Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I will respond to the question of my colleague and friend, and the question was how many times we have used customs user fees. They have been used several times, although I do not know that we have passed it. It is used to help pay for more spending in many cases, maybe other tax cuts, but it has not been enacted into law. My guess is it will be at some point, but I think my friend from Arizona is making a very valid point and I appreciate that. My colleague asked, if we pass this, do we still need to pass a budget? I happen to think we do. Because we passed a budget last year, we saved hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of spending over a 10- year period of time. The budget resolution helped make that possible. So I hope we will still be able to pass a budget resolution in spite of this bill.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to work with my colleague on the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, and with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Finance Committee on this matter. I share the concern of the Senator from North Dakota about using a timing shift in the corporate estimated tax payments as a way to pay for the spending in this bill. Although I realize that this payment shift has been used as an offset previously by the Finance Committee and this body, I do not support using the provision in the legislation before us today. I agree with my friend from North Dakota that real spending should be offset with real revenues. Senator Conrad's second degree amendment to my amendment striking the shift in corporate estimated tax payments would replace the $11.4 billion that is shifted into 2009 with real revenue over the six year period of the bill.

Mr. NICKLES. I, too, am disappointed that we were unable to consider the amendment of the Senator from North Dakota. I look forward to working with him and the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Finance Committee to find a way to fulfill the commitment that was made during the Finance Committee mark up of the highway bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to compliment the Senator from Georgia, Senator Miller, for his statement and for his outrage over some of the decline in morality which was evidenced by not only by Super Bowl halftime but also by the Supreme Court decision just made in the State of Massachusetts where basically four individuals tried to legalize same-sex marriage. It was not a vote of the people.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Montana Saints. Is that an acronym?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. We have been in mourning over the terrible upset at the hands of--is it the Montana Rangers?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I agree that the pending transportation bill is not the place to consider budget enforcement provisions within the Budget Committee's jurisdiction. Even though the budget enforcement provisions in this bill are meaningless in the absence of other process measures, I did not support their inclusion. Enacting statutory budget enforcement this year will require bipartisan cooperation, and the most appropriate way to ensure that is to consider these issues through the regular order. I will work closely with the Senator from North Dakota to make sure all Senate Budget Committee members have an opportunity to provide input on these issues.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want my colleague from Arizona to listen. If I misstate this, I hope he will correct me. I urge our colleagues to vote in favor of the Kyl amendment. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is in trouble. It guarantees pensions, both single-employer plans and multiemployer plans, and it doesn't have enough money to provide the guarantees that it has already made. So there is a catchup provision that says, well, you should pay up; you should help. This bill we are getting ready to pass is going to make it easier on some companies--airlines and steel--so they don't have to pay as much on the catchup. The Senator's amendment says if those companies grant additional benefits, i.e., increased pensions, and if they go upside down--declare bankruptcy--PBGC will not be held for any incremental benefits increase during this 2-year period of time; is that correct?

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield further, you want to make sure people are not receiving additional pension changes, i.e., increasing benefits by 10 percent for all covered employees?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES. Reserving the right to object, I need to find out what the request is. Unfortunately, I tell my friend and colleague from Massachusetts, the Senate has been in for a day, but I have not read his bill. I understand he introduced it yesterday. He wants to pass it today. Senator Kennedy is a very effective legislator, but I personally have not had a chance to read the bill. Will the Senator tell me what the essence of his bill is? Is it a program to double unemployment compensation extension to 26 weeks? Or extend the present program to 13 weeks?

Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate the clarification. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, two or three comments. Senator Kennedy is my friend. We debated this issue a couple of times. In the past many months, I guess for the last year and a half, there has been an effort to turn a 13-week program into a 26-week program. I have objected to that very strongly and will continue to object to it very strongly. As I understand Senator Kennedy's explanation, this is an extension of the existing Federal unemployment compensation program which is scheduled to expire by the end of March of this year. But I would like to point out a couple of reasons why I object. I will be happy to work with my friend and colleague from Massachusetts to maybe learn in greater detail of his proposal, but just a couple of editorial comments. No. 1, the unemployment rate is coming down. It is at 5.7 percent. In 1993, at the conclusion of a significant downturn and recession in the economy, the Democrats were in control of the Senate and they had a Temporary Federal Unemployment Compensation Extension Program. The unemployment rates at that time were between 6.6 and 7.7 percent. In other words, they discontinued the program when the unemployment rate was at 6.6. The unemployment rate today is 5.7. I might mention the title of this program has been Temporary Federal Unemployment Compensation. It was temporary. I note today there are 26 States, over half of States have unemployment rates of less than 5 percent. To have a national program for every State, which is very expensive, I am not sure is timely. That is the reason we should have a chance to review this. Without having a chance to find out what the cost of it is, from what I have gathered and learned over the years, I object. We have already spent, for the information of my colleagues, over the last 36 months I think something like $30 billion. It is not an inexpensive program. I might note that in the 1990s Congress spent $28.5 billion. That was over 30 months when the unemployment rate was much higher--6.6 to 7.7 percent. I might also, for the information of my colleagues, note that many States have not spent the $8 billion of Federal funding that we transferred in March of 2002 for unemployment compensation. We transferred $8 billion. According to the Labor Department, there is still $5 billion remaining unspent by the States. Those are reasons I objected to my friend's unanimous consent request. I appreciate his bringing this to the forefront of the Senate. It may not be the last we have heard of this. But this is a temporary program. I think some people would like for it to be a permanent program. This Senator does not want it to be a permanent program. For those reasons, I objected to the request. I will be happy to work with my colleague, the Senator from Massachusetts, to