Ted Stevens

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this emergency supplemental would provide an additional $983.6 million for disaster relief and emergency assistance. It is estimated that the disaster relief fund will exhaust its current funding by the end of July 2003 in part due to higher-than-expected costs for disaster relief, including funding for tornadoes and winter storms. These additional resources are needed to continue to provide necessary emergency assistance. With respect to the firefighting funds requested by the President, I am pleased to announce that we have an agreement with the administration on funds to continue our battle against fires, particularly in the West and Alaska. The administration has informed me it remains committed to the President's request for emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and recovery efforts. Their commitment to continue to pursue enactment of the full request when we return in September is paramount to the challenges we face. I ask unanimous consent that the Transfer Strategy statement be printed in the Record.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Is the Pastore rule in effect at this time?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. I have come to the floor to speak on the bill in general, but I would be happy to have an opportunity to have the Senator from Illinois debate his amendment and have it voted on. As I understood it, that was the plan this morning.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I address the Senator from Nevada. Is it possible to get an agreement on the Durbin amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I will speak briefly. I hope, however, we can move on to the Durbin amendment as soon as we get a time agreement. Mr. President, one of the basic goals of the Energy bill, as our leader has indicated, is job creation. According to the estimates that I have, based upon the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the natural gas pipeline project to bring Alaska's natural gas to market would create as many as 400,000 job years. There have been various press releases issued in that regard. The more conservative estimates by the Energy Committee staff put the number at 118,000. Even those figures include: 1,650 welders and helpers; 2,000 operators; 135 surveyors; 1,250 laborers; 755 teamsters; 418 inspectors; 90 UT technicians; and 170 salaried foremen. Beyond that are both manufacturing jobs and infrastructure jobs, including airstrip improvements at 5 airports. Additionally, the project will require an enormous number of buses, loaders, and automatic welders. We will need 440 sidebooms, 225 other sidebooms, 18 trenchers, 250 backhoes, 236 large dozers, 125 stringing tractors, and 1,300 pickup trucks. I have come to the floor to raise my voice in support of this Energy bill and to urge the Senate to complete it. I commend Senators Domenici and Bingaman and their staffs for their efforts so far. This Energy bill is an important step toward a comprehensive and balanced national energy policy. It contains many important provisions designed to ensure our energy security. The most important of those, to me, is the authorization for a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope of Alaska connecting through Canada to what we call the Lower 48. As we are all aware, our country faces a natural gas crisis. The leader spoke of that this morning, and I want to emphasize the importance of his remarks. In the last 10 years, demand for natural gas has increased by 19 percent. It is projected to grow over 50 percent in the next quarter century. Absent a new supply of natural gas, a gap of 15 billion cubic feet per day or 6 trillion cubic feet per year is likely in the next decade. High natural gas prices have severely impacted our industries and our consumers and are hindering our economic recovery. The fertilizer industry alone has seen its current operating capacity in the United States for ammonia plants drop to 60 to 65 percent of former capacity. High gas prices are responsible for the closure of almost 20 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer capacity. This has severely impacted our farmers. They are now paying $350 per ton for fertilizer, more than twice what they paid last year. Our chemical industry has been similarly affected as high gas prices continue to affect its market share, which again threatens millions of existing jobs. The chemical industry employs more than 1 million Americans, with 5 million Americans working at jobs dependent upon that chemical industry. Millions of Americans are depending upon our ability to maintain an adequate supply of gas. Our constituents are also feeling the pressure from natural gas prices. Sixty million