Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I will yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Alexander of Tennessee for his wise remarks. Listening to the Senator, it reminded me of that advertisement: When E.F. Hutton speaks, you should listen. When Senator Alexander talks on education, we ought to listen, and, indeed, when he speaks on a lot of subjects. He has served as Secretary of Education for the United States. He has been the president of the University of Tennessee. He has also been the Governor of Tennessee who had to run their school systems. He brings tremendous wisdom and experience and insight to this issue. It must be our goal to improve the quality of education for children in America today. We have to work on that issue. We are not where we ought to be. There is too much inequality today. I also think about Brown v. Board of Education, as we celebrate that historic decision today, and that Senator Alexander clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom, one of the judges who is famous in the old Fifth Circuit for enforcing Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education had more impact than most decisions have ever had from the Supreme Court. As a young student in school, I rode a bus every day 15 miles to school. As we went north on the road to my school, we would pass a bus with African American children heading south. So the white kids went to the school up in the northern end of town, and we would pass one another. I went further than I should have traveled to get to school, and they went further than they should have traveled to get to their school. In addition, the schools of the African-American community were not as good, and their schoolbuses were not as good, for the most part, either. It was not an equal system. The Supreme Court of the United States considered the issue in 1954, and they evaluated what was happening. They said the laws of the United States should treat people equally, and that it is not equal treatment to say to a person: You cannot go to this school, although you may live quite close to it, simply because of the color of your skin. We had grown up with that situation. People did not give it much thought. They accepted it as the way things were. The Supreme Court ruled differently, and people complained about it. Some even said it was activism and the Supreme Court was overreaching. But if you read the Constitution and the law, it seems to me the Supreme Court at that point was not an activist court, it was not an overreaching court; it was a court founded on law, and they went back and read the plain language of the Constitution, and they said this process of denying one person the right to attend a school simply because of the color of their skin violated our Constitution. I think that was a plain ruling, a fair ruling, and a good ruling. I know we are about to take up the defense bill in a few minutes, but I would say this: Things have changed in many different ways. My two daughters grew up in Mobile, AL, not too far from Murphy High School. Murphy is one of the oldest, largest schools in Mobile. The Mobile County school system is a very large system. I believe they have 60,000 students. It is a great historic school. Fifty years ago, it was an all-white school. There were all-African-American schools in the community. They have, as a result of Brown, integrated the school system. My daughters went to that school, and the racial mix was almost exactly 50-50. They enjoyed their time at Murphy High School. It is an excellent high school. In fact, I remember Secretary Bill Bennett, when he was Secretary of Education, came down and gave them a blue-ribbon, topflight national school award for the excellence in education there. They loved that school. They had friends who were White, friends who were African American, friends who were Asian, and friends who were from India. They were all in that school system. They benefited from that experience and did well as a result of it. I believe the decision was beneficial legally. I believe the decision was beneficial for the children. It made a statement, with crystal clarity, that people could not be denied the right to public activities simply because of the color of their skin. That is an important principle in this country. We were very slow to recognize it. The South was openly segregated in so many different ways, and this decision broke it down. It took many years before the decision would be fully implemented, but it has been implemented, and much good has come from it. President Bush has said in his philosophy of education that we must not let children fall behind. He has used the phrase ``the soft bigotry of low expectations.'' What he means is, if our children are going to a public school that is doing pretty well, and they are doing fine, and minority students are going to a school that is not doing so well, we should not have the attitude, well, we are not too concerned about that. In fact, more dangerous than that is a philosophy that we have low expectations, and we are not going to demand the same quality in all school systems in America. That is not acceptable. Our children can learn. All children of all races can learn. We need to challenge all students to be their very best. We cannot allow children to fall behind. We need to identify children who are falling behind early. If you love children, if you care about the poor, if you care about minority students, and you want them to succeed, you will find out how they are doing. That is why the President said we want to test. The Government plan of No Child Left Behind is not to test to punish or to put down a child; it is to find out how they are doing in school. If they are falling behind, we need to intervene promptly and quickly to lift them up so they can reach their fullest potential. Secretary Rod Paige, our Secretary of Education today, is an experienced educator who was the dean of a school and was the superintendent of the huge school system in Houston, TX--he has said by the time children get to the ninth grade, if they are not up to speed, if they are substantially behind in reading and math and cannot compete, that is when they drop out. So the President's legislation--what we worked on--is designed to find out much earlier if children are falling behind, to give them that intensive support and extra resources necessary to have them catch up so they will no longer be behind, so when they get to the 8th grade, the 9th grade, or the 10th grade, they will be able to function and do high school work and go on and complete their degree and be successful in the world rather than becoming frustrated or becoming a discipline problem, and maybe even dropping out of school because they know they are so far behind they cannot keep up. That is what we focused on when we crafted the No Child Left Behind Act. That is ultimately one of the keys to American movement in this new century; and that is, are our children reaching their highest possible level of achievement. The more children who achieve their highest and greatest potential, the greater the benefit will be for our country. I see my time is up. We are about ready to go to the defense bill. I again express my appreciation to Senator Alexander for his insights and commitment to education. There is much we can do to make our system better. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Judd Gregg for his leadership on this issue. When I came to the Senate some years ago, there was no greater champion for IDEA funding by the Federal Government or improving IDEA than Senator Gregg. He has maintained that and he continues to be an expert, as my colleagues can tell when they hear him speak about it. We have made tremendous progress since I came to the Senate in funding special education. We have seen the numbers, how much they have increased since 1996, and we will continue to make progress. We have gone from 7 percent of the funding for this education program for our schools around the country to almost 20 percent. We are going to keep on increasing that. The legislation we have before us today, however, unanimously came out of our HELP Committee, of which I am a member. It was a product of a lot of hard work and hours and hours of discussion. There are a number of provisions in the bill that I would like to see improved and strengthened. Maybe some on the other side think it could be improved more, but we hammered out this agreement because we need to move this bill forward. We need to increase funding, once again significantly, for IDEA. We need to give more control and make a better commitment to the practical application of the law. The special education bill was enacted in 1975 with the goal of encouraging schools to mainstream students with disabilities, keep them in the normal classroom where possible and give special treatment where necessary. States that follow Federal rules receive federal financial assistance, and in 2002, 6.5 million students were served through IDEA. Schools have responded to this challenge positively, and they are expending very large sums of money to meet the goals of this law. In fact, I remember distinctly several years ago the school board superintendent of a county in Vermont testifying that 40 percent of his county's budget for that school system went to the IDEA program. In recent years, the President and Congress have increased the federal investment in this program. If the President's proposed budget is enacted, IDEA funding will have increased 376 percent since 1996, 8 years ago. I have been repeatedly told, however, when I travel in my State, and I made this a special project of mine, that this funding is not the only problem. Repeatedly I have been told there are things bigger and more important than funding. One teacher who had been working in special education for many years, who is very bright and has a master's degree, told me: Jeff, we are not looking out for our children. We have lost sight of what is good for the students. What we are doing is filling out paperwork and keeping our sight on the lawyers. It is threatening the integrity of the system, and we are not focusing on how to help each individual child achieve their highest and best skills. The paperwork procedures are burdensome to a significant degree. I have asked them about it. Too often teachers and principals are faced with a literal maze of regulations and laws that must be met before a disruptive child can be removed from a classroom. Too often school districts are forced to spend thousands of dollars on attorneys and litigation costs that could be avoided if the parties simply sat down and discussed the issues rather than forcing the disputes to court. These problems not only distract our dedicated educators from the core mission of teaching our children, they cause stress and confrontation that can be avoided if common sense were applied. I have received letters from hundreds of teachers in my State, from parents and educators, who are concerned about the current management of this system. The frustration, the anger, and the compassion in these letters are powerful. I have also visited schools across the State of Alabama and heard firsthand from educators about the problems the current law creates for students, parents, and teachers. I go into schools and I ask them to tell me what the problems are, what frustrates them the most. Almost universally special education, IDEA, comes up as one of the top examples of a program they believe is micromanaged from Washington, does not allow teachers who love children to be able to have the freedom to help those children in the best way possible. They have told me that problems with the current law are going to drive them out of the profession. They are going to leave the profession over these frustrations. They have dedicated their lives to improving the welfare of disabled children. A veteran special education teacher wrote me this: I consider myself on the front lines of the ongoing battles that take place on a daily basis in our Nation's schools. I strongly believe that the current IDEA law fuels these struggles. The law, though well intended, has become one of the single greatest obstacles that educators face in our fight to provide all of our children with a quality education delivered in a safe environment. I have dedicated my life to helping children with special needs. However, at times my frustration has been so high that I have literally gotten in my car to leave-- Leave the profession, she means-- but my moral responsibilities to the children I have in my class have kept me there. The law must be reformed now. As my grandmother said, ``right is right and wrong is wrong'' and to enable the current system to continue is just wrong. Another 32-year special education veteran wrote: If IDEA is not revised to be less restrictive