Jim Talent

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Two or three minutes?

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I commend Staff Sergeant Ronald W. Hoskins of Fort Leonard Wood, MO, for over 20 years of service in the U.S. Army. He began his service in March of 1983, when he attended Military Police training and subsequently moved to Dugway Proving grounds, Utah to act as a military police desk sergeant. In 1984 he was reassigned to Germany where he graduated from Military Police Investigations School at the Combined Arms Training Center. In 1987 he was promoted to Sergeant. In late 1987 Sergeant Hoskins moved back to the United States where he served in both Texas and Alabama, until he was assigned to the 142nd Military Police Company in Yongstan, Korea, in 1990. In 1991 Sergeant Hoskins began working as an investigator and evidence custodian at Fort Bliss, Texas. He served in this position until 1995 when he returned to Yongstan. In 1996 He was assigned to the 978th Military Police Company, and during this tour was promoted to staff sergeant while he served as a military police patrol supervisor. Staff Sergeant Hoskins was next assigned to Stuttgart, Germany. He developed an emergency vehicles operator's course that was adapted throughout the United States Army in Europe. Over his long career Staff Sergeant Ronald Hoskins has received many awards and decorations, including the meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal with four oak leaf clusters, Army Achievement Medal with four oak leaf clusters, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star. Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon with numeral two device, Overseas Service Ribbon with numeral four device and Drivers Badge. I congratulate Staff Sergeant Hoskins on his lengthy and dedicated career in the United States Army. I also want to recognize the efforts of his wife Susan without whom none of these accomplishments would be possible. Moreover, I extend to Staff Sergeant Haskins my profound appreciation for his service to the nation. I am honored to share his success with my colleagues and I wish him and his family all the best for the future.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I thank my friend from North Dakota for accommodating me and allowing me to speak for a few minutes about the amendment we all know is going to be offered in a few minutes by our friend and colleague, Mr. Warner from Virginia. I do thank and congratulate Chairman Warner and also Chairman Stevens, not just for producing this amendment I think is so important, but also for their work over the years in sustaining America and keeping faith with the men and women who keep faith with us every day and serve us on the front lines and on the back lines and throughout the world to keep our country safe. I want to suggest to the Senate there is no more serious amendment we will consider in this debate on the budget than the one Senator Warner is about to offer. America is deeply engaged in the world in all respects, and it should be, it needs to be. It is a difficult task, but it is one we bear every day as a nation in a lot of different ways. Yet despite all our other efforts, despite our diplomatic efforts, despite our participation in international organizations, despite the coalitions we have built around the world, despite our foreign aid, despite our exhortations based on our philosophy, despite the power of our ideas, as important as all of that is, America's security and the security of our allies and our friends around the world depends and continues to depend on the reality and the perception of our military power. That is what is at stake in this amendment today. The President of the United States has submitted a defense budget which states a requirement of $421 billion for the national defense. In my judgment, that is quite probably too low. I have argued for 10 years, first in the House and now in the Senate, that we are not adequately funding our defense establishment. I simply offer very briefly as evidence of that the fact the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently submitted, in response to a question from Congressman Ike Skelton, my old and dear friend from the other body, about what their unfunded requirements were. In other words, what are their requirements they were not able to get into the President's budget. They submitted $12 billion in unfunded requirements, and that is just their top priorities: $6 billion for the Army; $2.5 billion, roughly, for the Navy; $2.5 billion for the Air Force. I think it is more than that, based on my years of experience. I believe we could add $15 billion to $20 billion to the budget for procurement alone without overfunding America's military. I will explain in a minute why we are in this position. The Army needs to be bigger. I supported an amendment that was offered by the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, last year to increase the size of the Army. I think it needs to be another 30,000 to 40,000 men and women. I am pleased to say the administration is moving in that direction now, at least on a temporary basis, but that requirement was not included in the President's budget. Half of military housing is inadequate. That was not provided for in the President's budget. There are other quality-of-life needs we would like to meet. Many of us here would like to resolve the issue of concurrent receipt, for example, so we can allow our military retirees who also have a military disability pension to keep both their retirement they earned and the disability benefits they deserve. That is not included in the budget. I could go on on behalf of my belief that the $421 billion the President has asked for is probably too low. Now, I am sure