Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, it has been an honor to be with Dr. Karl Stegall this morning and to be blessed by his prayer. He is pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Montgomery, AL. First Methodist is one of the great Methodist churches in Alabama, and, in fact, of all of Methodism. It has had two of its pastors become United Methodist bishops. Indeed, Karl himself was endorsed by the 600 pastors and 600 laity of the Alabama-West Florida Conference for the Episcopality several years ago. Karl grew up in rural Alabama, not too far from where I did. It is considered to be a poor county, and a poor area, but not poor in things that matter. He even came over to Camden once and won the beef competition with the FFA. But he has not forgotten his heritage. He has served in his career at First United Methodist Andalusia, First Bonifay, Whitfield Memorial, and was district superintendent. For the last 18 years, he has been pastor of First Methodist. It has been a heavenly match. That great gothic church, with its soaring ceiling and buttresses and superb choir, has blossomed under his leadership. Attendance has grown. Young people are everywhere. The church has expanded and grown in so many different ways to bless the community. He served as a leader on the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church and always fought aggressively to ensure that every dollar contributed, as I have heard him say, from the small, individual church men and women, was spent wisely and effectively. He is loved by all, but he has courage and is willing to speak forcefully. He recently delivered a sermon when Alabama was considering whether or not to adopt a lottery. He questioned the wisdom of having the State encourage people to invest their money in random chances to be rich. That sermon was received very well, passed all over the State, and the State eventually rejected that choice. His wife, Brenda, and he have been partners throughout their ministry, and they have two daughters. He is a beloved minister by his congregation, by his fellow ministers, and respected by all in the community. He is a Christian clergyman of the finest kind. While he would have been successful in any profession, he chose to give his life to the greatest profession. By his fine prayer today, we are blessed. By his life and ministry, the people of his church have been blessed. And by his presence today he serves as a recognition of the constant and superb service delivered by tens of thousands of ministers throughout this Nation who daily enrich the lives of their parishioners; who serve them in times of illness and sickness; who minister to them in times of emotional stress, divorce, and all kinds of family challenges; who celebrate with them marriages and births. Those thousands and thousands of ministers who do that daily are not run by the Federal Government. They are not paid by this Government, but they are there, serving their faith and their Lord. So we are, indeed, delighted to have with us today one of our finest Christian ministers in the State of Alabama, Dr. Karl Stegall. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to Senator Grams, I think this is another insightful bit of tax relief policy you are promoting. I look forward to studying it. People think sometimes this is not possible. I don't think we stop to celebrate enough the wonderful thing that happened when, under your leadership and that of a lot of others who worked on it, we were able to provide a $500-per-child tax credit to working families in America. A mother with two children will now have, today, $1,000 more a year--nearly $80 a month with which they can buy shoes or fix the muffler on the car, take the kids on a trip or to a movie or out for a meal. It is the kind of thing that was really great. People said it could not be done and it was done. I think these other proposals the Senator makes are realistic and also can be done. We need to continue to work at this. The question is whether the American people are going to be able to keep this money or are we going to allow more and more to come to Washington as it grows more and more powerful and the power and wealth and independence of American citizens grows weaker and weaker.

Mr. SESSIONS. I think my colleague also makes an excellent point about this percentage of the total gross domestic product. People say we cannot afford a tax cut, but we have reached record levels of a total gross domestic product that is being taken by the Government. These suggestions the Senator makes are worthwhile. We need to be working on that and the marriage penalty and the estate tax and a lot of other things around here which we can afford. I thank my colleague.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I say to Senator Grams, I think this is another insightful bit of tax relief policy you are promoting. I look forward to studying it. People think sometimes this is not possible. I don't think we stop to celebrate enough the wonderful thing that happened when, under your leadership and that of a lot of others who worked on it, we were able to provide a $500-per-child tax credit to working families in America. A mother with two children will now have, today, $1,000 more a year--nearly $80 a month with which they can buy shoes or fix the muffler on the car, take the kids on a trip or to a movie or out for a meal. It is the kind of thing that was really great. People said it could not be done and it was done. I think these other proposals the Senator makes are realistic and also can be done. We need to continue to work at this. The question is whether the American people are going to be able to keep this money or are we going to allow more and more to come to Washington as it grows more and more powerful and the power and wealth and independence of American citizens grows weaker and weaker.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. I object.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Senator has been here, as I have, for nearly 4 years now. I want to just ask him this: Has Senator Murkowski, who chairs the Energy Committee, and others in this Congress, been warning for years about this, saying that we were denied American production, that it was going to come back to haunt us and prices would go up and it would drain our wealth? Have they been urging this administration for years to deal with it and support some production?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator for those comments, and I do think it is important for America. The average citizen doesn't have time to watch debate here and hear what goes on in committees, but this has been a matter of real contention for a number of years. There have been warnings by people such as Senator Murkowski, who chairs the Energy Committee, and others, that this would occur, and it has now occurred. I think it is particularly a condemnation of the policy when you have been told about the consequences and warned about it publicly and still you have not acted. That, to me, is troubling. I appreciate the Senator's comments. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are now dealing with a very important issue to the future of our country; and that is the price of energy; oil and gas, gasoline, and home heating fuel prices. They have been going up at a dramatic rate. This is not a surprise. This is an event predicted and warned about by Members of this Congress for years, including Senator Murkowski, who chairs the Energy Committee. I have talked about it for the last 3 or 4 years that I have been in this Senate. This is what the issue is about. By allowing our domestic energy production to decline steadily, we have less and less ability to control prices in the world market, and, in fact, we become more and more vulnerable to price increases and production reductions by the OPEC oil cartel--that group of nations centered in the Middle East that get together to fix prices by manipulating production levels. We now find ourselves in a very serious predicament. It is not a predicament that a simple release of a little oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is going to help. It threatens our economy in the long term. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N., just wrote an editorial that I saw over the weekend. He has predicted that the poorer nations, the developing nations, will be hurt more by rising energy prices than the wealthy nations, but he does not dispute that wealthy nations will also be damaged. This increase in fuel costs amounts to a tax on the American people. It comes right out of their pocket every time they go to the gas station. Now we have this ``bold'' plan of the Gore-Clinton administration to release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is supposed to be a solution to this problem, it is supposed to really help. But what this recent action really amounts to, is closing the barn door after the horse is out. Releasing 30 million barrels of oil will meet no more than 1\1/2\ days demand for energy in America. We consume nearly 20 million barrels of oil per day in this country. A 30-million barrel release will not affect, in any significant way, the problems we are facing. That is a fact. Oil demand is not elastic. That is the crux of this problem. People have to have it. If you are traveling to work in your automobile--and there is no other way to get to work for an overwhelming number of American citizens, students, workers, and kids going to school--you must use gasoline and pay the price it costs. So the way this thing has worked is this: The OPEC nations over the years saw economies around the world steadily strengthening. Third World nations, began using more automobiles and electricity, increasing demand for oil, using more energy. We salute them for that. The life span for people in countries that have readily available electricity and energy is almost one-half longer than for those in countries that do not have it. We ought to celebrate poor countries being able to improve their standard of living. But as they improve their standard of living, their demand for energy increases. It is happening more and more around the world, and we should be happy quality of life is improving for third world nations. But as demand increased, oil prices remained at a steady rate for a significant period, then OPEC withdrew its production. You have to understand, it does not take much of a difference in production to spike the price. That is exactly what happened. They cut production below the world demand. To get the oil and gasoline that people around the world needed, they were willing to pay a higher price. They had to pay a higher price to fill up their gas tank. People could not stop buying gas when the price went from $1 to $1.50 to $1.80. They had to keep buying gas, just as all of us do in this country today. So the shortfall does not have to be large to give them that kind of manipulative power over the price. This Administration has blamed the oil industry. I have no doubt that if the oil industry could make a few cents more per gallon, they would try to do so at any point in time. But let's remember, a little over a year ago, in my State of Alabama, you could buy gasoline for $1 a gallon. Of that $1 of gasoline you bought, 40 cents of it was tax. So really you were paying only 60 cents for a gallon of gas, less than a gallon of water. That gasoline was probably produced somewhere in Saudi Arabia, refined, and shipped here in ships on which they spend billions to keep as safe as they possibly can. It is transported, 24 hours a day, to gas stations around the country. You take a gas pump nozzle, put it in the receptacle, and the gas goes into your tank. Nobody ever doubts the quality of the gasoline or likely gives much thought to where it came from. It is a remarkable thing that the oil industry can do that. Does anybody think a Government agency could do that? No, sir. So what happened? When OPEC cut their production, it spiked the world price--and they have a world market