft becomes more prevalent--and it happened last week with the revelation of ChoicePoint, an information broker, 400,000 people. It could have happened Friday night after 5 when Bank of America released the information that 1.2 million Federal employees' identities had been stolen, including 60 Senators in this Chamber. As it becomes more prevalent, more innocent people are going to encounter this situation. I think it is only right to be fair to those victims when they file bankruptcy and not to add insult to their injury. The Consumer Federation of America has endorsed this amendment as being in the best interest of Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to make sure and will ask unanimous consent, if need be, that both Senators Durbin and Schumer are listed as cosponsors of the amendment.

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

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Indeed, the Senator has put his finger on the problem and the attempted solution to the problem, recognizing that we want to work with the banking industry and the credit card industry so this does not become a loophole that somebody can get out of following the law and be irresponsible about filing bankruptcy. We have even put it in the amendment that there has to be a threshold for the person who would have this exemption because of identity theft. For example, it would have to be a claim against the debtor in excess of $20,000, or 50 percent of all the claims asserted against the debtor, or 25 percent of the debtor's gross income for a 12-month period. With that reasonable protection, so that somebody is not abusing the law, we come back to the basic issue of fairness.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. The Senator is correct. Indeed, this amendment is saying that under the circumstances, where a person, through no fault of their own, because they have been preyed upon by larceny, by a thief, and bills have been run up because their identity has been stolen, and that happens, tragic as it is, to cause them to go into bankruptcy, that they should be exempted the harsh means test provision of this bill and should be allowed to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy under those circumstances. The stolen identity is enough. The debts run up are enough. The harassment of trying to get your identity back is enough. Lord help them, then when they have to file bankruptcy, that ought to be enough. But to say that they cannot file Chapter 7 bankruptcy under this condition? What are we trying to do to our fellow Americans? This amendment perfects that glaring error and inconsistency. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Of course, to the distinguished assistant Democratic leader, I yield.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Arizona, Senator Kyl, to introduce a bill that will eliminate the death tax once and for all. I want to thank my friend for his tireless leadership in fighting to completely and permanently repeal this unfair and unwise tax. I am proud to join him in this bipartisan effort. First, though, I think a little historical context is important. Remembering back to 2001, this body passed a tax cut bill that set us on the path toward full repeal of the death tax. Under this plan, between 2001 and 2009, the tax gradually is phased out, reducing the marginal rates and increasing the amount that would be exempt from taxes. Then, in 2010, the death tax will be eliminated. But it springs back to life in 2011 at the level it was in 2001. Today, the legislation we are introducing tends to Congress' unfinished business. Our bill eliminates the so-called ``sunset'' date and, simply put: keeps the death tax dead. This is an important point. It is a matter of intellectual honesty and provides much needed stability in estate planning. No one ever truly expected the death tax would revert to pre-2001 levels. This was a quirk of the budget process, and something I always believed would be remedied. Without action to create permanence in the Tax Code, this on-again, off-again, then on again approach makes estate planning complicated and uncertain. As it stands now--financially speaking--2010 will be a good year to die, but dying in 2011 will be very expensive for your heirs. This was never Congress' intent. Furthermore, I believe the cost of planning is a tremendous burden on our economy. Rather than reinvesting resources in their businesses, Americans are paying lawyers, accountants and insurers to help insulate their families from the cost of the death tax. Typical business owners are more concerned about avoiding the tax than investing in their businesses and making money, which creates jobs and stimulates the economy. I echo the feelings of an editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who in 2001 called this tax ``an un-American drag on the American Dream--and economy.'' Since my election in 2000 it has been a priority of mine to do away with this tax, helping business owners and family farmers to improve their children's standard of living, and to reinvest in the nation's economy. This is the wrong tax levied at the wrong time; we should not be taxing individuals at death, forcing family members to make a choice between selling assets or keeping the family business. In particular, farmers in Florida are affected more than their fair share by this tax. With the high price of land, farms can easily outgrow the exemptions in current law. When a parent dies, children are forced to sell the land in order to cover the death tax. A family legacy is lost, and so are jobs. I am proud to introduce this bill today, and I look forward to working with Senator Kyl as we try to lend some stability and sensibility to how taxes are levied at death.