and burdensome, we might as well as kiss public education good- bye. If changes are not made, we will have one of the largest teaching shortages on record. In the past I have had 5 to 10 college students coming to me in the spring to apply for positions. This year I have none. Most are fearful of entering the special education field because of the threat of litigation brought about by IDEA. They are afraid of being sued. The regulations are complex and there are a group of lawyers and specialists in this who descend on the system on a regular basis. So it is time for a change and Congress should be leading the charge for positive change, to make it better. I have a number of other letters from teachers and students who fear for their safety every day. They feel handcuffed by the current rules and feel overwhelmed with the requirements of the current law. I believe it will be a tragedy if we lose proven, dedicated teachers because of the shortcomings of a Federal law that is not adequately fulfilling its purposes. I saw a poll recently, I think in the State of Washington, of special education teachers. An astounding number said they did not expect to be in the profession in 5 years. This is the reason that is occurring. President Bush has recognized the importance of the IDEA law, and the need to bring real reform to the system. In order to get an accurate picture, the President appointed a commission to review the law and provide recommendations. The commission held 13 hearings and meetings throughout the Nation and listened to the concerns and comments of parents and teachers, principals, and so forth. Over 100 expert witnesses and more than 175 parents, teachers, students with disabilities, and others addressed the commission. Hundreds have provided letters and written statements. The commission distilled this information into a set of principles that were used during the reauthorization process. First, decrease the emphasis on compliance with procedure and increase the emphasis on results. That means decrease paperwork and that kind of thing, and ask whether children are benefitting to the maximum extent by the special efforts we are expending. Second, simplify the law's burdensome due process requirements, which create inordinate amounts of paperwork, limit the ability of schools to properly discipline children with disabilities for inappropriate behavior, and intensify adversity between parents and schools. This is a big problem. Put two children in a classroom, one a disabled child, that child has substantially greater expectation of not receiving the same discipline as another child for the same offense. Sometimes the disability is totally unconnected to the discipline problem that shows up in a classroom. A child who sells drugs, for instance. That behavior is very unlikely to be a part or product of the disability and that child should be disciplined as other children where that makes sense, and under the appropriate rules of the school. Third, reduce misidentification of students, which has fueled growing IDEA costs. Too many students are being placed in IDEA programs who do not need to be there, and that is not good for the children and it is not good for the school system. Finally, increase the role of parents in determining the most appropriate setting for their child's education. This legislation does much to achieve those principles. It reflects a balanced approach that, as I said, was voted out of our committee unanimously. On the question of discipline, that is something I have talked a lot about and our committee has worked on it. We didn't make big changes in the bill that came out of committee. We made some changes. We made some improvements in the law that I think certainly will put us on a more rational basis and will help reduce excessive litigation. One of the things, for example, is this: Before a lawsuit is filed and a school board has to go to court, they have to be notified specifically of what it is the school is alleged to have done improperly with regard to their child, and the school board has a chance to correct it. What we are finding is lawsuits have been filed all over the country, schools have been taken to court at great expense, and by the time they finish the litigation not only do they have to pay their own attorneys, not only are their own principals and teachers called out of classrooms to testify and prepare for trial, but they have to pay the costs of the plaintiffs' attorney if one thing they did was wrong. They may make eight allegations, but if they are wrong in any way and are found liable, then they have to pay the child's attorney. We need to figure out how we can avoid some of this litigation. It is money out of the pocket of the school system. It is money not being spent to educate children but to litigate in court, and sometimes these cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses for school systems. Nearly 8 in 10 teachers say there are persistent troublemakers in the school who need to be removed and we have created a system that is so complex and so litigious it is not working and it is driving up costs in an unwise way. I will offer some more comments for the Record, but I will conclude by saying this: Special education is a big program in America today. This Congress, this Senate is increasing funding steadily for this program. We need to continue to do that and need to continue to reach toward that commitment Congress made before I came here to pay 40 percent of that cost. I think we should do that and we should be on the road to that. However, as Senator Gregg knows--who is the senior member of the Budget Committee also and knows how things work here in reality--this is a weird deal, to mix and match discretionary and mandatory spending. In fact, we are criticized substantially in this body for going toward mandatory spending for too many programs. In fact, most objective observers in Congress believe that has diminished the ability of Congress to set priorities and accomplish good things for our children. We do not need to put this in mandatory spending. We need to continue the steady goals and progress we have made to reach the highest level of funding, reach the full funding we are committed to do. I believe we can do that. I believe this bill is a tremendous step in the right direction toward that goal. I will continue to work for it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his comments. As a lawyer--and I know Senator Kennedy is a lawyer--these things get pretty complicated. Sometimes making blanket rules like that can create unfairness in the system. Let me go on and continue with what the Veterans of Foreign Wars said on April 22 about this legislation: Much confusion and erroneous information was disseminated with respect to how the proposed regulations could adversely affect veterans. You and the staff of the Veterans Employment and Training Service and the Wage and Hour Division's willingness to engage the VFW and other Veterans Service Organizations in constructive dialog resulted in the removal of language pertaining to ``training in the Armed Forces,'' thus ensuring veterans would not be denied overtime as a result of such training. Again, the VFW appreciates your recognition of those who serve our Nation in war and peace. The Disabled American Veterans, a good, strong group that does a lot of good work here: Dear Secretary Chao: On behalf of the 1.2 million members of the Disabled American Veterans, I would like to express our gratitude for keeping us and other veterans' service organizations informed throughout the revision of rules governing overtime eligibility for workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act. We also commend your efforts to protect veterans by ensuring that a worker's status as a veteran cannot be used as a basis for exemption from overtime pay. And from the American Legion--I suppose they know what is good for veterans. I certainly know they advocate for them on a daily basis. National Commander John Brieden III wrote to Secretary Chao, April 26, last week: I am writing in support of the recently released regulatory changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The American Legion has a long history of advocating in support of veterans employment and training entitlements, and we are pleased with the Department of Labor's part 541 final regulations that seek to clarify overtime pay eligibility rules. They are happy with them. He goes on to write, recent assertions that the proposed regulatory changes target veterans who rely on overtime pay caused undue concern for those proud veterans who have successfully transitioned into the civilian workforce. Who has been telling them all this misinformation? They are all saying that. How are they being told this? I am afraid the truth is, we are in a political season, and the Secretary of Labor stepped up to the plate to make some changes that needed to be made. They have not been changed in 50 years, and those who have a political agenda who want to try to embarrass President Bush, frankly, because Secretary Chao is a Cabinet Secretary in his administration are going to blame him for adversely harming workers, and it is not right. Listen to the people who were there: Recent assertions that the proposed regulatory changes target veterans who rely on overtime pay caused undue concern for those proud veterans who have successfully transitioned into the civilian workforce. The removal of language referencing training in the Armed Forces will ensure that no worker will be unjustly penalized for their veteran status as a result of these regulatory changes. At a time in our history when American service members are answering the Nation's call-- Indeed they certainly are-- to arms in more than 130 countries worldwide, this country must ensure that all military and veterans entitlements are preserved rather than stripped away. The American Legion supports the Department of Labor's efforts to clarify eligibility for overtime pay, and we applaud you, Madame Secretary, for ensuring that the employment rights of America's veterans are protected. It is time for us to deal with this situation. These rules are better. A lot of people who have been called managers, who are making $18,000, $19,000, $20,000, $21,000, $22,000 a year and are being denied overtime because their employers crafted a job description that made them a manager, will be guaranteed overtime. If you make below $23,660, you are guaranteed overtime. If you make over $100,000, you are not. But for the others this will be guaranteed. This is a step forward for clarity. It is going to reduce litigation. It is going to reduce class action lawsuits. It is going to reduce the excessive cost that comes from those lawsuits, and it will make lives better for American workers. That is our only goal. If I thought it harmed our American workers, I would not support it. I believe the Secretary of Labor is on the right track. I ask our colleagues to oppose the Harkin amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, for a question, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to talk about the overtime rules. I believe they are a marvelous step in the right direction. After 40 to 50 years of inaction and lack of review, I believe we are in a position to make some changes today. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao is one of the finest members of this administration. She is a determined public servant. She advertised those changes. She solicited information from various groups and individuals and got 70,000 responses. They evaluated those responses and made the proposed rule changes that are before us. I think it is clearly a step in the right direction and will add to the number of people who are covered. The final rule updating part 541 of the Fair Labor Standards Act regulation is important. When these rules were established, we used words and terms that don't really exist today. They used terms like ``gang leader.'' That has quite a different tone today than it did when that rule was set up. There was also ``linotype operator'' and overtime was guaranteed only for persons who made less than $8,060 a year. So this rule change improves the regulations in quite a significant way. I had the personal experience of working as a lawyer and representing two individuals who had problems with overtime. I represented the first individual against a company. I had not studied the law that much, but I had been a Federal prosecutor and I knew the people. One was a friend from my high school days and he operated heavy equipment. He said: Jeff, I think I have been entitled to overtime. I worked extra hours. When the weather was good, we worked extra hours. They saw him as a contractor and he saw himself as an employee. I began to look at the law and I thought he was right. We filed a lawsuit and the company knuckled under and paid him. I took a fee out of it, and I am sure the company paid their lawyers a fee for representing them. A pretty significant chunk of the man's overtime had to be paid on litigation fees. I represented an administrative assistant. The group she worked for had meetings at night. She would be required to go take notes and keep records, but they didn't pay her overtime. We filed an action on that and, eventually, they agreed to pay her. Interestingly, that lady worked for a union. So the union wasn't paying one of its own employees overtime as they were required. What we need is more clarity in this situation. We need a legal system that everybody can understand. When you know who is covered, then people can demand their overtime and they will get it. It is my experience that you will not have quite as many situations where people blatantly violate the law if they know what the law is. If the law is confusing, they will play in the gray areas and take advantage of people. If it is clear, people will tend to follow it--most employers will. I think that is what we are looking at here. The Department of Labor did not prematurely propose this rule. It was after a great deal of work and effort and listening and evaluation and changing and updating and altering the proposal. I think they have done a terrific job. It meets the realistic needs of the modern workplace so much better than this 50-year-old rule that has not been changed since the beginning. I have been disappointed that our friends in the labor movement leadership have sought to utilize this change as an opportunity to attempt to scare working Americans and cause them to believe they are somehow being taken advantage of in this process. That is not so. I was disappointed to learn that the AFL-CIO prepared ads attacking the rule, before it was even published. That is not the right way to do things. We all ought to be a part of the process. If you have a specific example of something that is wrong, bring it up with the Secretary of Labor, as many did, and as labor groups did, and they will evaluate it and make the changes that work. This is an attempt--and a successful attempt--to make the rules simpler, fairer, and clearer. We have to do better than the current law. Under this final rule--and this is so significant--workers making $23,660 or less per year are absolutely guaranteed overtime. In the past, a worker making $14,000 annually could be classified as a manager and be denied overtime. Under the new rules, that worker and 6.7 million others will be guaranteed overtime protection regardless of whether you call them a manager, a boss, or whatever you want to call them. If they make less than that, they are classified as eligible and have to be paid overtime if they work more than the 40 hours per week. This will cover the person at the print shop, the fast food place, and the laundry. Maybe they have been classified as a manager because they do the business and manage some. Under this, if they are paid less than $23,660, automatically they will be covered. That is 6.7 million workers who are going to be guaranteed overtime protection. This is not something that is trying to harm the worker. I know my friend, Senator Kennedy, is quite an advocate. But I have to tell you, I don't appreciate him saying that this rule change is a war on American workers. What kind of rhetoric is that? What kind of partisanship is that? What kind of collegiality and respect for the process is that? This is a good series of rules, not a war on the American worker. He talks about college tuition, health care, prescription drugs, and all these issues he wants to talk about but not specifically what is wrong about this regulation. There is not anything wrong with it. It is a step forward. It is good for American workers and we need to do that. I know he talked about a lot of things. One thing he did not suggest was that if we got a handle on the number of illegal workers in this country, there would be more jobs for American workers? We will get more people at that $18, $20, $25 range. That is where we want people to work at. He didn't talk about that. There are lots of things we can do to improve the life of the working American man and women. One of them is to update the overtime rules. I believe this has been done openly and publicly by a Secretary of Labor who is a lady of integrity and great ability, who listened to the complaints and ideas and suggestions, and she has made progress. For example, I believe Senator Harkin mentioned law enforcement officers. The largest law enforcement group in America, a workers group, a labor group, the Fraternal Order of Police, has clearly supported this rule change. They participated in the process and they made their suggestions. They were happy when it was over. This is what the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury, said when the Department of Labor issued the final regulation. He said it was ``an unprecedented victory for police officers and their families.'' These are America's first responders, the police, firemen, and EMTs. He goes on to say that ``the Fraternal Order of Police is extremely grateful for the work of the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, and Wage and Hour Administrator, Tammie McCutchen, to take into consideration and incorporate the views of the FOP in developing their final regulations.'' He goes on in great praise of them. It has also been repeated on the floor earlier today that somehow veterans are unhappy with this bill and it is going to hurt veterans. But I have a letter from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They are one of the largest veterans groups. They say in a letter to Secretary Chao on April 22: The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States appreciates your soliciting our comments and recommendations on the revision of the Fair Labor Standards Act to strengthen and clarify That is how he referred to it, ``strengthen and clarify''-- the overtime protection provisions; particularly provision addressing veterans and the training they received while serving in the Armed Forces. Much confusion and erroneous misinformation was disseminated. Boy, that is true. There has been so much misinformation.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today to give tribute to Sister Mary Eileen Wilhelm, RSM, who has served as the chief executive officer at Mercy Medical for more than 36 years. She has led Mercy Medical in its mission to care for the sick, the injured, and the dying since she took on the role of CEO in 1967. Her passion for healthcare has led her to continually do what is best for the patients, the residents, and their families. Since its founding in 1949 by the Sisters of Mercy, Mercy Medical has been a leader among healthcare providers in Alabama's Mobile Bay area. As CEO of Mercy, Sister Mary Eileen has remained focused on continuing the healing ministry of Jesus in the compassionate and excellent tradition of the Sisters of Mercy. This has helped Mercy grow from a small convalescent home by the bay in Daphne, into an integrated network of healthcare options throughout southwest Alabama and recognized throughout the Nation for its innovative procedures. Mercy Medical works with patients of all ages, from the very young to the most senior, to maximize their functional abilities and return all patients to their highest possible level of wellness. In addition, Mercy Medical is renowned for its hospice services, providing quality living when individuals face the end of this Earthly existence. Working with physicians, interdisciplinary medical teams establish individualized treatment plans which direct overall courses of intensive therapy, specialized clinical services and/or other patient care and activities. Most importantly, the Mercy Medical team always ministers to not only the physical needs but offers comfort and healing to the spirit as well. Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, has inspired Sister Eileen to be strong in the face of adversity, calm in the midst of crisis, and willing to take risks. This has allowed her to lead the Mercy Medical staff to identify and meet the healthcare needs of the weak and vulnerable. Additionally, due to her humility, tenacity, and commitment, Mercy Medical is recognized as a leader in the healthcare community. One of the core values of Mercy Medical is the empowerment of women, and Sister Mary Eileen, as an empowered woman, has led the fight to eradicate poverty nationally by taking on the cause of the poor to our Nation's capital. Indeed, her sincerity and power of persuasion, which I have directly felt, is remarkable. It is clearly a product of her selfless commitment to her vision for others. On behalf of the United States Senate and the people of Alabama, I would like to recognize Sister Mary Eileen for giving more than 44 years of love and devotion to the sick, injured, and dying. She has been truly a blessing for the people of south Alabama, and her legacy will live on forever.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the chairman. I agree with his comments. I thank him for doing all that humanly could be done to win the support necessary for this bill. I had a brief period of time in which I filed plaintiffs' lawsuits for individuals who had asbestos injuries. These individuals were sick; asbestos is a debilitating disease. They had been heavily exposed to asbestos. One individual worked in a submarine, where the air inside was thick with asbestos fibers. He was severely debilitated as a result of that. I believe people who are injured ought to be compensated. It was discovered that manufacturers of asbestos knew at some point before they told people who were working on it that it was dangerous. And they should have told them it was dangerous and their health was at risk and they did not do so. That is the fundamental cause of the litigation. I filed my asbestos litigation in the 1970s. I eventually turned it over to a group of lawyers who were experts in this matter. They took the case. I was not able to do it. They did a lot of work. They had to break down barriers, win the liability questions, and prove knowledge on the part of the companies. They overcame legal objections such as whose asbestos did you breathe. Most plaintiffs' lawyers today involved in litigation are not proud of what has happened with asbestos. The companies have been tagged. The companies are stuck. They admit they did wrong. They are willing to compensate, as they are able to compensate. There is only so much money. We are talking about billions of dollars, maybe $54 billion already paid out. I was there as a lawyer and earned part of a fee out of the litigation. I didn't know how it would come out or what the statute of limitation was. Maybe my claim has expired. But things have changed. The companies are willing to pay. Some victims are sick and need compensation. They need it now. They do not need to have a big chunk of what they are entitled to paid to lawyers or to experts or testing companies. They need to be paid. It is a blight on the legal system. I see the distinguished assistant Democratic leader. He is a superior lawyer, and would do an admirable job in court, no doubt. But, these cases are not going to trial. It is a process. These cases are filed and settled, and sometimes victims are paid. Certain defendants do not have money, so they cannot pay. Sixty asbestos companies are in bankruptcy today because they cannot pay or cannot fully pay all the claims. Thousands of new claims are being filed on a regular basis. The new trend is that people not sick are filing. They may have been exposed to asbestos, and there may be some showing of asbestos in the pleura or their lungs, but it has not had a debilitating effect or not caused cancer or anything like that, and they are filing by the tens of thousands, saying they might get sick. But they are not sick yet. What do you do? It is perfectly appropriate that this Congress act. We do it with workmens' compensation. A person is injured on the job, they get compensation under certain circumstances. It is a lot easier to get it, but it is limited and you do not have to pay so much expenses and it works pretty well. That is all by regulation. We do not leave everything totally to juries, judges, and lawyers to settle. I believe in the principle of the Congress stepping in, when necessary. The fundamental reason I believe, is that, in my view, in the history of the most magnificent legal system we have, the Anglo- American heritage of law, we have ever had a system that has been as abused. Sixty percent of the money paid out by the defendant companies, over half of it, 60 percent according to testimony we had a number of years ago in the Judiciary Committee, does not get to the people who are sick. It does not