households in this country use natural gas. In 1999, their average gas bill was $534. In 2001, the average gas bill was $750. This year, the average gas bill for American consumers at home will be $915--almost double what it was in 1999, Mr. President. Given these disturbing facts and the negative impacts high gas prices are having on the Nation as a whole, I urge the Senate to act quickly to address this situation. This Energy bill must pass this year. It must be passed by the Senate now before we go on recess so a final conference package can be voted on in the fall. The Energy Committee has taken the first step towards addressing this situation by including authorization for the Alaskan gas pipeline. The pipeline is vitally important to preventing an even more serious natural gas crisis in the future. The gas pipeline will increase our supplies. Alaska's gas alone would meet approximately 10 percent of our country's natural gas needs, which means 4 billion to 6 billion cubic feet per day. It will decrease our dependency on foreign gas and imports of liquefied natural gas. It will generate over $40 billion in revenues for the Federal Government. It will create the jobs I outlined earlier. I do hope the Senate will focus on the jobs created by the Energy bill and particularly the Alaska natural gas pipeline. The gas pipeline translates into 7,000 construction jobs, thousands of manufacturing jobs necessary to create equipment, and thousands of infrastructure jobs. In addition to the authorization language, the Finance Committee has provided a fiscal incentive package to ensure the pipeline can begin delivering gas as quickly as possible. I will discuss the fiscal package once the energy tax provisions are introduced. We are working with the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee to assure that those provision meet all the objectives of assuring financing for this enormous project. I urge the Senate to consider that this is gas that was produced alongside oil at Prudhoe Bay, almost 13 billion barrels of oil to date. As that oil was produced, natural gas was pumped to the surface as well. This gas was then separated from the oil and reinjected into the ground. This is not gas we have to look for; we know where it is. This is 35 trillion cubic feet of gas that is stored beneath Prudhoe Bay. I point out to the Senate that 35 trillion cubic feet of gas is merely what has already been produced. The North Slope of Alaska has an abundant supply of gas, which has the potential to produce around 100 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Alaska gas pipeline project must begin so that we can start tapping into Alaska's gas reserves. No one is drilling gas wells in my State now because there is no transportation mechanism for gas. The known reserves of natural gas will be produceable as soon as there is a transportation mechanism to bring it to market. This pipeline will be that transportation mechanism to bring Alaska's gas to the Lower 48. Nothing is more important to our Nation right now in terms of our economy than reassuring our people that we will have the natural gas supplies we need for the future. The Alaska natural gas pipeline can do it. It will help to fill the gap for the immediate future once it is constructed, and the benefits of the Alaska pipeline will have lasting effects on our Nation. It will take a long time to construct the pipeline. We estimate it will be 2012 or 2013 before that gas actually gets to market. But once it gets to market, it will be competing with new liquefied natural gas that will be coming from foreign sources. It is estimated that eventually we will import about 6 percent of our gas supplies in LNG. The counterweight to LNG is Alaska's gas. There is no other source in the United States with such an enormous amount of gas. I urge us to move swiftly on this bill, and I will do anything I can to help accelerate the decisions on this bill. Again, I congratulate the two Senators from New Mexico for what they have done so far. I wish we could get together on a bipartisan basis and come up with a substitute. We ought to find some way to resolve these differences. The country needs this energy, and my State and the country need this project. I urge Senators to consider what we have to do to get this Energy bill passed as quickly as possible and that it contain the legislative authorization that is now in the bill and the tax provisions necessary to get the pipeline built. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Illinois is seeking to speak on his amendment. Is there a time agreement on that amendment?

Mr. STEVENS. I would like to have an opportunity to speak on the Energy bill. I do not want to interfere with the Senator's amendment if we can get it done.