see if we can't do something positive to help create an environment which is more conducive to more jobs for more Americans this year. I think we can do that in a variety of ways, one of which would be making the Tax Code more fair for the working environment. I will work with all of our colleagues to see if we can't have a more productive job-creating environment, one part of which would be to pass an energy bill. We passed a good energy bill. I am not saying that what we had last year, which I guess is still on the calendar, was a perfect energy bill. But I believe there are thousands and thousands of jobs that could be created if we passed a positive energy bill. I hope our colleagues will look at that and other measures maybe that would help reduce health care costs and other things that would create a more productive environment for job creation in the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, it is a pleasure to see my friend from Massachusetts again. He is feeling good. He is energetic, as he always is. He is a very effective legislator and champions the cause with great enthusiasm. I appreciate that. I will make a couple of editorial comments. I love the chart. He said if we went at last month's pace of 1,000 jobs being created, it would take 200 years. That was 1,000 jobs last month. Over the last 5 months, 280,000 jobs were created, according to the Department of Labor. He forgot to mention that. But for December, I think he is correct as reported by the Department of Labor. It is kind of interesting. He also said we have to have a vote on increasing the minimum wage but those Republicans haven't allowed us to do it. He said they haven't allowed us to do it for the last several years. I remember a period with not necessarily the greatest fondest of memories. But for almost 2 years, the Democrats were in control. Senator Daschle was the majority leader, I believe from about June of 2000 or maybe 2001 until the end of 2002. He was the majority leader of the Senate. Senator Kennedy was the chairman of the committee, and that could have been brought to the floor at any point during that time. The majority leader controlled the floor and the agenda of the Senate. It could have been offered as an amendment by any Member of the Senate, and it wasn't. I just make note of that fact. It is interesting that it wasn't raised during that timeframe when this body was controlled by my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. I want to just make note of that. I don't doubt that we will have the pleasure of debating that issue. I look forward to that debate when that happens. I don't know that we want to make it against the law for anybody to work in the United States for less than $6 an hour. Some people say if they didn't make $6 an hour, they would be unemployed. I don't share that philosophy. But I guess we will have a chance to debate that. That is fine. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I hereby submit to the Senate the budget scorekeeping report prepared by the Congressional Budget Office under Section 308(b) and in aid of Section 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended. This report meets the requirements for Senate scorekeeping of Section 5 of S. Con. Res. 32, the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for 1986. This report shows the effects of congressional action on the 2004 budget through December 9, 2003. The estimates of budget authority, outlays, and revenues are consistent with the technical and economic assumptions of the 2004 Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, H. Con. Res. 95, as adjusted. The estimates show that current level spending is below the budget resolution by $2.1 billion in budget authority and by $7.2 billion in outlays in 2004. Current level for revenues is $227 million below the budget resolution in 2004. Since my last report, dated November 21, 2003, the Congress has cleared and the President has signed the following acts that changed budget authority, outlays, or revenues for 2004: Fourth continuing resolution, 2004, P.L. 108-135; An act to authorize salary adjustments for justices and judges of the United States, P.L. 108-167; Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, P.L. 108- 173; Flight 100--Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act, P.L. 108-176; Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefits Act of 2003, P.L. 108-182; Veterans Benefits Act of 2003, P.L. 108-183; Fifth continuing resolution, 2004, P.L. 108-185; Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, P.L. 108-187; Compact of Free Association Amendments of 2003, P.L. 108-188; and, Mental Health Parity Reauthorization Act of 2003, P.L. 10-197. I ask unanimous consent to print the following information in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to provide an initial report on the budgetary effect of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2673, the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2004, otherwise referred to as the omnibus appropriation bill. While I will share scoring on these individual bills compared to each subcommittee's 302(b) allocation during later debate, allow me to summarize where this bill stands relative to the 2004 budget resolution as it applies in the Senate. Combined with the other six appropriation bills already enacted for 2004 as well as the 2004 Iraq supplemental, this conference report would set total non-emergency discretionary funding for 2004 at $791.023 billion in budget authority and $862.889 billion in outlays. Because it does not include sufficient offsets to pay for the additional spending included within, this conference report exceeds the discretionary allocations and caps provided by the budget resolution ($784.675 billion in budget authority and $861.084 billion in outlays) by $6.348 in budget authority and $1,805 billion in outlays. Therefore, Budget Act points of order (under sections 302(f) and 311) and a budget resolution (section 405(b)) point of order apply against the bill. Other budget resolution points of order apply as well, but they are of a more incidental nature. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield myself as much time as I might consume. I urge my colleagues to vote to waive the budget point of order. I think I am correct--I haven't looked at numbers--I probably voted to make more points of order than almost anybody, maybe with the exception of my very good friend, the past chairman of the Budget Committee. I have always tried to maintain the integrity of the budget, but I think what we have here is a way of people saying: Let's vote for cloture, but maybe we can kill this bill indirectly; we will do it with a budget point of order and not to save money. I wish the people were really concerned about the fiscal integrity of Medicare, but I don't think that is what is behind the proponents of these budget points of order. As a matter of fact, in looking at past records, Senator Daschle, who made the budget point of order, has moved to waive a budget point of order 56 out of 60 times. Senator Kennedy has moved to waive a budget point of order 54 out of 57 times that he voted. In other words, some 97 percent of the time they always moved to waive the budget rules. I have always been on the opposite side. I am going to be on the opposite side of them this time because, frankly, I think they are just trying to kill the bill so the bill will come back later with more costs and be a lot more irresponsible. If my memory serves me correctly, when we debated the budget this year on the floor of the Senate, there was an amendment to increase the $400 billion authorization or the reserve fund we put in the budget for prescription drugs and to improve Medicare. I believe Senator Kennedy and Senator Daschle supported an amendment to increase that figure to $600 billion. They were not successful. My point is I think their effort today is not because they are concerned about this bill costing too much money. I think they are trying to figure out