get to any plaintiff. It is eaten up by court costs, lawyer fees, expert witnesses, and testing companies. That is not right. It is not right when the defendants themselves admit they are wrong and are willing to pay. In fact, they do pay and they agreed to pay and they have trusts that are supposed to pay, but the trusts are getting drained of money. Companies are going into bankruptcy and fewer and fewer victims are getting paid. If we care about the rule of law, if we care about decency, fundamental fairness, if we respect law, if we love the law, we should not allow a situation to continue where the defendant companies are willing to pay, and the plaintiffs, some of them desperately need payment, but the plaintiff only ends up getting 40 percent of what is paid out. The defendant companies have to hire lawyers, too, whole law firms. They file papers and disclosures and depositions and expert witnesses. This is just chewing up money, money, money, money. Now, if somebody has mesothelioma, a cancer that causes death, they ought to be paid. They do not need 60 percent of what they are entitled to, to go to some lawyer, some defense lawyer or some expert witness or court cost. And they ought not to die before they get it. Under this bill, if you file a claim and you have mesothelioma--which is tied directly to asbestos--it is caused very few times other than by asbestos, and you can demonstrate exposure to asbestos and mesothelioma, you get $1 million. That is what the latest figure is. And you do not need a lawyer at all. You get it now. Under the current system, they file lawsuits, months go by before anything results. The plaintiff wants $25 million. The defendant wants to pay $500,000. They go along and along, and all the time the families are suffering, the plaintiffs are suffering, and maybe even dying. That is not good. Then, when it is paid, finally, some of the companies do not have the money. Some insurance companies say they are not liable for this part of the claim, and it goes on and on and on. I deeply believe we need to end this spasm. This is not good. It is not something any lawyer can be proud of. In fact, I think everybody is embarrassed by it. Let me read from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court, a former member of the ACLU--one of the more liberal Justices. This is what she wrote in 1997: The argument is sensibly made that a nationwide administrative claims processing regime would provide the most secure, fair and efficient means of compensating victims of asbestos exposure. Congress, however, has not adopted such a solution. In 1997 she wrote that; and we have been battling this ever since. Every effort has been made. Now we have proposed a $100 billion fund--not millions--$100 billion, set aside for payment of these claims. That is apparently not satisfying everyone. In Ortiz v. Fiberboard Company, in 1999, Justice Souter--another one of the liberal members of the Supreme Court--said: The elephantine mass of asbestos cases defies customary judicial administration and calls for national legislation. To date, Congress has not responded. We have people here who are filibustering this bill from even coming up, saying they are being rushed. This bill and this idea and this concept of creating a nationwide claims processing regime, as Justice Ginsburg called it, is overdue by decades. It is wrong what we are doing. It is being blocked, I can only conclude, by a partisan special interest effort. The only people who have an interest in continuing this despicable regime are a few lawyers who are getting absolutely rich from it--$54 billion, and you have a 40-percent contingency fee. Senator Hatch said, when this thing is over, lawyers would make $100 billion. And don't think it is a lot of them. It is not a lot of them. It is not the basic plaintiff bar. These lawyers have 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 cases they are handling. It is not right. It is wrong. The people who are blocking this need to be ashamed of themselves. The Supreme Court Justices have called for reform. It is threatening our economy. They develop schemes now where companies that had even the most tangential connection to asbestos are getting sued. If you can just ever tap them. If a company bought a company that dealt in asbestos, and that company had ceased dealing with asbestos for 10 years, they can be bankrupted because they have become liable for the company they bought, their actions 10, 15 years before they bought it. Do you think that is not possible? It is possible. It is happening right now. These companies and the insurance companies and the reinsurance companies have come together and put up $100 billion--$100 billion. All we need to do is set up an administrative claims processing system where persons who are sick, who have any disability, really any health defect can file a claim. Those who are not ready, those who do not have a claim, who fear they might be sick at some time in the future, can file their notice and will be given a constant monitoring of their health. If they do get sick, they can be compensated fully. So we would be getting money to the people who are sick. We would be reducing the need for these huge, outrageous legal fees from the plaintiffs' lawyers. We would be eliminating all the lawyers' fees paid by the asbestos companies. There are companies that bought asbestos companies, and people who sold brake shoes, and anybody who had anything to do with asbestos, who are being sued. Now there are 8,400 companies being sued. Most of them never produced asbestos, never knew anything about asbestos, never dealt with asbestos. So these people are willing to put up $100 billion. We simply ought to be able to establish a system by which sick people can be paid, and paid promptly, without these costs. If we do not, who is going to lose most? The plaintiffs are going to lose. These companies are going into bankruptcy. It is hurting this economy. It will continue to hurt America's economy. I thank the Presiding Officer. I appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks. I think it is important. I hope the Senate will move forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to express my appreciation to the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has served in this Senate for many years. He is himself a superb lawyer, a constitutional scholar, and has been through many of these debates. I remember on one night after 11 o'clock at night when the chairman met with everybody who had a problem. He urged them to come forward. He compromised and compromised. Frankly, sometimes I think maybe the bill has gone too far--really seriously. We need to talk about that, offer amendments to fix it. We ought bring the bill to the Senate floor and start to discuss that. But Senator Hatch has bent over backwards to make sure this legislation which is critically needed for America passes. It is critically needed for people who are sick from asbestos and those who fear they might get sick from it. I thank the chairman for his leadership. I have not known any effort that I have seen in which a chairman has gone further to try to win the support of other members in the committee and the Senators who might be dubious, to get their support. And the Senator continues to get it. I thought we had the bill completed. I thought we had everybody signed up. I yield to the chairman.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I think the Senator from Kentucky is exactly correct. We do have far too much of that. We have a lawsuit lottery mentality, jackpot justice. People file suits and they seek huge amounts of money in hopes they will recover. My daughter does some defense work in a law firm. She is a lawyer. She was telling me about a nursing home case, and a person had bed sores, and there was a big lawsuit. She said, you know what they discovered? They had learned in some way that Ronald Reagan had bed sores. These kind of things can happen, but they were having to pay a large amount of money. Maybe they were negligent, maybe they deserved to pay, but I just say there is this mentality that if something goes wrong somebody has to pay. As the Senator from Kentucky knows, the one who pays is the one who has insurance. That means the hospital or the doctor normally. They are the ones who are getting whacked. It may be that nobody investigated to see if maybe the mother drank alcohol too much during the pregnancy or something. Any number of things could have occurred that would have caused that. I conclude by saying I am pleased to see this legislation move forward. It is not insignificant. I am hearing from my physicians that they feel strongly that the quality of their lives, as well as the excellence of their practice, have been adversely impacted by litigation. A doctor was in my office recently who is a leader in the medical association. He said, Jeff, I am telling you maybe as much as 50 percent of the medicine we practice is driven out of fear of lawsuits. We could reduce the cost of medicine by a tremendous degree if we could contain the threat of lawsuits. There is no doubt that lawsuits have recompensed people who needed it for a wrong. When a person commits a wrong, they should pay. There is no doubt about it. I know the Presiding Officer and the Senator from Kentucky, in their law school there was a community standard of excellence. Everybody is not expected to be the best surgeon in America. Everyone is not expected to be the best lawyer in America. Take somebody who is a professional and they were expected to give the best skilled work they could give under the circumstances. They should not be found negligent. They should not ignore a patient. They should not fail to give the kind of care that everybody knows ought to be given. But just because one person has a steadier hand or has more experience maybe and can do a surgery slightly better than another one does not mean, and never has meant under American law, that there is a liability question. I think the Senator from Kentucky is correct. What has concerned me is the erosion of the standard of negligence and error. A physician or a hospital should commit an error, negligence, before they should be required to compensate someone who has had an unfortunate result in that hospital. We have gotten away from that. This bill, of course, allows for full recompense for damages and injury for any cost for medical care; any cost for future treatment or hospitalization, which in a lifetime could be millions of dollars; $250,000 in pain and suffering, in addition to the compensatory costs; and $250,000 or twice the compensatory damages for punitive damages. Those things are allowed for in the bill; it just simply says there is a limit. When a person can sue somebody for $50 million and get a jury--juries really have a difficult time deciding between $2 million and $30 million, and they come up with $15 million. How did they come up with that number? This says that one gets fully compensated for however much it costs, for any damages that are sustained as a result of the negligence of a physician. In addition to that, one can get punitive damages and pain and suffering, but it is limited. I think that would go a long way to making lawsuits settleable so both sides know the framework they are operating under. Then a lawsuit can be settled. Without a limit on the top, it is very difficult to settle that lawsuit. I believe this is good legislation. I hope it can move forward. I hope we do not see it obstructed and blocked as we have others. I hope we can get an up-or-down vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. One more question. Has not the question of fault always been the cornerstone of American law with regard to lawsuits and negligence and liability, that somebody has to be at fault, have done something beyond the standard of care to cause a damage? That is when there is a lawsuit. Is not getting away from that one of the reasons that we are having so much abuse in the legal system?

Mr. SESSIONS. If the Senator will yield, I would note that Professor Schwartz, as I said, the editor of the most utilized textbook on lawsuits and torts in America, strongly supports the legislation. He feels it is appropriate. I will ask the Senator, does he not agree, based on his experience as an attorney, that we have muddled over and glossed over the question of fault? In the Senator's bill, if they sell food that is contaminated and a person gets sick, if they sell food that has a bug in it or something, somebody can still sue. If the food is unhealthy a person can sue, but if it is perfectly healthy food and it is the food one ordered they ought not to be able to bring a lawsuit. Is that not the intent of the Senator's legislation?

