Paul Sarbanes

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I want to respond to the Senator from Oklahoma, and urge my colleagues to support the Kennedy amendment. What are workers to do in terms of supporting their family if they exhaust the 39 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits that they are eligible to receive? Senator Kennedy's answer is that under the current circumstances we provide an additional 13 weeks of benefits. The labor market is not improving. It is worsening. The unemployment rate is rising, not falling. This notion that there are jobs to be had does not square with the facts. The economy is continuing to lose jobs. We lost 48,000 jobs last month. We have lost over half a million jobs already this year. The unemployment report stated that almost 9 million workers were unemployed in April. Just under 2 million workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. The number of long-term unemployed is as high as its been since January 1993. The average duration of unemployed has risen to 19.6 weeks. This is the longest average duration reported during this recession, and it is the highest level in almost 20 years. What are these people to do? The Kennedy amendment is very simple. It says that providing some continued support for those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own is more important than providing some of these tax cuts that are proposed in this legislation. It makes sense for the individuals, and it makes sense for the economy. We are talking about trying to stimulate the economy. Extended unemployment insurance benefits are scheduled to stop and that will withdraw that much purchasing power out of the economy. So I urge my colleagues to be supportive of this amendment. We face a worsening economic situation. Unemployment is rising. The opportunities in the job market are shrinking. We need to provide help to our workers and to their families to help them through this very difficult period. The Kennedy amendment seeks to do that. The unemployment insurance trust funds have surpluses of almost $20 billion.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of legislation to provide more bankruptcy judges for several States, including four additional bankruptcy judgeships for my own State of Maryland. This legislation is being introduced today by Senator Biden, and is being cosponsored by myself and Senators Carper, Nelson of Florida, Clinton, Edwards, Graham of South Carolina, Hollings, Levin, Pryor, Reid, Chambliss, Miller, Alexander and Graham of Florida. This bill is another significant step forward in our efforts to strengthen Maryland's Federal bankruptcy court. We have been working for several years to get these additional judgeships approved, yet no legislation has been passed that would authorize them. With such inaction, the burden facing Maryland's sitting bankruptcy judges has grown, and Maryland has remained without the additional judgeships it so desperately needs to make our bankruptcy system work. Maryland's four sitting bankruptcy judges continue to show remarkable dedication given the extraordinary burdens placed upon them. However, additional judgeships remain essential to the fair and timely administration of the Bankruptcy Code for all of the businesses and individuals that come before the Maryland District. Since 1992, we have been requesting additional judgeships for the District of Maryland; thus far none have been approved. In 1992, there were approximately 15,000 bankruptcy filings in the District of Maryland. From 1998 to 2002, there were over 30,000 bankruptcy filings per year in Maryland. In the past few years the number of new filings per year has been closer to 35,000, and in 2002 there were 35,900 new cases. The caseload has more than doubled in the past ten years, and the Court still does its work with only four bankruptcy judges. This dire need for additional judgeships in Maryland has yet to be remedied by the Congress. This legislation provides four additional judgeships for Maryland, in accordance with a September 2002 recommendation from the United States Judicial Conference. These four additional judgeships would help reduce the overwhelming workload of the four sitting bankruptcy judges. As of June 30, 2002, the national weighted filing average for bankruptcy judges was 1,641. The weighted filing per judge for Maryland's four bankruptcy judges was 3,030--almost twice the national average. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which would provide much needed help on the bankruptcy courts in Maryland and across the Nation.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of legislation to provide more bankruptcy judges for several States, including four additional bankruptcy judgeships for my own State of Maryland. This legislation is being introduced today by Senator Biden, and is being cosponsored by myself and Senators Carper, Nelson of Florida, Clinton, Edwards, Graham of South Carolina, Hollings, Levin, Pryor, Reid, Chambliss, Miller, Alexander and Graham of Florida. This bill is another significant step forward in our efforts to strengthen Maryland's Federal bankruptcy court. We have been working for several years to get these additional judgeships approved, yet no legislation has been passed that would authorize them. With such inaction, the burden facing Maryland's sitting bankruptcy judges has grown, and Maryland has remained without the additional judgeships it so desperately needs to make our bankruptcy system work. Maryland's four sitting bankruptcy judges continue to show remarkable dedication given the extraordinary burdens placed upon them. However, additional judgeships remain essential to the fair and timely administration of the Bankruptcy Code for all of the businesses and individuals that come before the Maryland District. Since 1992, we have been requesting additional judgeships for the District of Maryland; thus far none have been approved. In 1992, there were approximately 15,000 bankruptcy filings in the District of Maryland. From 1998 to 2002, there were over 30,000 bankruptcy filings per year in Maryland. In the past few years the number of new filings per year has been closer to 35,000, and in 2002 there were 35,900 new cases. The caseload has more than doubled in the past ten years, and the Court still does its work with only four bankruptcy judges. This dire need for additional judgeships in Maryland has yet to be remedied by the Congress. This legislation provides four additional judgeships for Maryland, in accordance with a September 2002 recommendation from the United States Judicial Conference. These four additional judgeships would help reduce the overwhelming workload of the four sitting bankruptcy judges. As of June 30, 2002, the national weighted filing average for bankruptcy judges was 1,641. The weighted filing per judge for Maryland's four bankruptcy judges was 3,030--almost twice the national average. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which would provide much needed help on the bankruptcy courts in Maryland and across the Nation.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation similar to measures I have introduced in previous Congresses that will help protect our Nation's natural resources and improve the visitor experience in our national parks and other public lands. The Transit in Parks Act, or ``TRIP,'' establishes a new Federal transit grant initiative to support the development of alternative transportation services for our national parks, wildlife refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Akaka, Alexander, Baucus, Corzine, Dodd, Graham, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Levin, Reid, Schumer, Stabenow, and Wyden, who are cosponsors of this legislation. I want to underscore again today some of the principal arguments I have made in past years as to why this legislation is urgently needed. Memorial Day weekend, the opening of the summer travel season, is just weeks away. Millions of visitors will soon head to our national parks to enjoy the incredible natural heritage with which our Nation was endowed. But too many of them will spend hours looking for parking, or staring at the bumper of the car in front of them. Clearly, the world has changed significantly since the national parks first opened in the second half of the nineteenth century, when visitors arrived by stagecoach along dirt roads. At that time, travel through parklands, such as Yosemite or Yellowstone, was long, difficult, and costly. Not many people could afford or endure such a trip. The introduction of the automobile gave every American greater mobility and freedom, which included the freedom to travel and see some of our Nation's great natural wonders. Early in this century, landscape architects from the National Park Service and highway engineers from the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads collaborated to produce many feats of road engineering that opened the national park lands to millions of Americans. Yet greater mobility and easier access now threaten the very environments that the National Park Service is mandated to protect. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for our national park system. Today, record numbers of visitors and cars have resulted in increasing damage to our parks. The Grand Canyon alone has almost five million visitors a year. As many as 6,000 vehicles arrive in a single summer day. They compete for 2,400 parking spaces. Between 32,000 and 35,000 tour buses go to the park each year. During the peak summer season, the entrance route becomes a giant parking lot. In 1975, the total number of visitors to America's national parks was 190 million. By 2002, that number had risen to 277 million annual visitors--almost equal to one visit by every man, woman, and child in this country. This dramatic increase in visitation has created an overwhelming demand on these areas, resulting in severe traffic congestion, visitor restrictions, and in some instances vacationers being shut out of the parks altogether. The environmental damage at the Grand Canyon is visible at many other parks: Yosemite, which has more than four million visitors a year; Yellowstone, which has more than three million visitors a year and experiences such severe traffic congestion that access has to be restricted; Zion; Acadia; Bryce; and many others. We need to solve these problems now or risk permanent harm to our Nation's natural, cultural, and historical heritage. Visitor access to the parks is vital not only to the parks themselves, but to the economic health of their gateway communities. For example, visitors to Yosemite infuse $3 billion a year into the local economy of the surrounding area. At Yellowstone, tourists spend $725 million annually in adjacent communities. Wildlife-related tourism generates an estimated $60 billion a year nationwide. If the parks are forced to close their gates to visitors due to congestion, the economic vitality of the surrounding region would be jeopardized. The challenge for park management has always been twofold: to conserve and protect the nation's natural, historical, and cultural resources, while at the same time ensuring visitor access and enjoyment of these sensitive environments. Until now, the principal transportation systems that the Federal government has developed to provide access into our national parks are roads, primarily for private automobile access. The TRIP legislation recognizes that we need to do more than simply build roads; we must invest in alternative transportation solutions before our national parks are damaged beyond repair. In developing solutions to the parks' transportation needs, this legislation builds upon the 1997 Memorandum of Understanding between Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, in which the two Departments agreed to work together to address transportation and resource management needs in and around national parks. The findings in the MOU are especially revealing: Congestion in and approaching many national parks is causing lengthy traffic delays and backups that substantially detract from the visitor experience. Visitors find that many of the national parks contain significant noise and air pollution, and traffic congestion similar to that found on the city streets they left behind. In many national park units, the capacity of parking facilities at interpretive or scenic areas is well below demand. As a result, visitors park along roadsides, damaging park resources and subjecting people to hazardous safety conditions as they walk near busy roads to access visitor use areas. On occasion, national park units must close their gates during high visitation periods and turn away the public because the existing infrastructure and transportation systems are at, or beyond, the capacity for which they were designed. In addition, the TRIP legislation is designed to implement the recommendations from a comprehensive study of alternative transportation needs in public lands that I was able to include in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, TEA-21, as section 3039. The Federal Lands Alternative Transportation Systems Study confirmed what those of us who have visited our national parks already know: there is a significant and well-documented need for alternative transportation solutions in the national parks to prevent lasting damage to these incomparable natural treasures. The study examined over two hundred sites, and identified needs for alternative transportation services at two-thirds of those sites. The study found that implementation of such services can help achieve a number of desirable outcomes: ``Relieve traffic congestion and parking shortages; enhance visitor mobility and accessibility; preserve sensitive natural, cultural, and historic resources; provide improved interpretation, education and visitor information services; reduce pollution; and improve economic development opportunities for gateway communities.'' In fact, the study concluded that ``the provision of transit in federally-managed lands can have national economic implications as well as significant economic benefits for local areas surrounding the sites.'' The study determined that funding transit needs would support thousands of jobs around the country, while also providing a direct benefit to the economy of gateway communities by ``expand[ing] the number of visits to the site and expand[ing] the amount of visitor spending in the surrounding communities.'' The study identified ``lack of a dedicated funding source for developing, implementing, and operating and maintaining transit systems'' as a key barrier to implementation of alternative transportation in and around federally-managed lands. The Transit in Parks Act will go far toward helping parks and their gateway communities overcome this barrier. This new Federal transit grant program will provide funding to the Federal land management agencies that manage the 388 various sites within the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands, including National Forest System lands, and to their State and local partners. The bill's objectives are to develop new and expanded transit services throughout the national parks and other public lands to conserve and protect fragile natural, cultural, and historical resources and wildlife habitats, to prevent or mitigate adverse impact on those resources and habitats, and to reduce pollution and congestion, while at the same time facilitating appropriate visitor access and improving the visitor experience. The program will provide capital funds for transit projects, including rail or clean fuel bus projects, joint development activities, pedestrian and bike paths, or park waterway access, within or adjacent to national parks and other public lands. The Secretary of Transportation may make funds available for operations as well. The bill authorizes $90 million for this new program for each of the fiscal years 2004 through 2009, consistent with the level of need identified in the study. It is anticipated that other resources--both public and private--will be available to augment these amounts. The bill formalizes the cooperative arrangement in the 1997 MOU between the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Interior to exchange technical assistance and to develop procedures relating to the planning, selection and funding of transit projects in national park lands. The bill further provides funds for planning, research, and technical assistance that can supplement other financial resources available to the Federal land management agencies. The projects eligible for funding would be developed through the transportation planning process and prioritized for funding by the Secretary of the Interior in consultation and cooperation with the Secretary of Transportation. It is anticipated that the Secretary of the Interior would select projects that are diverse in location and size. While major national parks such as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone are clearly appropriate candidates for significant transit projects under this section, there are numerous small urban and rural Federal park lands that can benefit enormously from small projects, such as bike paths or improved connections with an urban or regional public transit system. No single project will receive more than 12 percent of the total amount available in any given year. This ensures a diversity of projects selected for assistance. In addition, I firmly believe that this program will create new opportunities for the Federal land management agencies to partner with local transit agencies in gateway communities adjacent to the parks, both through the TEA-21 planning process and in developing integrated transportation systems. This will spur new economic development within these communities, as they develop transportation centers for park visitors to connect to transit links into the national parks and other public lands. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for the National Park Service. Today, that challenge has new dimensions, with overcrowding, pollution, congestion, and resource degradation increasing at many of our national parks. This legislation--the Transit in Parks Act--will give our Federal land management agencies important new tools to improve both preservation and access. Just as we have found in metropolitan areas, transit is essential to moving large numbers of people in our national parks-- quickly, efficiently, at low cost, and without adverse impact. At the same time, transit can enhance the economic development potential of our gateway communities. As we begin a new millennium, I cannot think of a more worthy endeavor to help our environment and preserve our national parks, wildlife refuges, and Federal recreational areas than by encouraging alternative transportation in these areas. My bill is strongly supported by the National Parks Conservation Association, Environmental Defense, the American Public Transportation Association, Community Transportation Association, Amalgamated Transit Union, Surface Transportation Policy Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, America Bikes and others, and I ask unanimous consent that the bill, a section-by-section analysis, and letters of support be printed in the record, along with the USA Today article, ``Save Parks: Park Cars.'' I believe that we have a clear choice before us: we can turn paradise into a parking lot--or we can invest in alternatives. I urge my colleagues to support the Transit in Parks Act to ensure that our Nation's natural treasures will be preserved for many generations to come. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill, a section-by- section analysis, letters of support, and an article from the USA Today be printed in the Record.