Paul Sarbanes

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, this amendment would fully fund the assistance to firefighter programs, the firefighter grant, and the SAFER program up to the authorized amount. I urge my colleagues stand with our firefighters. Warren Rudman, in a report, said, ``emergency responders drastically underfunded, dangerously unprepared.'' Don't let that situation continue. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. SARBANES. I was going to try to get a time limitation because the Senator seemed anxious to do that. I am happy to try to cooperate in that effort. Would 30 minutes equally divided be acceptable, 15 minutes on a side?

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield for a question?

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

Mr. SARBANES. The quote stating that they expected 2.6 million more jobs, was that by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. SARBANES. Is that the same administration official, high economic official, who told us in the annual report, the one President Bush signed off on, that outsourcing jobs was a good thing for America?

Mr. SARBANES. Yes.

Mr. SARBANES. I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, the budget submitted by the President reduces funding for grants to local police, fire and emergency medical agencies from $4.2 billion in the current fiscal year to $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2005, a very substantial cut. This cut comes despite a June 2003 report entitled ``Emergency Responders Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared,'' issued by a commission headed by our former colleague, Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire. The title of that report, again, is ``Emergency Responders Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared.'' The President's budget for the firefighter grant program, which provides this badly needed equipment, asks for $500 million. We appropriated $750 million in this year's budget and in the previous year's budget. Yet the President is cutting that figure by one-third. The President's budget provides no funding for the SAFER Act, which this Congress passed last fall, and which provides State, local, and regional agencies with funds to hire firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, rescue workers, ambulance personnel, and hazardous material workers for local fire departments. These fire departments desperately need these funds. The question is then, as the Senator pointed out, how will they be paid for? Well, the tax cuts that have been received by the top 1 percent are $45 billion annually. A small percentage of that in the single numbers shifted from that purpose to this purpose would enable us to fund these firefighter programs at the fully authorized level. These are questions of choice, and the choice very directly put by this amendment is whether a portion of these outsized tax reductions for the top 1 percent of the population ought not to be shifted to enable our first responders to get the equipment and staffing, and get the training which they need in order to handle the situations that face them. It is not a sufficient tribute to firefighters, in my judgment, to show them on TV ads carrying out their heroic responsibilities and then to fail to provide them with the resources they so clearly need in order to be able to do the job. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I want to point out that the examples the chairman of the committee used for the supposed waste of money, other than one, did not involve firefighters. You can drag all these cats and dogs in from anywhere you want. The only firefighter example that was used was a purchase of a firefighting boat. On the face of it, that may well have been a good expenditure. In any event, these are competitive grants and the judgment on who gets the grants and for what purpose is made by the administration. To the extent you can site something, the ultimate responsibility for it comes back on the administration. Furthermore--will the Senator give me 2 minutes?