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I would be delighted to.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Pregnancy and Trauma Care Access Protection Act of 2004 that is now before the Senate is a matter of very real importance to real Americans. I have a good friend, an obstetrician, in Mobile, AL. We go to church together. He teaches Sunday school class. He is a former president of the State association, as I recall. He was talking to me at church a few months ago about a doctor who left the practice. His malpractice insurance was around $80,000, and he delivered around 80 children a year. That is $1,000 per delivery that doctor paid for malpractice insurance. This is a reality. I was with a doctor I know from the group that treats my mother in Mobile, AL, just a week ago, and he told me people in the profession are retiring earlier and earlier because they are getting tired of the stress and strain of being micro-managed through litigation; that people do not have to do that after a number of years and good people are leaving the practice over this issue. Everybody in this body will say we need to do something about it; it is time for us to fix it; there is a problem; and we need to do this and that. But there is a strong influence, I have to say, from the trial bar in the Senate. They are very active politically, everybody knows it. They are aggressive, and they contribute large sums of money. Just a very few lawyers contribute large sums of money to political campaigns, and so far they have been able to block reforms. The Senator from Kentucky, the assistant majority leader, Mr. McConnell, proposed legislation that would eliminate lawsuits against restaurants and food companies if somebody gets fat. You go to the store and you ask for Little Debbie's. They sell them to you. That is what you want, isn't it, for Heaven's sake? They want to sue the company that gave the customer what they wanted. It is legal, so there should not be a cause of action under any definition of law. At that hearing, the premier witness, without a doubt, was Professor Schwartz, who is the editor of the most widely used textbook on torts in America. We got into a little bit of a philosophical discussion because some people suggest that it somehow is not legitimate that we in Congress should pass a law involving lawsuits; that it ought to be left to the sanctified courts; that they are somehow better than the political branch, and that we ought to never pass a law that affects the courts. Of course, that is hogwash. I asked him about that, and he said it plainly and we discussed it at some length. Congress says what the statute of limitations is. If you file a lawsuit within 2 years, 5 years, 6 years, but 1 day late, you have no lawsuit; it is out; the statute of limitations runs. Congress sets that limitation. Every State has limitations on damages. We create causes of actions that have never existed before by explicit statutory action. There is a law in the code that if somebody rolls back your odometer and you sue them, you get an automatic $1,500 if you can prove they rolled back your odometer. In Kentucky, I am sure they roll back some odometers. Most cars we get in Alabama are rolled back in Tennessee, Mr. President, and are shipped to the State. We created that cause of action--it never existed before--for actual damages, whatever would be sufficient. I filed a lawsuit under it one time. I say all that to say Professor Schwartz is correct. We have every right to look at what is happening in America. I am not going to talk at length tonight, but I say we have a serious problem in this country that is impacting health care in America. It is reducing the number of physicians who are willing to practice, particularly to deliver babies. I was in Ashland, AL, the hometown of Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, in Clay County. I visited their hospital because our prescription drug bill did a lot for rural hospitals. We had a big meeting and everybody was there. They talked about how the year before they had given up the delivery of babies in Ashland, AL, at that hospital. They no longer deliver babies in the State. I have some numbers that were pretty dramatic to me that indicated how many of these hospitals had quit delivering children. Why? Because they get sued. The amount of malpractice it takes to do that is rather dramatic. According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, only 58 hospitals in Alabama have labor and delivery services. That is down from 70 in 1999. Twelve hospitals since 1999 have quit delivering children. Only 14 of the hospitals that are left have full-time neonatologists and neonatal intensive care units. Those 14 are located in the five biggest cities: Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa. Those are big issues. Thirty-four of the 67 counties in the State do not have OB delivery services. That was not true 30 years ago. This is a recent trend. Sometimes it is better, I will admit, that a person go to a hospital, but we have a lot of people who believe in midwives because of the bonding and the personal attention a mother gets. They believe in that. I am not a believer in that. But a good doctor who knows the family, who knows the mother, maybe they go to church together, who cares about the family, used to deliver babies in a large way in Alabama. That kind of practice is going away today. We are creating a circumstance in which fewer and fewer people are willing to undergo that type of practice. Health insurance is way up. The delivery of health care has been constricted as a result of unnecessary, oftentimes illegitimate lawsuits. In fact, it has almost gotten to the point where a physician who delivers a child is held to be a guarantor of the healthiness of that child. If something is wrong, too often somebody looks around to find somebody to sue; the doctor who did it or the hospital in which it was delivered is the one who is sued.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to celebrate the good employment news we received today. I think it is important for us to at least take a few moments to celebrate what was revealed today in the March employment figures released by the Department of Labor statistics. I just left a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee, of which I am a member. It was held in the House this time. We had the Department of Labor statistician give those reports. They were good numbers indeed. There were 308,000 new jobs added this month. Since last fall, we have added over 700,000 new jobs. These are not vague numbers. These new jobs are payroll jobs that are identified easily because these are payroll jobs where the employer is sending the money to the Federal Government for Social Security, Medicare, and income tax withholding. These are really hard numbers. For some time, we have had a divergence between the household survey and the payroll numbers. Payroll numbers have not been as good as the household numbers. Household numbers are a survey of homes in America. Many think they are even more accurate, because they ask whether you are employed and whether you are working. The truth is a lot of people do not show up on a payroll because they are self-employed, they are consultants, or they operate a business out of their home. They help their spouse or family member with a job. They do not show up on a payroll. Also, a large number of people are working here illegally and are not counted. That is something we need to get more serious about. It is odd to me that Members in this Senate who are most angry and most upset about unemployment seem to have no concern whatsoever about how many jobs are being taken by people coming into this country illegally. We are a nation of immigrants, and we believe in immigration. But we also want to know who is coming to make sure they are coming legally, they are not terrorists, and that they are not flooding our job market and putting Americans out of work who could have had those jobs. So the question becomes, where did all these new jobs come from? I think we can say with some fairness and objectivity with the history of our current situation--not to try to be partisan in any way--President Bush last year said he believed this economy was not where it should be. Our unemployment rate was not where it should be. It was too high. We needed to increase employment in America, and we needed to increase growth. The way you increase employment in this country is to increase growth, so we set out to do that. What did we do? We carried through on a plan to stimulate this economy through tax cuts for American citizens, businesses, and investment. We began to see some real change. Growth began to occur. During the third quarter of last year, growth was 8.2 percent. That is the highest rate of growth in 20 years. The fourth quarter was over 4 percent. We expect, according to Mr. Greenspan, growth this year to be 5 percent. That is a tremendous level of growth. It is something we should be very proud of. Economists also say that growth creates jobs. If the economy does not grow, if businesses are not expanding, then they don't hire people. You don't have jobs created. If you want to create jobs, you have to have growth. So we have created growth. There has been some concern about the number of jobs added as we began to grow. It has not been at the rate we would like to see. It is somewhat below historical averages. You would think jobs would increase faster considering the highest level of growth we have seen, but as we heard in the hearing this morning I attended--and I think most economists would agree--the problem has been productivity. Productivity has a short-term adverse impact on employment, but it is not a problem in the long term. Increased productivity means that a plant, a factory, or a business is doing better than they have done before. They are producing more widgets at less cost and less employment, and they are more efficient. In the long run, that is good. In the short run, it could mean an increase in unemployment. We have had incredible increases in productivity and this has made us competitive in the world market. If you do not have productivity increases, how can a high-wage country like the United States compete with other countries around the world that pay less wages? Productivity is the key to our being competitive in the world market. Everybody who is honest and who understands the situation would agree with that. But it has caused us to lag in jobs. Growth is occurring. Now we see a 308,000-person increase in employment this month. It is really good news. I think it is something we should celebrate. There has been so much political rhetoric going on. President Bush is a strong leader. He takes responsibility. He says he is not satisfied right now with the employment level in our country, although this unemployment rate we have today is below the 20-year average for unemployment in America. It is an unemployment rate that existed when President Clinton ran for reelection last time. The unemployment rate of 5.7 percent is not an extreme situation when viewed in historical terms. In fact, today's unemployment rate is less than the average rate for the decade of the 1980s and its less than the average rate for the decade of the 1990s. Let me show you this chart that I think is pretty dramatic. It is entitled, ``Best Is Yet To Come, U.S. Picked to Have the Strongest Gross Domestic Product Growth Over Next Year.'' These were economists picking which countries have the greatest economic growth this year. The United States is almost 5 percent. All the rest of the countries--Australia, Canada, Britain, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, France, Euro Area, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands--all have lower growth. Whose economy is doing well? Our economy is doing well. Why? We are doing better for several reasons. One is we have lower taxes than those countries. Another is that we have fewer regulations than those countries. We are committed to a more free market economy. That produces growth. That is the engine for American prosperity. It always has been, and we should never abandon that and move to the Socialist state economies in these other countries. This is tremendous. How people can come around and whine and complain and grumble about the kind of situation we are in now is beyond me. This chart shows the gross domestic product growth in the past 12 months. The United States has the highest growth in gross domestic product of all of these nations: Australia, Japan, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Austria, France, Euro Area, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. All of those countries have lower growth rates than we do. The European Union unemployment rate is 8.8. Ours is 5.7. Canada's is 7.4. Something is being done right here. We are not quite as bad as people would like to moan and groan