for oil--a barrel of oil which was selling for $13, $12, has now hit $36 a barrel and it may be going higher because of price manipulation. The price has gone up 50, 60, 70 cents a gallon. What does that really mean? It is not like an American tax on gasoline where we take that 40 cents with which to build roads and other things. It is a tax by OPEC on us. Foreign countries that are supplying us their oil are in effect charging us 40, 50 cents more for a gallon of gas which every American is paying. It is a drain on the wealth of this country. It threatens our economic vitality and growth. You may say: ``Jeff, why didn't we do a better job of producing oil?'' There are some who say this administration has no energy policy. I don't agree. It has a policy. It is a no-growth, no-production policy. It has been that policy for the last 7\1/2\ years. If Al Gore is elected President, it will continue, and you ain't seen nothing yet when it comes to the price for fuel in this country. That is a plain fact. We have tremendous reserves in Alaska for example. We voted on this floor--and the vote was vetoed by the administration--to produce oil and gas from the tremendous ANWR reserves. Oh, they said, it is a pristine area, and America will be polluted. The fact is, there are oil wells all around this country. People live right next to them. Oil wells do not pollute. But despite this plain fact, the Administration refused to allow production. It has been reported, the ANWR reserves could be safely produced in an area less than the size of Dulles Airport serving the Washington, DC area. We would not destroy the Alaskan environment as we produce oil and gas there. Unfortunately, this administration would rather us pay Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the sheiks for it rather than produce it in our own country, keeping the wealth here. They say: ``Some of that Alaskan oil is sold to Japan''. Economically that does not make any difference. When you sell it to Japan, you get money from Japan. You can buy it from Saudi Arabia, or wherever you buy it from--Venezuela. It makes no difference in economic terms. That is a bogus argument, as any person who thinks about it would understand. The more we produce here, the less wealth of our Nation is transferred outside our Nation. Fundamentally, this increase in prices was not driven so much by supply and demand. It was driven by a cartel. If this administration wants to address antitrust crimes, maybe they ought to worry less about Microsoft and worry more about this cartel that has come together to drive up energy prices. They have driven it up through political means. We, as American citizens, need to ask our Government: What political means are you using, Mr. Clinton, to overcome this threat? What are you proposing, Mr. Gore, to overcome that? Windmills? Eliminate the internal combustion engine? Is that your proposal? Are we going to use solar energy production? I support various alternatives. I voted for ethanol. I voted for a pilot program to determine whether a switch grass could be utilized to produce energy, and it has potential. I supported the advanced vehicle technology programs and renewable energy research. But these technologies are a drop in the bucket compared to what we need to deal with our energy demands in this Nation. Think about what we are doing. We are seeing major impacts on American consumers. If a family had an average monthly bill for gasoline of $60, when that gallon of gasoline went from $1 to $1.50, that means that the bill per month went from $60 to $90, a $30-a-month after tax draw on that family's budget for no other reason than an increase in gasoline prices. If the bill was $100 a month, and many families will pay more than that, it has become $150. It is a $50-a- month draw on their budget. This is a matter of great national importance. It need not happen. The experts are in agreement. There are sufficient energy reserves in our country to increase the supply and meet demand. Our government could drive down these prices. But we have to have an administration that believes in producing oil and gas, not an administration that is systematically, repeatedly blocking attempts at more production. For example, there is a procedure used in my home State of Alabama called hydraulic fracturing. It is used in the production of coalbed methane. In some areas, coal may not be of sufficient quality and quantity to mine, but it does have methane in it. What has been discovered is that you can drill into the coal and produce methane from it with almost no disruption of the environment. Methane is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels we can have. It is far better for the environment than many competing fuels. Production of coalbed methane is something we ought to encourage. Hydraulic fracturing of coalbeds has never caused a single case of underground drinking water contamination. In fact, for years, the EPA did not bother to regulate it. Then somebody filed a lawsuit. Because the use of this technology for coalbed methane production is relatively new, Congress had never addressed it. The lawsuit argued that pumping water into the ground needed to be regulated in the same way as injecting hazardous waste into the ground because there was no other statutory framework to apply. This has caused coalbed methane producers to go through all kinds of extensive regulatory procedures and generally depressed coalbed methane production activities. The EPA never really wanted to regulate, and in fact, argued that hydraulic fracturing did not need to be regulated at the federal level because it had caused no environmental problems and the state programs were working well. Unfortunately, the court ruled against the EPA because the law which governs this activity was written at a time this activity barely existed. I have introduced legislation which would allow the states to continue their successful regulatory programs. Yet we have been unable to get the kind of support from the administration and the EPA that would allow us to produce this clean form of gas all across America. It would be good for our country. That is an example of the no growth, no production policy of the administration. We have taken out of the mix, the possibility of drilling in so many of our western lands that are Government owned. There are huge areas out there with very large reserves of gas and oil. Yet, this administration has systematically blocked production. They have vetoed legislation--which we almost overrode--to keep us from drilling in ANWR. They have refused to drill off the coast of California. They have refused to drill and are proposing to limit drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, Vice President Gore recently, stated he favored no more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in fact would limit, perhaps, leases that had already been let. That is a big deal. Electric energy in America is being produced more and more through the use of natural gas. In addition to home heating, it is being increasingly used to generate electricity. It is generating it far cleaner than most any other source of energy. Almost every new electric-generating plant in this country has been designed to use natural gas. It comes through pipelines. Most of it is coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. There are huge reserves off the gulf coast of my home State of Alabama and throughout the gulf area. That ought to be produced. It is unbelievable that we would not produce that clean natural gas, but instead continue to import our oil from the Middle East and allow a huge tax to be levied on American citizens by the OPEC cartel members. It makes no sense at all. As anybody who has been here knows, they know what the policy is. The policy of the extreme no-growth people in America is to drive up the price of gasoline. They figure if they drive it up high enough, you will have to ride your bicycle to work, I suppose. But most people don't live a few blocks or miles from work. A lot of people are elderly. A lot of people have children to take to school, and they have to take things with them when they go to work. They have errands to run and family obligations to meet. They cannot use bicycles or rely on windmills to do their work. That is the policy of this administration, to drive up energy costs. That is the only way you can see it. Systematically, they have blocked effort after effort after effort to allow this country to increase production. We have to change that. Our current energy problems will only get worse if we do not. We have tremendous energy reserves in America. If we insist on sound environmental protection but not excessive regulation, if we make sure that production in areas such as ANWR in Alaska is conducted as previous Alaskan oil and gas production has been conducted we can make great strides in controlling our energy prices. The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, has been delivering oil for two decades now and has had a minimal impact on the environment and not destroyed anything. The caribou are still there. The tundra has not melted. America has benefited from the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline and the energy that has been produced there. We certainly cannot stop producing oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, as the Vice President has proposed. That idea is stunning. It is a radical proposal. It is a threat to our future. We cannot allow it. We cannot assume, we cannot take for granted one moment the belief that this release of a supply equal to 1\1/2\ day's demand is going to deal with our long-term problem. We have an administration that is cheerfully accepting, increased prices American must pay for energy. Those prices are going to continue to increase unless we do something about it. It does not take a huge increase in supply to help better balance demand and supply. So if we can begin to make even modest progress toward increasing our domestic supply, I think we can begin to see the price fall in a relatively short term. However, we cannot do it with the kinds of no-growth policies this administration is talking about. I do believe in improving the environment. I support the policies that do so. I support research in many alternative energy sources and hope we will see some break throughs. I hope we will continue to develop technologies to increase the quality of the energy sources, which could make the use of energy cleaner and more efficient. I think these are good prudent steps to take. But with the world demand we are facing, these efforts have not yet led to a big step--a good step, but not a big step. We are going to see increased demand in the United States and around the world. The experts tell us there is energy here in the United States. We need to be able to produce it and not continue to allow the wealth of this Nation to be transferred across the ocean to a few nations that were lucky enough to be founded on pools of oil. That must remain our goal. That is what I and others will continue to working for in this Congress. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise today with two purposes in mind. The first is to compliment the men and women who labor on behalf of the nation at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama on the occasion of Marshall's 40th Anniversary. My second purpose is to share some thoughts on the importance of Space Transportation in light of the VA/HUD Appropriations Bill that will come before this body in the not too distant future. These two issues are inextricably linked in that Marshall Space Flight Center is the world leader in space transportation yet ever dependent on the funding that the VA/HUD appropriators provide. For that reason, I compliment Senator Kit Bond, and his superlative staff in advance of the bill being debated for all they continue to do on behalf of NASA and the nation. Their foresight will ultimately make the difference as we continue to move forward as a nation of explorers. In September, 1960 President Dwight Eisenhower dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center which soon began making history under the mentorship and direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun. From the Mercury- Redstone vehicle that placed America's first astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, into sub-orbital space in 1961, to the mammoth Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the moon in 1969, Marshall and its industry partners have successfully engineered history making projects that gave, and continue to give, America the world's premier space program. We in Alabama and across America have so much to be thankful for and in a small way Marshall and its scientists, engineers and support personnel have carved out a niche of excellence that brought history to the community, state and nation. From Skylab, to the space shuttle to the lunar roving vehicle, America has looked to Marshall for experience and leadership. They were the right stuff, and they continue today to be the best with over 30 world-class facilities and test facilities. As NASA's Center of Excellence for Space Propulsion the men and women of Marshall are not simply dreamers of what may be, but are working hard in research and development to provide the propulsion systems that will enable NASA to provide the nation safe, reliable, low-cost access to space, rapid interplanetary transportation, and the hope of exploration beyond the solar system. This is not folly, Mr. President, this is reality. These initiatives require us to make new investments in Space Transportation and this is what I believe Senator Bond and his committee are trying to do. Investments are being made and must continue to be made in the years to come in the Space Launch Initiative, the Third Generation technology program, and in Shuttle upgrades if we are going to achieve our collective space destiny. I would like to take a few moments today to discuss these initiatives and the promise they hold for our country. I would also like to talk about some of the technology spin-offs these investments will yield for other parts of our economy. The Space Launch Initiative is intended to dramatically reduce the cost of access to space by an order of magnitude over the next 10 years and to increase the reliability of space launch vehicles. This initiative will result in the creation of a ``highway to space'' that will enable increased commercial activity in Earth orbit and beyond. The impact for our nation's economy will be dramatic, I believe. We need only to look at the past to understand the possibilities associated with opening new frontiers. Throughout our history, commerce and growth have been fueled when boundaries have been pushed back. Let me briefly describe the elements and the purpose of NASA's Space Launch Initiative. The Space Shuttle remains the world's only reusable launch vehicle and continues to be a workhorse for NASA and the American public. You may have been watching the recent activities in space surrounding STS-106 (which landed this morning in Florida), our first shuttle mission to the International Space Station since the arrival of its newest component, the Russian supplied service module-- Zvezda. The Shuttle is the first generation of reusable launch systems, but it has its faults and we must improve on this system. It is a very expensive system to operate and requires thousands of people and months of work to prepare the system for launch. In order to meet the goals of the Space Launch Initiative, NASA and its partners must develop systems that only require around 100 people and about one week for turnaround. The Space Launch Initiative will focus on reducing technical and programmatic risks as well as the business risks associated with the development of new space launch technologies. While the goal will be to develop a Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle that increases crew safety by a factor of 10 and decreases cost by the same amount, the technology we develop along the way will only serve to enrich the economy. Let me provide an example--its NASA's X-33 program. The X-33 is a sub-scale flight demonstrator designed to test many technologies that will drive a full-scale Second Generation vehicle. Like many developmental programs, the X-33 has had its share of setbacks. However, even with setbacks the X-33 program has actually spun off technology that will improve the lives of many newborn children. Let me explain. The X-33's original composite tank contained fiber optic sensing technology embedded along the edge to monitor the health of the system. Realizing the potential of this technology could be far reaching, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center partnered with Dr. Jason Collins of the Pregnancy Institute in Slidell, Louisiana and with Prism, a San Antonio manufacturer of medical products, to improve obstetric forceps used to position an infant in the mother's womb prior to delivery, and in some cases used to assist with the delivery. Obstetrical forceps have been in use for over 300 years with more than 700 variations of the design, however, none of these allowed the physician to assess the force the instrument placed on the infant. An improvement was definitely needed that would minimize the risk to newborns delivered by forceps. NASA's solution: forceps made of polymeric material which flexes under pressure with fiber optic sensors from the X-33 program embedded in the material during the manufacturing process that indicate strain. It is predicted that the fiber optic forceps will reduce the number of cesarean section deliveries, reduce the risk of injury to the mother, and significantly lower the occurrence of fetal injury caused by ordinary forceps, thus reducing overall health care costs. Another part of the Space Launch Initiative is a program called the Alternate Access to the Space Station. This is an extremely important part of the Initiative for several reasons. The Alternate Access to Space Station effort will provide our country with more than one way service to the Space Station. As you may recall, Mr. President, in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, the Shuttle program was down for several years. However, once the International Space Station is on orbit with a permanent crew on board, we cannot afford to face a time in which the Shuttle or any one launch vehicle is out of service for an extended period of time. We must have a very robust method of keeping the Station re-supplied. We cannot afford to be tied to one or even two launch systems, but must have access to several launch vehicles. The Alternate Access program is designed to develop some of the most innovative launch vehicle concepts that exist today in industry for the purpose of providing resupply capability to the Station. This effort will give many up-and-coming aerospace companies and entrepreneurs the ability to break into the market by using NASA's requirements as the baseline on which to build their business case and attract investors. While the Space Launch Initiative is designed to reduce the cost of access to space from $10,000 a pound to $1,000 a pound, in order to make space travel truly routine for the average citizen, we must do more. NASA is also planning to invest in Third Generation technologies to further reduce the cost of putting a pound of payload in orbit. The goal of the Third Generation activities is to get launch costs down to $100 a pound within 25 years. At that point, routine access to space for a variety of activities will become possible. NASA's Third Generation program has been dubbed Spaceliner 100--the idea being that the technology advancements would result in a launch vehicle with commercial airliner reliability and again, a cost of around $100 a pound for launch. I was pleased last year to jump-start this investment. In a bipartisan effort, I along with Majority Leader Trent Lott, Senators Shelby, Breaux, Landrieu, Voinovich, DeWine, and Cochran pressed for the inclusion of $80 million dollars in the FY 00 VA-HUD bill for Spaceliner 100. I am glad to see that this action did not go unnoticed by the Administration. In this year's FY 2001 budget submission, the White House included $1.2 Billion for NASA's Third Generation effort over the next five years. This funding will support research in earth-to-orbit, in-space, and interstellar transportation technologies. Earlier in my comments, I mentioned the Space Shuttle and the tremendous contribution it has made and will continue to make to our nation's space program. As we move towards these advanced launch vehicles, NASA must not take their eye off of the launch vehicle we depend on today. I am pleased to see that this is not the case, in fact the agency is taking steps to ensure that the Shuttle continues to be a robust vehicle. In fact, NASA is actually advocating upgrades for the Shuttle and the Administration proposed to spend $1.4 Billion dollars over five years in upgrades to the Shuttle. However, in light of the investments in Second and Third Generation technologies, you might wonder if Shuttle upgrades are worth it. The answer is yes and here's why: First, we are dealing with a crew safety issue. Today the Shuttle performs on the edge of its capabilities. Statistically speaking, the Shuttle system will encounter a catastrophic failure once in every 450 launches. However, with the proposed upgrades, the Shuttle would have a much better safety margin. With the upgrades, for every launch of the Shuttle, the catastrophic failure rate would be one in every 1,000 launches. Although this is not even close to the one in 2 million safety margin we enjoy on commercial airliners, it is a vast improvement. And when you are dealing with human lives, every little bit helps. Second, every upgrade proposed for the Shuttle will be a candidate for use on Second Generation systems. In other words, not only is NASA improving safety for Shuttle crews, they are getting the opportunity to ``road test'' many new technologies. I have briefly described NASA's Space Launch Initiative as well as the Agency's Third Generation efforts. I have provided an example or two of spin off technologies we are receiving and will continue to receive from this significant investment. These efforts are important to our nation's economic future as well as our continued National security. I believe these efforts will amount to a defining moment in our nation's space program in the day's ahead. I am proud of the lead role NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama is taking in these efforts. But as anyone at Marshall will tell you, this will take the combined efforts of many of NASA's other Field Centers, along with the full participation of America's aerospace industry, and the help of many academic partners. I began my remarks today by describing the 40 year effort at Marshall and the hard work that we have witnessed by Senator Bond's committee. We should not be lured into a false sense of security that we will always have the talent in our field centers we have today, or the great support we enjoy from the authorization and appropriations committees. As we look into the future, access to space will be as important to us as civil aviation is today. However, we all have a lot of work ahead of us, and this is an endeavor we must educated ourselves on and monitor closely that it doesn't stray off course. There is simply too much at stake to allow that to happen. In the mid-1970's, the U.S. dominated the worldwide commercial space launch market. Today, we launch only 30 percent of the world's commercial payloads. Our re-emergence into the commercial market place will depend on bold investments, and on the boldness of our leaders who wish for America to remain a Nation of Explorers. I urge my colleagues therefore to study carefully the upcoming NASA appropriation bill and suggest to them that they support the VA/HUD Appropriations Bill, and the investments in the Space Launch Initiative, Third Generation technologies, and Shuttle upgrades. These investments will truly be the keys to our future success in space and in the future global marketplace. They also guarantee that the men and woman at the George C. Marshall Space Center have the tools to unlock the technological mysteries that lie before us, and in doing so make planet Earth a better place to live.