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, in 1985 the National PTA and the National Education Association announced the creation of Teacher Appreciation Week to be celebrated during the first week of May. This year that celebration occurred from May 4 to 10. I want to add my voice to those who have come to the floor of the United States Senate to recognize this special occasion. While every society places a premium on education in terms of developing a skilled and trained workforce in the next generation, education in America also represents a ladder of opportunity. We take great pride in being an open society in which people can move up and forward. Education provides a path by which our young people can improve themselves and develop their full potential. And, of course, teachers are at the forefront of this critical effort. My own admiration and respect for the teaching profession began at an early age. Both of my parents were Greek immigrants and, while there were no diplomas on their walls at home, they understood the importance of hard work and the value of education. After putting in countless hours at our family restaurant in Salisbury, MD, my father would come home at night, tired and weary. Yet, I remember watching him night after night taking down books and reading them late into the evening, a lesson I have never forgotten. And, of course, I have a deep personal connection to the teaching profession. My wife Christine was a teacher in Baltimore for many years and my brother Tony was a school administrator in Wicomico County, MD. His daughter Beth Sheller is currently a public school teacher in Wicomico County. Few other professionals are able to touch so many people in such a lasting way as do teachers. I have been privileged to witness this first hand through the experiences of my family members who have spent their careers in the education profession. Today's teachers are in the midst of incredible struggles. Being a teacher has never been easy, but our modern society has only increased the challenges. Today, our teachers face the task of educating children with limited English skills, meeting the requirements of the recently enacted No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, staying abreast of new technology, and doing so in aging schools that are in need of extensive repairs and updating. With so many schoolchildren living in families with both parents working or in single-parent homes, our schools and teachers are being asked to assume much of the responsibility for after school care as well. Compared with many professions, our Nation's teachers are overwhelmed and underpaid, shouldering major responsibilities that often go unappreciated. Our citizens are considered to be among the best educated in the world and for that we have our teachers to thank. While we frequently hear tales of failing schools, many success stories are overlooked. This week is a fitting time to tell the stories of the many caring, dedicated and talented educators who perform their jobs with excellence every day. Their successes motivate children and other teachers and increase our confidence in our education system. We need to hear more about teachers like Robin Nussbaum, this year's winner of the Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award for Howard County. Ms. Nussbaum is a special education teacher at Cedar Lane School in Columbia, MD. Her students and their families acknowledge it is her tireless work in and out of the classroom, coupled with her deep concern for student success that make her an extraordinary educator. I would like to read for the Record a list of the 2002-2003 Maryland Teachers of the Year from all 23 Maryland counties and Baltimore City. These professionals have demonstrated incredibly high performance in their fields in a very challenging time. 2002-2003 Maryland Teachers of the Year Allegany, Heather Michele Morgan, Parkside Elem., Kindergarten Anne Arundel, Mattie A. Procaccini, Old Mill HS, English 9, 10 Baltimore City, Sara Lawlyes, Westport Academy, Kindergarten Baltimore County, Cheryl Bost, Mars Estates Elem., Reading/ Language Calvert, James R. Seawell, Plum Point MS, Science 7, 8 Caroline, Catherine L. Knight, Lockerman MS, Science 8 Carroll, Susan H. Adami, Hampstead Elem., Grades 4, 5 Cecil, Charlotte E. Mehosky, Gilpin Manor Elem., Pre- primary/Special Education Charles, Joan Withers, La Plata HS, English 10, 12 Dorchester, Terri Lynn Wright, North Dorchester HS, Phys. Ed./Health Frederick, Darren Ray Hornbeck, Linganore HS, Social Studies 11, 12 Garrett, Elizabeth Rees Gilbert, Swan Meadow, Science/ Lang./S.S. Harford, Howard E. Eakes, Fountain Green Elem., Grade 5 Howard, Michele Zurad, Burleigh Manor MS, Math 6 Kent, Sue Dorsey, Millington Elem., Math, Science 3 Montgomery, Arlene Barte-Lowe, Takoma Park MS, Reading, Math 6 Prince George's, Vanessa Hill, Dwight D. Eisenhower MS Queen Anne's, Darryl C. Calloway, Sudlersville MS, Social Studies 6 St. Mary's, Larry Brabec, James A. Forrest, Sheet Metal 10, 12 Career and Tech Center Somerset, Glen N. Ennis, Greenwood MS, Grade 6 & Tech Ed. Talbot, Thomas M. Callahan, Easton HS, Social Studies 9-12 Washington, Vicki Follett, Bester Elem., Grades 1, 2 Wicomico, Beth S. Sheller, West Salisbury Elem., Grades Pre-K - 2 Worcester, Sandy Coates, West Showell Elem., Grade 2 If you ask many people the name of the winner of the Academy Awards Best Picture Award 20 years ago, or the NBA Most Valuable Player from 10 years ago, few would be able to remember. However, ask any individual to name his or her favorite teacher, and it is usually an easy task. Not only can they recall the name, but also how that teacher positively affected their lives. Today, I want hard working teachers everywhere to know that they are appreciated. We know they make a difference and we should all thank them for their commitment and hard work.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation similar to measures I have introduced in previous Congresses that will help protect our Nation's natural resources and improve the visitor experience in our national parks and other public lands. The Transit in Parks Act, or ``TRIP,'' establishes a new Federal transit grant initiative to support the development of alternative transportation services for our national parks, wildlife refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Akaka, Alexander, Baucus, Corzine, Dodd, Graham, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Levin, Reid, Schumer, Stabenow, and Wyden, who are cosponsors of this legislation. I want to underscore again today some of the principal arguments I have made in past years as to why this legislation is urgently needed. Memorial Day weekend, the opening of the summer travel season, is just weeks away. Millions of visitors will soon head to our national parks to enjoy the incredible natural heritage with which our Nation was endowed. But too many of them will spend hours looking for parking, or staring at the bumper of the car in front of them. Clearly, the world has changed significantly since the national parks first opened in the second half of the nineteenth century, when visitors arrived by stagecoach along dirt roads. At that time, travel through parklands, such as Yosemite or Yellowstone, was long, difficult, and costly. Not many people could afford or endure such a trip. The introduction of the automobile gave every American greater mobility and freedom, which included the freedom to travel and see some of our Nation's great natural wonders. Early in this century, landscape architects from the National Park Service and highway engineers from the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads collaborated to produce many feats of road engineering that opened the national park lands to millions of Americans. Yet greater mobility and easier access now threaten the very environments that the National Park Service is mandated to protect. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for our national park system. Today, record numbers of visitors and cars have resulted in increasing damage to our parks. The Grand Canyon alone has almost five million visitors a year. As many as 6,000 vehicles arrive in a single summer day. They compete for 2,400 parking spaces. Between 32,000 and 35,000 tour buses go to the park each year. During the peak summer season, the entrance route becomes a giant parking lot. In 1975, the total number of visitors to America's national parks was 190 million. By 2002, that number had risen to 277 million annual visitors--almost equal to one visit by every man, woman, and child in this country. This dramatic increase in visitation has created an overwhelming demand on these areas, resulting in severe traffic congestion, visitor restrictions, and in some instances vacationers being shut out of the parks altogether. The environmental damage at the Grand Canyon is visible at many other parks: Yosemite, which has more than four million visitors a year; Yellowstone, which has more than three million visitors a year and experiences such severe traffic congestion that access has to be restricted; Zion; Acadia; Bryce; and many others. We need to solve these problems now or risk permanent harm to our nation's natural, cultural, and historical heritage. Visitor access to the parks is vital not only to the parks themselves, but to the economic health of their gateway communities. For example, visitors to Yosemite infuse $3 billion a year into the local economy of the surrounding area. At Yellowstone, tourists spend $725 million annually in adjacent communities. Wildlife-related tourism generates an estimated $60 billion a year nationwide. If the parks are forced to close their gates to visitors due to congestion, the economic vitality of the surrounding region would be jeopardized. The challenge for park management has always been twofold: to conserve and protect the nation's natural, historical, and cultural resources, while at the same time ensuring visitor access and enjoyment of these sensitive environments. Until now, the principal transportation systems that the Federal Government has developed to provide access into our national parks are roads, primarily for private automobile access. The TRIP legislation recognizes that we need to do more than simply build roads; we must invest in alternative transportation solutions before our national parks are damaged beyond repair. In developing solutions to the parks' transportation needs, this legislation builds upon the 1997 