it will be said by some in the debate on this amendment that the President's budget increases defense from last year by 7 percent and that is too great. That is above the rate of inflation. Our spending on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product is less than it was prior to World War II. We spent 47 percent of our discretionary funds on defense in 2002 compared to 60 percent in 1990, and we are at war. It is time for us to get as serious as the men and women in America's military are about winning this war. I went into the Congress in 1993. It was just after the outgoing first Bush administration had, in response to the cold war, cut the size of America's military establishment by about a quarter to establish what they called the Bush base force, which, by the way, is probably about what we need today, in my judgment. The incoming Clinton administration then cut the size of the force an additional 25 percent, to about a third, depending on which branch of the service we are talking about. I argued all throughout the 1990s that we were not funding even that undersized force adequately. All throughout those years, we were tacitly engaging in the assumption in this Congress that there was not any real threat to the United States; that with the end of the cold war in some sense history had ended as well. Well, history had not ended. It had not ended all those years. It was just frozen and it thawed out with a vengeance on September 11. All the ethnic and regional rivalries of the world--fanaticism, nationalism, extremism--have risen up now to threaten us and once again we rediscover we do, indeed, need America's military and we do, indeed, need to fund it. The question today is whether we are going to be serious on behalf of that responsibility. The force is too old. The reason it is too old is that all throughout the 1990s we were not buying enough new, what they call in the military, platforms, trucks, and planes. When the capital stock is not replenished, it gets old. The average age of an aircraft in the U.S. Air Force is 22 years; the bombers, over 40 years; Navy and Marine aircraft, 18 years. We do not have enough ships in the Navy. We have 294 ships in the Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, says we need 20 more today. His vision for the future is 375 ships, and we are not buying enough to get us there. We are not buying enough to maintain a 300-ship Navy. I could go on. I have done it before, at least when I served in the other body. Some evening I will probably have occasion to spend 45 minutes or an hour discussing this. To his credit, and in the face of the threat presented by the terrorist war, President Bush has regularly submitted substantial increases in the defense budget to this Congress. To its credit, this Congress has supported those increases. Along with the tremendous dedication of America's military and the vision and leadership of those who are running it, it is helping. We need to stay at least on that course. It would be almost a historical abdication of our responsibilities were we not to provide for at least the amount of money the President of the United States has asked for America's military while America's military is fighting a war for us. The only argument against it is that the deficit is a problem. Well, yes, the deficit is a problem. We are in a war. Members who do not believe that should read about it. It is in the papers every day. We are in a war. We are also in a recession. I have not gone back and checked the Almanacs but I cannot imagine a time when the United States has been in a war and a recession and has not run a deficit. If my colleagues are worried about the deficit, let me suggest what will increase the deficit: If we lose the war, I guarantee that will increase the deficit. We do not have to lose it; we just have to suffer another significant attack on our homeland, and it can happen. That will increase the deficit. In fact, all we have to do is encourage America's enemies--and we have enemies around the world-- to believe that we will not see this through, that we will retreat. I guarantee that will increase the deficit a lot more than the amendment of the Senator from Virginia proposes to do. Let's not be shortsighted. I have confidence that this Senate will not be. I do not want to sound like a scold; I really do not. I am proud of what the Congress has done the last few years in supporting our military. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. I am proud to be on that committee. An hour ago I left a hearing, which I had the honor of chairing, of the Seapower Subcommittee, where Senator Kennedy is the ranking member. We had several hours in which we considered the capacity of our military to move goods around the world. One of the areas of jurisdiction of the subcommittee is on airlift and the capacity of our marine resources, civilian and military, to move goods around the world. I was astounded, amazed, and encouraged by how much we have improved the efficiency of that part of the service. We are all in debt to the men and women who work there and who run that, both civilian and military. I am pleased this Congress has sustained their efforts, and I know we will sustain the efforts of our men and women in America's military today. They are doing their job. The question is whether we are going to do ours. They are watching. Our enemies are watching to see what the Senate does today. I am not sure exactly the form in which the Warner amendment will be offered. I do know it will restore the approximately $7 billion that the committee reduced and cut from the President's submission. We need to pass that amendment. We need to do our job in winning this war and protecting the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT

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

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I honor Reverend Michael Jones, who is the senior pastor of Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis. I was moved to do this after recently attending a wonderful service at the church in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Reverend Jones becoming pastor. Reverend Jones accepted a call into ministry at Friendly Temple in 1979, and he worked for several years under the tutelage of his grandfather, Reverend R.F. Davis. After his grandfather's passing, he was commissioned to serve as senior pastor in 1994. During Reverend Jones' 9 years as senior pastor, the church has been very active in meeting the needs of the community around it, helping to feed the hungry, house the homeless and educate the unskilled to prepare them for jobs. Friendly Temple also has a jail ministry, an alcohol and drug ministry and a youth ministry, among others, which seek to provide a hand up to many of society's most troubled members. In all its efforts, the church reaches out to people with a message of rebirth, renewal, restoration, revival and resurrection based on the teachings of the Gospels. That is because Pastor Jones and the leaders of the church are committed to the glory service of their Lord and Savior. Reverend Jones and his wife Phyllis are proud parents of three children, Kawonza, Mike and Joshua. In addition, Reverend Jones has a bachelor's degree in business management and marketing management and a master's degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in General Theological Studies. I commend Reverend Jones and the congregation of Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church for their outstanding service to the community. His message of hope and strong moral values is an inspiration and a blessing to all of us. I am honored to share his successes with my colleagues, and I wish him and his congregation all the best for the future.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that one of my staffers, Telly Lovelace, be permitted the privilege of the floor for the rest of the afternoon.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Black History Month by supporting the Sickle Cell Treatment Act, which is S. 874, and inviting my colleagues to join me and my chief cosponsor, Senator Schumer, in doing the same. I am very pleased we now have over 40 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate for this bill. We certainly would welcome more. I invite our colleagues to look carefully at this act and to support it. It is an important measure. It deals with a disease that afflicts many hundreds of thousands of Americans and a disease that really has not received enough attention and enough visibility in the last few years. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation is designed to treat and find a comprehensive cure for sickle cell disease which is a genetic disease which primarily affects but not exclusively African Americans. About 1 in 300 newborn African-American infants is born with this disease, but the disease also affects people of Hispanic, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern ancestry, as well as Caucasians. More than 2.5 million Americans, mostly but again not exclusively African Americans, have the sickle cell trait, which is not the same as having the disease. Why focus on sickle cell disease? Because it is the most common genetic disease that is screened in American newborns. People with the disease have red blood cells that contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin. These cells have a sickle shape, hence the name of the disease, that makes it difficult for the cells to pass through small blood vessels or carry the appropriate amount of oxygen or nutrients or antibiotics, if that has been prescribed. The tissue that does not receive normal blood flow because of the disease eventually becomes damaged and can and often does cause potentially life-threatening complications. Stroke in particular is the most feared complication for children with sickle cell disease. It may affect infants as young as 18 months. I have personally talked with a number of parents whose children have had strokes as toddlers. One of the difficulties with this disease is recognizing it--and I will talk about that in just a minute-- recognizing its symptoms. Young children can have strokes without the parents even realizing it for some time. While some patients live without symptoms for years, many others do not survive infancy or early childhood. I became involved with this effort because of an African-American doctor from St. Louis, Dr. Michael DeBaun, who treats children with sickle cell disease. When you meet the practitioners who specialize in treating people who have this disease, you meet a series of American heroes. Dr. DeBaun is one of them. After meeting and visiting with him about a year ago, I realized the hardship this disease puts on families and especially on the children, who often have to receive blood transfusion after blood transfusion in order to avoid strokes. And, yes, in order to stay alive. About one-third of children with sickle cell disease suffer a stroke before age 18. These children require frequent blood transfusions, sometimes 15 to 25 units of blood a year, to prevent subsequent strokes. If you study the disease, you will also learn firsthand how it can affect the daily lives of children. I will just use one example, 9- year-old Isaac Cornell, whom I also had the privilege of meeting. He is one of Dr. DeBaun's patients and attends fourth grade at Gateway Elementary School in St. Louis. About four times a year, Isaac misses school because of severe episodes of pain, with each episode lasting about 5 to 7 days. Every 4 weeks Isaac has to go for a blood transfusion at St. Louis Children's Hospital where he's treated by Dr. DeBaun. Isaac has a permanent port installed in his upper chest to allow for the transfusions. That is one of the reasons he cannot play contact sports or join the wrestling team. Sickle cell disease affects Isaac's decisions every day. He has to drink plenty of water to lubricate his cells, he has to be careful not to overexert himself--and that is certainly difficult for a 9-year-old boy--and he has to be careful to get plenty of rest. Because so many patients like Isaac are struggling with this disease, in April of 2003, Senator Schumer and I introduced the Sickle Cell Treatment Act. Our friends, Representatives Danny Davis and Richard Burr, introduced a companion bill, H.R. 1736, in the House, which now has 39 bipartisan cosponsors. S. 874, which is the bill Senator Schumer and I introduced, has 41 