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today I want to talk about the situation involving hospitals in America. We passed the Balanced Budget Act in 1997. It was an agreement, not only of this Congress, but of the President. It was to be administered by the executive branch agency called HCFA. We projected a number of reductions and savings that would occur as a result of our efforts to balance the budget, to curtail double-digit increases in health care, and to make hospitals really force some cost containment in the escalating cost of health care in America. I believe in that, and I support that. I think that, in part, it has been successful. Experts projected savings over this period of time would have been $115 billion. We now see that savings to Medicare will be closer to $250 billion. In other words, the savings that have come out of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals that are taking care of indigent patients whether they get paid or not have had an impact far in excess of what we anticipated when we passed the BBA. I have traveled to about eight different hospitals in the last several months in my State. I met with groups of administrators from these hospitals. I talked to nurses, administrators, practitioners and accountants in the hospitals, and I believe that they are not crying wolf, but that their concerns are real. I believe there is a problem there. I would like to share with the Members of this body some of my concerns about it and say we are going to need to improve and find some additional funding that will help those hospitals. In Alabama, when we passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Alabama's hospitals' bottom line already was significantly less than that of other hospitals in the country. That year, Alabama had an average operating margin of 2 percent, whereas the average operating margin for 1997 was 16 percent. Aside from lower operating margins, the State also has special health needs. When compared with other States, Alabama's health care market had a higher than average percentage of Medicare and Medicaid and uninsured residents. In 1998, the State's Medicare enrollees made up 15.4 percent of the population and Medicaid residents made up 15.3 percent, both above the national average of 14.1 percent. So when those reimbursements were reduced, Alabama felt it more severely than most States. One significant part of the BBA that has been especially damaging to our Nation's hospitals is the lack of a market basket update. The market basket is Medicare's measure of inflation. It is an inflation index. It is essentially a cost-of-living adjustment for hospitals. Without an accurate inflationary update, or market basket update, Medicare payments for a hospital's inpatient perspective payment system--the way we pay them--are inadequate and do not reflect inflation or the increased demands of regulations, new technologies, and a growing Medicare population. As part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which was passed to address the double-digit growth in Medicare spending, updates in the market basket were frozen. But by freezing the updates, mathematically this effectively created negative update factors. For example, in 1998, the market basket update was 0.1 percent; for 1999, it was a minus 1.9 percent; for fiscal year 2000, it was minus 1.8 percent; for 2001, it is scheduled to be minus 1.1 percent; for 2002, minus 1.1 percent. So, in effect, we not only have frozen the inflation increase over all these years, we have created mathematically a reduction in the funding. From 1998 to 2000, hospital inflation rates rose 8.2 percent, while Medicare payments for inpatient care rose 1.6 percent. You can do that for a while. We can create some savings, but at some point you begin to cut access to essential health care, making health care in hospitals more difficult less personnel and decreased resources. Overall, the BBA will result in a reduction of Medicare payments for hospital inpatient care by an estimated $46.3 billion over 10 years. This decrease in payments has been compounded by other increased costs such as the rapid increase in the cost of prescription drugs. We all know the rising costs of health care, particularly drug costs. Hospitals feel this crunch as well. Cherokee Baptist Medical Center and Bessemer Northside Community Clinic in Alabama are two facilities that have been hurt. For example, Cherokee Baptist Medical Center has estimated that the 5-year impact of BBA implementation for years 1998 through 2002 will create a loss of $3.7 million for this small rural hospital. That is real money in a real community--$3.7 million. The hospital's operating margin fell from 4.5 percent in 1997 to 2.2 percent in 1999. While Medicare inpatient admissions remain the same, the revenue they have received from them has dropped from $3.5 million to $2.9 million. That is a loss of over $600,000 for the hospital alone. Bessemer Northside Community Clinic opened in 1997 in an attempt to deal with a specific community need. The community needed convenient care for its elder and uninsured. Bessemer opened to fill that need. But due to reductions in Medicare reimbursements, they lost approximately $3 million in 1999, and were projected to lose $4 million in 2000. This clinic served about 2,000 low-income and elderly patients in its first year, and was expected to serve 200,000 as part of a regional health network. Now it has closed its doors. What we need to do: Last year we passed the Balanced Budget Refinement Act. The truth is, it will really come into effect this year. The hospitals will begin to feel its impact in 2001. Some may think we did not do anything last year. We did, but it was phased in, and the real impact is just now beginning to be felt. It is a good start. But it is not enough. Now we need to deal with the market basket update reduction projection of 1.1 percent, again, for 2001 and 2002. We need to restore the full inflationary update. The Alabama Hospital Association as well as the American Hospital Association have identified this as one of their top priorities. The American Hospital Preservation Act, which was introduced by Senator Hutchison and cosponsored by myself and 58 other Senators, should be included in this year's Medicare provider give-back legislation that is now being considered in this Congress. Now I will talk about the wage index and how that affects a hospital in Stringfellow, AL. This is a chart that gives a clear indication of what this hospital receives compared to the national average. For the national hospital average, this chart shows a per patient/ diagnosis reimbursement rate for labor of $2,760; $1,128 for nonlabor reimbursements. That is what our national hospital average reimbursement rate looks like for per patient diagnoses for inpatient care, totaling $3,888. But Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements for Stringfellow Memorial Hospital in Anniston, Alabama--because of lower labor costs and a higher percentage of non-labor costs are calculated by HCFA with a complicated formula that does it--is only reimbursed $2,042 for labor. This means that this rural Alabama hospital is being reimbursed $718 less per patient diagnosis. That is money not going to Stringfellow Hospital. That is money not going to that hospital. And the nonlabor costs are the same. So they are feeling a loss of $718 out of the $3,888 average cost for care compared to the national average. Make no mistake, there are other hospitals well above the national average. Where rural Alabama hospitals lose $718 per patient, these hospitals may make $1,500 per patient diagnosis. The nonlabor-labor split also assumes that hospitals purchase outside services from within their region, when in fact, most rural hospitals must purchase services from urban areas--which have must higher wages. In rural Alabama, much of a hospital's services often have to come from Birmingham, the University of Alabama Medical Center, and all the first-rate quality care there. It may have to be transported out to the local hospitals at greater cost than it would be in Birmingham or any other regional medical center. According to a recent study by Deloitte Consulting, approximately 70 percent of Alabama's hospitals will be operating in the red in 2000 and as many as 14 are likely to close--unless something is done. The reductions which have resulted from HCFA's implementation of the BBA, have affected Alabama hospitals in many ways. The reductions have hurt hospitals, both big and small, urban and rural. They have been forced to limit access, cut off services, downsize, and in some instances, close their doors. Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster, Alabama was forced to close its inmate/juvenile detention medical clinic, close their occupational medicine clinic, close a pediatric clinic, downsize psychiatric services, close physician services to new patients, and decrease the number of health screenings for early detection of disease. They have had to place a hold on all capital projects including a women's services clinic, an additional lab, and the expansion of diagnostic services to the surrounding communities. They have also had to end the development of an ``Open Access Clinic'' to help deal with the area's numerous uninsured and under-insured patients. Likewise, the net income of Coffee Health Group in Lauderdale, Colbert and Franklin Counties in Alabama dropped from $38.3 million in 1997 to a projected negative $13.6 million in 2000. The hospitals' operating margin--the pre-tax profits which are the major source of a hospital's cash flow--dropped from $19.6 million in 1997 to a projected negative $21.5 million in 2000. Market basket update: One significant part of the BBA that has been especially detrimental to our nation's hospitals is the lack of a Market Basket Update. The Market Basket is Medicare's measure of inflation. It is essentially a cost of living adjustment for hospitals. Without an accurate inflationary update, or Market Basket Update, Medicare payments for a hospital's inpatient perspective payment system are inadequate and do not reflect the increased demands of regulations, new technologies, and a growing Medicare population. As part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which was passed to address a looming health care crisis: double-digit growth in Medicare spending, updates in the Market Basket were frozen. By freezing the updates, the BBA effectively created negative update factors: For fiscal year 1998, the market basket update was -0.1 percent, for fiscal year 1999, the update was -1.9 percent, for fiscal year 2000, the update was -1.8 percent, for fiscal year 2001, the update is scheduled to be -1.1 percent, and for fiscal year 2002, the update is scheduled to be -1.1 percent. Between 1998 and 2000 hospital inflation rates rose 8.2 percent while Medicare payments for hospital inpatient care rose 1.6 percent. Overall, the BBA will result in a reduction of Medicare payments for hospital inpatient care by an estimated $46.3 billion over 10 years. This decrease in payments has been compounded by a rapid increase in the cost of prescription drugs and the price of blood and blood products. We all know of the rising costs of health care--most especially in drug costs. Hospitals feel this crunch as well. While the average costs of ``existing drugs'' or those that came to the market before 1992, is $30.47, the average price of new prescription drugs is $71.49--more than twice that of existing drugs. Cherokee Baptist Medical Center and Bessemer Northside Community Clinic in Alabama are 2 facilities that have been affected by the BBA and provide disheartening real-life examples. Cherokee Baptist Medical