Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, we always have different kinds of things to talk about and issues that are before us. That is our job, of course, to deal with the issues. There is no end to the number of issues that come here. We focus on them, as we should. In addition to that, however, it seems to me that it is appropriate from time to time that we focus a little bit on the appropriate role of the Federal Government. What is the appropriate role of Government spending? I understand the pressures that come from wanting to do something about every problem, partly because we do want to do something about every problem, and partly because of the politics of it. Now we find ourselves getting more and more into the kind of setting, a kind of culture, if you please, where, as the Federal Government continues to grow, every issue that arises--at whatever the level--the first request is let us get the Federal Government involved; let us get some money from the Federal Government; let us get some programs from the Federal Government. So continuously we get larger. If you walk down the street and ask in general terms if you think the Federal Government ought to be larger, if you think it ought to be less large, if the issues ought to be considered more close to the people where they have more input at the State and local level, the answer is yes. I believe we need to stand back from time to time and take a look at what we are doing in terms of the future, and maybe try to get some vision of where we want to be in the next 10 years or 15 years. What do we want our society to look like in terms of government? Do we want a national government for everyone? I don't think so. That is not what we are. This is the United States of America. We are a federation of States. The Federal Government's role is fairly well defined in the Constitution, and those things not there are to be left to the States. But we move the other way. I am not anti-Federal Government. I think there is obviously a very serious role for the Federal Government. One of them we are exercising now is defense. That, obviously, is a Federal role, and one that we should and are pursuing. But take a look at all the things we are in. Take a look at all of the little things in the supplemental budget which we passed last week, and tell me that those are Federal responsibilities--all of those little items in there that we are funding. I am sorry, they are clearly not. It seems to me that we have to take a look at the concept. I think some of the things we are looking at now are very important. One of them is Medicare. Obviously, Medicare is a Federal program. But we need to take a look at it and see where it is going over time to be other than just patching here or patching there or putting a little more money in there, and then come to the Chamber and complain about not having enough money. But we never seem to look at where we might be. I am a little frustrated at the feeding frenzy at the public trough of the Federal Government that we have been engaged in over the past several decades. As a matter of fact, I think that is going to be more difficult as we go forward. First of all, of course, we need to debate and pass a responsible bipartisan budget resolution. To most people, the budget means you have a budget which hopefully you can stay within. If you can't, you can't. It means more than that here. A budget, of course, is some limitation on what you are spending. That is what your plan is, and that is what you are doing. But, in addition to that, there are some restraints that can be used here on the floor of the Senate. If an appropriations or spending bill goes beyond the budget that we have established, then it becomes more difficult. You have to have more votes to pass it. It is a very important thing. Here we are without one, I think, for the first time in 27 years. Certainly, we need one. We need to take a long look at some of these appropriations bills that are coming up. We need to do that very soon. We will be talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures. Of course, we should be helping to strengthen education. What is the role of the Federal Government in education? Now it contributes about 7 percent to elementary secondary education--most of it in special education. But we continue to look there for more and more money. There are all kinds of recommendations to do that. I think one of the interesting ones that I run into--and the Presiding Officer does as well--in terms of the Finance Committee is taxes, tax changes, tax credits--tax this and tax that. Every day something comes up that someone wants to give a tax credit for some certain kind of behavior. Then the next day we come to the Chamber and say the tax system is too complicated. It is complicated because every day we use it more to affect behavior than we do for raising money. There is just no end to it. Let us give a tax credit to do this or give a tax credit to do that or we will give a tax credit to help build small communities or give a tax credit for charitable giving or whatever, all of which on their face are nice ideas. But if you step back and say what the role of the Federal Government is in that, then I think maybe you would have to take a closer look at what is really happening. It is one that I believe is very important. There is constitutional direction, as I mentioned. Some people interpret that in different ways. But, nevertheless, it does indicate that there is a limit to what the Federal Government should do. I don't know. I suppose different States have different things. A good deal of Wyoming belongs to the Federal Government. So one of the things I hear the most is there is too much Government regulation--Federal regulations that impact everybody--probably more than anything else. The Senator from California was talking about environmental restrictions. That is all I hear--an excessive amount of non-use restrictions on public property--and the idea that you don't have access to the Federal lands that belong to the people. The access, obviously, ought to be limited so that you preserve the environment. But the idea that you have to have roadless areas so you cannot access the property, the idea you cannot go to Yellowstone Park in a snow machine, even though the snow machine can probably be made cleaner than an automobile--these kinds of things are constantly there. At the same time, we want the Federal Government to get bigger, with more regulations. It is quite a frustrating thing. I know it is difficult, but we need to take a look at really where we want to be. Last summer in Wyoming, I had a series of meetings, two in almost every county; we called it Vision 20/20. We asked people to share with us what they saw in the future for their families, their town, their county, and their State. It was interesting. Of course, it was different in different parts of the State, but several things were pretty unanimous. It would be fun to have this body sit down for a day and say: What do you see as the role of the Federal Government? What do you see the Senate doing in terms of spending, in terms of programs 15 years from now? Do we want to continue to spend the way we have over the last several years? If so, what would be the totals? A couple years ago, we tried pretty much