bipartisan cosponsors as well as the support of dozens of prominent African-American children's and health advocates, as well as union and church groups including--I am going to read the list. This is not a complete list, but it includes the Congressional Black Caucus, the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the National Association of Community Health Centers, the NAACP, the Children's Defense Fund, the Health Care Leadership Council, United Food & Commercial Workers Union--Minority Coalition, the UFCW Faces of Our Children, United Church of Christ, and National Baptist U.S.A. These advocates, as well as the others who support this legislation, know the bill will make a difference in the lives of kids and families who are struggling with sickle cell disease. I want to outline four key ways in which the bill makes a difference. First, it increases access to affordable, quality health care. The provision provides funding to currently eligible Medicaid recipients for physician and laboratory services targeted to sickle cell disease that are not currently reimbursed or are underreimbursed by Medicaid. Importantly, however, the bill does not increase the number of Medicaid eligibles and the Federal Medicaid match will stay the same. We have structured this bill so it is very affordable. The bill also enhances services available to sickle cell disease patients. This is a crucial aspect of the bill. When you have this disease, you have to stay on top of it. You have to manage this disease. I mentioned Isaac Cornell before, how he drinks water and gets adequate rest and is careful not to overexert himself. You also have to know the various respects in which the symptoms of the disease can show up. This is a tricky, sneaky disease. I was talking with another parent whose son was having considerable dental problems. This is something people with this disease struggle with, because when they get periodontal disease and some form of antibiotic is prescribed by their dentist, they can't be certain the red blood cells will carry the antibiotic to the infected point, so indeed any infections they have are particularly dangerous. Obviously there is a whole medical side to this we have to be aware of, but in addition, people need to know about the disease. They need to receive counseling and education as well as screening, genetic counseling, community outreach. Education and other services are crucial. Currently, those kinds of services are not reimbursed under Medicaid unless they are performed by the physicians such as Dr. DeBaun. Dr. DeBaun simply does not have the time, certainly not as much as he would want to spend, the hours and hours he would need to spend with each set of parents, with each patient, in order to go over all the various ways in which this disease can affect their lives. So it is important that Medicaid reimburse these services, even if they are done by counselors or outreach personnel who are not physicians. They are perfectly appropriate and able to do it. The bill would allow nonmedical personnel such as counselors to spend time with sickle cell disease families to discuss how they can manage the disease. That, by the way, will end up saving the Government money because it will prevent strokes and other serious episodes that then Medicaid does appropriately reimburse. The bill creates 40 sickle cell disease treatment centers. This provision of the bill authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to distribute grants to up to 40 eligible community health centers nationwide for $10 million for the next 5 fiscal years for a total of $50 million. That is subject to appropriation. That could mean a health center grant in almost every State. Grant money may be used for purposes including the education, treatment, and continuity of care for sickle cell disease patients and for training health professionals. Finally, the bill establishes a sickle cell disease research headquarters. This provision of the bill creates a national coordinating center, which also would be operated by the Department of Health and Human Services, to coordinate and oversee sickle cell disease funding and research conducted at hospitals, universities, and community-based organizations. This will help ensure efficiency so we can share information about the disease, accountability to make sure the taxpayers' dollars are being used well, and also help us get best practices and monitor outcomes for the disease so we can improve services to people who have it around the country. I cannot overemphasize the outpouring of support Senator Schumer and I have received for this bill. I am sure if he were here he would relate the stories he has had. I have myself received personal handwritten letters from sickle cell disease patients who expressed their gratitude for this legislation and who asked what they can do to help pass the bill since they know how many families it will help. For example, Allyce Renee Ford of Blue Springs, MO, wrote, and I will paraphrase: I was pleased to read of your bill to increase funding for treatment of sickle cell disease. My twin sons were born with sickle sell in 1973 and suffered from this debilitating disease all their lives. They both lost the battle to painful complications in 2002. Please believe me, it is a painful life-constricting disease both for the victims and their families. Even though I do not have any other children to lose to the disease, I mourn for all the other parents who will lose their children in the future--today, tomorrow, someday they will lose them. Thank God there will be help for sickle cell disease victims--help not just in the form of additional funding--and the bill is very affordable--but help in the form of greater visibility, community support. This bill is lifting the profile of this disease which has remained in the corner for too long. The business exclusively in the past has been the business of those struggling and the small community helping them. We need to show these people that the country is with them. In conclusion, it is critical to help this historically underserved population. Many of these people do not even know they carry the trait or they have the disease until consequences have been visited upon them that they could have lessened or mitigated in some respect had they had prior knowledge. I ask my colleagues to join me and Senator Schumer to honor Black History Month by cosponsoring this Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Act. I cannot think of a better way to honor this month than to help all of the families, most of whom are African-American families, who are living and struggling with this disease. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT

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

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. It is around $65 billion a year in lost productivity because people are trapped in traffic jams. I say to my friend from Oklahoma, it certainly makes sense. We have the workers of the country every morning going to work--and I see it in Missouri--and they are trapped in traffic jams. That is time they are not spending on the job producing goods and services and wealth for the United States.

Mr. TALENT. It is about $49 billion in extra maintenance costs because the roads are not good.

Mr. TALENT. Yes.

Mr. TALENT. I appreciate the question of the Senator from Nevada, also. If you went to that taxpayer and said, what do you get for the money you send to Washington, and they thought about it, they would say, well, the roads. I have people say to me: We don't really want anything, but it would be nice if you would fix the roads. It would be nice if you had an extra lane on that bridge or it would be nice if I didn't have to, when my kid went out on a date at night, wait up at night, not worrying because I thought the kid would get into trouble but whether my kid was going to get home on those roads. So I think the people who are paying the income taxes of the country into the general revenue of the United States of America would appreciate it if we used a little bit of that to fix their roads. I don't know whether that fits whatever rules of accounting we have been following in the past. I think it would make a difference for the people of the country. You know what I don't think is fair--what is not fair is to pass the bill for the Nation's infrastructure on to the next generation, knowing we have not done our part to pay it. Yes, this highway bill is bigger than the last highway bill. As everybody said, it is about 30 percent bigger. The gap between where it is and where it should be is bigger, too, and what that tells us is with each highway bill, we are failing more and more to get to where we need to be, and it is going to have to get bigger and bigger as time goes on if we are going to make up for this transportation deficit. I used this example yesterday. You are a homeowner, and you have a hole in the roof. You have to consider what options you are going to use to pay for fixing it. But what isn't an option is not fixing it because if you don't fix it, it doesn't get any better; it just gets worse and eventually the roof collapses. I think we should do our part and face honestly what we need. I appreciate the managers of the bill getting this bill up to the level they have. I ask them to hang tough. We need a highway bill at that level. I made a point of saying yesterday that we need it more than that. I am hopeful, as this process goes on, that we can persuade those who, with the sincerest of intentions, are concerned about the fiscal state of the country, that we don't improve the fiscal state of the country by undermining the economy that produces the wealth on which this Government depends. We are going to meet these needs in the future. We are going to meet it through growth. America is going to go out and produce and create jobs and grow and make enough for everybody. America will rescue us from this fiscal situation if America can get to work in the morning, and that is what this bill is about. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. TALENT. I have an amendment filed at the desk on behalf of Mr. Wyden and myself. I think we have had it cleared, and I was going to ask unanimous consent that it be adopted. It is amendment No. 2482.