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Arizona, Senator Kyl, to introduce a bill that will eliminate the death tax once and for all. I want to thank my friend for his tireless leadership in fighting to completely and permanently repeal this unfair and unwise tax. I am proud to join him in this bipartisan effort. First, though, I think a little historical context is important. Remembering back to 2001, this body passed a tax cut bill that set us on the path toward full repeal of the death tax. Under this plan, between 2001 and 2009, the tax gradually is phased out, reducing the marginal rates and increasing the amount that would be exempt from taxes. Then, in 2010, the death tax will be eliminated. But it springs back to life in 2011 at the level it was in 2001. Today, the legislation we are introducing tends to Congress' unfinished business. Our bill eliminates the so-called ``sunset'' date and, simply put: keeps the death tax dead. This is an important point. It is a matter of intellectual honesty and provides much needed stability in estate planning. No one ever truly expected the death tax would revert to pre-2001 levels. This was a quirk of the budget process, and something I always believed would be remedied. Without action to create permanence in the Tax Code, this on-again, off-again, then on again approach makes estate planning complicated and uncertain. As it stands now--financially speaking--2010 will be a good year to die, but dying in 2011 will be very expensive for your heirs. This was never Congress' intent. Furthermore, I believe the cost of planning is a tremendous burden on our economy. Rather than reinvesting resources in their businesses, Americans are paying lawyers, accountants and insurers to help insulate their families from the cost of the death tax. Typical business owners are more concerned about avoiding the tax than investing in their businesses and making money, which creates jobs and stimulates the economy. I echo the feelings of an editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who in 2001 called this tax ``an un-American drag on the American Dream--and economy.'' Since my election in 2000 it has been a priority of mine to do away with this tax, helping business owners and family farmers to improve their children's standard of living, and to reinvest in the nation's economy. This is the wrong tax levied at the wrong time; we should not be taxing individuals at death, forcing family members to make a choice between selling assets or keeping the family business. In particular, farmers in Florida are affected more than their fair share by this tax. With the high price of land, farms can easily outgrow the exemptions in current law. When a parent dies, children are forced to sell the land in order to cover the death tax. A family legacy is lost, and so are jobs. I am proud to introduce this bill today, and I look forward to working with Senator Kyl as we try to lend some stability and sensibility to how taxes are levied at death.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, would it be in order for this Senator to request 5 minutes to speak on an issue as in morning business?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: We are now on the nomination of Judge Chertoff?

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, in considering the nomination of Mr. Chertoff, I want to share with the Senate a conversation I had with him last week. It was about an issue that has plagued my State of Florida since last August, since we were hit by four hurricanes in a row within a 6-week period. That is enough that anybody should have to endure. FEMA, which will be under the leadership of the new Secretary, once confirmed, responded and did an admirable job to begin with. But since then, we have had some problems. You heard me speak about them almost ad infinitum over the course of the session in September and October, and then again when we came back after the election in our special session. Congress stepped up and appropriated $13.6 billion in emergency funding for that natural disaster series. I thank our colleagues for moving so quickly to address the needs of the people in Florida especially but the other States that were affected as well. I applaud the quick response, the coordination of the relief agencies, including FEMA, in the immediate aftermath of those four storms. In Congress we specifically directed that $8.5 billion of that money was going straight to FEMA to help hurricane victims. Well, I wish I could report that things are going smoothly. I cannot. I spoke with Judge Chertoff about these issues. I also spoke with FEMA Director Mike Brown in a meeting with other members of the Florida delegation. Boiled down, we have two big issues: The very slow, if any, reimbursement for debris removal off of private rights of way; and then a second issue, that money was being poured into areas that did not have hurricane velocity winds, while for the places that got hit the hardest, it is so very difficult for them to get the funds they need, and now those counties and cities are having to pay themselves without FEMA reimbursement. I hear on a daily basis from communities across our State that are having problems getting reimbursed for debris removal. Some of these counties and cities have even had to borrow money to go out and pay their bills while they are waiting for FEMA reimbursement. I will give you an example. Lake County, to the northwest of Orlando, submitted a $17 million bill for reimbursement months ago. Do you know how much they have received thus far? Three thousand dollars. There is no excuse for that. Plus, these counties that are begging, pleading, guess who they are coming to. They are coming to their handy-dandy