Mr. STEVENS. The reverse is true also. I am glad to yield to the Senator if he would consider giving us a time agreement on his amendment.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business on a subject of great urgency. I do not know how much time it will take. Senator Burns will join me in a moment.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have been informed that the House this evening will pass a bill for $989 million dealing with disaster relief. As my colleagues know, we received a supplemental request from the President for $1,550,000,000 for the Department of Homeland Security for disaster response. It is estimated that the disaster fund probably has already run out of money during this month of July. When the money runs out, when there are storms, tornados, whatever they have to deal with, they borrow from other accounts, which means as we get towards the end of this fiscal year those other accounts must come to an end. We have tried to meet the President's request by sending the supplemental as part of the legislative appropriations bill. The House has refused to conference with us on that bill. Now they are going to send us a bill that is totally inadequate. If they leave this city without giving us a supplemental for fires, it is going to leave the West burning, and it is going to bring to a halt other functions of the Federal Government which must continue through this period until September 30. I cannot believe that they would do this. The supplemental the President sent to us provided $50 million for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to cover unanticipated costs of the recovery and investigation of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. I am informed that as far as NASA is concerned, the actual costs of the Columbia accident investigation board is about $150 million so far. That means NASA has to take that money out of their current accounts and the remainder of the year they, too, will be strapped and will not be doing the scientific investigations, not be doing the prevention that is necessary in order to get ready for another NASA shuttle flight. We received the supplemental on July 8. We acted almost as quickly as possible. It is true, we put on that bill the money to save the program for education of young people, AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps is another subject, and I will get into that in a minute. But because we put AmeriCorps on that bill, the House refused to act. We have offered a series of suggestions. It is impossible to believe this message I received this morning. We are going to get a bill that has less than $1 billion in it, when the President asked for $1.550 billion for FEMA and he asked for NASA at the same time. He had money in there for firefighting. The President had $253 million for Forest Service and fire suppression. We added $36 million for the Bureau of Land Management. This is a terrible fire season. I am informed Glacier Park is ready to be evacuated. We have to have some disaster money. When I checked on July 21, the disaster relief fund had $89 million in it. We are currently estimating an obligation rate of about $5.7 million a day on the fires that existed on July 21. There is a whole new series of fires just this week. I cannot believe this. In addition, there is an obligation to rise to $6.3 million as the disaster activity in Texas ramps up due to Hurricane Claudette. I hope others will also join to call on the House to give a bill that will meet the needs, particularly the needs of the West. These fires are primarily in the West. The need for FEMA is national. The firefighting conditions right now in the West could not be worse. There is enormous heat in the West, including my State of Alaska. Even with enactment of the supplemental, which we sent to the House, I am told the Forest Service projects will have a deficit of $167 million by September. That is, with all the money we provided for FEMA and for firefighting, the Forest Service alone will have a deficit of $167 million based on projections of July 14th. We have increased fires, particularly in the Park Service area. It is the park that is burning out there now. I cannot believe we cannot have a conference on the supplemental before the House leaves. AmeriCorps is a problem, too. The Government, by mistake, enrolled 70,000 young people to enter school in September. The moneys that had been previously divided only covered 50,000 young people. The person who made that mistake is no longer with the Government. But the young people are out there now with their certificates. They are entitled to enter school, but the money will not be there. It is the worst situation I have faced as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We have to have some action by the House before they leave tonight. If they leave tonight without giving us the money we need to meet these disaster needs, I think we are going to have a terrible September. By the way, the House is going home tonight. They could have stayed another week and we could conference the bills. The bills have been sent to conference. When we come back in September we have to meet with the House in conference and at the same time try to pass the bills we could have passed and should have passed had they sent us the bills in time. They will send us a whole series of bills they are now passing as they leave town. The Appropriations Committee must conference those bills in September and at the same time we must pass the ones they have just passed. We cannot be two places at one time. The scheduling of appropriations this year is abominable. Someone mentioned the word ``tirade'' yesterday. This is a tirade, and it is time for a tirade. It is time to be strong in talking to our colleagues in the House. We must have that bill today that covers the disasters the President recognized back in July. They are worse now than when he sent the bill to us. I hope others who have the knowledge will talk about the firefighting. In Alaska, we have fire conditions we have never faced before. One of the real problems is we have been unable to cut into the areas of the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service owned by the Federal Government that have beetle kill. I read just last night, two young fishermen were out and they had an accident. They tried to set a fire to attract the attention of small planes flying in their area. The fire got out of control and burned 40,000 acres before we could even get to it. I don't know how many acres that will burn. But that is the condition that exists in the West today. They built a signal fire and that signal fire is totally out of control now. We have to have funds to meet this condition this year. It is not satisfactory to say they can borrow money from other accounts. When they borrow money from other accounts, they shut down those activities that primarily exist in the West in July, August, and early September. I call on the House: Do something; react. The President asked on July 8th. Give us the bill we need to meet the disasters that are occurring right now. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, April 10, 2003, brought a new educational milestone to my State. On that date, Alaska students from one of the most rural school districts in our Nation were the first Alaskans to take part in a live hook-up with astronauts in space. Using distance learning technology, youngsters from my States Southwest Region School District spoke to the three-member crew of the International Space Station as astronauts orbited the Earth. These students were participating in NASA's Teaching From Space Program, which includes science, mat, and geography instruction, and features a live video question-and-answer session with the astronauts aboard the space station. This session complemented a 6 week educational program, developed by our Challenger Learning Center in Kenai, which was included in the curriculum of the Southwest Region School District. While the Teaching From Space Program has provided unique and motivating educational experiences to students across our country for many years, only recently were Alaska schools able to take advantage of the NASA program. Until a few short months ago, no schools in rural Alaska had technology to allow teachers and students to communicate via video with others outside their villages. Now that is changing, as some schools use distance learning technology to virtually bring new teachers and subjects into their classrooms. The Southwest Region School District, one of the first in Alaska to install distance learning technology, is located on the southern coast of the Bering Sea, 350 miles southwest of Anchorage. Eight villages are served by this school district, only one of which is accessible by road. The others are up to 120 miles from the school district's headquarters in Dillingham and may only be reached by air in winter. Some are accessible by river during summer months when, of course, our schools are closed. The 779 students in the school district are primarily Yu'pik Eskimos. Most non-Native villagers in this region are employed as teachers. During their 20-minute conversation with the International Space Station crew, students at Manokotak school asked questions about geography and space on behalf of their fellow students throughout the district. They watched as U.S. astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, floating inside the space station, answered their questions. There was a special surprise, when the students learned that Alaska's own NASA astronaut, Bill Oefelein, who hails from Anchorage, flew from Houston to Manokotak to be with the students on their special day. Many individuals and organizations contributed to the success of this educational achievement. This was a collaborative effort achievement. This was a collaborative effort of NASA, the Southwest Region School District, the Challenger Learning Center, and GCI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all the individuals names be printed in the Record following my remarks. Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator. Lieutenant William Oefelein, USN, NASA astronaut: flew to Manokotak to be on-site with the students. Gwendolyn Brown, NASA: coordinated public affairs for the event. Cindy McArthur, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the Teaching from Space program. Kelly McCormick, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the Teaching from Space program. Scott Anderson, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the Teaching from Space program. Robin Hart, NASA: guided Manokotak teachers through the Teaching from Space program. Randy Cash, NASA: managed the audio portion of the program. Glenn Peterson, NASA: Mission Control Specialist. Superintendent Mark Hiratsuka, Southwest Region School District: secured approvals for the program. Tim Whaling, Southwest Region School District: coordinated the educational curriculum for the program. Karen Swenson, Southwest Region School District: secured approvals for the program. Steve Noonkesser, Southwest Region School District: managed the school district's technology and coordination with GCI. David Piazza, Southwest Region School District: managed the school district's technology. Principal David Legg, Manokotak School: secured facilities and staff for the program. Kirk Kofford, Manokotak School: prepared students for the NASA link up and taught the NASA distance learning curriculum. Dana Bartman, Manokotak School: prepared students for the link-up. Nate Preston, Manokotak School: coordinated photography and publishing for the program. Steve Horn, Challenger Learning Center of Alaska: secured educational curriculum for the school district. Jamie Meyers, Challenger Learning Center of Alaska: coordinated curriculum between the center and the school district. Martin Cary, GCI: secured telecommunications resources and personnel to link NASA and the school district. Greg Dutton, GCI-SchoolAccess: managed GCI's participation. David Morris, GCI: managed public affairs for the program. Anna Sattler, GCI: coordinated communication between participants. Tom Elmore, GCI: coordinated the video teleconference connection with school district sites. Chad Parker, GCI: coordinated technology needs. Brian Lichner, GCI: managed the NASA TV downlink in Anchorage. Rob Knorr, GCI: managed the NASA TV downlink in Juneau. Greg Farmer, GCI: managed the NASA TV feed in Juneau. Doug Keil, GCI: connected the NASA TV feed in Anchorage to GCI-SchoolAccess. Mark Dinneen, GCI: managed government relations for the program. John Raffetto, Infotech Strategies: managed communication between all participants. Nicole Angarella, Infotech Strategies: coordinated logistics and on-site materials. Tracy Krughoff, Infotech Strategies: assisted school district with applications. Angela Mathwig, Infotech Strategies: coordinated logistics and on-site materials. Christopher Capps: coordinated astronaut participation. Mike Donovan Hausler: managed design and production of graphic art.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. STEVENS. I ask for the floor.