to have some limitations and held the general budget to about 3 percent, which was basically inflation. This year, notwithstanding terrorism and the necessary emergency spending, it is probably 8 percent--probably more than that, close to a 10-percent increase in Government spending. Of course, we will hear from our friends on the other side of the aisle that the problem is because of tax reductions. I don't agree with that. Tax reductions are necessary when you have a slow economy, to get things going. Tax reductions help us plan to see the kind of Federal Government we really want--perhaps one with a smaller role--and identifying those things that are clearly the role and responsibility of the Federal Government; perhaps reducing Federal taxes so locals can have more taxes, to do with it what they want. One of the things I think most of us, I suppose from every State, work on more than anything else is what a bill or a proposal means in terms of our States. For instance, health care. I come from a rural State. Health care delivery in Wyoming is quite different than it is in New York City, so a Federal program that is designed for metropolitan areas doesn't fit at all. There has to be enough flexibility. The same is true with education and most everything else we do. But we don't always give that flexibility. So we find ourselves with programs designed to go nationwide which don't fit nationwide. Yet because we constantly have these Federal programs going, it is most difficult. I mentioned to you that we are always saying we need to simplify taxes. Yet we use them to affect behavior more than almost anything. The size of the Government continues to grow. We worked very hard last year to get the bill passed that required agencies to look at their activities, and those that are not totally governmental could be put out into the private sector for private contracting. I think it is an excellent idea to try to keep the Government as small as possible. Some of our folks are opposed to that idea; they want more and more Government and more and more Government employees. Those things that are not certified Government things ought to be dealt with in the private sector. So I know these are general comments and you don't have an answer for all these issues, but there is a frustration that builds as you go through everything we look at every day, and more and more bills being talked about. As an example, we are going to have hearings this afternoon on the Park Subcommittee, which I used to chair. I love parks. But there need to be some criteria as to what a national park should be. Failing having criteria, what they say in every community that has an area they would like to develop and set aside is, let's get the Federal Government to take it over and let it be some kind of a Federal park. It is not a Federal park just by its definition. But I understand when we are working for something in our States--some call it pork, and some call it other things, but it doesn't matter--we don't look at the broad picture, we just look at that. It is difficult. So I am hopeful we can take a long look at what we are doing and, as opposed to simply dedicating ourselves to an election in 2002--to which I think you will find many of these things are very related--let's take a little longer look at where we are going to be. That is really our job for the future. These young pages sitting here, where are they going to be 20 years from now? We have some responsibility to look at that. I think it is a very strong responsibility. So I hope we can put our emphasis a little more on our responsibility as the Federal Government, how we can best do that, what it means in the future, how we can help build the strength of local and State governments so that it will be close to the people and the people can indeed have a real role in what is being managed in their area. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to say good-bye to a good friend who has worked with me for over 10 years. Dan Kunsman has been my Communications Director for the last eight years, adding to some 3 years of assisting me on the House side when I was the lone congressman from Wyoming. Also a native son of Wyoming, his work for me and the great State extends deeply into the heart and soul of the West and will continue long into the future. Dan joined my office in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1991 right out of school. Dan did a great job for me and was promoted to Communications Director when I was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994. Dan has not only been valuable in Washington, he was also a crucial part of three, statewide, victorious campaigns. He also took time from our efforts on sabbatical to assist with the success of my good friend and colleague, Senator Enzi, on his initial election effort in 1996. We're part of a team, my staff and I. Along with my wife, Susan, we feel strongly bound to service for the people of Wyoming. As we say in the West, Dan's a good hand. That's a high compliment. It means that he's part of the team, reliable in a storm or any circumstance. In the House, Senate and on the campaign trail, Dan has proved to be one of the brightest and most effective public policy communicators and political strategists in Wyoming and Washington. Dan has decided to join Brimmer Communications and will lead a new Washington, DC office for the public relations firm based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While it's always hard to see good people move on, in this case, I'm glad Dan plans to go to a strong firm at home and stay close to Wyoming people. I'm not always the best at saying good-bye. I don't like to say it. So I'll just say see you, and I hope that's true. I'll look forward to it. To our friend, Dan, I wish him and his wife, Isabel, the best of luck, and I know the Senate does as well.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to speak a little about an issue that is current: homeland defense. It is not new to be current. Of course, homeland defense has been a very high topic in all of our minds since September 11, and will continue to be, indeed, for a very long time. I think the war we are in requires a great commitment from all of us to continue to provide homeland defense and security and the new prospects for us. I think we are unaccustomed to that. I want to take a few minutes to talk about that, and particularly about the President's proposal. I think there is no question that homeland defense has become one of our most important issues, and that, of course, is coupled with what we are doing overseas. There is also no question about the best method of homeland defense, partly because it is something we haven't done in the past. It is particularly difficult to develop, and it is hard to determine the best way to do it. It is a domestic activity about which we haven't had to be concerned, particularly in the past, and we haven't dealt with it certainly to the extent we are now and which we must in the future. I will admit--as you will probably detect--that I am not an expert on this at all. As a matter of fact, I am not on committees that are basically involved with it. But I am a bit disturbed about the reaction to the President's Cabinet-level plan he announced last week. The critics have been very