Center has estimated that the five-year impact of BBA implementation for fiscal years 1998 through 2002 will create a loss of $3.7 million. The hospital's operating margin fell from 4.5 percent in 1997 to 2.2 percent in 1999. And while Medicare inpatient admissions remained the same, the revenue dropped from $3,512,910 to $2,909,666. That's a loss of over $600,000 for this hospital alone. Bessemer Northside Community Clinic opened in October of 1997 (about the same time the BBA was passed) in coordination with the community and in response to a specific need. The community needed convenient care for its elderly and uninsured. Bessemer opened to fill that need, but due to reductions in Medicare reimbursement that came as a result of the implementation of the BBA, Bessemer lost approximately $3 million in 1999 and was projected to lose about $4 million in 2000. This clinic served about 2,000 low income and elderly patients its first year and was expected to serve over 200,000 as part of a regional health network. It provided more than $4 million in free medical care to Northside residents since the clinic opened. Now, due to the drastic reductions in reimbursement, Bessemer has closed its doors, leaving the community's elderly to travel long distances for care, or in many cases to go without. Last year Congress passed the Balanced Budget Refinement Act (BBRA) in 1999 to address some of the concerns we had about the affects of the implementation of the BBA. One provision in this legislation allows Sole Community Hospitals--those hospitals that are the only access to health care in an area--to receive a full Market Basket Update in fiscal year 2001. That's a good start, but it's not enough. Now we need to strike the BBA-mandated Market Basket reduction of 1.1 percent for fiscal year 2001 and 2002 and restore a full inflationary update. The Alabama Hospital Association as well as the American Hospital Association have identified this as one of their top priorities, and it is what the American Hospital Preservation Act of 1999 does. This bill which was introduced by my colleague Senator Hutchison and cosponsored by myself and 58 other Senators, should be included in this year's Medicare provider give-back legislation to address the continuing needs of our Medicare providers. Wage index: Mr. President, another Medicare reimbursement issue which needs to be addressed in any upcoming Medicare provider give-back legislation is a needed adjustment to the Wage Index. Medicare reimbursement for hospital inpatient care is based on a Perspective Payment System (PPS) which was created in the early 1990's to cut Medicare spending. A formula within the PPS is used to adjust Medicare payments to a hospital based on a Wage Index--or the average wage for a particular area. The formula is based on 2 components: labor-related and non labor-related costs. While non labor-related costs are the same nationwide--these are costs for supplies, pharmaceuticals, equipment, etc--labor-related costs differ from region to region and there are large discrepancies between the labor costs in urban and rural areas. The cost of living is lower in rural areas, so they pay, on average, lower wages. The adjustment made for these regional differences is made according to the Wage Index. The national wage index is 1, but most rural hospitals have a wage index of 0.74 and most hospitals in Alabama have a wage index between 0.74 and 0.89, which is 0.11 to 0.26 below the national average. This index which is used to calculate the base rate for Medicare reimbursement, has several inequities: For example: Adding additional lower paid employees lowers your wage index. Hiring 2 lower paid employees to do the job of one higher paid employee lowers your wage index. Increasing wages has no impact on the wage index for 3 years. Having no corporate overhead from a large proprietary entity lowers your wage index. When developing the Wage Index mechanism, HCFA decided that 71 percent of a hospital's costs were labor related. This rate also includes a predominant shift to labor-related costs due to purchases of outside services which incorrectly assumes that hospitals purchase services only from within their region and thus pay similar wages for these outside services. In reality, rural hospitals usually purchase services from urban areas and must pay urban wages for these services. However, the purchase of outside services from urban areas which may have a greater labor cost is not reconciled with the prevailing wage rate within the rural area. Hence, rural hospitals are paying urban rates for those services but are not being reimbursed at their urban wage rate. The average percentage of hospital expenditures in Alabama that are labor related is 51 percent--far from the 71 percent used by HCFA. And the annual impact of these formula problems result in a reduction of Alabama hospital payments by HCFA by between 5.5 and 6.5 percent or close to $46 million a year. To illustrate the unfairness of the Wage Index formula, you must see the differences in the calculation of the base rate for reimbursement using the Wage Index for both the national average and for a typical Alabama hospital. National Average: Take the initial national base rate for a per patient diagnosis of $3,888. Multiply it by the national average for percentage of wages to all other costs (71 percent) = $2760. Remaining $1128 is non-labor costs. Apply National Average Wage Index (1) to wage cost of $2760 = $2760. Add $2760 to the non-labor portion, $1128, to get a total payment of $3888. This is the base rate for Medicare reimbursement per Medicare patient diagnosis. Compare that to: Stringfellow Memorial Hospital in Anniston, AL: Take the initial national base rate for a per patient diagnosis of $3,888. Multiply it by the national average for percentage of wages to all other costs (71 percent) = $2760. Remaining $1128 is non-labor costs. Now here's the problem. Instead of applying the national average wage index of 1, for this Alabama hospital, we would use the Montgomery wage index of 0.74. So, apply the local wage index of (0.74) to wage cost of $2760 = $2042. Add $2042 to the non-labor portion, $1128, to get a total payment of $3170. Therefore the base rate for per patient diagnosis at Stringfellow Memorial Hospital is $718 less than the national average. That's nearly 20 percent below the national average. HCFA has recognized the problem and has addressed it in other areas. In developing the formula for the new Outpatient Perspective Payment System (PPS), which was required by the BBA of 1997, HCFA set the labor component of hospital costs at 60 percent (as compared to the 71 percent in the Inpatient PPS). According to HCFA, in the development of this new Outpatient formula, 60 percent represents the average split of labor and non labor-related costs. Why then has HCFA not changed the Inpatient PPS formula? Why do we have to do it legislatively? Senator Grassley has proposed legislation that would correct the faulty wage index formula. His plan would mandate that HCFA apply the wage index adjustment only to each hospital's actual labor costs. This proposal, though it has not been scored, would cost approximately $230 million the first year. While I support this proposal, I am also sympathetic to my colleagues whose states are not detrimentally affected by the wage index. For that reason, I would also support other possible solutions to the Wage Index issue. There are 2 possible options: (1) We can develop a Wage Index ``Floor,'' possibly set at 0.85 or 0.9. Thus there would be no effect (positive or negative) on hospitals with Wage Indeces above that level. (2) We can establish a hold-harmless provision and apply the Wage Index adjustment to the share of hospital costs that are actually wage related (51 percent for Alabama), but only for hospitals with a Wage Index below 1. The bottom line is that something must be done before the reductions in the BBA threaten the access to and quality of health care for our nation's seniors and uninsured. This government must not create a situation in which many of these needed hospitals have to close. We must act quickly or closures will occur. I would like to thank the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Roth, for his efforts to address these concerns, and I look forward to working with him and the members of the Senate Finance Committee as well as the Senate Leadership to get this done. It is time for this Congress to deal with the unfair wage index and improve it and take a step in the right direction. It is hurting our hospitals in rural America. It is really hurting them in Alabama where 70 percent are operating in the red and as many as 14 might close.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his insight and leadership and expertise and courage and ability to explain, in common language, some of our most complex financial issues facing this country. It is an extraordinarily valuable asset to our country, to have Senator Gramm in this body as a trained economist. I never cease to be amazed and appreciative of what he contributes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, today we are celebrating the accomplishments of the men and women of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, on the occasion of their 40th anniversary which will be celebrated tomorrow. In September of 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center, which soon began making history under the leadership of Dr. Wernher von Braun. From the Mercury-Redstone vehicle that placed America's first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into suborbital space in 1961, to the mammoth Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the moon in 1969, Marshall and its industry partners have successfully engineered history making projects that gave, and continue to give, America the world's premier space program. We are fortunate to have these dedicated men and women in Huntsville. I will be offering some remarks and hope to speak on the floor again later today. I take this opportunity to express my compliments and those of the American people to the men and women at Marshall Space Flight Center, which began 40 years ago, sent men to the moon, and now is working steadfastly to create a cost-efficient, effective way to send people into space routinely, almost as easily as we fly now across the Atlantic Ocean.