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I again underscore the tremendous need for these resources in order for our firefighters to be able to carry out their responsibilities. In June of last year, not even a year ago, the Rudman Commission, headed by our former colleague Warren Rudman, issued a report entitled ``Emergency Responders Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared,'' that found budget shortfalls in the tens of billions of dollars. We need to address this issue. The history of the administration on this matter is regrettably a sorry tale. When we created the Fire Grant Program in 2000, the Bush Administration, when it came in, moved to eliminate the program in its preliminary budgetary vision for fiscal 2002. We had to fight the administration to put the program back in its budget request for that year. In the end, it proposed flat funding the program. After the attacks of 9/11--and as I noted earlier, we are now seeing television spots showing our firefighters carrying out their heroic responsibilities--Congress appropriated an additional $210 million in emergency spending for the program, recognizing its significance. The administration refused to spend the money initially, and eventually and reluctantly did so after an outcry from the Congress. In the fiscal year 2003 budget they proposed rolling this Fire Grant Program into the general first responder account. There was great concern in the Congress about dismantling the specific program. We appropriated almost $750 million to the program in its own account. Last year the President sought to cut it by a third. Last year the Congress--and I give credit to my colleagues for this--restored the funding to close to $750 million. This year the budget submitted to us again cuts it to $500 million and there is no money for the SAFER Program, even though it had been authorized back in November. We need these resources. The Rudman Commission has told us in their report, emergency responders are drastically underfunded and dangerously unprepared. We need to change that equation and we can begin the process of doing so by providing the resources to fund these two programs at their authorized level, paying the firefighters the tribute they deserve by giving them the protective tools and the staffing with which to do their job.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. SARBANES. Furthermore, the Senator says if we are going to get this money, $2.8 billion, you would have to--then he mentions all kinds of possibilities on the tax side. Obviously, we can't direct specific instructions to the tax committee, but we can point out what the opportunities are. The top 1 percent is getting that billion-dollar tax credit. The cost of the Bush tax cut for those making over $337,000 in 2005--the top 1 percent, over a $337,000 income--$45 billion. We are suggesting very simply that a small portion of that be shifted in order to help address the challenges that confront our firefighters. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. SARBANES. I yield myself 1 additional minute. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, it is all well and good to run ads on the television that show our firefighters meeting their duty, carrying out their heroic responsibilities. But if we really want to honor our firefighters we need to fund these programs, both to give them the staffing and to provide them the equipment they so desperately need. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield on that point? The President was in Ohio a day or two ago. Of course, Ohio has been badly hit. They have lost manufacturing jobs and they are being hard hit by, in effect, the flow of jobs overseas. This morning's paper says we ran a record trade deficit last month of $43 billion. That monthly rate translates into well over a $500 billion annual trade deficit--a $\1/2\ trillion trade deficit. Of course, people say we are exporting goods and that is true. But we are importing far more than we are exporting, so much so, that we have set a record monthly trade deficit figure. That only again reflects the flow of jobs out of this country, overseas, exactly the point the Senator is making. In particular, it is the flow of some very good- paying jobs. The manufacturing sector has been very hard hit. The Administration set up this post of an Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing. They waited 6 months, they didn't nominate anyone, and now it looks as if the person they are nominating they are not going to go through with because it turns out he was establishing a factory over in China and cutting back on jobs in this country. Can you imagine that? I thank the Senator from California for her amendment. She is right on target. This is an extremely important amendment. The package she has put together is a very sensible package to try to address this problem.