Mr. STEVENS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. STEVENS. I am bothered by the offset on this amendment. In the 2003 bill, we provided $850 million to high-threat urban grants. This bill already contains another $750 million for high-threat urban grants. That is a total of $1.6 billion for high-threat urban grants. Every community in the country is affected by the alert system. Every community in the country faces increased costs. These megalopolises of the country, the large urban areas, are demanding that everybody pay more for them, but the smaller cities, the smaller counties, the smaller areas, have the same problem. On a per capita basis, it is a higher cost to provide protection to small areas than the high-threat urban areas. I do not know why we should have New York City and Philadelphia, in particular. They are the ones seeking this money. There is no question there is a need. But there is a need in Peoria. There is a need in Cincinnati. There is a need in Tucson. There is a need in New Orleans. The money they have taken for this is money that deals with homeland security nationally. One of the offsets takes moneys from the small universities in the country. We had letters from many Senators asking for money to assist in terms of research, the research base of the country dealing with homeland security problems. We ought to take a second look at what we are doing. We created this Department of Homeland Security 8 months ago. They already have in this bill and the bill we already enacted $1.6 billion more than the rest of the country. Why should this happen now that we have an offset against two of the most important accounts in Homeland Security? I hope we can talk a little bit more about that before we vote. I will object to a time agreement until people understand what we are doing. Part of this money is from information analysis and infrastructure protection. It is a directorate, as they call it, in the new Department of Homeland Security. This will limit the intelligence warning and threat analysis functions of the Department we have just created. These are just being set up. This is for the 2004 costs of the Department we have just set up. Why should we take money from that? These are assessments of critical infrastructure, including chemical facilities, drinking water supply systems, arenas and stadiums, our Nation's seaports. This is the money being offset. Do Members with seaports want to put this money into an account that already has $1.6 billion? We ought to stop and think about this. It would also be offset against the national communication system, as I understand. I will have to study this more deeply. The priority telecommunications programs could not be implemented. We have been interested in a national alert system. In the past, the national alert system went over the radio. Now, few people listen to the radio. They are on cell phones, they are on computers, they watch the television, cable. We are trying to get a national alert system. This offset goes against that study, how to put back into place a national alert system so the Nation will know, an area will know, if there is an extreme threat about which everyone should know. I understand the Senators from New York and Pennsylvania are trying to increase the amount of money available to their high-threat urban areas. I have a high-threat urban area in Anchorage, too, but we do not have as large a population and we do not have the $1.6 billion either. The Senate ought to think seriously about what we are doing. I intend to speak further if I can find additional information regarding the exact money that will be displaced by this amendment. The total amount of money here is too much, too soon. We ought to think about what we are doing. I hope others will come forward and take a look at what we are doing. For those who sent letters asking for money in these areas, particularly in the national intelligence systems and threat analysis, in the areas of chemical facilities, drinking water supplies, utility protection, transportation protection, protection of bridges, this is what the money is. Why should that go to New York and Pennsylvania because they have a problem? Everyone else has, but they have a lot more people. On a per capita basis, we have already given them more money. To give them this additional $250 million is going too far. I hope the Senate will listen and not adopt this amendment. I will return with greater details in the future. I yield the floor.