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have decided to vote in favor of China PNTR because I believe this action will continue our policy of engagement with the Chinese government and increase the likelihood that our nation will have better relations with China in the years to come. The other option was to act on the assumption that China will become more hostile to the United States and that we must try to seal it off, which will not work. This decision is a further step down the road that was begun by President Nixon in 1972 when he concluded it was better to have relations with China than to shut it off. Since then there have been many difficulties, but on the whole, I believe the relationship has been better than it would have been otherwise. We now maintain military superiority over China and it is critical that it continue. I do not believe that it is inevitable that our future will be shaped by hostile relations with China. If we are strong and maintain our military, the chance of avoiding potential future hostilities will be improved. Such a vision is what wise leadership is all about. I am not certain how best to improve the conditions of Christians and other religious people in China. I do recall, however, that when Rome changed from persecuting the early Christians to making Christianity the official religion of the empire, the change came about because of a change of heart and not as a result of a threat from an outside military power. I was very impressed with the testimony of Ned Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who aids Christians in China and who has visited the country over forty times and distributed over two million Bibles to unlicensed Christians. He testified before the Senate Finance Committee. In his summation he stated that a vote for PNTR would encourage China's engagement with the world, increase the availability of computer technology to its citizens, accelerate its development of a rule of law, allow for increased contact between U.S. and Chinese citizens, and ultimately lead to positive changes in its religious policy. He concluded that most importantly ``this action will help diminish the negative perceptions that exist between our two great countries.'' While we, as humans, can never know the future, I am persuaded by his remarks. Generosity of spirit and forbearance founded on strength are the qualities of a great nation. On the level of trade, I believe that my state of Alabama will be able to sell more products in China because of the significant reductions in the tariffs China has imposed on imported American goods. This increased trade will benefit Alabama's farmers, timber industry and much of our manufacturing. It can benefit our transportation system, including the Port of Mobile. While I think it will increase our exports, I cannot conclude that this agreement is going to help our overall balance of trade deficit, at least not in the short run. While China has a significant wage advantage in its manufacturing, it has a shortage of many natural resources, lacks technology, has a very poor infrastructure and is burdened by corruption and a lack of a rule of law which protects liberties and property interests. In addition, it continues to hold on to the form of communism, an ideology of incalculable destructive power. These problems will burden them for years to come and will take many generations to eliminate. The key to the success of this agreement will be vigorous, determined and sustained leadership by the United States to ensure that China complies with this agreement and the WTO rules. China's tendency has been to cut corners and not live up to its obligations under agreements. In my view, China must come to see that its interests and those of its trading partners will be advanced by following these trading rules. Unfortunately, China seems to be obsessed with exporting and not importing. The truth is China and her people will benefit from having the opportunity to buy quality food and products from around the world. They must come to recognize that fact. This issue is very complex and no one can see into the future with a crystal ball, but my analysis and judgement tells me it is time to step out in a positive way, and to take the lead in reducing some of the suspicions and misperceptions that have grown in recent years between our two nations. Since I believe that increased economic activity between our two countries is not likely to assist China in strengthening its military in any substantial way, regardless of legislation, I see the positive aspects of this legislation outweighing the negative. We must, however, make clear to China that we intend to defend our just interests and those of our allies around the world, and that we will not abandon our ally and friend, the Democratically elected government of Taiwan. We also need to remain especially vigilant to protect our military secrets and technological advantage. I was therefore disappointed that the amendment offered by Senator Fred Thompson did not pass. We must make crystal clear to our business community that we will not tolerate transfer of our military technology to China. While I favored a number of the amendments that have been offered to this legislation, and was disappointed they did not pass, I am appreciative of the quality of the debate that has surrounded this issue. China has 1.2 billion people, the most populous country on this globe. Their people are talented and hardworking. Our vote today should enhance our economic and political relationships.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on June 9, 1999, the late Senator Paul Coverdell introduced legislation aimed at addressing one of the most pressing problems facing law enforcement today: the critical backlogs in our state crime labs. Senator Coverdell's National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 1196) attracted broad bipartisan support in Congress, as well as the enforcement of national law enforcement groups. Unfortunately, before Senator Coverdell's bill could move through Congress, he passed away. As a fitting, substantive tribute to Senator Coverdell, I am today introducing the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 2000 to eliminate the crisis in forensics labs across the country. This was an issue he cared a great deal about, and I am honored to have the opportunity to carry on his efforts to address this problem. The crisis in our forensics labs is acute. According to a report issued in February by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of December 1997, 69 percent of state crime labs reported DNA backlogs in 6,800 cases and 287,000 convicted offender samples. The backlogs are having a crippling effect on the fair and speedy administration of justice. For example, the Seattle Times reported on April 23 of this year that police are being forced to pay private labs to do critical forensics work so that their active investigations do not have to wait for tests to be completed. ``As Spokane authorities closed in on a suspected serial killer, they were eager to nail enough evidence to make their case stick. So they skipped over the backlogged Washington State Patrol crime lab and shipped some evidence to a private laboratory, paying a premium for quicker results. [A] chronic backlog at the State Patrol's seven crime labs, which analyze criminal evidence from police throughout Washington state, has grown so acute that Spokane investigators feared their manhunt would be stalled.'' As a former prosecutor, I know how dependent the criminal justice system is on fast, accurate, dependable forensics testing. With backlogs in the labs, district attorneys are forced to wait months and years to pursue cases. This is not simply a matter of expediting convictions of the guilty. Suspects are held in jail for months before trial, waiting for the forensic evidence to be completed. Thus, potentially innocent persons stay in jail, potentially guilty persons stay out of jail, and victims of crime do not receive closure. As an Alabama newspaper, the Decatur Daily, reported on November 28, 1999, ``[The] backlog of cases is so bad that final autopsy results and other forensic testing sometimes take up to a year to complete. It's a frustrating wait for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and even suspects. It means delayed justice for the families of crime victims.'' Justice delayed is justice denied for prosecutors, defendants, judges, police, and, most importantly, for victims. This is unacceptable. Given the tremendous amount of work to be done by crime labs, scientists and technicians must sacrifice accuracy, reliability, or time in order to complete their work. Sacrificing accuracy or reliability would destroy the justice system, so it is time that is sacrificed. But with the tremendous pressures to complete lab work, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be problems other than delays. Everyone from police to detectives to evidence technicians to lab technicians to forensic scientists to prosecutors must be well-trained in the preservation, collection, and preparation of forensic evidence. The JonBenet Ramsey case is perhaps the most well-known example of a case where forensics work is critical to convicting the perpetrator of a crime. As the Rocky Mountain News reported on February 2, 1997, ``To solve the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, Boulder police must rely to a great extent on the results of forensic tests being conducted in crime laboratories. [T]he looming problem for police and prosecutors, according to forensics experts, is whether the evidence is in good condition. Or whether lax procedures . . . resulted in key evidence being hopelessly contaminated.'' We need to help our labs train investigators and police. We need to help our labs reduce the backlog so that the innocent may be exonerated and the guilty convicted. We need to help our labs give closure to victims of crime. The bill I am introducing today is essentially a reintroduction of Senator Coverdell's National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 1196). The bill expands permitted uses of Byrne grants to include improving the quality, timeliness, and credibility of forensic science services, including DNA, blood and ballistics tests. It requires States to develop a plan outlining the manner in which the grants will be used to improve forensic science services and requires States to use these funds only to improve forensic sciences, and limits administrative expenditures to 10 percent of the grant amount. This new bill adds a reporting requirement so that the backlog reduction can be documented and tracked. Additionally, the funding is adjusted to begin authorizations in Fiscal Year 2001, rather than FY 2000, as S. 1196 did. Otherwise, this is the exact same bill Senator Coverdell introduced and that I and many of my colleagues supported. This bill has the support of many of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, including Senators Cleland and Miller from Georgia, Senators Lott, Nickles, Hatch, Stevens, Thurmond, Shelby, Cochran, Kyl, Wellstone, Dodd, Grams, Durbin, Frist, Helms, Specter, Santorum, Jeffords, Abraham, L. Chafee, Mack, Bunning, Ashcroft, Harkin, and others. I also appreciate the strong support of Representative Sanford Bishop of Georgia, the primary sponsor of Senator Coverdell's bill in the House. I spoke with Attorney General Reno last night, and she told me that she ``supports our efforts to improve forensic science capabilities.'' She also told me that this bill ``is consistent with the Department of Justice's approach to helping State and local law enforcement.'' Moreover, numerous law enforcement organizations, including the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Southern Association of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Medical Examiners, the International Association of Police Chiefs, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the National Association of Counties. These Members of Congress and these organizations understand, as I do, that crime is not political. Our labs need help, and after 15 years as a prosecutor, I am convinced that there is nothing that the Congress can do to help the criminal justice system more than to pass this bill and fund our crime labs. To properly complete tests for DNA, blood, and ballistic samples, our crime labs need better equipment, training, staffing, and accreditation. This bill will help clear the crippling backlogs in the forensics labs. This, in turn, will help exonerate the innocent, convict the guilty, and restore confidence in our criminal justice system. I hope my colleagues will join me in passing the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 2000 in the short time we have remaining in this Session.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see my colleague from Kansas, Senator Brownback, is here. I had the pleasure recently to be at a press conference with him, which he arranged. He had written a letter to a number of businesses, which I joined. Senator Tim Hutchinson and Joe Lieberman also signed that letter. We asked them to consider whether or not they ought to continue to sell video games rated ``M,'' for mature audiences, to young people without some control. In fact, Sears and Montgomery Ward said they would not sell them anymore. They didn't want them in their stores. Wasn't that a good response? Kmart and Wal-Mart said they are not going to sell to minors without an adult or parent present. We believe that was a good corporate response. I appreciate the leadership of the Senator from Kansas and his hearing, subsequent to that press conference, with a lot of the manufacturers of this product. I understand, from what I have seen, he was particularly skillful in raising the issues and holding these producers of this product to account and challenging businesses and corporate leadership to be more responsible because we now have a conclusive statement from the American Medical Association and half a dozen other groups that this kind of violent entertainment and video games have the capability of harming young people and leading them on to violence. That is bad for them and our country. I thank the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I also want to express my appreciation for legal counsel on the Judiciary Committee, Sean Costello, who is with me today, and my chief counsel, Ed Haden, for their support and the extraordinary work they have done in helping to prepare this bill for filing.