Mr. SARBANES. I say to the very able Senator from California, who earlier showed a chart about how the rate of people participating in the workforce has dropped, what has happened is you have 4.4 million workers today who are working part time for economic reasons. In other words, they want to work full time but they are only working part time. When you compute the unemployment rate, they are counted as employed, not as unemployed, but really they are only partially employed. Then you have another 4.6 million people who are discouraged and not currently looking for work who want to work. So they have been knocked out of the labor force as well. Actually, there are 13.3 million Americans unemployed, and if you use the broadest measure that the BLS prepares, they report an unemployment rate of 10.3 percent. That is factoring in everybody. That is your broadest measure and that is not usually the figure that is focused on. Ordinarily, when the unemployment rate figure comes down, those other figures shrink as well. But it is not all moving in the right direction. One of the reasons the unemployment rate figure has dropped just a little bit is because people are dropping out of the workforce and they are not looking for a job or they are being shifted from full-time to part-time work. I think that is one of the reasons why, as the able Senator from North Dakota points out, as he moves around his State, he is encountering more and more people who are concerned about the unemployment problem. What the administration says is this particular rate is the unemployment rate, but that only tells part of the story. That is only part of the story. You have to, in effect, complete the story by looking at those who are working part time but want a full-time job. Of course, if they have been cut from full time to part time, that makes it more difficult to support their family. Then there are the people who want a job but they are so discouraged and pessimistic that they have dropped out of the effort to find a job. They don't get counted in that unemployment rate.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, as I understand it, I have 15 minutes.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I offer an amendment today to fully fund the Assistance to Firefighters grant program, and to fully fund the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Act, which, of course, provides for additional staffing. As a Co-Chairman of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, I am pleased to offer this amendment. I certainly underscore and recognize the significant role which my colleague, Senator Dodd of Connecticut, has played on both the firefighter grant program and the SAFER Act. In his budget for 2005, the President requested only $500 million for the FIRE grant program. This is a cut of close to $250 million, a third of the funding for this program from the levels established by the Congress over the past two fiscal years. The fully authorized amount for the current fiscal year is $900 million, and this amendment would seek to take the program to that level. The FIRE grant program is a competitive grant process that funds firefighting equipment, firefighting vehicles, fire prevention, and safety programs. Unlike many other programs directed toward first responders, these funds go directly to local communities and fire departments and do not pass through the States. The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Act, the SAFER Act, would provide 4-year grants to career and volunteer fire departments for firefighter hiring. The Congress authorized this program in the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization Act at a level of $1.03 billion, and this amendment seeks to fund that program at the authorized level. Regrettably, the budget the President sent to the Congress, despite the fact he signed the legislation contending the authorization of the SAFER Act, contained no money; indeed, no mention of it, as I indicated before, while the budget he sent to the Congress with respect to the firefighter grant program reduces that program from the previously appropriated amounts in two successive fiscal years of approximately $750 million to $500 million. The need for both of these programs is very strong; indeed, I would say overwhelming. In December of 2002, FEMA and the National Fire Protection Association jointly released the congressionally authorized Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service. The results of this report were startling. Among its findings, the report noted that an estimated 57,000 firefighters lacked protective clothing; half of all fire engines are at least 15 years old; and approximately one-third of firefighters are not equipped with essential self-contained breathing apparatus, one of the most important and basic safety devices for any firefighter. The need for the SAFER program is equally evident. OSHA has set a standard that dictates that four firefighters are needed to respond to any structural fire, two inside the structure and two outside. The FEMA-National Fire Protection Association Needs Assessment estimates that, on average, close to half of all fire departments in communities of less than 1 million people are forced to respond to emergencies with fewer than the four firefighters mandated by these standards. The SAFER Act would go a long way in ameliorating this severe staffing shortage and would provide funding for 75,000 new firefighters over the next 7 years. This amendment, which provides the full funding for both the Assistance to Firefighters grant program and the SAFER Act, will go a long way in preparing our Nation's firefighters for the hazards that face them.

Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SARBANES. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. SARBANES

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my colleagues, Senators Crapo and Jeffords in, once again, offering this amendment to boost Federal funding for the clean water and safe drinking water state revolving funds, SRF, from the level recommended in the budget resolution, $2.191 billion to $5.2 billion--$3.2 billion for the clean water SRF and $2 billion for the safe drinking water SRF. The amendment is similar to the amendment which we offered to the fiscal year 2004 budget resolution and which was agreed to by voice vote, but regrettably not approved by the House-Senate conference committee. I spoke last year about the compelling need for increasing Federal support for our Nation's water infrastructure, and I just want to underscore some of the key arguments today. The President's fiscal year 2005 budget and this resolution once again severely shortchange, in my judgment, the funds needed by State and local governments to upgrade their aging wastewater and drinking water infrastructure. The President's budget provides only $1.7 billion for both State revolving funds, split equally. This budget resolution recommends $2.191 billion for both funds--which represents the fiscal year 2004 enacted level of funding, but that is still far short of what is needed. Despite important progress over the last three decades, EPA reports that more than 40 percent of our Nation's lakes, rivers, and streams are still too impaired for fishing or swimming. Discharges from aging and failing sewerage systems, urban storm water and other sources, continue to pose serious threats to our Nation's waters, endangering not only public health, but fishing and recreation industries. Population growth and development are placing additional stress on the Nation's water infrastructure and its ability to sustain hard-won water quality gains. Across the Nation, our wastewater and drinking water systems are aging. In some cases, systems currently in use were built more than a century ago and have outlived their useful life. For many communities, current treatment is not sufficient to meet water quality goals. In April 2000, the Water Infrastructure Network, WIN, a broad coalition of local elected officials, drinking water and wastewater service providers, State environmental and health administrators, engineers and environmentalists released a report, ``Clean & Safe Water for the 21st Century.'' The report documented a $23 billion a year shortfall in funding needed to meet national environmental and public health priorities in the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act and to replace aging and failing infrastructure. In May 2002, the Congressional Budget Office released a report that estimated the spending gap for clean water needs between $132 billion and $388 billion over 20 years and the spending gap for drinking water needs at between $70 billion and $362 billion over 20 years. In September 2002, the EPA released a ``Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis'' which found that there will be a $535 billion gap between current spending and projected needs for water and wastewater infrastructure over the next 20 years if additional investments are not made. This figure does not even account for investments necessary to meet water quality goals in nutrient impaired waters, such as the Chesapeake Bay. The need for additional investment in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure is clearly documented. But, States, localities and private sources can't meet the funding gap alone. States are currently facing the worst fiscal crisis in 50 years and cannot afford to make new investments in clean water and drinking water infrastructure. Water pollution is an interstate problem that demands a Federal response. Water from six States flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Even if Maryland had the resources to complete construction of all needed wastewater infrastructure, the Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts will only be successful if similar investments are made in the five other States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Without Federal assistance, however, it is unlikely that the upstream States will make a substantial investment in the water quality of the Bay. The Congress understood the interstate dynamic of pollution in 1972 when a bipartisan majority passed the Clean Water Act and began funding waste treatment infrastructure. In 1979 and 1980, the Congress provided $5 billion in clean water construction grants alone to assist municipalities with wastewater infrastructure needs. Over the years, budgetary pressures and other factors have reduced that funding level, and in fiscal year 2004, we provided only $1.34 billion in clean water State revolving loan funds. It is vital that the Federal Government maintain a strong partnership with States and local governments in averting the massive projected funding gap and share in the burden of maintaining and improving the Nation's water infrastructure. Municipalities need significant resources to comply with Federal clean water and drinking water standards. In the 107th Congress, House and Senate committees approved bills to authorize $20 billion over 5 years for the clean water act SRF, underscoring the recognition that something must be done to address this funding gap. An increase in funding for the clean water SRF to $3.2 billion and for the drinking water SRF to $2 billion in fiscal year 2004 is the first step necessary to meet the Federal Government's longstanding commitment in this regard. This is an investment in the health of Americans and in a clean environment that will pay substantial dividends. Wastewater treatment plants not only prevent billions of tons of pollutants each year from reaching our rivers, lakes, streams, and coasts, they also help prevent water-borne diseases and make waters safe for swimming and fishing. According to the Water Infrastructure Network: Clean water supports a $50 billion a year water-based recreation industry, at least $300 billion a year in coastal tourism, a $45 billion annual commercial fishing and shell fishing industry, and hundreds of billions of dollars a year in basic manufacturing that relies on clean water. Clean rivers, lakes, and coastlines attract investment in local communities and increase land values on or near the water, which in turn, create jobs, add incremental tax base, and increase income and property tax revenue to local, state, and the federal government. Some 54,000 community drinking water systems provide drinking water to more than 250 million Americans. By keeping water supplies free of contaminants that cause disease, these systems reduce sickness and related health care costs and absenteeism in the workforce. They also create jobs--indeed tens of thousands of jobs--and provide stimulus to the economy. Each $1 billion in sewer and water improvements creates an estimated 40,000 jobs. With more than $5 billion in water infrastructure projects ready for construction, these jobs would be created immediately with Federal assistance. According to OMB, every Federal dollar invested in water infrastructure generates up to $4 for project loans, so the potential for job creation from this amendment is tremendous. As I stated earlier, the case for this amendment is compelling. Today, maintaining clear, safe water remains one of our greatest national and global challenges. This budget resolution should not, and need not, come at the expense of human health or a clean environment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and help address the massive funding gap that looms on the horizon. Failure to act now risks undermining 30 years of progress in cleaning up our Nation's waters.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, he is the sponsor of the amendment. He has an hour's time on his amendment.