a way to bring this bill down so it can come back and cost more money. I just mention that. What about the point of order? The budget said we would have up to $400 billion to spend for improving and strengthening Medicare, including providing prescription drugs. The bill that was reported out, according to CBO, meets that target. It scores at $395 billion. I happen to think it is going to cost more than that, but it is compliant with the rules set by the Budget Committee on its total spending and scored by the Congressional Budget Office. There is a violation or budget point of order in 2004. What do I mean by that? It scores $3 billion more in 2004. What that relates to is when we pass a budget, we allocate so much money to each committee each year, and the Finance Committee has already spent all of its money. It spent all of its money because we passed unemployment compensation--a total of $4.7 billion in unemployment compensation in 2004 not assumed in the Budget Resolution. We spent an additional $10 billion in aid to the States that was not assumed in the budget resolution. There are some other things that we didn't do, so the Finance Committee is out of compliance now by about $3 billion with this bill. What does this bill do in 2004 that costs money? The prescription drug proposal doesn't really get started in 2004 with the exception of the prescription discount drug card. The card, which offers all seniors a 15-, 20- or 25-percent of immediate savings in January of 2004 and provides a $600 benefit for low-income seniors. Seniors who have incomes less than 135 percent of poverty will get a card. I believe that card will be authorized in January of 2004 for $600. The beneficiary would have to make a copayment of 10 percent. So that costs money in 2004. I don't hear the opponents seeking to delay immediate relief for seniors and low-income seniors. Further, there are other items that cost money in 2004. Providers receive assistance. Providers, who do I mean? I mean doctors, hospitals, rural hospitals--provisions that are supported very strongly by Members of both parties--rural add-ons, and so on. That is the bulk of this money, $3.8 billion. So if people don't want to spend that money, that is of interest, but my guess is that is not really the case. My guess is people want to spend the money for rural health care areas. I then heard the Democratic leader indicate his concern was also on the revenue side of the budget. There is a point of order because of health savings accounts. That is a $160 million revenue loss in 2004. I understand some people do not like that particular provision of the bill. I happen to think it is a very good provision of the bill. If the supporters of this point of order prevail then the entire Medicare bill is going to be pulled down. Am I right to assume that their goal is to ensure that there will be no prescription drug coverage for low-income seniors because of that provision? I do not think so. Now folks are stating that the bill has no cost containment. Well, I believe we have very different meanings of those words. The proponents of the point of order consider government price controls to be effective cost containment tools. I do not agree. I do agree that the legislation lacks real cost containment--I heard Senator Daschle say we did not have cost containment. This Senator worked very hard to get real cost containment. I wanted to put cost containment in that would require a supermajority vote to worsen Medicare's financial condition. If any future Congress had legislation before the body which would make the fiscal problems of Medicare, which are already significant, worse, there would be a vote, a 60-vote point of order. I was not successful in convincing our colleagues to include that fiscal restraint. In fact, my primary opponent in creating real cost containment was Senator Baucus. He kept saying: I cannot pass that in my caucus. That will never pass. That is a nonstarter. You cannot get a supermajority on this entitlement. You will be curbing the growth of this entitlement. That is not done for other entitlements. I heard it over and over. We debated it for a long time. Well, the facts are that it is done for other entitlements. We have this rule in place today for Social Security. Social Security's entitlement status has never been in question as a result of a supermajority requirement. I was not successful in getting stronger cost containment than what we have in this bill. I regret that. I wish that we would. I would be happy to pursue that in subsequent budget resolutions with the Democrat leader, but we were not successful in getting it in this package. I think the proponents of this point of order are not serious in their effort to control costs. In fact I am puzzled as to why the proponents of this point of order voted for cloture. Instead of opposing cloture they are trying to get around it the other way and say, we will just use a 60-vote budget point of order. Seriously, I do not think their efforts are about budgets. I think it is a way to try and kill this bill. I may not support final passage of the bill because I am concerned about the total cost of the bill. But I do not think it should be because we are spending some money for rural hospitals or for doctors. I think doctors are getting like $600 million in 2004; rural hospitals and other providers are receiving money in 2004; and health savings accounts reduce revenues by $160 million in 2004. The real reason the Finance Committee has exceeded its allocation in 2004 is because we spent $4.3 billion for unemployment compensation and because we spent $10 billion for aid to the States in 2004, neither of which were in the original budget resolution. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to add a couple of comments to my earlier statement. I noticed the Democrat leader, Senator Daschle, alluded to similar points of order being raised in July of 2002. That was raised and supported for a couple of reasons. One, the budget resolutions in 2002, that was based on the resolution that passed in 2001 for fiscal year 2002, said there is up to $300 billion in a bill that was reported out of Finance Committee that would strengthen and enhance Medicare. In 2002, the Democrats were running the place. They did not report a Medicare bill out of the Finance Committee. They bypassed the Finance Committee. I was a member of that committee. I was incensed that we would just ignore the committee. Therefore, it violated the budget. One, I know it was not reported by committee. Also, it was just, here is the bill. I believe the bill was quite a lot larger than $300 billion. I am not sure if it was $570 billion or $600 billion. It was a lot more than $300 billion. So there was a very legitimate reason. One, it was not reported out of committee. It did not have work done on it by the committee. It did not meet the overall structure or the framework. This bill that we have before us is within the $400 billion as reported by CBO. It did go through committee, both the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. It has been scored by CBO. At that time, I believe the bill we had on the floor of the Senate had not even been scored, or at least the details had not been scored, by CBO. There was a legitimate reason to make a budget point of order. This, in my opinion, is not. By its very fact, as evidenced by most of the people who are promoting this budget point of order, they have almost all the time, 90-some percent of the time, opposed budget points of order when they have been raised in the past. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, today on National Adoption Day, I rise to introduce the Intercountry Adoption Reform Act along with my colleagues Senators Landrieu, Craig, Bingaman, Inhofe and Smith. The primary focus of this bill is to streamline, simplify and improve the foreign adoption process for families, adoption agencies and more importantly for the foreign adopted children of American citizens. In the last decade, there has been a significant growth in intercountry adoption. In 1990, Americans adopted more than 7,000 children from abroad. In 2002, Americans adopted almost 20,000 children from abroad. Families are increasingly seeking to create or enlarge their families through intercountry adoptions. There are many children worldwide who are without permanent homes. It is the intent of this bill to make much-needed reforms to the intercountry adoption process used by U.S. citizens and therefore help more homeless children worldwide find a permanent home here in the United States. There are two main goals of this legislation. First, and more importantly, this bill acknowledges and affirms that foreign adopted children of American citizens are to be treated in all respects the same as children born abroad to an American citizen. Under existing law, foreign adopted children are treated as immigrants to the United States. They have to apply for, and be granted immigrant visas to enter the United States. Once they enter the United States, citizenship is acquired automatically. Had these children been born abroad to American citizens, they would have traveled back to the United States with a U.S. passport and entered as citizens. This bill provides for equal treatment for foreign adopted children. Furthermore, these children are not immigrating to the United States in the traditional sense of the word. They are not choosing to come to our country, but rather American citizens are choosing to bring them here as part of their families. Once a full and final adoption has occurred, then the adopted child is a full-fledged member of the family and under adoption law is considered as if ``natural born.'' As a child of an American citizen, the foreign adopted child should be treated as such, not as an immigrant. The second goal is to consolidate the existing functions of the Federal Government relating to foreign adoption into one centralized office located within the Department of State. Currently, these functions are performed by offices within the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State. Consolidation of these functions into one office will result in focused attention on the needs of families seeking to adopt overseas and on the children they are hoping to make part of their families. Today, when a family seeks to adopt overseas, it has to first be approved to adopt by the Department of Homeland Security. Then, after a child has been chosen, the Department of Homeland Security has to determine if the child is adoptable under Federal adoption law. After this determination is made, the Department of State has to determine whether the child qualifies for a visa as an immediate relative of an American citizen. This bill seeks to minimize the paperwork involved and streamline the process by having these functions all performed in one, centralized office, the Office of Intercountry Adoptions, staffed by expert personnel trained in adoption practices. The focus of this office will be on foreign adoptions and only on foreign adoptions. Officials in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State that currently perform the functions being transferred to this new office have many other duties, such as screening for terrorists or dealing with illegal immigrants. Adoption is frequently a low priority on the desk of such officers. By consolidating these functions into one office, with its sole focus being foreign adoption, these issues can be handled more promptly and given the priority they deserve. Another aspect of the Office of Intercountry Adoptions that I consider extremely important is the proactive role that we intend for it to take in assisting other countries in establishing fraud-free, transparent adoption practices and interceding on behalf of American citizens when foreign adoption issues occur. By establishing an Ambassador at Large for Intercountry Adoption, this legislation will provide a point of contact for foreign governments when issues involving foreign adoptions arise. In the last few years there have been many examples of instances where our government has had to intercede on behalf of Americans seeking to adopt a foreign child. For example, Romania has been closed to foreign adoption for more than 2 years now. When Romania issued its moratorium on foreign adoption, hundreds of American families who were in the process of adopting Romanian orphans were unable to complete their adoptions. Fortunately, the Department of State was able to work successfully with the Romanian government to have these adoptions processed and persuaded Romania to grant exceptions to the moratorium for these American families and their adopted. Unfortunately, the moratorium is still in place leaving many orphans stuck in orphanages across Romania. There also have been major adoption issues involving Cambodia, Vietnam, and Guatemala in the last 2 years. These issues are still being addressed by various officials within the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security. It will be greatly beneficial to have a point person within the Federal Government to work on these issues, facilitate resolutions, and intercede on behalf of American families. There also are some very significant procedural changes in the foreign adoption process included in this bill. Under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, a foreign child adopted by a U.S. citizen acquires automatic citizenship upon entry into the United States to reside permanently. This bill proposes to change the point of acquisition of citizenship from entry into the United States to the time when a full and final adoption decree is entered by a foreign government or a court in the United States. Prior to citizenship attaching, the child must be determined to be an ``adoption child'' under U.S. law as defined in this bill. This provision is made retroactive to January 1, 1950, the year Americans began to adopt from abroad. This date also addresses the issue of children adopted during this time period whose parents failed to naturalize them under previous law. Additionally, the Secretary of State shall issue a U.S. passport and a Consular Report of Birth for a child who satisfies the requirements of the Child Citizenship Act as amended by this Act. No visa will be required for such a child; instead it will be admitted to the United States upon presentation of a valid U.S. passport. No affidavit of support under 213A of the Immigration and Nationality Act will be required nor will the child be required to undergo a medical exam. These changes are again made to more closely equate the process of bringing a foreign adopted child home to the process of documenting and bringing home a biological child born abroad to a U.S. citizen. When a U.S. citizen gives birth abroad, the parents simply go to the U.S. Embassy, present the child's birth certificate, their marriage license and proof of U.S. citizenship. Upon receiving this documentation, the embassy provides the parents with a U.S. passport for the child and a Consular Report of Birth that serves as proof of their child's citizenship as well as the child's birth certificate. This process takes little to no time to complete. The process for foreign adopted children, however, is anything but quick and easy. Currently, an adoptive family may have to travel from the country where it adopts a child to another country in order to get the child's immigrant visa. Only certain embassies are able to grant such visas. On the other hand, most embassies are equipped to provide passports and Consular Reports of Birth. This will eliminate the need and expense associated with families having to travel with their newly adopted children to another U.S. Embassy in a different location prior to bringing the children home. This bill also provides that the adoptive parents do not have to prove twice that they are financially capable of providing for their child and eliminates the immigration requirement of having the child undergo a medical exam. Before a family is approved to adopt a foreign