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, not too long ago our former colleague, Paul Coverdell, introduced the National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act. It was a bill to further Federal support to State forensic laboratories, those places where DNA evidence is evaluated, where drug evidence is evaluated, where fingerprints, ballistics, and all the other scientific data from carpet fibers, and so forth, are evaluated, and then reported out to the prosecutors around the country so cases can be prosecuted on sound science. Today we have a crisis in our criminal justice system. We clearly have a bottleneck, of major proportions, in the laboratory arena. There is simply an exploding amount of work. More and more tests are available. People are demanding more and more tests on each case that comes down the pike. We are way behind. In my view, as a person who spent 15 years of my life prosecuting criminal cases, swift, fair justice is critical for any effective criminal justice system. We need not to see our cases delayed. We need to create a circumstance in which they can be tried as promptly as possible, considering all justice relevant to the cases. I ran for attorney general of Alabama in 1994. I talked in every speech I made, virtually, on the need to improve case processing. The very idea of a robber or a rapist being arrested and released on bail and tried 2 years later is beyond the pale. It cannot be acceptable. It cannot be the rule in America. Yet I am told by Dr. Downs of the forensic laboratory in the State of Alabama that they now have delays of as much as 20 months on scientific evidence. We know Virginia last year, before making remarkable improvements, had almost a year--and other States. Another police officer today told us his State was at least a year in getting routine reports done. This is a kind of bottleneck, a stopgap procedure that undermines the ability of the police and prosecutors to do their jobs. I was pleased and honored to be able to pick up the Paul Coverdell forensic bill and to reintroduce it as the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Improvement Act of 2000. We have had marvelous bipartisan support on this legislation. Senator Max Cleland from Georgia, Paul's colleague, was an original cosponsor of it. He was at our press conference this morning. Senator Zell Miller, former Governor of Georgia, who has replaced Paul in the Senate, was also at the press conference today, along with Arlen Specter, a former prosecutor, Paul Wellstone, Dick Durbin, and others who participated in this announcement. We need to move this bill. It will be one of the most important acts we can do as a Senate to improve justice in America. It is the kind of thing this Nation ought to do. It ought to be helping States, providing them the latest equipment for their laboratories, the latest techniques on how to evaluate hair fiber or carpet fiber or ballistics or DNA. It ought to be helping them do that and ought not to be taking over their law enforcement processes by taking over their police departments, telling them what kind of cases to prosecute, what kind of sentences to impose and that sort of thing. A good Federal Government is trying to assist the local States. One of the best ways we could ever do that is to support improvements in the forensic laboratories. I believe strongly that this is a good bill in that regard. The numbers of cases are stunning. I will share a few of the numbers and statistics that I have. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice, as of December of 1997--it has gotten worse since--69 percent of State crime labs reported DNA backlogs of 6,800 cases and 287,000 offender samples were pending. That is human DNA we are talking about. That is not available in every case, but that is not all they have backlogs on. Every time cocaine is seized and a prosecutor wants to try a cocaine case, the defense lawyer is not going to agree to go to trial. He will not agree to plead guilty until he has a report back from the laboratory saying the powder is, in fact, cocaine. It is almost considered malpractice by many defense lawyers to plead guilty until the chemist's report is back. This is slowing up cases all over America. The labs have lots of problems in how they are falling behind. I think we need to look at it. One article reports: As Spokane, Washington authorities closed in on a suspected serial killer they were eager to nail enough evidence to make their case stick. So they skipped over the backlogged Washington State Patrol crime lab and shipped some of the evidence to a private laboratory, paying a premium for quicker results. * * * [A] chronic backlog at the State Patrol's seven crime labs, which analyze criminal evidence from police throughout Washington state, has grown so acute that Spokane investigators have feared their manhunt would be stalled. Suspects have been held in jail for months before trial, waiting for forensic evidence to be completed. Thus potentially innocent persons stay in jail, potentially guilty persons stay out of jail, and victims get no closure while waiting on laboratory reports to be completed. A newspaper in Alabama, the Decatur Daily, said: [The] backlog of cases is so bad that final autopsy results and other forensic testing sometimes take up to a year to complete. Now they are saying it takes even longer than that in Alabama. It's a frustrating wait for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and even suspects. It means delayed justice for families of crime victims. Another article: To solve the slaying of Jon Benet Ramsey, Boulder police must rely to a great extent on the results of forensic tests being conducted in crime laboratories. [T]he looming problem for police and prosecutors, according to forensic experts, is whether the evidence is in good condition. Or whether lax procedures * * * resulted in key evidence being hopelessly contaminated. We need to improve our ability to deal with these issues. This legislation would provide $768 million over 6 years directly to our 50 State crime labs to allow them to improve what they are doing. At the press conference today, we were joined by a nonpolitician and a nonlaw enforcement officer, but perhaps without doubt the person in this country and in the world who has done more than any other to explain what goes on in forensic labs. We had Patricia Cornwell, a best-selling author of so many forensic laboratory cases--a best selling author, perhaps the best selling author in America. She worked for a number of years in a laboratory, actually measuring and describing, as they wrote down the description of the knife cuts and bullet wounds in bodies. She worked in data processing. She has traveled around this country, and she has visited laboratories all over the country. She said at our press conference they are in a deplorable state. She said the backlog around the country is unprecedented. She lives in Richmond, VA. She personally has put $1.5 million of her own money, matched by the State of Virginia, Governor Gilmore, to create a laboratory in Virginia that meets the standard she believes is required. It is a remarkable thing that she would do that, be that deeply involved. She is involved and chairman of the board of the foundation that helped create that. She told us how police, defense attorneys, prosecutors, are asking for DNA evidence on cigarettes, on hat bands. They want hair DNA done, hundreds and hundreds of new uses, a Kleenex, perhaps, take the DNA off of that, in addition to the normal objects from which you might expect DNA to be taken. Her view was--and she is quite passionate about this; she has put her own money in it; she understands it deeply--that nothing more could be done to help improve justice in America than to help our laboratories around the country. We have people on death row who are being charged with capital crimes. We have people who have been charged with rape who are out awaiting trial because they haven't gotten the DNA tests back on semen specimens or blood specimens, and they may well be committing other rapes and other robberies while they are out, if they are guilty. Also, there is evidence to prove they are not guilty if that is the case. I believe we had a good day today. I believe this Senate and this Congress will listen to the facts about the need for improvement of our forensic laboratories which will respond to the crush of cases that are piling up all over the country and will recognize the leadership that our magnificent and wonderful colleague, Paul Coverdell, gave to this effort and will be proud to vote for the bill named for him, the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 2000, and that we can, on a bipartisan basis, move this bill and strike a major blow for justice in America. I talked with the Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno, yesterday. She told me this was very consistent with her views. She supports our efforts to improve forensic science capabilities, and she said it is consistent with the Department of Justice's approach to helping State and local law enforcement. I believe the Department of Justice will be supporting this legislation, and we intend to work with everybody who is interested to improve it. At this point, the legislation speaks for itself. It is receiving broad bipartisan support, and I believe we can move it on to passage this year. Nothing we could do would help fight crime more and produce a better quality of justice in our courts over America than passage of this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Harkin, McConnell, Bunning, and Grams be added as original cosponsors of S. 3045, which I introduced earlier today.