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are hearing a lot about the costs of the war. I am not addressing the need for homeland security per se. But I would point out, this bill before us now is over $29 billion for a Department that did not even exist 6 months ago. During the period of time of the blockade of Iraq following the Persian Gulf war, to carry out the mandates of the United Nations we built a new airbase, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the largest airbase in the world. We built a new airbase in Aviano. We built a new Army base in Kuwait. For 12 years, we maintained forces to blockade Iraq and to enforce the no- fly zones set forth by the agreement with Saddam Hussein after the Persian Gulf war. I have asked the staff to get me the figures of how much that cost, how much did it cost to carry out the mandates of the United Nations following the Persian Gulf war, primarily because he did not comply with the agreement he made at the termination of that war. I believe it goes into the hundreds of billions of dollars that we spent in 12 years. It is costing us a great deal of money to keep our forces in the field now. Hopefully, that will come to an end soon. But so has the cost of the blockade of Iraq. So has the cost of Prince Sultan. So has the cost of maintaining that Army base in Kuwait. Very soon we will be able to stand down a considerable portion of the people who are at Aviano in Italy. Those costs, by the way, were in addition to the costs we spent in Bosnia during the same period, and in Kosovo during the same period. The American taxpayer has been bearing an enormous cost for many years to deal with the deployment of forces overseas. Hopefully, what we have done now will bring to an end, or at least to a very low minimum, the cost of maintaining forces in that area. I believe we have taken actions that were necessary but I also know that we have done a lot to improve the morale of the Air Force. I personally, along with my good friend from Hawaii, talked with many of the pilots who were flying what we call the CAP, the constant air patrol, over Iraq. They were shot at almost daily by missiles fired by Saddam Hussein. They lived in a period of constant terror, as they flew over those areas, that they would be attacked by the ground-to-air missiles. Thank God, they survived them. But it led to a period of time when our reenlistment rate in the Air Force reversed itself from about 72 percent, down to about 28 percent of our people reenlisted to fly in the Air Force, because of the strain of the constant air patrol over Iraq. But I do think people ought to keep in perspective, when they say we can afford this, this amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, because we are spending so much money in Iraq--we have been spending a lot of money for a lot of years. The trouble is, we have to come back and have some perspective. The amendment before us exceeds the budget by an enormous amount. It does not offset that, saying let's stop spending money somewhere else because, in fact, we cannot do that. There is no offset. Under the circumstances, I think we ought to start having some discipline around here. That is what we are supposed to do because of the Budget Act. The Budget Act was supposed to give us discipline. We are facing now a constant parade of amendments that the authors know is beyond the budget. The authors know we don't have the money. The authors know we found as much money as we possibly can find to allocate to homeland security for the fiscal year 2004. I do hope Members will start thinking about the concept of affordability. We will soon stop spending that money that we are spending for the postwar security in Iraq and we will no longer have to maintain the blockade. We have had part of our Coast Guard over there for years, to try to stop the illegal exports and imports into Iraq. We had about 40 percent of our Air Force over there in those two major bases, Prince Sultan and Aviano, to maintain control of the air over Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. I do think we ought to keep in perspective what we have done, in terms of future expenses for our military. I hope we will not have a justification that we can spend this money the Senator from Connecticut wants to spend because we are spending too much money in Iraq. We are spending a lot of money in Iraq but it is not too much money. It is money well spent because it will terminate the expenses we have had to incur over the last 12 years.

Mr. STEVENS. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. Is there time in the agreement for opposition to the amendment?