vocal about not having a plan. We have been hearing that now for a number of months--that Tom Ridge has not been doing what we need to do; that he doesn't have the authority which we need to have for him to be able to accomplish what is going on here. Fairly high level criticism has been taking place. It is interesting. The critics for not having a plan are now just about as vocal about the plan the President has provided. I think that certainly is a strange kind of thing and one that is not helpful to accomplishing what we want to accomplish. I think there is no question that a plan of this size and of this importance will be altered before it is put into place. I do not know of any plan this size that has come before the Congress that isn't changed, polished, and accommodated before it is finally agreed to. But the point is there has to be one to begin. I think it is really important that we deal with it now. It is there, and it is what the critics wanted. I don't know why they continue to criticize. I am surprised and am a little dismayed that the media has continued to use this proposal as a way to create controversy. I guess the media's job--whatever the issue is--is to pick on that part which is reflected on by a minority of the people who have been critical rather than a majority. Indeed, 72 percent, according to the polls, are favorable. It is kind of interesting that this moves their way, and I guess that is the media's way of doing things. One of the complaints is that the plan came out overnight--it came out very quickly. I think that is not the case. Tom Ridge did an interview the other day in which he indicated that he has been in place now for quite some time and has not, of course, been a Cabinet member. He has not had anything but his own office to handle. But he has been working on this for a long time, including a lot of people. The idea that it came out overnight from people in the President's little group is not the case. There has been a great deal of talk about it within the administration and a great number of ideas as to how this might best be done, as I think it should be. I think it would be sort of ridiculous to be talking about something publicly before it comes out. That is why it came out now, and that is why this is the time to talk about it publicly. I must confess I get a little impatient sometimes with the way these things are handled. It is easier to sit up in the grandstands and be critical than to be on the field and have to call the plays. That is, of course, what the President has to do. I think it deals with a problem. The problem, of course, is that all of us are concerned about security. There is no one in government or outside government who doesn't want to try to detect what is going on and do something about it, whether it is a highway patrolman in Wyoming or a CIA agent or an FBI agent. Sometimes it is objective, sometimes it is seen, or sometimes it is suspected; then what do you do? We haven't had a central place to accumulate all of these possibilities so they can be evaluated and so something can be done about them. There are as many as 100 different government agencies that have some responsibility for homeland security. I suspect it is almost every agency. No one has had the final accountability. No one has had to say there is something that really should be investigated and should be turned over to people to further investigate. The Coast Guard has several missions: Research, rescue, maritime treaties. It, of course, reports to the Transportation Department. Its primary responsibilities are rails, bridges, and airways. There is really sort of a lack of continuity. The Customs Service, among other duties, collects tariffs, prevents smuggling. It is part of the Treasury Department whose primary responsibility is not regular security but indeed physical security. We have not had a central place for this information until recently. Now we do. Times have changed. Absolutely now, there will be someone in charge. The bureaucrats are unchangeable, it is said. I don't believe that. I believe change can come when the leadership shows the way and insists upon change. That is what it is all about. That is why there are heads of departments. It is why someone is a Cabinet member--to take the policy of their leader, the President, and to ensure it is implemented. I have never worked in the bureaucracy, but I suppose where there are thousands of people, it is a little bit difficult to do. But that is their task. That is their job. I think it can bring about change. It would be too bad if the Congress failed to change. I read about some of the congressional committees being concerned about their jurisdiction and that this might change that. Change is inevitable. Change is something we ought to look at and accept, if it has merit. The idea of being resistant to change is a little hard, and it is not very helpful. I suspect there is some of that in the Senate. We hear all kinds of voices coming out here. I am no expert, as I mentioned before. I suspect that maybe this department could be smaller. You could have a little more selective group that comes together, if indeed then the things that are determined by this smaller homeland security group could be brought to the President and to his Cabinet, and the President would ensure that each of these Cabinet people caused their departments to do what is necessary; that is, to support the central agency. Even today I understand that. But when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of people, of course, it is less easy. I understand that. But I do think there has to be a central but real war to a large extent--both domestically and overseas--carried out by intelligence, and carried out by centralized information, and by knowing what is happening. This is an entirely different kind of war than we have ever had in the past. We will have to have different arrangements to do it. I think if you are a frontline worker for the FBI, CIA, or some other law enforcement or intelligence agency, and you see something that raises suspicions, you need to have a place to report it immediately, and you should expect your supervisors to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Information must be fully shared so that we can follow all of those leads and hopefully prevent a tragedy such as happened to us before. I hope we can consider the President's recommendation and make the changes we believe we need. I think we should see what weaknesses we have had so we can change those. Certainly there have been some. I suppose some of them were not necessarily weaknesses. There is a difference in the climate, there is a difference in the atmosphere, a difference in the challenge. When that happens, there has to be a difference in the way we behave. I look forward to that. I hope we can come out with something better than what we received. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. We are in morning business; is that correct?