child, the Federal Government has to be satisfied that the family is financially able to care for the child. This is part of the approval process. They should not have to repeat this process once they have fully and finally adopted a child. In addition, prior to a family choosing to adopt a child, they should acquire and be provided as much medical information as is available on the health of the child so that it can make an informed decision on its ability to care for the child. Once that information has been provided and the child has been adopted, the child is now a member of the family. No biological child is denied entry because of medical reasons, nor should an adopted child be denied. Another section of this bill provides for a new type of visa for children traveling to the United States for the purpose of being adopted by an American citizen who has been approved to adopt. Currently children who are not adopted overseas prior to their entry into the United States are allowed entry using an immigrant visa. As I have stated earlier, these children are not immigrants. They are being brought to the United States, at the request of a U.S. citizen, to become a member of that family. This new visa is a non-immigrant visa which authorizes admission of the child for the purposes of adoption. The authorized admission under this section terminates on the date the adoption is finalized, or 2 years after the date of admission if the adoption has not been finalized. Until the child is adopted, the child will receive temporary treatment as a legal permanent resident. This bill also redefines the criteria used to determine a child's eligibility for adoption This is a critical piece of this legislation. The existing statutory language has not been revised since it was first written over 50 years ago. When it was written it was intended to deal primarily with war orphans and it does not permit voluntary relinquishment of children who have two living parents. The provision in this bill has been written to more fully comport with the language as agreed to in the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 which does permit the adoption of children whose parents have irrevocably relinquished them. The bill also includes many safeguards such as: requirements that the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proper care will be furnished the child; that the purpose of the adoption is to form a bona fide parent-child relationship; that the biological parent-child relationships have been terminated; that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is satisfied that the child is not a security risk; and that whose adoption and emigration to the United States has been approved by the competent authority of the country of the child's place of birth or residence. Now that I have covered some of the significant aspects of this bill, let me tell you what this bill does not do. It does not create more bureaucracy or additional regulation. It does not increase fees for adoption. It does not slow down the adoption process. It does not add more red tape or additional paperwork. In fact, it does just the opposite. It consolidates existing Federal processes for foreign adoptions into what is intended to be a ``one stop shop''--the Office of Intercountry Adoptions. It eliminates paperwork involved in getting an immigrant visa and provides citizenship documentation up front for the child, saving the adoptive family from having to deal with this upon its return home. Instead the fully and finally adopted child enters the United States on a U.S. passport as a U.S. citizen and child of a U.S. citizen. This bill is intended to ease the paperwork burden on adoptive parents who have already gone through extensive paperwork and documentation production to accomplish their adoption. It is intended to recognize that children adopted by American citizens are the children of American citizens and entitled to all the same rights, duties and responsibilities of biological children of U.S. citizens born abroad. I introduce this bill with the hope that its passage will significantly improve the foreign adoption process so that more children worldwide can find loving, permanent homes. It is my prayer that someday, adoption will not be needed. That all children will be born into stable, loving homes to parents who want them and are able to care for them. However, until that day comes the foreign adoption process can be improved and should be improved. Foreign adopted children should be treated as children of U.S. citizens, not as immigrants, and should be accorded all the same rights as biological children of U.S. citizens. To that end, I introduce this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

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

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I rise to speak on the Medicare bill that is before us. First, I compliment a couple colleagues with whom I have had the pleasure of working on this bill, particularly in the conference committee. First would certainly be Senator Grassley who, in leading the Senate conferees, I think did an outstanding job. I also would echo that for the majority leader. The majority leader seldom gets involved in a conference. This majority leader, Dr. Bill Frist, has an interest in Medicare and he was a very influential member of the conference. In addition, Senator Kyl, Senator Hatch, Senator Baucus, and Senator Breaux and, I would also include, Chairman Thomas. This was a very challenging conference between the House and the Senate. The bill that was reported out of the Senate--I did not vote for it. I thought it was very heavy on expense and very light on reforms. I did not really think it was a sustainable bill, one that we or our children could afford. So I worked very diligently, I guess, or very aggressively, trying to come up with a conference report that would meet the test, that would provide better benefits at a sustainable level. I think the present Medicare system has crummy benefits. It does not cover a lot of things that should be covered. It is so far behind the times, I really did want to modernize it. I also wanted to add the new benefits in a way that would be affordable and sustainable. Under the present situation in Medicare, just to give people a little thumbnail sketch--and this is without providing any new benefits--the total debt held by the public is $3.6 trillion. Social Security unfunded liabilities is about $4.6 trillion. Medicare is almost three times as much. It is $13.3 trillion, and that is without adding a new benefit, which most people would estimate to be $6 trillion or $7 trillion. So my colleagues can see we have an enormous challenge before us. Then just look at Medicare today. There is a lot more money going out than coming in. Medicare is primarily financed by two things. One is payroll taxes; 2.9 percent of all payroll, not capped at the same amount that Social Security is up to the 80,000-something dollars. It is 2.9 percent of all payroll. That is the money going in. It is also financed by general revenue. We subsidize Part B. If it is added all together and we take out the intergovernmental transfers, Medicare had net deficits last year--in 2002--of almost $70 billion. It gets a lot worse--by 2012 the deficit will be above $150 billion. That is present law. That is without adding a new benefit. So Medicare is in very difficult fiscal waters, a lot more challenging than even Social Security, a lot more challenging than any other program because demographically there are a lot of people who are living longer, health care expenses are exploding, and there are fewer people paying the payroll tax. So it is going to take a greater share of general revenue, money from taxpayers to pay for these obligations. So I thought, let's provide better benefits. What do I mean by that? Medicare does not provide drug benefits. Everyone knows that. Medicare also has unaffordable deductibles. It has a deductible for the hospital of $840. I compare this to what the private