about. We just added 300,000 new payroll jobs last month. These are not survey jobs. These are people who are on the payroll and who are paying withholding taxes--Social Security and Medicare taxes. These are substantially payroll and employment taxes. Things are moving along pretty well. I have been concerned. I don't think it is fair that many on the other side have blamed President Bush because the economy has not done as well as we would like and it slipped into recession. I will take a moment to explain some things. Back when former President Bush was President, he had been in office a year or so, the Reagan boom had been going on, and all of a sudden we got into a slowdown. A lot of economists know why it occurred, but we got into a slowdown. We had negative growth a couple of quarters when former President Bush was in office, about his second year in office. President Clinton ran for office and said: It's the economy, stupid. He said the economy was bad and President Bush would be removed from office and he won, to a large degree, on that issue. The truth was, by the time President Clinton took office, the economy had grown during the fourth year of President Bush's Presidency and President Clinton inherited a growing economy. The fourth quarter of President Bush's last year in office showed significant growth. So it is clear: President Clinton inherited a growing economy when he took office. And for most of his two terms in office, the economy performed well. I guess he gets credit for that, although I am not sure how much any President deserves credit for these things, but they think they do. So they get the credit and the blame, whether they deserve it or not. So President Clinton enters office and the economy goes along well for a while. But it was in trouble his last year in office. And during the 2000 campaign President Clinton and Vice President Gore spent a lot of time saying how wonderful the economy was and how much his Vice President, Mr. Gore, deserved credit for it, but, this just wasn't so. In fact, the economy had already begun to sink dramatically during President Clinton's last year in office. For example, the NASDAQ exchange lost one-half of its value during the last year of President Clinton's tenure and before President Bush took office. When President Clinton was President, the economy was in trouble. Another fact is that during the third quarter of President Clinton's last year in office the economy experienced negative growth. To compound the problem further, the first quarter President Bush inherited also experienced negative growth, even though the President hadn't been in office long enough to have this slowdown occur as the result of any of his policies. The fact is, President Bush inherited an economy from President Clinton that was already in trouble. There was no doubt about it. The numbers I have given are indisputable. President Bush's opponents want to ignore them and pretend that these facts did not happen. They want to promote the myth that President Bush is responsible for this economy, for the economic troubles we had, not that he inherited them. But to his credit, President Bush has not whined or complained about the economic problems he inherited. Instead, he set about on a program to get our economy moving again by empowering the American people. He did this by allowing people to keep more of the money they earn instead of sending it to Washington to be spent by this gaggle in the Senate and the House. This President trusts the American people. In a nutshell his program is based on the premise that our economy functions best when we put more money into the hands of the people who earned it in the first place. And the President's approach has created this growth we are now seeing. It resulted in 8.20-percent growth the third quarter of last year. It resulted in significant growth in the fourth quarter of last year. It is an approach that leads many people, such as Alan Greenspan, to predict the economy many sustain GDP growth of 5% this year. And it is an approach that has helped create the 300,000 new jobs we celebrate today. Things are moving well. We want to see it continue. We want to see the unemployment numbers fall, and we want to see continued growth in productivity and jobs. In the long run, growth will determine whether we are successful as an economy and whether people will have jobs. We hear all these things about China and Mexico being a threat to us, outsourcing and all these problems, and we need to look at every single one of them and be very protective of jobs in America. The President of the United States understands this. He understands that he is not president of the European Union. He is not president of the world. President Bush understands that he represents the United States of America. He is working every day to help our interests. We have a lot to celebrate with these numbers today. They are really good. If we could maintain something close to that for the next 4, 5, or 6 months, we will feel a difference in income and revenue to the Government. We have 300,000 people now paying money to the Federal Government in taxes. One reason we have had a revenue shortage is because we have had less employment, so they are paying less taxes. If businesses are in a recession, they do not make a profit; the corporation does not pay a tax unless they make a profit. Maybe we are back in the mood of growth and profitability and hiring that will make a difference not only in jobs for American citizens but maybe it will also make a difference for revenue to our Government and help us get this budget balanced again, which is something I feel very strongly about. These tax reductions have been mischaracterized. Right now, we are dealing with it, as part of our budget process that we need to complete. We need to extend the child tax credit of $1,000 per child for a working family in America today. The marriage penalty falls on working families and the expansion of the 10-percent bracket--in other words, people who are used to paying 15 percent income taxes--the lower income taxpayers, some pay 10 percent, the middle group pays 15 percent--more people will be paying at a lower rate. All of those are in doubt right now. We need to make that happen, allow the American people to keep more of their money, follow the great American tradition--not the European Socialist tradition--the American tradition of individual responsibility, lower taxes, free markets, less regulation, and we will continue to beat the world in economic growth and productivity. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am inclined to want to say: Here we go again. We have a good bill, founded on, and built upon, a welfare reform bill that passed a number of years ago that has had extraordinary success. We now have about half as many people in America on welfare as there were before. I guess the average American would think we have saved money, but, of course, that is not so. The way we give money to the States, fundamentally, is they get the same amount of money, no matter how many people are on the rolls, and they get to focus that money more on the people who are on welfare. And we have not saved money. In addition, we have come up with a new welfare reform bill that I believe does a lot of good things. It will encourage work. It will encourage family formation. It will encourage stable family units and be positive in a number of different ways. So I think it is a good bill. But even though the number of people on welfare is down, even though that number has continued to drop during the times of economic activity that we have seen in the recent past, we are not saving any money. The bill itself, the fundamental bill, has a $1 billion increase in funding. And now, on top of that, we have a $6 billion childcare program added on top. Now, having served on the Budget Committee, as I know the Presiding Officer has, we wrestled hard with these numbers. We wrestled hard with these numbers, and we criticized ourselves, and we told ourselves--over and over again--we have to start restraining what we do in terms of spending. We have had people on the other side complain mightily about budget deficits over and over again. Oh, they are concerned about our budget deficits. But when we have a bill to add a huge new spending program to a welfare bill that, truthfully, ought to come in flat, at least, if not reducing the amount of welfare--since we have half as many people on welfare as we used to have--we now tack on to that $1 billion fundamental welfare reform a $6 billion childcare reform. To my knowledge--I am on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--we have not discussed childcare in our committee. I do not believe there has been any formal or thorough hearings in the Finance Committee. Just boom, right on top of this bill, $6 billion. Sock it to the taxpayer. Oh, they say it is going to be paid for by Customs user fees. Every bill that comes through here that is unfunded they say it is going to be paid for by Customs user fees. Surely, we will have some revenue come out of Customs user fees, but it is just revenue, just money that is coming into our Government when we are in a time of substantial deficit. So we are going to spend that, not to fund programs we have out there now that need it, but we are going to spend that new money, they tell us, in this bill on an entirely new childcare program. Let me show this chart. This chart gives an indication that this Congress has not been insensitive to childcare in America. And let me say this, something we do not think about: We have fought in this Congress, and we need to reauthorize this year, the child tax credit, which provides $1,000 per year for every child in America so families can use that money for childcare or anything else they need--$1,000 per child. For a three-child family, $3,000. They have that money they can utilize as they choose. Not only that, we are reducing the marriage penalty. When people get married, they pay more taxes. Not only that, we have reduced the 15- percent bracket, or expanded the 10-percent bracket, so that more people will be paying income tax rates at 10 percent rather than 15 percent. It is a substantial reduction for them, a one-third reduction in the amount of income tax lower income working Americans will be paying. Those are good things we have done without any bureaucracy or anything of that nature. Look at this chart. This shows the various childcare programs we have in America. Total childcare spending, Federal and State--about $6 billion of it is State--$23 billion per year. Now, I am telling you, that is a major commitment by this Congress and the American people to deal with childcare. But there is a limit to what we do here. We have reduced people on welfare by 50 percent. Are we saving any money for the taxpayers? No. We are adding a $1 billion increase in this bill to help that remaining 50 percent to be positive contributors, to have education and training and jobs and other assets and childcare. As a matter of fact, this welfare reform bill will unlock $2 billion that is sitting out there right now. This $2 billion, because of the regulations, is not being able to be utilized. That $2 billion, when it is unlocked, will be available for childcare or whatever the State managers of these programs deem to use it for. I wish we had the money to fund everybody who wanted to have childcare, to just let them have it. I wish we had the money. I wish we had the money to do a lot of things around here, but we are in a period of deficit. We need to maintain integrity in spending.