Memorandum of Understanding between Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, in which the two Departments agreed to work together to address transportation and resource management needs in and around national parks. The findings in the MOU are especially revealing: Congestion in and approaching many National Parks is causing lengthy traffic delays and backups that substantially detract from the visitor experience. Visitors find that many of the National Parks contain significant noise and air pollution, and traffic congestion similar to that found on the city streets they left behind. In many National Park units, the capacity of parking facilities at interpretive or scenic areas is well below demand. As a result, visitors park along roadsides, damaging park resources and subjecting people to hazardous safety conditions as they walk near busy roads to access visitor use areas. On occasion, National Park units must close their gates during high visitation periods and turn away the public because the existing infrastructure and transportation systems are at, or beyond, the capacity for which they were designed. In addition, the TRIP legislation is designed to implement the recommendations from a comprehensive study of alternative transportation needs in public lands that I was able to include in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, TEA-21, as section 3039. The Federal Lands Alternative Transportation Systems Study confirmed what those of us who have visited our national parks already know: there is a significant and well-documented need for alternative transportation solutions in the national parks to prevent lasting damage to these incomparable natural treasures. The study examined over two hundred sites, and identified needs for alternative transportation services at two-thirds of those sites. The study found that implementation of such services can help achieve a number of desirable outcomes: ``Relieve traffic congestion and parking shortages; enhance visitor mobility and accessibility; preserve sensitive natural, cultural, and historic resources; provide improved interpretation, education and visitor information services; reduce pollution; and improve economic development opportunities for gateway communities.'' In fact, the study concluded that ``the provision of transit in federally-managed lands can have national economic implications as well as significant economic benefits for local areas surrounding the sites.'' The study determined that funding transit needs would support thousands of jobs around the country, while also providing a direct benefit to the economy of gateway communities by ``expand[ing] the number of visits to the site and expand[ing] the amount of visitor spending in the surrounding communities.'' The study identified ``lack of a dedicated funding source for developing, implementing, and operating and maintaining transit systems'' as a key barrier to implementation of alternative transportation in and around federally-managed lands. The Transit in Parks Act will go far toward helping parks and their gateway communities overcome this barrier. This new Federal transit grant program will provide funding to the Federal land management agencies that manage the 388 various sites within the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands, including National Forest System lands, and to their State and local partners. The bill's objectives are to develop new and expanded transit services throughout the national parks and other public lands to conserve and protect fragile natural, cultural, and historical resources and wildlife habitats, to prevent or mitigate adverse impact on those resources and habitats, and to reduce pollution and congestion, while at the same time facilitating appropriate visitor access and improving the visitor experience. The program will provide capital funds for transit projects, including rail or clean fuel bus projects, joint development activities, pedestrian and bike paths, or park waterway access, within or adjacent to national parks and other public lands. The Secretary of Transportation may make funds available for operations as well. The bill authorizes $90 million for this new program for each of the fiscal years 2004 through 2009, consistent with the level of need identified in the study. It is anticipated that other resources--both public and private--will be available to augment these amounts. The bill formalizes the cooperative arrangement in the 1997 MOU between the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Interior to exchange technical assistance and to develop procedures relating to the planning, selection and funding of transit projects in national park lands. The bill further provides funds for planning, research, and technical assistance that can supplement other financial resources available to the Federal land management agencies. The projects eligible for funding would be developed through the transportation planning process and prioritized for funding by the Secretary of the Interior in consultation and cooperation with the Secretary of Transportation. It is anticipated that the Secretary of the Interior would select projects that are diverse in location and size. While major national parks such as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone are clearly appropriate candidates for significant transit projects under this section, there are numerous small urban and rural Federal park lands that can benefit enormously from small projects, such as bike paths or improved connections with an urban or regional public transit system. No single project will receive more than 12 percent of the total amount available in any given year. This ensures a diversity of projects selected for assistance. In addition, I firmly believe that this program will create new opportunities for the Federal land management agencies to partner with local transit agencies in gateway communities adjacent to the parks, both through the TEA-21 planning process and in developing integrated transportation systems. This will spur new economic development within these communities, as they develop transportation centers for park visitors to connect to transit links into the national parks and other public lands. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for the National Park Service. Today, that challenge has new dimensions, with overcrowding, pollution, congestion, and resource degradation increasing at many of our national parks. This legislation--the Transit in Parks Act--will give our Federal land management agencies important new tools to improve both preservation and access. Just as we have found in metropolitan areas, transit is essential to moving large numbers of people in our national parks-- quickly, efficiently, at low cost, and without adverse impact. At the same time, transit can enhance the economic development potential of our gateway communities. As we begin a new millennium, I cannot think of a more worthy endeavor to help our environment and preserve our national parks, wildlife refuges, and Federal recreational areas than by encouraging alternative transportation in these areas. My bill is strongly supported by the National Parks Conservation Association, Environmental Defense, the American Public Transportation Association, Community Transportation Association, Amalgamated Transit Union, Surface Transportation Policy Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, America Bikes and others, and I ask unanimous consent that the bill, a section-by-section analysis, and letters of support be printed in the Record, along with the USA Today article, ``Save Parks: Park Cars.'' I believe that we have a clear choice before us: we can turn paradise into a parking lot--or we can invest in alternatives. I urge my colleagues to support the Transit in Parks Act to ensure that our Nation's natural treasures will be preserved for many generations to come.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation similar to measures I have introduced in previous Congresses that will help protect our Nation's natural resources and improve the visitor experience in our national parks and other public lands. The Transit in Parks Act, or ``TRIP,'' establishes a new Federal transit grant initiative to support the development of alternative transportation services for our national parks, wildlife refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Akaka, Alexander, Baucus, Corzine, Dodd, Graham, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Levin, Reid, Schumer, Stabenow, and Wyden, who are cosponsors of this legislation. I want to underscore again today some of the principal arguments I have made in past years as to why this legislation is urgently needed. Memorial Day weekend, the opening of the summer travel season, is just weeks away. Millions of visitors will soon head to our national parks to enjoy the incredible natural heritage with which our Nation was endowed. But too many of them will spend hours looking for parking, or staring at the bumper of the car in front of them. Clearly, the world has changed significantly since the national parks first opened in the second half of the nineteenth century, when visitors arrived by stagecoach along dirt roads. At that time, travel through parklands, such as Yosemite or Yellowstone, was long, difficult, and costly. Not many people could afford or endure such a trip. The introduction of the automobile gave every American greater mobility and freedom, which included the freedom to travel and see some of our Nation's great natural wonders. Early in this century, landscape architects from the National Park Service and highway engineers from the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads collaborated to produce many feats of road engineering that opened the national park lands to millions of Americans. Yet greater mobility and easier access now threaten the very environments that the National Park Service is mandated to protect. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for our national park system. Today, record numbers of visitors and cars have resulted in increasing damage to our parks. The Grand Canyon alone has almost five million visitors a year. As many as 6,000 vehicles arrive in a single summer day. They compete for 2,400 parking spaces. Between 32,000 and 35,000 tour buses go to the park each year. During the peak summer season, the entrance route becomes a giant parking lot. In 1975, the total number of visitors to America's national parks was 190 million. By 2002, that number had risen to 277 million annual visitors--almost equal to one visit by every man, woman, and child in this country. This dramatic increase in visitation has created an overwhelming demand on these areas, resulting in severe traffic congestion, visitor restrictions, and in some instances vacationers being shut out of the parks altogether. The environmental damage at the Grand Canyon is visible at many other parks: Yosemite, which has more than four million visitors a year; Yellowstone, which has more than three million visitors a year and experiences such severe traffic congestion that access has to be restricted; Zion; Acadia; Bryce; and many others. We need to solve these problems now or risk permanent harm to our nation's natural, cultural, and historical heritage. Visitor access to the parks is vital not only to the parks themselves, but to the economic health of their gateway communities. For example, visitors to Yosemite infuse $3 billion a year into the local economy of the surrounding area. At Yellowstone, tourists spend $725 million annually in adjacent communities. Wildlife-related tourism generates an estimated $60 billion a year nationwide. If the parks are forced to close their gates to visitors due to congestion, the economic vitality of the surrounding region would be jeopardized. The challenge for park management has always been twofold: to conserve and protect the nation's natural, historical, and cultural resources, while at the same time ensuring visitor access and enjoyment of these sensitive environments. Until now, the principal transportation systems that the Federal Government has developed to provide access into our national parks are roads, primarily for private automobile access. The TRIP legislation recognizes that we need to do more than simply build roads; we must invest in alternative transportation solutions before our national parks are damaged beyond repair. In developing solutions to the parks' transportation needs, this legislation builds upon the 1997 Memorandum of Understanding between Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, in which the two Departments agreed to work together to address transportation and resource management needs in and around national parks. The findings in the MOU are especially revealing: Congestion in and approaching many National Parks is causing lengthy traffic delays and backups that substantially detract from the visitor experience. Visitors find that many of the National Parks contain significant noise and air pollution, and traffic congestion similar to that found on the city streets they left behind. In many National Park units, the capacity of parking facilities at interpretive or scenic areas is well below demand. As a result, visitors park along roadsides, damaging park resources and subjecting people to hazardous safety conditions as they walk near busy roads to access visitor use areas. On occasion, National Park units must close their gates during high visitation periods and turn away the public because the existing infrastructure and transportation systems are at, or beyond, the capacity for which they were designed. In addition, the TRIP legislation is designed to implement the recommendations from a comprehensive study of alternative transportation needs in public lands that I was able to include in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, TEA-21, as section 3039. The Federal Lands Alternative Transportation Systems Study confirmed what those of us who have visited our national parks already know: there is a significant and well-documented need for alternative transportation solutions in the national parks to prevent lasting damage to these incomparable natural treasures. The study examined over two hundred sites, and identified needs for alternative transportation services at two-thirds of those sites. The study found that implementation of such services can help achieve a number of desirable outcomes: ``Relieve traffic congestion and parking shortages; enhance visitor mobility and accessibility; preserve sensitive natural, cultural, and historic resources; provide improved interpretation, education and visitor information services; reduce pollution; and improve economic development opportunities for gateway communities.'' In fact, the study concluded that ``the provision of transit in federally-managed lands can have national economic implications as well as significant economic benefits for local areas surrounding the sites.'' The study determined that funding transit needs would support thousands of jobs around the country, while also providing a direct benefit to the economy of gateway communities by ``expand[ing] the number of visits to the site and expand[ing] the amount of visitor spending in the surrounding communities.'' The study identified ``lack of a dedicated funding source for developing, implementing, and operating and maintaining transit systems'' as a key barrier to implementation of alternative transportation in and around federally-managed lands. The Transit in Parks Act will go far toward helping parks and their gateway communities overcome this barrier. This new Federal transit grant program will provide funding to the Federal land management agencies that manage the 388 various sites within the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuges, Federal recreational areas, and other public lands, including National Forest System lands, and to their State and local partners. The bill's objectives are to develop new and expanded transit services throughout the national parks and other public lands to conserve and protect fragile natural, cultural, and historical resources and wildlife habitats, to prevent or mitigate adverse impact on those resources and habitats, and to reduce pollution and congestion, while at the same time facilitating appropriate visitor access and improving the visitor experience. The program will provide capital funds for transit projects, including rail or clean fuel bus projects, joint development activities, pedestrian and bike paths, or park waterway access, within or adjacent to national parks and other public lands. The Secretary of Transportation may make funds available for operations as well. The bill authorizes $90 million for this new program for each of the fiscal years 2004 through 2009, consistent with the level of need identified in the study. It is anticipated that other resources--both public and private--will be available to augment these amounts. The bill formalizes the cooperative arrangement in the 1997 MOU between the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Interior to exchange technical assistance and to develop procedures relating to the planning, selection and funding of transit projects in national park lands. The bill further provides funds for planning, research, and technical assistance that can supplement other financial resources available to the Federal land management agencies. The projects eligible for funding would be developed through the transportation planning process and prioritized for funding by the Secretary of the Interior in consultation and cooperation with the Secretary of Transportation. It is anticipated that the Secretary of the Interior would select projects that are diverse in location and size. While major national parks such as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone are clearly appropriate candidates for significant transit projects under this section, there are numerous small urban and rural Federal park lands that can benefit enormously from small projects, such as bike paths or improved connections with an urban or regional public transit system. No single project will receive more than 12 percent of the total amount available in any given year. This ensures a diversity of projects selected for assistance. In addition, I firmly believe that this program will create new opportunities for the Federal land management agencies to partner with local transit agencies in gateway communities adjacent to the parks, both through the TEA-21 planning process and in developing integrated transportation systems. This will spur new economic development within these communities, as they develop transportation centers for park visitors to connect to transit links into the national parks and other public lands. The ongoing tension between preservation and access has always been a challenge for the National Park Service. Today, that challenge has new dimensions, with overcrowding, pollution, congestion, and resource degradation increasing at many of our national parks. This legislation--the Transit in Parks Act--will give our Federal land management agencies important new tools to improve both preservation and access. Just as we have found in metropolitan areas, transit is essential to moving large numbers of people in our national parks-- quickly, efficiently, at low cost, and without adverse impact. At the same time, transit can enhance the economic development potential of our gateway communities. As we begin a new millennium, I cannot think of a more worthy endeavor to help our environment and preserve our national parks, wildlife refuges, and Federal recreational areas than by encouraging alternative transportation in these areas. My bill is strongly supported by the National Parks Conservation Association, Environmental Defense, the American Public Transportation Association, Community Transportation Association, Amalgamated Transit Union, Surface Transportation Policy Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, America Bikes and others, and I ask unanimous consent that the bill, a section-by-section analysis, and letters of support be printed in the Record, along with the USA Today article, ``Save Parks: Park Cars.'' I believe that we have a clear choice before us: we can turn paradise into a parking lot--or we can invest in alternatives. I urge my colleagues to support the Transit in Parks Act to ensure that our Nation's natural treasures will be preserved for many generations to come.