sector offers. If a person buys Blue Cross or Aetna, any of the private plans, they do not have an $840 deductible to pay if they go in the hospital for one day, but Medicare does. All private plans certainly should--I think most do-- have catastrophic. Medicare does not have catastrophic. If a person is really in trouble, if they are in the hospital more than 150 days, it is all on them; they do not get any help from Medicare. I think that is pathetic. That is not a very good benefit. As a matter of fact, if someone is in the hospital more than 60 days, they have to pay $210 a day. If they are in the hospital more than 90 days, they have to pay $420 a day. So if someone is really sick, if they are really in trouble, look out, Medicare does not come through. So it is a program that has, frankly, not been modernized since its creation in 1965. Medicare does not do enough for preventive care. It does not offer prescription drugs. It does not have catastrophic. Its deductibles are way too high for hospitalization. So I think it needs significant improvement. I want to pass a Medicare bill that will help solve all of these problems. I want to pass a bill that will provide drug benefits. I think we are way behind the times. We should be doing it. I also want to be cognizant of the fact that Medicare is in real financial trouble, that it is not sustainable in its present form. I do not want to be adding new benefits that will just accelerate the day where it collapses, where it is not sustainable, where our kids are going to be saying: What about this tax? Some people say: Well, this is not a tax. And that is correct, we are not creating a direct tax to pay for the new benefits, but what we are doing is incurring enormous debt to pay for benefits. Frankly, our kids are either going to be paying for that in the form of taxation tomorrow or they are going to be paying for it in an increased interest rate because debts will increase substantially under this bill. The budget resolution we passed last year said we should strengthen and enhance Medicare. That means make it more solvent, more sustainable, more affordable. Unfortunately, I am not sure we did that under this bill. In fact, we focused too many resources in this bill to cover the covered and not improve Medicare. What do I mean by that? If we look at this chart, we find out that 76 percent of seniors now have prescription drug coverage, but we are going to spend billions, almost $100 billion, to provide assistance to those people who already have drug coverage. For employer-sponsored plans, for example, we are going to spend $89 billion to subsidize employers so they can continue providing health care benefits, drug benefits, for their employees. We are going to bribe them to keep covering the people they have already contractually obligated to cover. This is a big bailout, in my opinion, for employer plans, union plans. It is way too high of a subsidy. I know AARP wanted these subsidies and in fact wanted more money. Now, some people were criticizing Senator Baucus. Mr. Hunt in the Wall Street Journal criticized him as a negotiator. I take issue with that. He was a very successful negotiator because in the last several days of negotiating the bill--we spent months negotiating--Senator Baucus was a very effective negotiator. He kept winning. I kept losing. We were on opposite sides in many battles. I complimented him. I said: You just keep winning. He got more money for the employer and union subsidy, another $18 billion in the last few days to cover the covered. It went from $71 billion to $89 billion by making it tax free. He also got an additional $18.5 billion for low-income subsidies and more benefits. That makes the bill more expensive and I think will make utilization go way up. So I compliment Senator Baucus for his negotiations, but I also think it makes the bill less sustainable or less affordable for future generations. So we spend a lot of money to take care of employer sponsored. I also have issues with covering the covered in the Medicaid program. We have low-income subsidies in this bill not just for those who are higher incomes than Medicaid but for the Medicaid population that is dually eligible. We have subsidies in this bill for low-income to the tune of $190-some billion. These are subsidies for seniors which many of whom already had drug coverage. So what is the total package? Everybody says this package is a $395 billion package. In reality it is much more than that. In reality, this bill is closer to $800 billion. It nets out about $400 billion. It is $800 billion because we have $507 billion in drug benefits, but we also have low-income subsidies of $192 billion, and we have employer subsidies of $89 billion. If you add that up, it is almost $800 billion of checks that are going to be written. The Federal Government is going to be writing those checks. The Federal Government will be receiving money back in the form of premiums from seniors, $131 billion, and a reach-back or call-back from the States. Since we are assuming Medicaid, which in my opinion is a serious mistake, one that was opposed by the administration and certainly opposed by this Senator, but we were not successful. It was not the Senate position to assume federalization of Medicaid. Medicaid is a Federal-State program. It is now an all-Federal program when this bill becomes law. Again, we are covering the covered. We are going to subsidize Medicaid to the tune of $190-some billion in this bill. That is a lot. We recoup some of the money we were paying. Now it is all Medicare, so the offset will say we will spend less in Medicaid because we are not going to do that. In the future we will make it all Medicare. The net is--we will spend $800 billion, recoup $400 billion--so the net cost to future generations is about $400 billion. Yes, that meets the so-called budget restraint we put in, in this year's budget. But we didn't finance that, we don't pay for it, so we have benefits, frankly, that are certainly overpromised and underfunded. They are not funded. The $400 billion is not funded. That is just additional debt. I happen to think it will be a lot more than that. I happen to think once you end up paying some benefits you will find that utilization will skyrocket. This is just what CBO has told us. People without drug coverage in this age category spend about $732 on their drugs per year. If they have drug coverage, they spend about double that, $1,337. I think this figure will skyrocket. I asked my mother: Do you have drug coverage? She said yes. She buys it with AARP. She pays $140 or $160 a month for drug coverage. I said: How much is your drug coverage? It is 50 percent of whatever she spends up to $1,000. She gets $500 in drug benefits from AARP. She pays almost $1,000 for that $500. Maybe there are some other benefits in there I am not aware of. My point is, a lot of people have drug coverage, but they only have a little drug coverage. The reason I say this bill may not be sustainable or affordable is because 36 percent of all Medicare seniors are going to get an enormous benefit and they pay almost nothing. They will have only $1 and $3 copays, or $2 and $5 copays; in most cases they will have no premiums, deductibles or gap in coverage. I have heard some colleagues say we should be doing that for everybody. Let me just give you an example of who is pushing that proposition. I saw that AARP ran an ad today and is asked: Why should you vote for this bill? They had three or four reasons. If you have income less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level--for an individual, that is $9,600; for a couple it would be $13,000, this is the best deal you have ever seen because all you have to pay is $1 if you are buying a generic, or $3 if you are buying a brand-name drug, and you have unlimited drugs--no limit, no deductible, no copay other than that $1 and $3; no premiums, and no donut hole. That is unlimited. All you have to pay is $1 to $3 and all your drugs--whether they are $5,000 or $10,000--are all covered. It