Mr. TALENT. There is an amendment pending?

Mr. TALENT. I will wait until that amendment has been resolved. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside while I offer this amendment.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, will the Senator from Nevada withhold?

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I send amendment No. 2482 to the desk.

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

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to offer a few observations about my friend's amendment. He has spoken with his usual eloquence. I listened with care to the three points he raised. I say this with entire sincerity, even though I confess that I didn't agree with a word he said. I was in the Chamber yesterday and had with me the survey of the Department of Transportation on the needs of the United States of America for transportation. It was about the size of this volume I have in my hand. It was an exhaustive survey that concluded we needed a transportation infrastructure bill of around $375 billion to take care of our crumbling transportation infrastructure. It is a fact that I have not heard contested, much less contested successfully, on this floor, that 32 percent of the roads in the United States are in poor or mediocre condition; 36 percent of the urban roads are in that condition; 28 percent of the bridges are substandard; we lose $65 billion a year in productivity and man-hours because people are trapped on congested roads; there is $50 billion a year in extra maintenance costs that we have to pay because our automobiles have maintenance problems due to the fact that the roads are no good. Who hasn't been in a situation where they have rolled over a pothole--and not always on some subdivision road but on a highway--and blown out a shock or their tires have gone out of balance? It is because of the road, and you have to pay for that. It is not going to get better if we don't do something to make it better. This is what I don't understand from the critics of the bill. What do they want to do? Are these roads just magically going to fix themselves? Is there something defective about this survey? That is what the Department says in terms of its academic study, if you will. We all know it is true. We encounter it every day here on the east coast, and we encounter it when we are in our States. My friend from Arizona talked about the bill conceals something. It doesn't conceal something. It is an attempt to meet the problems of transportation infrastructure. What is concealing things is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, to set an arbitrary limit for how much we are going to spend and say, based on what we are willing to spend, that is what we need to spend, instead of honestly assessing where we are in terms of transportation infrastructure in this country and coming up with the money one way or another to meet the needs. The critics are concealing the fact they don't intend to do anything about the problem. This is what they say: Well, OK, you cannot raise taxes to raise money to deal with the problem. You cannot use bonding because we have never done that before. Everybody else in the country does it. I spoke at some length about this yesterday. I will not inflict it anymore on the Senate. Everybody else in the country bonds for roads and highways and bridges, but we cannot do it here. Now we cannot use general revenue either. So go ahead and fix the roads, but you cannot raise taxes, use bonds, or use general revenue. Go ahead and get the $375 billion. That is concealing the fact that they are not going to do anything about the problem. We are going to continue losing the $65 billion a year in lost productivity, $50 billion in increased maintenance--and what about the people who die because the roads are no good? What about those people? Tell them we don't need to do any more? Tell their families we don't need to do any more for transportation infrastructure? I hear my friends say it is not fair to use general revenue, not fair to the taxpayers. There are a lot of people in Missouri who get up every day, and they have worked hard and been fortunate enough that their lives are going pretty good. Maybe they are single or they have families. They work and get taxes deducted from their paycheck every week. They pay the taxes at the pump. They pay all the other taxes they have to pay. On April 15, they write another big check. Because their lives are going good and they don't need a lot of extra help, they don't participate in a lot of Federal programs that we have here. They support them. They want people with needs to have access to help. They don't participate in it because they don't need it. If you stopped and asked them, what is it you get directly out of the taxes you send to Washington, and they stop and think about what it is that Washington does that makes a difference for them day to day, about the only thing they would say is the roads. They would say: It would help if I could get to work in the morning. Sure, we have a problem with the fiscal future of the country. That is not even considering what we have to do with Medicare and Social Security when the baby boomers begin to retire.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, yesterday, I filed an amendment with Senator Allen and Senator Burns to the Household Goods Moving portion of SAFE-TEA. Under the circumstances, I will not call it up. The amendment's purpose is to enact meaningful consumer protections that also safeguard small businesses and their employees. Each year 1.5 million households hire commercial moving companies to move their household goods to another state. There are almost 3,000 federally registered motor carriers who transport household goods across state lines. Most of these moving companies are small businesses--Mom and Pop family-owned businesses. In addition to the thousands of licensed small business movers, there are countless unlicensed and unregistered movers. Everyone agrees that the vast majority of movers provide quality service in an ethical manner, but there are some ``bad apples'' that don't follow the rules to the detriment of consumers and other reputable small businesses. These ``bad apples'' take advantage of consumers with misleading estimates, baiting them with deals that are ``too good to be true.'' They're also known to hold customers' household goods hostage while they demand