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on June 9, 1999, the late Senator Paul Coverdell introduced legislation aimed at addressing one of the most pressing problems facing law enforcement today: the critical backlogs in our state crime labs. Senator Coverdell's National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 1196) attracted broad bipartisan support in Congress, as well as the enforcement of national law enforcement groups. Unfortunately, before Senator Coverdell's bill could move through Congress, he passed away. As a fitting, substantive tribute to Senator Coverdell, I am today introducing the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 2000 to eliminate the crisis in forensics labs across the country. This was an issue he cared a great deal about, and I am honored to have the opportunity to carry on his efforts to address this problem. The crisis in our forensics labs is acute. According to a report issued in February by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of December 1997, 69 percent of state crime labs reported DNA backlogs in 6,800 cases and 287,000 convicted offender samples. The backlogs are having a crippling effect on the fair and speedy administration of justice. For example, the Seattle Times reported on April 23 of this year that police are being forced to pay private labs to do critical forensics work so that their active investigations do not have to wait for tests to be completed. ``As Spokane authorities closed in on a suspected serial killer, they were eager to nail enough evidence to make their case stick. So they skipped over the backlogged Washington State Patrol crime lab and shipped some evidence to a private laboratory, paying a premium for quicker results. [A] chronic backlog at the State Patrol's seven crime labs, which analyze criminal evidence from police throughout Washington state, has grown so acute that Spokane investigators feared their manhunt would be stalled.'' As a former prosecutor, I know how dependent the criminal justice system is on fast, accurate, dependable forensics testing. With backlogs in the labs, district attorneys are forced to wait months and years to pursue cases. This is not simply a matter of expediting convictions of the guilty. Suspects are held in jail for months before trial, waiting for the forensic evidence to be completed. Thus, potentially innocent persons stay in jail, potentially guilty persons stay out of jail, and victims of crime do not receive closure. As an Alabama newspaper, the Decatur Daily, reported on November 28, 1999, ``[The] backlog of cases is so bad that final autopsy results and other forensic testing sometimes take up to a year to complete. It's a frustrating wait for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and even suspects. It means delayed justice for the families of crime victims.'' Justice delayed is justice denied for prosecutors, defendants, judges, police, and, most importantly, for victims. This is unacceptable. Given the tremendous amount of work to be done by crime labs, scientists and technicians must sacrifice accuracy, reliability, or time in order to complete their work. Sacrificing accuracy or reliability would destroy the justice system, so it is time that is sacrificed. But with the tremendous pressures to complete lab work, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be problems other than delays. Everyone from police to detectives to evidence technicians to lab technicians to forensic scientists to prosecutors must be well-trained in the preservation, collection, and preparation of forensic evidence. The JonBenet Ramsey case is perhaps the most well-known example of a case where forensics work is critical to convicting the perpetrator of a crime. As the Rocky Mountain News reported on February 2, 1997, ``To solve the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, Boulder police must rely to a great extent on the results of forensic tests being conducted in crime laboratories. [T]he looming problem for police and prosecutors, according to forensics experts, is whether the evidence is in good condition. Or whether lax procedures . . . resulted in key evidence being hopelessly contaminated.'' We need to help our labs train investigators and police. We need to help our labs reduce the backlog so that the innocent may be exonerated and the guilty convicted. We need to help our labs give closure to victims of crime. The bill I am introducing today is essentially a reintroduction of Senator Coverdell's National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 1196). The bill expands permitted uses of Byrne grants to include improving the quality, timeliness, and credibility of forensic science services, including DNA, blood and ballistics tests. It requires States to develop a plan outlining the manner in which the grants will be used to improve forensic science services and requires States to use these funds only to improve forensic sciences, and limits administrative expenditures to 10 percent of the grant amount. This new bill adds a reporting requirement so that the backlog reduction can be documented and tracked. Additionally, the funding is adjusted to begin authorizations in Fiscal Year 2001, rather than FY 2000, as S. 1196 did. Otherwise, this is the exact same bill Senator Coverdell introduced and that I and many of my colleagues supported. This bill has the support of many of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, including Senators Cleland and Miller from Georgia, Senators Lott, Nickles, Hatch, Stevens, Thurmond, Shelby, Cochran, Kyl, Wellstone, Dodd, Grams, Durbin, Frist, Helms, Specter, Santorum, Jeffords, Abraham, L. Chafee, Mack, Bunning, Ashcroft, Harkin, and others. I also appreciate the strong support of Representative Sanford Bishop of Georgia, the primary sponsor of Senator Coverdell's bill in the House. I spoke with Attorney General Reno last night, and she told me that she ``supports our efforts to improve forensic science capabilities.'' She also told me that this bill ``is consistent with the Department of Justice's approach to helping State and local law enforcement.'' Moreover, numerous law enforcement organizations, including the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Southern Association of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Medical Examiners, the International Association of Police Chiefs, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the National Association of Counties. These Members of Congress and these organizations understand, as I do, that crime is not political. Our labs need help, and after 15 years as a prosecutor, I am convinced that there is nothing that the Congress can do to help the criminal justice system more than to pass this bill and fund our crime labs. To properly complete tests for DNA, blood, and ballistic samples, our crime labs need better equipment, training, staffing, and accreditation. This bill will help clear the crippling backlogs in the forensics labs. This, in turn, will help exonerate the innocent, convict the guilty, and restore confidence in our criminal justice system. I hope my colleagues will join me in passing the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act of 2000 in the short time we have remaining in this Session.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I express my admiration for the Senator from Ohio. He effectively states his case on matters of great importance to his State and the Nation. He always does that effectively. I greatly admire his views and thought processes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on rollcall vote 230, I voted no. It was my intention to vote yea. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will in no way change the outcome of the vote.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I rise this morning to comment on the extraordinary and wonderful life of my friend and our colleague, Paul Coverdell of Georgia. While my abilities are unequal to this task, I believe I must try, not because my mere comments will add the slightest glimmer of luster to his sterling legacy but because it is important for me and those living to contemplate his exemplary character, ways of working, positive spirit, courage, and enthusiasm. The one thing I want to remember most about Paul is that quick, genuine, and, at times, child-like smile he had. It seemed a bit whimsical, sometimes a bit tired, a bit resigned, at first glance; but on closer observation, that smile was always full of understanding, compassion, and insight into the difficulties we face. Paul's smile was never silly or false but frequent, wise, encompassing, and in empathy and comprehension for our frailties, completely knowing our weaknesses and encapsulating the precariousness of our human and political condition. Yes, it was fresh and child-like and frequently given; yet in that smile was great strength. There was a kind of understanding there that was born of experience, study, insight, and concern. Moreover, because it was founded on an honest appreciation of our present condition in this life, its warmth, its humanity never failed to inspire. Paul Coverdell was an honest man, an honest broker, an honest leader. Paul Coverdell had the courage to act on that honesty, to speak the truth in a positive way. He always saw the glass half full, not half empty. These qualities have the capacity to inspire, and they have never failed to inspire me. When I was frustrated, doubtful, and concerned, I always looked for a chance to speak with Paul. On occasion, if he sensed I was troubled, he would seek me out. After those conversations I always felt encouraged. As I think on it today, he was a greater encourager for me and for others than I realized at the time. His friendship, insight, and advice were invaluable for my start in the Senate three years ago. I will deeply miss him. On the day following his death, I spoke on this floor and said, that I knew we rightly should celebrate his life and not mourn, but I was not able to celebrate at that time because of the hurt of his loss. I am better now, but his death has struck me and others in this body hard. Still, Paul Coverdell's life is, indeed, to be celebrated. He loved his country. He understood its greatness and uniqueness and deeply loved it. He loved the Senate. His tireless work on matters great and small was abundant evidence of that fact. Paul enjoyed the debate, and helping develop strategy for the leadership, but his ultimate goal was always towards improving his country. That was the constant goal of his service. He loved the Members of the Senate--all of them--even those with whom he disagreed and he was loved in return. Paul Coverdell was a very effective Senator. He followed through on his assignments. He passed legislation and he helped many others pass important legislation. In that small frame, he had, as Phil Gramm said, the heart of a lion. Paul was a man of great principle and it was a rich and deeply understood the American tradition to which he adhered with vigor. Paul was knowledgable. He knew a lot of about a lot of things. Experiences like the Peace Corps had taught him much. That knowledge made him wise and helpful to all of us in this body. Paul, though not at all naive, was certainly optimistic. Even if he knew something bad was about to happen, he looked beyond that bad event and saw possibilities in the future for an even greater good. That was always the case with him. I remember numerous occasions in which he saw beyond temporary setbacks and could visualize a positive future. His optimism helped shape the agenda of the Republican Conference. It was always his method to focus on our successes, and not on the frustrations. Once one listened fairly to his arguments, one could have no choice but to become optimistic also. Certainly this Senate has lost a giant. He held a position of great leadership, was projected to continue to rise in leadership and was a tireless supporter of all Members of this body. My sympathies, and those of my wife, Mary, are extended to Nancy, to his mother and to other members of the family. They have suffered the greatest loss. The scripture says our time on this Earth is but as a vapor. Indeed, James 4:13 puts us in our place. It says: Come now, you who say, ``Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such town and spend a year there and get gain,'' whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are but a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that, and it is your boast in your arrogance. That was not Paul. He was not a person of arrogance. More than any other person in this body that I can know, he was a man of unassuming personality, a man of genuine humility, a person utterly without pretension. I think he showed us a lot. I don't know any 150-year-old people. All of us must expect to die. Our challenge is to keep the faith, to maintain our ideals, to adhere to great principles and to live with enthusiasm. Paul Coverdell was a good man and he set a good example for all of us. His death should call us all to intensify our own efforts to fill the void he leaves so that we may serve our country with effectiveness and strengthen the qualities that make up this great Senate. I pray God will give us the ability to meet the challenge that are before us, that he will comfort those who are mourning, and that we can continue to maintain the ideals that Paul shared with us for a great and vigorous and effective America. I yield the floor.

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