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, we have been very involved in relatively few issues over the past 6 weeks. We were on energy, and for about 3 weeks we have been on trade. Obviously, our attention has been very strongly on terrorism and doing the things that are necessary both overseas and internally. At the same time, we have talked among ourselves, of course, and one of the elements is to do normal business. Today, I want to talk about an issue that is quite often normal business, particularly for those of us in the West, and that is public lands. Of course, there are a lot of aspects to public lands. In States such as Wyoming, about 50 percent of the State belongs to the Federal Government, and therefore what is done with public lands has a great deal to do with our economy and our activities. We feel very strongly about it, of course. It is a big issue for us. The idea of multiple use is one that is always debatable and is being discussed. There are different kinds of public lands. There are those set aside for wilderness, for a special use, for a special reason, and there are those with various restrictions, set aside for parks or U.S. forests. So there are constant issues that relate to the use of that land. Of course, much of our domestic energy is produced on public lands. So we need to make sure we can work on the extraction of energy and domestic production and, at the same time, maintain the quality of the environment. That is a debatable issue. I think we can do that, and we have demonstrated in Wyoming that you can have multiple use and production of resources, and you can have grazing and, at the same time, protect the land and the environment. So energy has become very much an issue. As you know, the whole question over ANWR was the idea that we now look overseas for about 60 percent of our energy. We need to increase our domestic production so we become less dependent upon others. That continues to be an issue. But it is not only ANWR. That was simply the poster child. The fact is, in the West it is a very continuing and important issue. We are involved in doing EISs right now, and EPA and endangered species issues, which go together to make decisions. Access is also very important. People like to visit public lands with multiple use. The question of roads comes up. Most people agree that outside of the wilderness, limited roads are the answer. Again, we have to protect the environment. One of the things we have pushed for and continue to do so--and this administration has promised to do and I think is doing--is to allow for more flexibility and more local input. It is true the locals cannot make the decisions regarding public lands, but they can have very helpful input into how they are managed. We are also talking about the use of snow machines in Yellowstone Park. Of course, there is some controversy about that. Some people don't think there ought to be anybody in the park in the wintertime. Millions of cars are there in the summer, but there are only a few thousand in the winter and that seems to upset them. Nobody is suggesting we continue to do it as we have in the past. But there are now reliable sources that can make quieter machines so that they can be managed better and separated from cross-country skiers. You can do a number of things to allow the owners to participate in public lands. Another issue that has been discussed is the matter of fires. We are into that season now and we have already had forest and grass fires in some places. Certainly, we are better prepared for that now, partly because we have had three dry years. The Forest Service has invested a great deal more in personnel and equipment to deal with that problem. One of the other issues that sometimes is controversial is the idea of trying to prevent forest fires by the removal of excess forage and fuel. It is something that has been done and can be done, and we have not done enough of it perhaps. We ought to be able to do some thinning in various places that will make fires less likely to occur, rather than putting all of our emphasis on fighting a fire after it has begun. So public lands has a lot of interesting issues and always will, of course. There are people on both sides that sort of take extreme positions. Some say we should not touch those lands; they should be set aside totally. Others are not concerned about damage to the environment. So we need to find a reasonable middle ground so we can have access, so we can have multiple use and, at the same time, we can preserve the resource. I want to talk briefly today about one aspect of it and that is our national parks. National parks are different, at least for one reason, in that they were set aside as national parks for a specific reason. The reason that is so different is the BLM lands--Bureau of Land Management. Most of the lands in Wyoming were not set aside, they were residual, what was left after the Homestead Act had been completed. So they may or may not have any particular significant character to them. Parks, on the other hand, do have significant character or they would not be designated as parks. So we have been working on that. In 1998, I was successful in passing Vision 2014 in which we dealt for the first time in a number of years with ways to help strengthen parks, in terms of management and their concessions, and in terms of dealing with the natural resource needs, and dealing with financing of national parks. It provides for improved management, increased accountability. As in any other issue, there has to be accountability when you are talking about millions of dollars. Of course, it has to be management when you are talking about millions of people going there. So we were very pleased with that law. I think it is doing some things that are very useful. Part of the funding in the past has been what has been called the demonstration fee project, which created park passes. That has been in place now for 3 years. The National Park Foundation has been instrumental in its success. Now there is a very attractive portfolio and picture and so on, and persons can buy this pass, which does two things. One, it gives accessibility to all 385 national parks and also helps to contribute to the sustenance of those parks. We certainly want to continue that program, but we are now going to be working on something that does expire. It is called the Demonstration Fee Program. It expires at the end of this year. It has been in existence for about 5 years. It was an opportunity for some small additional fee on certain parks and allowed for income and the opportunity to make expenditures on what is good for visitors in the parks. It extended not only to the Park Service but also the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Forest Service. It turns out the collection of the fee in many places is very difficult. In fact, with the BLM it is almost impossible. If there is a public land forest, and in some instances there are facilities, they can probably do that, but it is very difficult. On the other hand, parks almost always have an admission site, a gate for entry. So the idea is the principal support for parks and public lands is provided through taxes from everyone, and then some small contribution made by those visitors. We are trying to avoid the idea of each park having various charges. Eighty percent of the funds that come from the fees are used in the park where they are collected. Some parks cannot collect, so 20 percent is reallocated generally. But a major part of the fee goes to the park where the fee is collected. We modified it some. We are making a permanent fee, rather than the