higher fees. The predatory tactics of these ``bad apples'' give the entire moving industry a bad name. They hurt consumers and they threaten thousands of legitimate small business moving companies, endangering the jobs of the tens of thousands of employees and the families that depend on them. Congress needs to commit itself to enacting reforms that will help stop unscrupulous movers and their predatory tactics and protect consumers and the small business jobs in the moving industry. I appreciate Senator McCain and his staff's efforts in this area. Many of the reforms in the Household Goods Moving portion of SAFE-TEA accomplish these goals. I believe that Congress can enact legislation that will protect consumers, small businesses and the thousands of jobs in the household good moving industry. My amendment works to punish ``bad apples,'' protect consumers, safeguard the thousands of legitimate small businesses, and sustain the good jobs in the moving industry. When I was Chairman of the Small Business Committee in the House, I learned that sometimes regulation offered even with the greatest of intentions could unfortunately have an opposite and devastating impact on the people it intended to protect. It is clear that some of the provisions in the underlying bill will not hinder unscrupulous ``bad apples,'' but instead seriously harm legitimate small businesses and endanger American jobs and the families that depend on them. I have some concerns about the consumer protections that were attached, because some of them operate in a way where they burden the honest businesses and do not stop the dishonest ones. That is always the nightmare with regulation when we do it. Sometimes they end up making it difficult for the people who are trying to comply with the law, and the corner cutters still cut corners and we end up with the worst of both worlds. There is a provision in the bill that was added in the Commerce Committee, for example, that would allow lawsuits against movers who don't use the absolute shortest route to get the household goods from one place to another. That is very understandable because some of the bad apples will drive around town in order to build up the price and get a higher fee for the moving. At the same time, they are very legitimate reasons why a business may not take the shortest route--safety reasons, for example. What I am saying is we need to look at the provisions that were enacted in committee in conference to make certain that we do the best job we can do of protecting consumers while partnering with the legitimate small businesses, because they want the bad apples out of the business as well. All of us have had an experience or we know of friends who had experience with these businesses that want to hurt everybody. We want to protect consumers. We have to do it in a way that partners with the good companies. We don't want to drive their costs up, which will then be passed along to consumers. Worst case, some of these legitimate small businesses will have to go out of business. These issues deserve further consideration in the conference. Our amendment offers commonsense solutions. My amendment protects a legitimate small business mover's right to collect for additional work requested by the customer at the time when his or her goods are delivered. My amendment enhances consumer protections. State enforcement laws should strictly protect consumers by prohibiting movers from holding a customer's goods hostage. My amendment defends legitimate small businesses' right to recoup attorneys fees if they are determined to be ``in the right'' by a court. My amendment also addresses provisions in the underlying bill that have little to do with consumer protection. For example, if the underlying bill is passed as written, attorneys could legislate through prosecution the route a legitimate small business mover must take when delivering household goods. Admittedly, this provision was designed to protect consumers from ``bad apples'' that literally take their customers for a ride, using longer routes and charging higher fees. But, unfortunately, the way the provision is written, mom and pop small business moving companies would also suffer and be exposed to lawsuits and fines that will threaten their business and the jobs of their employees. Attorneys should not determine the fate of legitimate small business movers. Small business movers are experienced and they know which highways to take in traffic and in bad weather. In St. Louis, Missouri, we have two central highways: highway 40 and 44. It's clear to anybody who travels on those highways that 44 is often the quicker route in rush-hour traffic. But, this provision would take away an experienced drivers right to choose. It could be mandated that he use only highway 40. Legitimate movers don't make their money scamming customers; they make their money getting shipments on and off, on-time. Despite the fact that this provision is intended to protect consumers, it could have the opposite effect, requiring movers to take less efficient routes; routes they knew were slower because they drive on those roads everyday; and all because an attorney decided it was quickest. As a result, the longer shipment times would translate into higher costs for consumers since carriers would be forced to petition for higher fuel tax surcharges, a cost born by consumers. I believe that it's important in situations like these to reach out to the stakeholders in the community of legitimate small business movers those who are affected by these provisions and partner with them to determine the proper solution. Everybody wants to stop the ``bad apples.'' This list goes on and on. Many of the provisions do not protect consumers and force unnecessary and burdensome regulations on mom and pop small businesses across all 50 States; possibly causing an increase in carrier rates across the country; harming legitimate small businesses--and not the ``bad apples''; and threatening the jobs and livelihoods of the thousands of employees in the moving industry. These issues deserve further consideration in conference and I urge my colleagues to continue their good work; and to partner with the small business moving community to punish the ``bad apples'' and enact meaningful consumer protections, safeguard small businesses and protect the jobs of the tens of thousands of employees and families that depend on them. I yield the floor.