is almost the same if you have an income of less than 135 percent of poverty. That would be for individuals with $13,000 and a couple with $17,600 of income. If they have less, they have the same thing, except their copay is $2 and $5. There is no donut hole, no catastrophic, no limitation. They don't have to pay premiums, no $35 a month in premiums. They have a great benefit. They should be celebrating. I am surprised to hear some of our colleagues on the other side say they can't support this bill because it is not a very good deal. If they are so-called champions of the poor, this is the most generous federalization of a government benefit in U.S. history. Maybe they are ignoring the low-income subsidies. It is not insignificant--$192 billion according to CBO. I think it is so much more than that. I think when people find out their only copay is $1 or $3 or even $2 and $5, utilization will skyrocket. This chart will be so inaccurate. We will find out if we have underestimated the impact of providing a federal benefit upwards of a 90 percent subsidy. In a few years we will find out. People who don't have to pay much--in other words, if the Government is paying 90-some-odd percent of it, 95 or 97 percent, which would be the case in many of these income categories, utilization will skyrocket. At least that is my opinion. Maybe I am wrong. We will find out. I am making this statement for the record because I think this benefit is going to cost a lot more than people estimate. I think utilization will skyrocket. For individuals who have incomes less than $14,500, or as a couple, $19,500, between that 135 percent and 150 percent of poverty, their copay is 15 percent. The Government is going to pay 85 percent. Again-- no donut hole. They will have a reduced sliding scale premium and a reduced deductible of $50. This too is an enormous benefit that will skyrocket. People who have incomes above 150 percent of poverty, they have a copay of 25 percent. Then you are getting into the area where it is not quite as good as what they had in the private sector. So my point is, for low income, for that 36 percent of Medicare seniors, for about 14 million seniors, this is one great package. My guess is, it will explode in cost. Another reason I think it will explode in cost is because a lot of our colleagues will say whatever we pass, that is just the beginning. I think Senator Kennedy alluded to that when this passed the Senate: This is a beginning and he wants to expand upon it. I believe that is what AARP says: We will take this and expand upon it. How do you expand upon it? Well, let's just fill the donut hole. In other words, the basic benefit after you get past the low-income subsidies, the basic again goes up to $2,250. Then above that amount you have to basically self-insure or in other words you pay the next couple of thousand dollars on your own before the Federal Government catastrophic kicks in. A lot of people would say: Let's just fill that donut hole up. We don't have that donut hole in the private sector, we should not have it in this. If you fill that up, in other words, if Government expands its liability, the cost of this program goes up by the hundreds of billions of dollars--hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, one does not have to predict that this will happen, it actually already did. The Conference Committee negotiated an initial benefit level of $2,200. This was an agreement. Tuesday night, armed with a CBO score that was under $400 billion the negotiators closed the donut by $50. This cost $4 billion. I have no doubt in my mind that once this passes, future Congresses will be working to fill that donut hole, and my guess is they will be successful. My guess is they will be successful in increasing the number of people eligible for these enormous low-income subsidies. It doesn't have to be 150 percent. As a matter of fact, the Senate bill passed at 160 percent of poverty. So I am sure there will be amendments year by year to increase that level up for the super government benefit. Let's make that eligible up to $30,000 or $40,000 so that will be happening. I also think areas in which there are significant savings in the bill--and I was involved in this--the reach-back, where we try to recapture a portion of the savings going to States we will see slowly undone. My guess after this becomes law, States will be lobbying us extensively: You are taking too much back. We want that reduced. In fact the reach-back provision was reduced just this past week at a cost to the taxpayers of $4 billion. I am afraid in many cases States will continue to be successful. So that cost will explode. As a matter of fact, I will make a prediction. Within a few years, the donut hole will be eliminated, the reach-back by States will be reduced dramatically, and the expansion of low-income definition will be enlarged tremendously, so the cost of this bill will more than double, more than double. That is just my guesstimate. I may not be in the Senate when that happens, but my guess is it will happen. What is my other complaint about the bill? Its explosive nature in cost. I knew it would cost a lot. I knew it would explode. One of the things I really wanted to do was come up with some reforms that would help make this program more sustainable, more affordable for the future. Presently, we have a system that is bifurcated. We have Medicare hospitalization. That is called Part A. It has Part B for doctors. It will now have a new part D for prescription drugs. The benefits are not integrated. A lot of people also buy Medigap. Under present law they buy A and B and they buy Medigap. So it is not a very good integrated system, unlike the private sector. The private sector offers the benefits that I said that Medicare lacks. I wanted to have an integrated private- sector alternative to the present Medicare system, one that people could look at and say: Wait a minute, this works better. I think I would rather be in the everyday private sector type system, the same one Federal employees have, the same one private sector employees have. They have better plans. They have a better package. It is more modern. It is not tied to a government-controlled fee-for-service system that does not work. Do you want the private sector to become a 1965 Medicare fee for service model? This bill is spending billions and billions of dollars to make adjustments for doctors and hospitals and providers because government is underfunding them? That is not the private market and we should not tie them to Medicare's price controls. Senator Grassley has been a champion for increasing assistance to rural areas, and he is exactly right. The present system hasn't worked very well. I wanted to come up with a more modern system with integrated benefits that integrates Part A, Part B, and Part D-- hospitals, doctors, and prescription drugs--and avoid the necessity of a Medigap plan. People had to have Medigap because Medicare alone didn't pay for a lot of benefits, and it had too high of a deductible. People had to buy Medigap. They shouldn't have to do that. I was hoping we could come up with a good, reasonable integrated system. I am afraid that maybe we haven't quite attained that. I am afraid our reforms are really not adequate for the explosiveness of the benefits we are looking at today. Let me touch on the integrated benefit. I have heard some people say this is a ripoff because we are giving money to insurance companies; that it should be done by the Government. I have already mentioned that Government doesn't do a very good job in providing the benefits today. Now we are trying to have the private sector come in after Part D, the private sector for a prescription drug package. Nobody in the real market right now offers to Medicare beneficiaries or for that matter anyone a stand-alone drug benefit. We hope and pray they will in the future. But if they do, they will have to basically offer exactly what we told them to offer, and that is the benefit structure of 75-25 up to $2,250. We are