Senator. They are begging and pleading for consistent information. I will give you an example. Santa Rosa County reports they submitted a request for $27 million in October. They have seen no reimbursement, and they are receiving mixed signals from FEMA as to what further information they may have to submit in order to get their application finally processed. I will give you another example: Charlotte County. Charlotte County is down on the southwest coast of Florida. It is where the first monster hit. Charley hit with full force, with winds of 145 miles an hour, right off the water. It came right off the Gulf of Mexico, up Charlotte Bay, and hit Punta Gorda in Charlotte County. The county officials have stated that one day a FEMA official will declare some piles of debris eligible for reimbursement and the next day a different inspector will look at it and declare it is ineligible for reimbursement. This has to stop. I will give you another example. Escambia County has received some relief but Pensacola, which is the main city in Escambia County, has not. This is not how FEMA should be deciding to distribute our tax dollars. Then there is the other major issue of the distribution of FEMA dollars to those counties that did not have hurricane force winds. FEMA paid out $29 million--and just last week FEMA Director Brown defended it--to Miami-Dade County, where the highest winds were 54 miles an hour. Hurricane velocity winds do not start until you get to 74 miles an hour. I thank the chair of the committee, Senator Collins, who is in the Chamber with us, and Senator Lieberman, who have acknowledged there is something that needs to be told here. They have started an investigation, and they are looking into these allegations. So what do you expect is going on here? Well, that is what their investigation is going to get to the bottom of. I am looking forward to it. As I speak, I am going to vote for Judge Chertoff. As I said to him last week, he is going to be the leader of this gargantuan Department. He needs to make sure the components of his Department are functioning as they should, because we need to fairly and efficiently distribute FEMA dollars that we appropriated. And we appropriated lots of them: $13.6 billion. Those moneys need to address the issues that are plaguing these States such as mine, so that when this occurs in the future we will not have all of this trauma that our citizens are going through. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON of Florida

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it absolutely baffles me, this discussion going on about Social Security of which the President has laid out by sounding the alarm bell that something needs to be done, and yet the President has not come forth with a plan to address the fact that in 37 years, in the year 2042, Social Security will not be able to pay the full benefits, rather, 37 years in the future, would be able to only pay 73 cents on the dollar of Social Security benefits. Where is the President's plan? The President has laid out that he wants to privatize Social Security with private accounts. Where is the President's plan? Why is there not a message from the White House to the Congress? I can suggest a reason as to why there is no plan: because basically the privatization plan does nothing for the solvency of Social Security when it needs it in 37 years and, instead, does the opposite by whacking benefits and increasing the national debt considerably, whether you look at a 10-year or a 75-year period, whatever one is calculating. This Senator is not going to whack or cut Social Security benefits, nor is this Senator going to go with a plan that not only cuts benefits but also adds trillions of dollars to the national debt when we are running at a deficit situation where in excess of $400 billion a year is spending in the red. And how do we get it? We go and borrow it. By the way, guess where we borrow it from. Mostly from banks in Japan and China. That doesn't sound too good from a defense posture of the country. This Senator is simply not going to support that. I will work with the President on the question of the solvency when it needs it, and we know it needs it in 37 years. But where is the President's plan? Unfortunately, I read in the morning paper that the President has decided that he is not going to send a plan. How can the President say, I have a plan, we have to do something about the solvency of Social Security, and not offer a plan? What we need is a little common sense. What is happening is there is so much resistance to this idea of privatization of Social Security that the White House is having a second thought about whether they should come forth with this plan, and that is why they are waiting to reveal it. If there is a good faith attempt to do something about the long-term solvency of Social Security, this Senator will definitely cooperate. It was only because a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, and a Democratic congressional leader, Speaker Tip O'Neill, came together and said, we are going to solve the problem in 1982, we are going to solve the problem in a bipartisan fashion, and we are not going to play ``gotcha'' politics, and it is going to be a substantive solution--that was one of the finest moments of the Congress, coming together in bipartisanship to solve a major, thorny, highly risky kind of problem. The Congress and the executive came together and did that. But that was in an environment and attitude and atmosphere of genuine bipartisanship instead of this scoring of partisan points that seems to be done today. I recommend that the White House come forth with its plan and do so in a bipartisan fashion, and then we can get the job done. I yield the floor.