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. I simply commend chairman Lugar and Senator Biden, ranking minority member, for their very effective leadership with respect to this NATO enlargement issue. I am pleased to join with them in supporting this very important step forward. I underscore how quickly the chairman moved with respect to this matter and how carefully it was done in the committee. Very extended consideration was given to this issue, which of course, comports with its importance. This is a major step we all need to recognize and the fact that it will happen without controversy, at least of any consequence, ought not to make us lose sight of the fact of the historic nature of what is being accomplished here-- tomorrow, presumably. I thank the Senator for his skilled leadership on this issue.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, in which 1\1/2\ million men, women, and children lost their lives as a result of the brutal massacres and wholesale deportation conducted by the Ottoman Turkish rulers against their Armenian citizens. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Today, as we remember the bravery and sacrifice of the Armenian people in the face of great suffering, we renew our commitment to protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of all humanity. As time passes, we must not forget the terrible blows that befell the Armenians in 1915. On April 24 of that year, more than 250 Armenian intellectuals and civil leaders in Constantinople were rounded up and killed, in what was the first stage of a methodical plan to exterminate the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. Next, Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army were segregated into labor battalions and brutally murdered. In towns and villages across Anatolia, Armenian leaders were arrested and killed. And then the remaining Armenian population, women, children, and the elderly, were driven from their homes and deported to the Syrian desert. ``Deportation'' was merely a euphemism for what were, in reality, death marches. Ottoman Turkish soldiers allowed brigands and released convicts to kill and rape the deportees at will; often the soldiers themselves participated in the attacks. Driven into the desert without food and water, weakened by the long march, hundreds of thousands of deportees succumbed to starvation. In areas of Anatolia where deportation was not deemed practicable, other vicious means were used. In the towns along the Black Sea coast, for example, thousands of Armenians were packed on boats and drowned. The efforts to destroy the Armenian population did not pass unnoticed at the time. Leslie Davis, a U.S. diplomat stationed in eastern Anatolia, wrote in a State Department cable of July 24, 1915: ``It has been no secret that the plan was to destroy the Armenian race as a race, but the methods used have been more cold-blooded and barbarous, if not more effective, than I had at first supposed.'' Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey at the time and who personally made vigorous appeals to stop the genocide, called it ``the greatest horror in history.'' He later wrote: ``Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecutions and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people. I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this.'' Despite this testimony from U.S. diplomats who were witness to the events, and the abundance of evidence documenting the Armenian genocide, the argument continues to be made in some quarters that it never occurred. Much of that evidence was collected by our diplomats, and along with survivors' accounts, is housed in our National Archives. I have no doubt that if he were told that some continue to reject it, Ambassador Morgenthau would be astonished and outraged. Coming to terms with history is a difficult and painful process, as the experiences of South Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Bloc have shown. But we have also learned how pernicious attempts to falsify history are. Not only do they insult the memory of those who suffered or perished, but they leave us all more vulnerable because they weaken the fabric of our common humanity. Many survivors of the genocide settled in this country, built new lives for themselves, and raised families here. They have made extraordinary contributions to every aspect of our national life, while preserving their own rich faith and cultural traditions. That Americans of Armenian origin have prospered in so many different ways stands as a rebuke to those who would deny the horrors of 1915. Americans of all backgrounds join them in commemorating the tragedy of the Armenian genocide. Together we must commit to building a world in which history shall not repeat itself.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Dr. James F. Johnson, an outstanding public servant, who is retiring from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after an exemplary career spanning more than three decades. I want to extend my personal congratulations and thanks for his many years of service and contributions to improving both the water resources of our Nation and the quality of Federal Government services. Throughout his 32-year career with the Federal Government, Dr. Johnson has distinguished himself for his leadership, commitment, and dedication to public service, to making government work better, and to addressing some of our Nation's most critical water resource problems. Beginning in Corps of Engineers Headquarters as a program manager, he quickly advanced through the ranks to positions in senior management, including service as Chief of the Eastern Planning Management Branch, Special Assistant to the Chief of Planning, and Acting Assistant Director of Civil Works for the Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes region. I first came to know Jim when he was selected as Chief of the Planning and Policy Division at the Baltimore District in 1985. During his 13-year tenure in Baltimore, I had the opportunity to work closely with him and his planning team on a number of water resource initiatives in the State of Maryland and the broader Chesapeake Bay Region, including the restoration of the north end of Assateague Island, the Coastal Bays of Maryland, and the Anacostia River. I know first hand the extraordinary leadership, vision and expertise Jim brought not only to projects in this region, but equally important, to building and encouraging one of the finest, most responsive and innovative planning teams in the Nation. Among his accomplishments, perhaps the one that stands out most and underscores Jim's professionalism and creativity is the role he played in the planning, design and policy development process of one of the Corps' greatest success stories--the restoration of Poplar Island. This project, which is taking clean dredged materials from the channels leading to the Port of Baltimore and using it to restore a chain of environmentally sensitive islands in the Chesapeake Bay, has become a national model for habitat restoration and the beneficial use of dredged material. But developing and winning approval of the project was no easy task. The size and scale of the project were unprecedented. Federal policies at the time greatly limited the funding and contained other disincentives to making this a viable option. Jim and his planning staff put in countless hours helping to resolve these problems and develop innovative solutions that ultimately led to the construction of the project, relief for Maryland's dredged material disposal problem and development of the largest environmentally restoration initiative ever undertaken in the Chesapeake Bay. Jim Johnson's contributions and accomplishments over the years have been recognized through many prestigious awards including the Army Decoration for Meritorious Civilian Service and the Secretary of Army Award for Publications Improvement, but perhaps no more so than by his selection in 1998 to return to Headquarters as Chief of the Planning and Policy Division of the Directorate of Civil Works. In this prestigious position, he has been responsible for managing some $200 million annually in water resource investments for navigation, ecosystem restoration, and flood and storm protection. He also developed and implemented a new program to expand planner training and leadership skills. Dr. Johnson has served the Nation with distinction. His efforts, work ethic, and abiding sense of responsibility and commitment have earned him the admiration of everyone with whom he has worked. I have enormous respect for the professionalism, ingenuity, and integrity which he brought to the positions in which he has served and greatly value the assistance he has provided to me and my staff over the years. It is my firm conviction that public service is one of the most honorable callings, one that demands the very best, most dedicated efforts of those who have the opportunity to serve their fellow citizens and country. Throughout his career Jim Johnson has exemplified a steadfast commitment to meeting this demand. I want to extend my personal congratulations and thanks for his many years of hard work and dedication and wish him well in the years ahead.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Oh, my.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. SARBANES. This budget conference report is seeking an increase in the debt limit of just under $1 trillion; is that correct?

Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will yield further, until when is this additional $1 trillion increase in the debt limit supposed to last? Will they not come back at any point, or are they going to come back again and again seeking increases?