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, the time is short. This amendment would allow private activity bonds. It has been cleared on both sides. The President supports it. It has been fully offset and I ask that it be adopted.

Mr. TALENT. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I am not going to inflict myself much more on the subject, but my friend spoke so eloquently on it, and I wanted to add a little bit to what he was saying, particularly with regard to cost. The thing he and I emphasized that I believe is so important is that these problems we have in transportation are problems that are not going to go away if we don't do anything. If the Federal Government were a private company and its capital infrastructure were in the condition that America's capital infrastructure is in, you would have to list that somehow on the books as affecting the valuation of the company. I am no expert on these things, but that inadequate capital infrastructure of that company would be an ongoing obligation of the company. It would be a debt that the company has to pay because everybody in the commonsense world, if I can say that, understands that eventually you have to deal with this issue. It is also common knowledge, uncontested, that in particular with regard to transportation, when you delay, costs go up a lot because there are so many inputs to transportation costs: Material costs; wages, of course, go up, one hopes, periodically; costs of right-of-way can go up. There are a lot of things affecting those costs. Everybody knows it is dangerous to put off projects because costs can escalate far beyond the rate of inflation, far beyond what you are earning on the money you are not spending because you didn't want to pay for the transportation. Under current market conditions we estimate this proposal of ours would cost about $2.5 billion a year, which is about, not 1 percent, but one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire Federal budget. It is considerably less than other proposals which have been made for new kinds of spending, and which I have generally supported, but which were not paid for by any other new stream of revenue. For example, the global AIDS bill, which received wide support in the Senate and which I certainly supported, costs more every year than this costs. This kind of spending empowers us. This kind of spending gives us the opportunity to create jobs. The Senator from Oregon and I have not even talked about the dynamic impact of transportation investment. But if you Members don't believe that investment in roads and highways and rail and transit has a dynamic impact, go and talk to the economic development people in your State--in the urban areas, in the smaller towns. They are all for this. I remember when I was traveling around Missouri in support of Build America Bonds and I went to Springfield, one of our dynamic cities in Missouri. I had a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. The head of the chamber came rushing up to me and he said: ``You know, I like the tax cut. But this,'' he was waving the one page we had for Build America Bonds, ``is a jobs stimulus.'' He understands that. This is a proposal whose time has more than come. I want to reiterate what the Senator from Oregon said. I know the problems the bill faces. We certainly do not want to imperil the underlying bill for this. I would not do that. I don't want to suggest that those supporting this bill have not done great work. I am looking forward to supporting this highway bill. But at some point in this process we need to be able to confront this because this is not a problem that is going to get any better if we don't do anything about it. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. TALENT

Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 9:30 a.m. on Protecting Children From Violent and Indecent Programming.