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the nominations of General Richard B. Myers, USAF, for Reappointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reappointment to the grade of General; and General Peter Pace, USMC, for reappointment as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reappointment to the grade of General.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a Africa Subcommittee Hearing on the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on Federal Biodefense Readiness during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 24, 2003 at 10:00 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and the House Subcommittee on Science and Space be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 10 a.m. on Space Commercialism.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this is the time of year when Senators have visitors from home. I know many come to my office and ask me personally, What should I see in Washington now? Last evening, I visited the opening of the Lewis and Clark exhibit, ``Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America.'' It is at the Library of Congress from July 24 to November 29. I have asked that a copy of the booklet that is being given out at this exhibit be placed on every Senator's desk. I do hope that will happen. I congratulate the Congressional Caucus on the Bicentennial of Lewis and Clark: Senators Conrad Burns, Larry Craig, Byron Dorgan, and Representatives Doug Bereuter and Earl Pomeroy. As one goes into the exhibit in the Library of Congress, the first thing one will see is the 1507 Waldseemuller world map. This is the first map that used the word ``America'' in the history of the world. Beyond that, there are a series of maps that lead up to the information that President Jefferson had when he dispatched Lewis and Clark to make their historic journey. The interesting point about this is that for years, the maps of our part of the world were really kept classified by the Spanish, and it took a German geographer, Alexander von Humboldt, when he visited Mexico City and got access to the archives of Mexico to disclose to the world the maps that had been prepared prior to that time. Copies of each of those maps is on exhibit at the Library of Congress. It takes us through the total exploration of Lewis and Clark but subsequent explorations of the American West, the Louisiana Purchase, and the total history of our country west of the Mississippi. It is told through maps and through artifacts that have been gathered not only to tell us the geography of our area, but really the dress of Americans at that time, the plants--a total description of the West as it was known then. What is interesting is that the German geographer who had visited Mexico City actually visited with President Jefferson prior to the time Lewis and Clark set off, as I said. The information he brought to the public, to the world at that time is just staggering. I have seen a lot of exhibits at the Library of Congress in my day, and I have the honor to be the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Library. I believe this is an exhibition that should be called to the attention of every one of our visitors as they come into our offices. I call to the attention of the Senate also that there is a film program that is going to go on starting Friday, July 25. There will be a series of films shown at the James Madison Building, which is part of the Library of Congress. These films are free and open to the public but require advance notice and reservations to get in. The seating is limited. They are amazing historic films. It starts off with a 1955 Paramount film which is entitled ``The Far Horizons'' and continues through until November 21. The schedules are shown in the booklet. This is the kind of information I think Senators would be extremely wise to point out to their visitors. All they have to do to make reservations is call the number that is shown in this booklet, and they can have reservations for one of the finest historic films that one could think of. Each Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, between now and November 21, there will be films shown to the public. I do congratulate the Library of Congress, Dr. Billington and his staff, for putting together this enormous exhibition of the history of our American West. I do hope everyone has an opportunity to take the time to see it. It is not something one can just go in and make a 5- minute visit and look at a map. If they go through that door, they are going to be trapped for at least 30 to 45 minutes, or hours. It is one of the most staggering exhibits I have seen. At one point, through our electronic means, they have the ability to show the actual outline of our Nation and put it up against the maps that were prepared back in the days before any digital concepts, before any real capability for surveying. It is amazing how close they came to preparing maps that were accurate, and this started off 500 years ago. This is 500 years of history of the American West, and people can see it in a half hour or 2 hours. I do hope Senators will take the occasion to look at the booklet I have asked the Library of Congress to provide us. Copies of this chart are available to every Senator to put in their office so they can tell their visitors about this amazing exhibition. In closing, I thank the Senate for the time, and particularly my friends on the other side of the aisle for letting me use some of their time, to speak about this exhibit. This is the work product of not only the Library of Congress, but they give credit to the Bicentennial Congressional Caucus, which is cochaired by my good friend from Montana. He will find an enormous number of photographs and history of his great State where I had the privilege of going to college for a short period of time. I want him to know this is a memory trip for me to go through this exhibition. I do thank him for his work, and I thank the other Senators for their courtesy.

Mr. STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, if there is no one wishing to speak, I wish to make a short comment.

Mr. STEVENS. I know the order is for time on the other side. I ask to use about 5 or 7 minutes.