Mr. SESSIONS. That will be fine. The Senator from Wisconsin was here before I was.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for his leadership on this issue. He has taken the issue and considered it thoughtfully and prepared a seven-page piece of legislation that I believe, as a former prosecutor, stands the test of careful draftsmanship and is worthy of passage. I believe we have a majority in the Senate prepared to pass this legislation. But it is threatened by this amendment. The Senator is correct that if this amendment passes, this bill will not become law. So a vote for this amendment is a vote against the underlying legislation. I further say the amendment--the 158-page amendment--is not so carefully drafted, has quite a number of problems, and does not deal effectively with the issue that the Senator seeks to promote. The day before yesterday, in my office, I met with a group of people from one of America's great corporations, an international corporation. I asked the human resources officer--and I asked them all--how things were going out there and what can we do to help, what problems do they have. The human resources officer said: The one thing causing us the most grief is the Family Leave Act. For a lot of different reasons, complex reasons, this act is subject to abuse. We certainly believe and support a mother being home with a young child. We support the purposes of the act, but there are problems with it. We would like for you to look at it and see. That was shared with me the other day. It was totally unrelated to this 158-page amendment that has not undergone careful scrutiny, and I believe goes much further and provides benefits that far exceed what is under the current Family Leave Act, which has problems with it. We need to, as Members, be careful what we pass, what we mandate on private entities, and what we tell them they must do. We should do so in a way that furthers the public policy we want to further, which is to help families who need leave for family emergencies. We want to do that, and the act does it in many different ways. But it is not perfect. This amendment is even less perfect. Let me show you a couple things we discovered in a brief reading of the Murray amendment. It says: The term ``victim of domestic or sexual violence'' includes an individual whose family or household member has been a victim of domestic or sexual violence. Clearly, I think I can say, as a former prosecutor, that would include the perpetrator. That would include the wrongdoer. So now is the wrongdoer going to be able to ask for time off? The law would mandate it, I suspect. Some say that would not happen. But I am telling you, people use the law as it is written to further their agendas when they want to. Maybe he had to go to court to defend himself, and he is going to claim time off for that. I bet you his lawyer would say he is entitled to time off. Here is another one: The term ``employee'' means any person employed by an employer on a full or part-time basis, for a fixed time period, on a temporary basis, pursuant to a detail, or as an independent contractor. That is not even in the current Federal Leave Act. So we have added this statement. So the businessperson has to take care and provide leave or suffer. I think that is a step to which we ought to give a lot of thought before we put it into law. Another thing that hit me in talking with this lady the day before yesterday, and talking about problems with the act, is the difficulty of a business in having any proof to ascertain that the person really does need leave. Under the act, after you get one approval, say, for a child's asthma, you never have to present proof again, or even just make a statement that it is so and the businesses are bound by it. A lot of businesses on a manufacturing basis try to do things well. They have a team that produces a product. When one member of that team unexpectedly or routinely misses, it makes it difficult for them. If they have a legitimate excuse, OK. This says: An employee may satisfy the certification requirement of paragraph (1) by providing to the employer . . . a sworn statement of the employee. That automatically takes care of it--no proof of a doctor's certificate, a lawyer's statement, or anything else. I just point that out. The hour is late. As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as Senator Enzi said so eloquently and in detail, these issues need to be given careful thought. Let's don't kill this underlying bill Senator DeWine worked so hard on and has dealt with so many Members of this body to refine language so everybody can agree to it and it will have a majority vote. Let's don't kill this legislation that is important to protecting those unborn victims of violence in America by tacking on an amendment that is not ready, that has problems with it, on which we have not had hearings and should not be added to this bill, anyway. If it is added to the bill, the bill will be in trouble. I thank the Chair. I thank Senator DeWine for his leadership. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his excellent comments as usual. He is a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. He is a small businessman and has a talent, more than most people in this body, of understanding how this economy works and what we need to do to create more jobs. I think the job situation has shown some real improvement. We were at 6.3-percent unemployment last June. It has dropped consistently, and we are now at 5.6-percent unemployment. The numbers show that is about the average rate of unemployment over the last 20 years. Growth in the third quarter of last year was over 8 percent, the highest growth of GDP in 20 years, and the first time jobless claims have dropped to the lowest since 2001; that is, people who file for unemployment compensation. That is a good hard number that tells us something about the economy. Every day people who lose jobs in this volatile economy can claim their unemployment compensation. Those claims are dropping and continue to drop, and jobs have been added for the last 6 months, consecutively. So this is some good news, but we are not satisfied. We would like to see record lows of unemployment. We would like to see the economy growing at such a rate that people will have choices among higher paying jobs, they can make more money, have an opportunity to work overtime if they choose, bank that money, make bonuses, and have good health care. So what is it that is occurring? This jumpstart bill dealing with the FSC/ETI program that has us in a confrontation with Europe is not going to go away. I was confident everybody in this body understood the WTO ruling and how it could adversely affect jobs in America and that we need to pass some legislation to fix it and get on with life. The committees worked on it, the House and the Senate worked on it, and they came up with this jumpstart bill and now we find it blocked. We cannot get it up for an up-or-down vote. It was blocked by filibuster, led by Senator Daschle, the Democratic leader. If they do not filibuster the bill, they filibuster going to conference, which also in effect kills legislation. So we have obstruction, obstruction, obstruction. This is not good. We should do this bill. If we cannot agree on this bill, it is going to be part of the partisan obstruction agenda, then we really have to go to the American people and we need to talk to them about what is happening in their Senate. We need to ask the American people, when they are selecting Senators to come to this body--and they will be doing that soon--do they want Senators who are going to participate in obstructing needed legislation that is important for jobs? Maybe we are not at that point. Maybe this Senate can get itself back together, but the trends are really disturbing to me. The trends indicate a concerted effort to block, through one method or another, important legislation that is good for this country. There was a lot of effort on the asbestos legislation we passed out of the Judiciary Committee. Senator Hatch, the chairman of the committee, put his heart into it. It was a bipartisan vote to come out of committee. It is being blocked. As many as 60 asbestos companies are in bankruptcy or on the verge of bankruptcy. The unions at those companies are beginning to realize the litigation over asbestos is killing off our industry, which represents thousands and thousands of jobs. We need to move that to final passage, but it looks like it is going to be blocked, too, perhaps. I hope not. Something is wrong in the American legal system when defendant companies are willing to pay out billions of dollars in benefits to people who have ingested asbestos and only 40 percent of what they pay out gets to the victims. Sixty percent of it goes to lawyers. Sixty percent of it is eaten up in court costs and expenses. This bill would fix that. Most people could simply make a claim and get a check if they are entitled to it, just like that. People who are not sick do not get paid until they do get sick, if they do. They will be monitored, be given health monitoring and all that makes for a good and rational way to compensate people who may become ill from asbestos. As many as 60 companies could be in trouble that could actually go bankrupt. Is this going to create jobs in America to allow that to occur? We reached an agreement that had bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee that could make this happen. It will get more money to the people who are sick. They will not have to pay 60 percent of it in legal fees, and other costs will not come out of it. That is what we ought to be doing to create jobs. A lot of these companies dealt with asbestos 20 years ago and have not dealt with it since. Yet their whole company is being put into bankruptcy because of it. It is one more example of what we need to do. Class action suits are a part of our noncompetitiveness in the world. There are such high insurance costs so many of our companies are paying because of litigation. It is unprecedented. We have that in medical liability, which is driving up the costs of medicine in America. We can do those things that do not cost the taxpayer a dime. We can create a fairer, more rational system of law in the country, reduce the costs of the American economy so more money can go to jobs. I know the President deeply believed in and supported the production of oil and gas in ANWR. I have heard people complain recently they are upset that the price of gasoline has gone up. They have said, oh, they are so surprised and hurt, and it must be President Bush's fault. For years in this body we have been debating the production of this huge amount of oil and gas from the ANWR region of Alaska. It can be done scientifically. It can be done without damage to the environment. It can produce billions of dollars in oil and gas, keeping that money here. If I recall the numbers, it was 600,000 jobs that might be created by that pipeline and that production. That is what the unions who supported this told us, 600,000 jobs, keeping American money at home. Who do we want to pay for oil and gas, the people in Alaska and keep it in the United States, or do we want to send the money to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or some other foreign country? We can do that. We are driving up the cost of energy as a result of unwise practices. In fact, I think the failure to drill in ANWR is one of the most absurd decisions this Congress has ever made. Frankly, we need to produce more natural gas off the coasts. If we do not, we are going to see a surge in natural gas prices that is also going to cost us jobs in the long run. We can do that. We can do it safely, just as we are doing it safely today. Twenty percent of our electricity comes from nuclear power, yet we have had in this body, from Members on the left, a blocking of efforts to allow nuclear power to expand. Twenty-four hours a day, 7 days a week, nuclear power generates electricity with no carbon emissions into the environment, no pollution into the air. We ought to do that. France is going that way. Japan is going that way. We are sitting around shutting off natural gas production, attacking coal generation of power, not allowing production in ANWR and off our coasts. We are doing all that and then we moan and groan when the economy has to sustain a higher cost for energy. I think it is not good. The American people need to ask, who is at fault here? Who is blocking this? We are in an unprecedented period of obstruction, it seems to me. I have never seen anything like it. I thought we could at least pass this jumpstart bill to deal with our world trade problem. Surely we can agree on that. If we cannot agree on that, it indicates to me there is a systematic period of obstruction going on in this body, and it is not healthy for America. It is going to cost American jobs. It is irresponsible and wrong. We need to be strengthening this economy. The economy is growing right now. A lot of good things are happening. For heaven's sake, why would we want to demonstrate to the financial community and to world investors the United States cannot get its act together on this trade problem? That would be a very bad signal. We somehow have to come together on this. I hope we can respect majority leader Bill Frist. I know he is working tirelessly to do what he can to get support for this legislation. It was 51 votes to 47, but that is not enough. A majority supports it, as they support so many other things in this body, but if we do not get that 60 when a determined leadership on the other side obstructs the legislation, then we still cannot get it up for a final vote. I am frustrated. I think a lot of us are. Hopefully something will happen. Maybe Senator Daschle will meet and talk with Senator Frist and that can help us move beyond the blocking of this important legislation. I certainly hope so. I think the ball is in his court. We have a responsibility to the American people to pass this Jumpstart bill and get out of this fix with international trade rules that can hurt us. We need