Mr. SARBANES. I am struck in looking at that chart by the extent to which the cost of these tax cuts explodes, as the Senator says, in future years. For instance, take the year 2023, this is all deficit. But all of this part of that deficit is from the explosion of the tax cut. The balance is from what happens in the trust funds for Medicare and Social Security. But this chart so clearly demonstrates that these tax cuts that are being talked about have built into them a tremendous expanded cost in future years. It is extraordinarily dramatic because all of that is exploding tax cuts. We are being set on a path that is dooming us to large deficits and large debt.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, as this presentation draws to a close, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a column by David Broder from March 23 entitled ``Cutbacks To Our Children.''

Mr. SARBANES. The European Union, when they made the economic agreement with respect to all the European Union countries, set as a requirement that the deficit that a country was running could not be greater than 3 percent of GDP; and countries had to go through a rigorous effort to get below the 3 percent of GDP figure as a deficit. Yet what the President has given us, and what is reflected in this budget resolution as a first significant step in that direction, is a policy that is going to put the deficit as a percentage of GDP in the double figures. It will well exceed 10 percent.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I would like to put a question to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for a question on that chart?

Mr. SARBANES. As I understand it, if we didn't do that, that $2.7 trillion would be in the Social Security trust fund to help us take care of the extra stress on the system that will come from the retirement of the baby boomers, this upsurge in people taking retirement, so that one needs to understand if you didn't do the tax cut or if you constrained some of these other programs, you wouldn't then be drawing down the Social Security trust fund and, therefore, it would be in a better position to address the extra stress that will come when the baby boom generation retires. Is that the connection one should be making here?

Mr. SARBANES. As I understand it, this chart shows the deficit as a percentage of the gross domestic product and it is almost 14 percent at this point out here; is that correct?

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in support of The Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of which I am a proud cosponsor. The purpose of this bill is to extend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation, TEUC, program, for an additional 6 months through the end of November. Currently, extended umeployment insurance benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of May. Beginning June first, individuals whose regular unemployment benefits expire will no longer be eligible for extended benefits. Extending the existing unemployment insurance benefits program for an additional 6 months is estimated to provide assistance to between 2 to 2.5 million working Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. This legislation also provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits to unemployed workers who have already exhausted their extended benefits prior to enactment and remain unable to find work. The bill also provides tempory Federal funding, through July 2004, for States to implement alternative base periods, which could a worker's most recent wages when determining eligibility, and to allow displaced part-income workers to seek part-time employment while receiving unemployment insurance workers. Improving the unemployment insurance system for part-time workers is important. A recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun makes the point that: The old rationale for excluding part-time workers from unemployment insurance eligibility was that part-time workers were not working to support their families. But this is not true today. I am convinced that we are going to still be in very difficult shape when the current extension of unemployment insurance benefits expires at the end of May. There is little chance that the labor market will significantly improve for unemployed workers between now and then. There is growing evidence that the labor market is still in fact deteriorating. The Federal Open Markets Committee's most recent statement on interest rates concluded that, ``recent labor market indicators have proven disappointing.'' That is an understatement. Last month the economy lost 108,000 jobs in addition to losing 357,000 jobs in February. There are 1.8 million workers who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks and are looking for work but cannot find a job. The unemployment rate at 5.8 percent is higher today than when extended benefits were first enacted in March, 2002. Over 3.48 million Americans are currently drawing unemployment benefits. We have lost 2.6 million private sector jobs since President Bush took office. No President in over 50 years has failed to create jobs during a 4-year term in office, let alone lose jobs during an administration. But it would take private sector job creation of over 100,000 per month, every month, for the next 2 years, in order for the economy to dig out of the jobs deficit created during this administration. Yet instead of abandoning the economic policies which have failed, the administration continues to pursue the same fundamental policy-- large tax cuts which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. The administration, whose budget contained nothing to further extend the unemployment benefits program, remains out of touch with today's economic realities. Over 8.5 million Americans are unemployed and looking for work but cannot find a job because there are no jobs to be had. In situations like this the Congress has always provided extended unemployment benefits. In the last recession these benefits were provided for 29 months. During the recession before that, they lasted for 33 months. In both of those recessions extended benefits were discontinued only after a pronounced strengthening in the labor market. Today these benefits are set to expire after only 15 months, well before the labor market has improved. If this happens it will mark not only a departure from prudent fiscal policy that has been implemented in a bipartisan fashion in the past but will also harm economic growth and hurt millions of Americans. Extended unemployment insurance benefits, already enacted by the Congress, have assisted 4.7 million workers and provided $12 billion of stimulus into the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan has testified that, ``extended unemployment insurance provided a timely boost to disposable income.'' This legislation also allows for all Americans who qualify to receive an additional 13 weeks of benefits. This would include the 1 million workers who have already exhausted their extended benefits. These workers need help. They want to find work but cannot find a job because there are simply no jobs to be had. I know that some of my colleagues oppose providing extended benefits for more than 13 weeks to anyone. I have a differing viewpoint. I point out that at this stage of the last recession, a minimum of 20 weeks of additional Federal benefits were provided for all Americans in every State. In the previous recession and jobless recovery extended unemployment insurance benefits lasted for 29 months and for much of that time provided benefits for 26 to 33 weeks. In this recession and jobless recovery, benefits are scheduled to expire only after 15 months and have provided only 13 weeks of extended benefits to the vast majority of Americans. Under normal circumstances with a growing labor market there is a case to be made that providing too long of a duration of unemployment insurance benefits would be harmful. However, in times when the labor market is weak and the job base is shrinking, the situation is very different. Even Fed Chairman Greenspan acknowledged this in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, stating: ``in periods like this [a shrinking labor market], that the economic restraints on the unemployment insurance system almost surely ought to be eased.'' Unfortunately, many are forecasting continued weaknesses in the labor market. Today's Washington Post reports that the International Monetary Fund is forecasting economic growth of only 2.2 percent for the United States in 2003, which the IMF's chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff noted is ``not yet enough to make a meaningful dent in unemployment.'' The article goes on to state that: ``the jobless rate stood last month at 5.8 percent, and the IMF projected that it will average 6.2 percent this year.'' Considering the weak labor market that we face today and the troubling forecasts for the remainder of the year, it appears to me that we most certainly are in such a period as described by Chairman Greenspan and that the restraints on the unemployment insurance system ought to be eased. This legislation accomplishes this goal in a fiscally responsible manner with an estimated cost of $16 billion, which is below the unemployment insurance trust funds current surplus of $20 billion. Last year this issue was not properly dealt with, and as a result millions of Americans suffered through the holiday season believing that their benefits were going to expire. Yet when Congress reconvened, extended benefits were retroactively restored, 11 days after they had expired. Let's not put these people through this again. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to work expeditiously and prudently to enact it before the current program expires, less than 8 weeks from today.