demonstration fee which expires. We made provisions and criteria for the charging of the fee. We have a business management plan on the park and determine the feasibility of this program. Not all parks will be involved. We will do away with the nickel-and-dime fees where you pay for every little thing. This provides a great opportunity. We talk a lot about the lack of funding for parks. Particularly in the infrastructure, that is probably true. This administration has made it clear they intend to increase the funding for the infrastructure, particularly of larger parks such as Yellowstone or Yosemite where there are millions of people visiting, where we have highway problems, sewer problems, facility problems. We have introduced a bill that makes this permanent. It helps fund our parks and keep them strong. We have over 385 national parks in America. In addition, there are heritage sites and other parks administered by the Park Service. That is one of the real treasures of the United States, our national parks-- whether they be in Florida, in the Everglades or elsewhere. We are working on a fee demonstration program for national parks. The purpose is to keep them the valuable asset they are. They have to be preserved. We changed some concessions so they contribute more, yet make them competitive. We are seeking to get business management in the larger parks. They are big business, operating in millions of dollars each year. Times change. We are seeking to change with it. The purpose is to effectively manage the resources so they are available to their owners to visit. We look forward to the passage of the fee demonstration project. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to introduce the Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002 with my distinguished colleague Senator Bingaman. This legislation makes important improvements to the current Medicare Incentive Payment, MIP Program. These refinements will go a long way in ensuring eligible rural physicians receive the Medicare bonus payment to which they are entitled. The Medicare Incentive Payment Program was created in 1987 under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act to serve as an incentive tool to recruit physicians to practice in Health Professional Shortage Areas, HPSAs, by providing a 10-percent Medicare bonus payment. There are approximately 2,800 federally designated HPSAs--75 percent of which are located in rural areas. In my State of Wyoming, over half of the counties are designated as a health professional shortage area and have a difficult time recruiting physicians. Unfortunately, this well-intended program has not worked well due to the burden it places on providers. Under the current MIP programmatic structure, physicians are required to determine if the patient encounter occurred in a designated underserved areas, they must attach a code modifier to the billing claim and must undergo a stringent audit. Additionally, there is evidence that many physicians who would be eligible are not even aware of the program. Therefore, the legislation we are introducing today alleviates the administrative burden on rural physicians by requiring Medicare carriers to determine eligibility. The Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002 also requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to establish a MIP education program for providers and establishes ongoing analysis of the MIP Program's ability to improve access to physician services for Medicare beneficiaries. All physicians are currently struggling with the recent Medicare payment reduction of 5.4 percent in addition to the ever-increasing regulatory burden of participating in the Medicare Program. As rural providers tend to be disproportionately impacted by Medicare payment cuts, it has never been more important to ensure that the few rural physician incentive programs that exist have a positive effect on the stability of our rural health care delivery system. I strongly urge all my Senate colleagues interested in rural health to cosponsor the Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to introduce the Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002 with my distinguished colleague Senator Bingaman. This legislation makes important improvements to the current Medicare Incentive Payment, MIP Program. These refinements will go a long way in ensuring eligible rural physicians receive the Medicare bonus payment to which they are entitled. The Medicare Incentive Payment Program was created in 1987 under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act to serve as an incentive tool to recruit physicians to practice in Health Professional Shortage Areas, HPSAs, by providing a 10-percent Medicare bonus payment. There are approximately 2,800 federally designated HPSAs--75 percent of which are located in rural areas. In my State of Wyoming, over half of the counties are designated as a health professional shortage area and have a difficult time recruiting physicians. Unfortunately, this well-intended program has not worked well due to the burden it places on providers. Under the current MIP programmatic structure, physicians are required to determine if the patient encounter occurred in a designated underserved areas, they must attach a code modifier to the billing claim and must undergo a stringent audit. Additionally, there is evidence that many physicians who would be eligible are not even aware of the program. Therefore, the legislation we are introducing today alleviates the administrative burden on rural physicians by requiring Medicare carriers to determine eligibility. The Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002 also requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to establish a MIP education program for providers and establishes ongoing analysis of the MIP Program's ability to improve access to physician services for Medicare beneficiaries. All physicians are currently struggling with the recent Medicare payment reduction of 5.4 percent in addition to the ever-increasing regulatory burden of participating in the Medicare Program. As rural providers tend to be disproportionately impacted by Medicare payment cuts, it has never been more important to ensure that the few rural physician incentive programs that exist have a positive effect on the stability of our rural health care delivery system. I strongly urge all my Senate colleagues interested in rural health to cosponsor the Medicare Incentive Payment Program Improvement Act of 2002.