to do it. I hope that can happen but, frankly, from what we have been seeing, I don't think it is likely. I appreciate the opportunity to share these remarks and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to continue to discuss the white- collar exemptions on the overtime legislation and the amendment we are dealing with. I want to express how frustrating it is to see a very carefully constructed proposal by the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, being mischaracterized, therefore placing fear in the American people through the misrepresentation of the nature of these regulations. First of all, Secretary Chao is one of the finest public servants I know. From the time she gets to work in the morning until the time she gets home late at night, she is committed to making this a better country, a good country to live and work in. She wants to do something about these regulations that have not been changed since 1954 in any significant way. They need to be updated. Her proposed rule changes have received 70,000 comments. The Department of Labor is considering those, and they ought to be able to update these regulations. There is no doubt about it. It is time to do that. The impact has been completely misrepresented. We need to talk about it. I think the reason, frankly, is that we are in a political season. People want to make this a political issue. If they can go around and say, Mean old President Bush wants to deny you your overtime and you can't get overtime anymore, and they can stir this up and make these complaints, then they think some people might believe it. But it is not right. What is being said is not right. It is not fair. The Department of Labor has proposed changes to the regulations governing the overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act, also known as the white-collar exemption. The regulations defining which workers are entitled to overtime were written in 1954 and have not been updated to reflect the ongoing changes in the workplace. Today's workers are operating under the rules that are 50 years old. These rules include job descriptions like ``gang leader,'' ``ratesetter,'' and ``Linotype operator.'' Therefore, it is easy to understand why many businesses have trouble identifying which workers qualify for overtime and which are exempt under current law. The proposed rule increases the minimum salary requirements for overtime from as low as $155 a week to $425 a week. Let me talk about that. Let us get this straight. A worker making as little as $155 a week today could be denied overtime if they are classified in a supervisor capacity. Under the rules of the Secretary of Labor, if you made $425 a week or less, you are automatically entitled to overtime no matter what job title some business might give you. That is going to help a lot of people, I submit. According to the Department of Labor, this change would result in 1.3 million Americans who earn less than $22,100 per year being guaranteed overtime compensation. That is not so now. A worker can be classified as some sort of supervisor making $18,000 or $20,000 a year and not get overtime. Under the current regulations, a person earning $14,300 annually who works behind the counter at a restaurant, for example, and is called a manager could be denied overtime compensation. The new regulations would guarantee overtime pay to this person and others making less than $22,100. They would be guaranteed it. That is a lot of people. It means a lot to those people. Additionally, the Department of Labor projects 10.7 million workers who currently qualify for overtime will have all of those protections strengthened, including nurses, chefs, secretaries, unionized workers, and first responders. Following discussions with the Department of Labor, the Fraternal Order of Police, a major organization representing thousands of police officers who we deal with from the Judiciary Committee on a regular basis and who is actively engaged in defending the interests of their members, released a statement recognizing the fact that police officers will still receive overtime compensation under these new regulations. The President of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury, said: Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Chao, we have no doubt that overtime pay will continue to be available to those officers currently receiving it and, if the new rules are approved, even more of our Nation's police officers, firefighters, and EMTs will be eligible for overtime. This development was possible because this is an Administration that listens to the concerns of the FOP, and because of their commitment to our Nation's first responders. I think that is a strong statement. And for months now we have been hearing how these regulations are going to hurt policemen, firemen, and emergency medical technicians. That is not true. It is false. In fact, it is going to guarantee a lot of people overtime who are not receiving it today. According to the Human Resource Policy Association, the proposed changes would impact about 12.6 million workers--it sounds like a lot-- 12.6 million workers out of 134 million workers. About 10 percent of workers would be affected. Of that 12.6 million affected, 12 million would now qualify for overtime or have their current overtime protections strengthened--not reduced, strengthened--12 million out of 12.6 million who are affected will have their protections strengthened. The other 644,000 workers--highly educated individuals earning an average of $50,000 per year--might be subject to reclassification under these regulations. That is what it is focusing on. The proposed rules would clarify the regulations affecting millions of workers. By updating these rules, the Department of Labor would ease the burden on employees and employers who find it difficult to navigate the often confusing and outdated regulations governing proper compensation, including overtime pay. Additionally, the Department will be better able to enforce the law once clarifications are made. I know the Presiding Officer is a lawyer, a former attorney general and justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and knows litigation. As a lawyer in private practice not too many years ago--maybe not long before I came to the Senate in the mid 1990s--I represented a friend I grew up with who is a bulldozer operator, a heavy equipment operator. He is a good guy. He had a dispute with his employer. He thought maybe he was entitled to overtime pay because he ran heavy equipment. The company said, No, you are a contractor. I said, Friend, I think you are right. We filed a lawsuit, and we had to go to court. We eventually settled before trial, and we got him overtime. I think he was legally entitled to overtime under current Federal regulations. Whether he should have been, I do not know. But it makes it clear that these rules and regulations are confusing. He had to pay me a lawyer's fee to represent him. I do not know how much it cost the court or how much it cost the company to pay their lawyer to defend the lawsuit. But this kind of thing happens too much. I represented one more overtime case. She was a clerical person at an entity, and she thought she was being unfairly treated. I looked at her case and it was not a lot of money. I talked to her and I thought she was right. We filed a lawsuit. They agreed eventually to pay her overtime after some haggling and discussion back and forth. Do you know where she worked? Do you know who her employer was? It was a union local. They agreed to pay and they admitted she was not properly paid overtime. If we make it clearer so that it is indisputable what overtime is and what it is not, we will see less confusion. Lawsuits over violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act are increasing each year. According to the HR Policy Association, in 2001 the number of Fair Labor Standards Act class action lawsuits actually exceeded the number of Equal Employment Opportunity class action lawsuits. In Carpenter v. R.M. Shoemaker Company, the court ruled that a project superintendent making around $90,000 annually was not an exempt employee and was thus entitled to overtime even though the employee supervised three large construction projects for a construction management company. These laws are complex. If I were a plaintiff and I were representing someone, I would try to figure out a way to get my client in there and get them overtime, too. But I don't think that is what Congress had in mind when it created a statute where a guy making $90,000 a year that supervises three large construction projects can receive overtime compensation. That sounds like a supervisor to me. I bet the company did not lose the lawsuit for any other reason than there was probably a violation of the complex Federal law written in 1954, 50 years ago. In Hashop v. Rockwell Space Operations, the court decided that ``network communications systems instructors'' who had advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, and engineering, and trained personnel were not exempt because they used technical manuals and made decisions in groups. These things are pretty complicated. Under the current rule we have employees earning $90,000 a year or possessing advanced degrees qualifying for overtime. This is not the low-wage worker we keep hearing about in our debate. Fundamentally that is what Secretary Chao's regulations are focused on, these high-wage employees who are supervisors and are slipping in and claiming overtime when that was not the intention of Congress. Many employers worry about incurring large unexpected litigation costs due to their inability to properly interpret these confusing rules. Even lawyers and Department of Labor investigators can have difficulty deciphering the line between exempt and nonexempt employees. By clarifying the line--who is a salaried employee and who is not--we can reduce the number of lawsuits brought under this section, and we can make sure more people get paid overtime properly from the very beginning. If you make less than $22,100 a year, you get overtime. That is a bright line. That is what we ought to have more of, more bright lines in this Congress so there is a lot less confusion. If you make less than that, you get overtime. That will pick up a tremendous number of people today who have been classified as some sort of manager or supervisor but have made much less than $22,100 and, as a result of these changes, they are going to gain benefits. I believe far more will benefit than will lose under these proposed regulations. By clarifying that, we can reduce lawsuits. In 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, the Congress instructed the Secretary of Labor to make changes to the white-collar exemption rules. That was part of the congressional instruction, to make changes in the white-collar exemption rules. It was understood, I assume, at that time that they had not worked everything out fully and more work needed to be done on these regulations. The Department of Labor has now issued these proposed regulations. They issued them in March of last year. Everyone has seen them. They have been published. They have received in response to these proposed regulations over 70,000 comments during the 90-day comment period. Secretary Chao is doing her job. She is seeking to update and modernize these regulations to make them fit the contemporary needs of America today. We do not have gang leaders being paid wages today. I don't think that job description any longer exists. There is a lot of need for improvement and change. Secretary Chao is on the right track. They will continue to refine these regulations if there is a problem. There is no plot here to try to undermine the right of working Americans to receive overtime. That is a completely bogus and political argument we are in at this time. Frankly, politics is intervening too much in our debate of late. I guess that is the nature of American government. We will have to put up with it. I am getting a bellyful of it and think we need to set the record straight whenever possible. I am looking at another group that has been asserted would lose benefits under this, the Non-Commissioned Officers Association of the United States of America. They wrote a letter to Bill Frist, the majority leader in the Senate. They said: It is a blinding glimpse of the obvious that neither the current rules nor the revised proposal will negatively impact those who serve or have served in the [United States] uniformed services. In fact, this association's direct discussions with DOL leads us to the conclusion that the proposed rule relative to the revised ceiling for annual income (increased from $8,060 to $13,000) will greatly expand the pool of eligible workers for overtime compensation. I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.