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, together with Senator Mikulski, to recognize the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry, in Baltimore, as the official national museum of dentistry in the United States. The principal purpose of this legislation is to help educate the public about the critical importance of oral health to the overall health of all Americans. Three years ago, United States Surgeon General David Satcher issued a comprehensive report entitled ``Oral Health in America,'' which identified the problem of dental and oral disease as a ``silent epidemic'' facing the country. The report found that tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease, which often interferes with vital functions such as eating, swallowing, and speech. Children around the country miss an estimated 51 million hours of school each year due to dental illness. Despite Federal law mandating that children eligible for Medicaid be given access to dental services, fewer than one in five of these children actually receive dental care. In addition, close to one in four Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 were found to suffer from periodontal disease, and over 8,000 men and women die from oral and pharyngeal cancers each year. The report called for the development of a National Oral Health Plan, and recommended that actions be taken to ``change perceptions regarding oral health and disease so that oral health becomes an accepted component of general health.'' By designating an official national museum and learning center dedicated to dentistry, this legislation takes an important step toward the achievement of this goal. The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National museum of Dentistry is the largest and most comprehensive museum of dentistry in this country, and, indeed, the world. An affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum sits on the grounds of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, founded in 1840 as the world's first dental college. Many of the museum's permanent exhibits come directly from the College's vast historical collections. Housed in a building that served as the University of Maryland Dental Department from 1904 to 1929, the Museum is located directly adjacent to historic Davidge Hall, the Western Hemisphere's oldest medical building in continuous use. In 1992, a retired pediatric dentist, Dr. Samuel D. Harris of Detroit, contributed $1 million of his personal funds toward the development of the Museum. He has since made further considerable gifts to the Museum's endowment, reaffirming his belief that education is the hallmark of preventive oral care. The Museum's name honors both his generosity and his mission. With over 7,000 square feet of exhibit space, the Museum showcases the people, objects, and events that created and defined the dental profession, including one of George Washington's famed ivory dentures. The Museum's vast archives also act as an important resource for research and serious academic study of dentistry's past, with a unique collection of historical dental journals and other one-of-a-kind documents. Included in these collections are the first known dental degree and dental license. While its informative presentation of dentistry's history constitutes an important part of the Museum's exhibitions, its mission extends much further, with the ultimate goal of educating the public about the critical importance of oral health. The Museum's interactive exhibits make it particularly effective in this regard, and over 26,000 students have benefited from the Museum's vigorous educational programs since its opening in 1996. By designating the Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry as the official national museum of dentistry, we will not only recognize the critical role that dentists and oral health professionals have played in the history of our Nation's health care system, but enhance awareness and understanding of the importance of dentistry to public health. The Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry has been endorsed by the American Dental Association, the American Association of Dental Schools, Oral Health America, the Pierre Fauchard Academy, the American College of Dentists, the International College of Dentists, and the American Academy of the History of Dentistry. I ask unanimous consent that the text of a letter from the American Dental Association in support of this legislation be printed in the Record. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in support of The Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of which I am a proud cosponsor. The purpose of this bill is to extend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation, TEUC, program, for an additional 6 months through the end of November. Currently, extended umeployment insurance benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of May. Beginning June first, individuals whose regular unemployment benefits expire will no longer be eligible for extended benefits. Extending the existing unemployment insurance benefits program for an additional 6 months is estimated to provide assistance to between 2 to 2.5 million working Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. This legislation also provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits to unemployed workers who have already exhausted their extended benefits prior to enactment and remain unable to find work. The bill also provides tempory Federal funding, through July 2004, for States to implement alternative base periods, which could a worker's most recent wages when determining eligibility, and to allow displaced part-income workers to seek part-time employment while receiving unemployment insurance workers. Improving the unemployment insurance system for part-time workers is important. A recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun makes the point that: The old rationale for excluding part-time workers from unemployment insurance eligibility was that part-time workers were not working to support their families. But this is not true today. I am convinced that we are going to still be in very difficult shape when the current extension of unemployment insurance benefits expires at the end of May. There is little chance that the labor market will significantly improve for unemployed workers between now and then. There is growing evidence that the labor market is still in fact deteriorating. The Federal Open Markets Committee's most recent statement on interest rates concluded that, ``recent labor market indicators have proven disappointing.'' That is an understatement. Last month the economy lost 108,000 jobs in addition to losing 357,000 jobs in February. There are 1.8 million workers who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks and are looking for work but cannot find a job. The unemployment rate at 5.8 percent is higher today than when extended benefits were first enacted in March, 2002. Over 3.48 million Americans are currently drawing unemployment benefits. We have lost 2.6 million private sector jobs since President Bush took office. No President in over 50 years has failed to create jobs during a 4-year term in office, let alone lose jobs during an administration. But it would take private sector job creation of over 100,000 per month, every month, for the next 2 years, in order for the economy to dig out of the jobs deficit created during this administration. Yet instead of abandoning the economic policies which have failed, the administration continues to pursue the same fundamental policy-- large tax cuts which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. The administration, whose budget contained nothing to further extend the unemployment benefits program, remains out of touch with today's economic realities. Over 8.5 million Americans are unemployed and looking for work but cannot find a job because there are no jobs to be had. In situations like this the Congress has always provided extended unemployment benefits. In the last recession these benefits were provided for 29 months. During the recession before that, they lasted for 33 months. In both of those recessions extended benefits were discontinued only after a pronounced strengthening in the labor market. Today these benefits are set to expire after only 15 months, well before the labor market has improved. If this happens it will mark not only a departure from prudent fiscal policy that has been implemented in a bipartisan fashion in the past but will also harm economic growth and hurt millions of Americans. Extended unemployment insurance benefits, already enacted by the Congress, have assisted 4.7 million workers and provided $12 billion of stimulus into the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan has testified that, ``extended unemployment insurance provided a timely boost to disposable income.'' This legislation also allows for all Americans who qualify to receive an additional 13 weeks of benefits. This would include the 1 million workers who have already exhausted their extended benefits. These workers need help. They want to find work but cannot find a job because there are simply no jobs to be had. I know that some of my colleagues oppose providing extended benefits for more than 13 weeks to anyone. I have a differing viewpoint. I point out that at this stage of the last recession, a minimum of 20 weeks of additional Federal benefits were provided for all Americans in every State. In the previous recession and jobless recovery extended unemployment insurance benefits lasted for 29 months and for much of that time provided benefits for 26 to 33 weeks. In this recession and jobless recovery, benefits are scheduled to expire only after 15 months and have provided only 13 weeks of extended benefits to the vast majority of Americans. Under normal circumstances with a growing labor market there is a case to be made that providing too long of a duration of unemployment insurance benefits would be harmful. However, in times when the labor market is weak and the job base is shrinking, the situation is very different. Even Fed Chairman Greenspan acknowledged this in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, stating: ``in periods like this [a shrinking labor market], that the economic restraints on the unemployment insurance system almost surely ought to be eased.'' Unfortunately, many are forecasting continued weaknesses in the labor market. Today's Washington Post reports that the International Monetary Fund is forecasting economic growth of only 2.2 percent for the United States in 2003, which the IMF's chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff noted is ``not yet enough to make a meaningful dent in unemployment.'' The article goes on to state that: ``the jobless rate stood last month at 5.8 percent, and the IMF projected that it will average 6.2 percent this year.'' Considering the weak labor market that we face today and the troubling forecasts for the remainder of the year, it appears to me that we most certainly are in such a period as described by Chairman Greenspan and that the restraints on the unemployment insurance system ought to be eased. This legislation accomplishes this goal in a fiscally responsible manner with an estimated cost of $16 billion, which is below the unemployment insurance trust funds current surplus of $20 billion. Last year this issue was not properly dealt with, and as a result millions of Americans suffered through the holiday season believing that their benefits were going to expire. Yet when Congress reconvened, extended benefits were retroactively restored, 11 days after they had expired. Let's not put these people through this again. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to work expeditiously and prudently to enact it before the current program expires, less than 8 weeks from today.