limiting the private sector to only offering a government-designed benefit. There is this big donut hole in the government standard benefit and we have a governmental catastrophic, some call it Government reinsurance--which ties the hands of the private sector and denies seniors the best the private sector has to offer. For example, After you spend $3,600 of your own money, then Government reinsurance will kick in, and individual beneficiary will be liable for 5 percent. The Government is responsible for 80 percent of all costs above the $3,600 ``true out of pocket'', the health plan is covering 15 percent and the individual 5%. The private sector is not able to assume full risk and offer the benefits they want. If the private health plans did offer increased benefits they would lose or delay government subsidies. This is crazy. All they are able to offer is basically the basic benefit up to the $2,250, or the actuarial equivalent, but they are not able to offer both. They are not able to say they will take all of Part D--that they will assume all of Part D and combine it with Part A and Part B and use efficiencies between the system having an integrated benefit and maybe doing something better in hospitalization and doctors, have some savings and offer a more generous drug benefit. They are not able to do that because under this bill, they are required to maintain this true out-of-pocket cost. This bill puts the private plans in straight jacket. I think that is very unfortunate. It really kind of locks in an inflexible structure. We are telling the private sector, which have extensive experience in offering comprehensive benefits for all types of individuals including public and private sector employee and individuals, that they have to sell a government benefit. They can not offer a plan with prescription drugs for our seniors without having a donut hole. We are mandating that they have that before they can get into catastrophic. I find that to be very unfortunate and very shortsighted and maybe even unworkable. It doesn't really transcend the movement to private sector. It doesn't trust the private sector. By doing that, I am afraid we have put in a rigidity that won't allow it to work as we would like for it to. We did not get cost containment. We tried. Maybe I should say we have minor cost containment. We did put in a provision that says if general revenue contributions exceed 45 percent, the President shall come up with a plan to fix it, and Congress has some procedures. Nothing mandates Congress do it. We tell the President he should. That is years away. I find that to be a little hollow. I wanted real cost containment. It was opposed by many--particularly on the Democrat side--and we weren't successful in getting that in. That is unfortunate. There are several provisions in this bill that are good. I want to compliment again Senator Grassley and Chairman Thomas. We did get health savings accounts. It is not directly related to Medicare, but I think it would help reform health care as we know it. People would actually be spending their own money. I think that is a very positive and a good significant change, and it will change people's behavior. That is about $6 billion or $7 billion. That is very positive. I compliment Senator Grassley and Chairman Thomas especially for putting that in. We did put in income-relating Part B premiums. Senator Feinstein and I worked on that amendment on the Senate floor. We included a lot of that in the bill, not exactly as we put it in the bill on the Senate floor, but I think that is a positive change. But to my regret, it puts more money in the bill, and basically we spent that money. We did get income-related Part B. Basically, that means we are going to have less subsidies for higher income people. Part B has always been paid for. When it was created, it was 50 percent for individuals. Over the years that has been declining. Now the individual only pays 25 percent, and the Federal Government pays 75 percent. What we said is if you have income above $80,000 up to $100,000, eventually you have to pay 35 percent. If you have individual income above $100,000, eventually you have to go up to 50 percent where it used to be. If you have incomes much higher than that, you will have to pay 65 percent, or you will have to pay 80 percent. Even very wealthy people will still get a 20-percent subsidy under this provision. I think that is good reform. We also index Part B deductibles. It has been $100 for a long time. Now we index that to the cost of the program. Those are good changes. They will help improve it. Unfortunately, the savings to the taxpayers as a result of these changes have already been spent in this bill. As a matter of fact, in the 2 or 3 days of negotiations, we amended the benefits and the subsidies in the bill by about $40 billion. Most of the good done by the income-relating of the Part B premiums and the indexing of the deductible were undone. I have no doubt that in future Congresses that the current 75 percent up to that $2,250 subsidy will be changed and the $2,250 is going to be climbing up. I have no doubt that people will say we need the most generous subsidies and low-income subsidies which needs to apply to a lot of other people. It will increase spending dramatically. My point is, Yes. We made some reforms, but this program may not be affordable or sustainable. Right now, it is estimated to cost $400 billion over the next 10 years. The program doesn't even start for a couple of years; that is, over the next 8 years. The Congressional Budget Office directive said that in the next 10 years they thought this program might cost up to $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion. That is with the benefits structure as we have outlined it today. As it expands, it will be much more than $1.7 trillion. When the donut hole is filled--and I predict it will be--when you have the number of eligibles increase dramatically to receive the low-income subsidies, when we reduce the reach-back or claw-back from States, this $1.7 billion in the next decade will probably be much more than that. That brings me to my final comment. Can we sustain it? I am not sure. It looks to me like we are building a brand new deck on a house with a very unstable foundation. I think we are expanding this program like it is on a solid foundation, and it is not. We are not paying for these new benefits. We are saddling our future generations with enormous liability. I conclude by saying I have the greatest respect for the chairman of the committee. I have the greatest respect for the majority leader. I want them to be successful. I want the President to be successful, and I want senior citizens to have prescription drugs. I want them to have a modern Medicare system. This bill takes some steps in those directions, but my conclusion is that the benefits greatly exceed the reforms. Without necessary reform, I am not sure this program will be sustainable in the future. So it is my intention not to support this bill. Also, I want to compliment some people who have worked very energetically on this bill. One is my staff, Stacey Hughes, who has just worked unbelievable hours; on Senator Grassley's staff, Linda Fishman and Mark Hayes, and the Senate legislative counsel. There are a lot of people who have put in more hours than you can imagine to put forth this bill. I compliment them for their efforts. They worked in a very positive way. It is a pleasure to work with them and to work with the chairman. I yield the floor. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. NICKLES. I yield that time to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, section 401 of H. Con. Res. 95, the budget resolution, permits the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments to the allocation of budget authority and outlays to the Senate Committee on Finance, provided certain conditions are met pursuant to section 401. I hereby submit the following revisions to H. Con. Res. 95, and I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.