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, in the remaining minutes over which we have control, I wish to respond to a couple of things my friend from Illinois indicated. One was his being very critical of tax relief and tax reduction. It seems to me in a time when one of the real issues before us is the economy, what could you be doing better to help the economy than to reduce taxes? I think that is why the President has pushed that. That is why more conservatives have pushed that. But to be critical of that when we are trying to do something with the economy seems to be a little out of context. It also is difficult to wonder why the folks who are the big spenders here are worried about the deficit. We passed a bill that was almost $85 billion more than the previous in agriculture. We did not have any concern about that. So we have people over here who think Government ought to be involved in everything and everyone's lives, and dollars ought to be spent for everything in terms of any program you can think of--and then to hear some concern about the deficit? I point out, as we talk about problems, there are two sides to these issues and you have to take a little look at what it is you want. If you want a better economy, then you probably need to do something about having taxes be too high. If you don't want to spend so much, you probably ought to take a look at some of the spending bills that you are pushing. There is a conflict here, but to get up on the floor and complain about reducing taxes yet wanting our economy to be stronger, to get up here and talk about a deficit and then be a great supporter of all the big spending bills--there is a certain conflict there and I think we ought to measure a little bit what we want in terms of what we do in the interim. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are finally moving forward on the trade bill. I hope we can move quickly. It is one of the more important issues before us, of which there are many. I say again, I hope we can take a look at this bill in terms of what it is designed to do, and that is to provide for the President an outline of how he may negotiate trade agreements and bring those trade agreements, within the guidelines in the bill now, to the Senate, and the Senate can approve or disapprove. Negotiations have to be done broadly by two parties. It cannot be done by 535 Members of Congress. I am hopeful we can get down to the core issue with regard to trade so that the United States can keep up with the rest of the world. Over the past 10 years, since 1994 when this trade authority has not been in place, countries around the world have moved forward with various agreements, and the United States has not been able to do that. Large agreements were made by others. The more amendments we have, the more difficult it will be to get down to what we are really seeking to do, and that is to have negotiations which will give the United States fair opportunities for trade.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will share some general thoughts I have. It seems to me as we look forward to the remainder of this session, the time is getting pretty short. In a couple of weeks we will begin our Memorial Day recess, and then we will be moving on towards our Fourth of July recess, of course. So between now and the time we adjourn for this year, we do not have an awful lot of time remaining. We collectively ought to see if we can figure out how we are going to accomplish many of the things that have to be done. Obviously, that is the responsibility of leadership, but we have not moved very quickly. We spent a very long time on energy--6 weeks. We have spent more time now on this trade bill, and it looks as if the prospect is we will be spending even more time than we had anticipated. We have a lot of things facing us. I hope we can wrap up the trade bill. I think it is very important. I think it is part of our future economy. As we do these things, I hope we can have a little vision of where we want to be when we are through. What do we want to happen with trade, for example, in the next 10 years? Do we want to be part of the trade process, with hopefully having fair trade around the world which will increase our opportunities to export? Thirty to thirty-five percent of our agricultural production has to go into export. As we do this, we think about what it takes to accomplish that goal, if that indeed is our vision. We are going to be dealing with permanent removal of the estate tax. That has been promised to be one of the things that comes up on the floor. So we have that to deal with. Immigration and border security is out there. That is very important, particularly important now because of terrorism, and very important in terms of the future: Where do we want to be in the future on immigration? How do we want to handle these things? And what are we doing that will cause us to arrive at where we want to be? We get a little inclined to look at the politics of the election and look at the politics in the Senate instead of having a vision of where we want the United States, our States, our families and our communities to be in the future, and then testing whether what we are doing now leads us there. The bankruptcy issue is out there. We have been talking about that for a very long time. There are some real problems that need to be resolved. We have not managed to get it to the floor. We do not have a budget. We were supposed to have a budget prior to now. We have none. The budget is very important. If we are somewhat concerned about spending and having an opportunity to at least limit spending and hope we can keep it down to a minimum to get that job done, we do not even have a budget, and, frankly, there is no sign of one appearing. Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to spend some time on the cloning issue. It has been promised that cloning and research--not an easy issue--would be before us. Then there is educational funding. We talk about education all the time. We have not even gotten to that. That is one issue that is going to be out there. Certainly, we have the issue of reinsurance for terrorism, an issue we keep talking about, but it is still not here. This is very difficult. Nuclear storage is an issue I am certain we need to handle. Obviously, again there are some problems pertaining to that issue. One can ignore it if they choose, but the fact is we do have nuclear waste stored around the country in a very unsafe way and we need to find a place to put that, particularly if nuclear energy is going to be part of our future. I hope it is. If one likes clean air, then nuclear generation is one of the ways to do that. We spent 6 weeks debating energy. Now we have not even moved into our conference committee. Frankly, I am a little disappointed about the fact that we have all of these things out there, and we recognize these are issues with which we must deal. Appropriations may be one of the most important things we do, not only in terms of funding the Government but in terms of giving great direction to where we want to be. The appropriations process has a good deal to do with whether we want huge government involved in every issue or whether we want to limit government. Appropriations has something to do with that, and they are very important. We are not there by any means. So we have a great deal to do, and I hope we can find ourselves in a position to move forward to accomplish these things. There are many more issues, I suppose, but these have already been listed as things we are going to do, as has been said, before we adjourn. We have some real problems to deal with. I hope we can move quickly to address these issues and find some suitable remedies for them. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I wish to speak about a different issue that is very important to all of us, certainly in Wyoming where we have long distances to travel. As we say, we have low population and small towns with very long streets. Transportation and highways are very important to us. Highways, of course, have generally been funded by a combination of Federal funds and State funds, Federal funds being very important and continuing to be even more important as time goes by. What we do with State highways and State highway funding becomes one of the principal issues with which we have to deal. Several years ago, we had the 21st century TEA-21, which was an appropriation and a plan for highway funding. Last week, the Finance Committee held a hearing regarding the status of the highway trust fund. This highway trust fund, it seems to me, is terribly important because as a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I helped craft this Transportation Equity Act, or TEA-21, as it is called, which provides more dollars for the States than in the past and has a very good distribution system which basically allocates money to the States and lets them decide how those dollars are going to be spent. As we all know, TEA-21 most significantly funded the Federal highway needs. As a result, people across the country had opportunities to improve the surface transportation system to make it safer and more efficient and to keep up with the times. More importantly, as I mentioned, TEA-21 provided States and local governments more flexibility in controlling the use of those Federal funds which, frankly, is one of the issues we should deal with constantly; that is, in the distribution of Federal assistance, how we best do that so there is accountability on one hand and on the other hand recognize the difference that exists in various places. I am certain highway moneys are used for different needs in Wyoming than in Delaware. We need to have the flexibility to recognize those differences. The panelists who testified at this hearing on the funding mechanisms--that is their job; funding of the highway trust fund is what we rely upon. This hearing addressed a $4.4 billion shortfall in the highway trust fund which is due to the negative revenue alignment budget. Economies are somewhat lower, and these dollars are lower under the formula. We are in the process of trying to replace the $4.4 billion so we do not have that loss and hopefully at least most of that can be done. In addition, however, the panelists detailed the tax disparity between gasoline and ethanol blend, gasohol. Currently, gasohol is taxed at 13.1 cents and gasoline is taxed at 18.4 cents. This disparity is something that has to be reviewed. That is where the money comes from for highway funds. When we have less money coming in, obviously we are going to have less to spend. The discrepancy between the fuels is causing a great debate not only in the context of the highway trust fund but in terms of our national energy policy as well. Pending before the conference committee is the energy bill which has substantial increases and requirements for increases in ethanol, which has merit. On the other hand, if that is going to reduce the availability of highway funding, then we have to take a look at a system that allows that to happen. The General Accounting Office estimates the tax disparity between gasohol and gasoline will cost approximately $21 billion over the next 11 years, and this is a pretty serious issue in terms, again, of funding our national highway program. As my colleagues know, the Senate passed the energy bill that mandates 5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. As a result of this, of course, we will have an increased reliance on gasohol. So we need to take a look at this. I am not suggesting any particular bias one way or the other, other than the fact that by making this change in the use of fuel, we have a change in the revenue that will be available if we continue to have the same formula for doing that. Gasohol, which of course is the ethanol, is taxed at 13.1 cents a gallon; gas fuel is 18.4 cents. As to the trust fund, under the gas arrangements we have now, 15 cents of it goes into the highway fund; under the gasohol-ethanol, it is only 7 cents. So we find ourselves with a substantial change, a substantial differential, in terms of how we will be funding our highways. I hope that in the course of the committee activities we can take a long look at it.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will discuss a bill we have introduced in the last several weeks that I think is very important. It is called the Medicare Equity for Veterans Act of 2002. It is designed to provide some fairness between Medicare and VA health care. There are a number of Members who have introduced the bill that will require Medicare services to reimburse the VA facilities for services rendered to certain Medicare-eligible veterans. These service men and women have paid into Social Security and Medicare as have the rest of us but are prohibited from utilizing the program when they are treated at a VA facility. It is only fair that they be allowed to use their Medicare coverage in the private sector or at a VA facility. An interesting thing has happened in the numbers with respect to veterans. The number of veterans enrolled in VA health care systems has more than doubled since 1996. Many VA facilities-eligible veterans, called priority 7, or category C veterans, being veterans who have served but their disabilities are not related to their military service and are able, financially, to care for themselves. This is where we have seen the greatest increase in the patient load. At the VA facility in Cheyenne, WY there were only 131 of these priority 7 veterans who were treated in fiscal year 1997. However, in fiscal year 2001, the same facility treated over 2,200 priority 7 veterans. So, clearly, the VA is experiencing substantial growth in that area and it is utilizing facilities--and that is good. But the veterans are unable, even though they are eligible, to use their Medicare assistance. With this increase in numbers, unfortunately, the VA health care system has not kept pace in terms of its finances. In my State, Medicare would expand access to services in most communities and would provide primary care to those for whom it is not now available. Specifically, the Medicare Equity for Veterans Act of 2002 establishes a 3-year demonstration program at 10 VA sites, 3 of which must be in rural areas. The Secretary of VA and HHS will either choose a Medicare+Choice or preferred provider option model for these sites. The options would give the Secretary some flexibility in that way. We have more and more veterans who are in this category 7 who would like very much to use VA facilities to care for their needs. They are eligible for Medicare, and Medicare would then reimburse the VA. We would be able to do two things, of course: to be able to finance the VA facilities and at the same time be able to let these eligible veterans use their Medicare services. I hope we can move this bill. I think it will be very good for VA veterans. I think it will also be good for Medicare. It can probably be done more cheaply than the private sector. The combination is a good remedy to some of the problems we have. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Recreation Fee Authority Act of 2002. This legislation modifies the congressionally created Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. The issue of user fees on public lands is a difficult one. As you know, our Nation's parks and recreation areas are in serious trouble and have significant maintenance and infrastructure needs. The National Park Service alone has roughly an $8 billion blacklog in maintenance and infrastructure repair. There are a number of reasons for this funding shortage, including poor park management, congressional inaction and apathy from the American public. Currently, the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program allows the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service to collect and expend funds for areas in need of additional financial support. Agencies collect fees for admission to a unit or site for special uses such as boating and back country camping fees and are able to use 80 percent of the receipts for protection and enhancement of that area. Fees are typically used for visitor services, maintenance and repair of facilities as well as cultural and natural resource management. The remaining 20 percent is used on an agency-wide basis for parts of the system, which are precluded from participating in the Recreation Fee Demonstration program. The legislation I am introducing today allows permanent authorization of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program for national parks, and provides some new flexibility. For example, many visitors frequent national and State parks, but are not allowed to use State and national passes interchangeably. In cooperation with State-agencies, the Secretary of the Interior will be authorized to enter into revenue sharing agreements to accept State and national park passes at sites within that State, providing cost savings and convenience for the visitor. In the past, concerns have been expressed about ``nickel and dime'' efforts where there appears to be a lack of planning and coordination by agency officials. Fee programs under this legislation would be established at fair and equitable rates. Each unit would perform a market analysis to consider benefits and services provided to the visitor, cumulative effect of fees, public policy and management objectives and feasibility of fee collection. This review would serve as a business plan for each site so that managers could utilize scarce resources in the most efficient manner. The Recreation Fee Demonstration program was an effort by Congress to allow public land agencies to obtain funding in addition to their annual appropriations. This legislation will help provide resources for badly needed improvement projects and ensure an enhanced experience for all visitors. We need to guarantee our national treasures are available for generations to come. I believe that Congress, the Park Service and those interested in helping our parks should cooperate on initiatives to protect resources, increase visitor services and improve management throughout the system. Working together, we can ensure that these areas will remain affordable and accessible for everyone. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Recreation Fee Authority Act of 2002. This legislation modifies the congressionally created Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. The issue of user fees on public lands is a difficult one. As you know, our Nation's parks and recreation areas are in serious trouble and have significant maintenance and infrastructure needs. The National Park Service alone has roughly an $8 billion blacklog in maintenance and infrastructure repair. There are a number of reasons for this funding shortage, including poor park management, congressional inaction and apathy from the American public. Currently, the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program allows the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service to collect and expend funds for areas in need of additional financial support. Agencies collect fees for admission to a unit or site for special uses such as boating and back country camping fees and are able to use 80 percent of the receipts for protection and enhancement of that area. Fees are typically used for visitor services, maintenance and repair of facilities as well as cultural and natural resource management. The remaining 20 percent is used on an agency-wide basis for parts of the system, which are precluded from participating in the Recreation Fee Demonstration program. The legislation I am introducing today allows permanent authorization of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program for national parks, and provides some new flexibility. For example, many visitors frequent national and State parks, but are not allowed to use State and national passes interchangeably. In cooperation with State-agencies, the Secretary of the Interior will be authorized to enter into revenue sharing agreements to accept State and national park passes at sites within that State, providing cost savings and convenience for the visitor. In the past, concerns have been expressed about ``nickel and dime'' efforts where there appears to be a lack of planning and coordination by agency officials. Fee programs under this legislation would be established at fair and equitable rates. Each unit would perform a market analysis to consider benefits and services provided to the visitor, cumulative effect of fees, public policy and management objectives and feasibility of fee collection. This review would serve as a business plan for each site so that managers could utilize scarce resources in the most efficient manner. The Recreation Fee Demonstration program was an effort by Congress to allow public land agencies to obtain funding in addition to their annual appropriations. This legislation will help provide resources for badly needed improvement projects and ensure an enhanced experience for all visitors. We need to guarantee our national treasures are available for generations to come. I believe that Congress, the Park Service and those interested in helping our parks should cooperate on initiatives to protect resources, increase visitor services and improve management throughout the system. Working together, we can ensure that these areas will remain affordable and accessible for everyone. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize May 5-11, 2002 as Brain Tumor Action Week. In addition, I ask to include in the Record a truly inspirational account written by a young, Wharton MBA student. The material follows: My Journey With a Brain Tumor (By Adrienne McMillan Burns) A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the fact that a brush with death can temporarily change our perspective on life for the better. Experiencing more than a brush--an extended fight against a potentially fatal disease--has served to sustain such a view for me. I believe these experiences, both brushes and extended fights with death, can ultimately be used to benefit many people. And I believe that those of us with these experiences serve our fellow humans well by sharing our stories. Three years ago, after giving birth to my first child, I had a grand mal seizure. I awoke the next day in an ICU, and ultimately I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The diagnosis was good as far as brain tumors go, but it was still a brain tumor, and the overall effect was a fast and harsh realization of my own mortality. I was 33 years old. Life changed for me. As you might expect, I became interested in brain structure and function, and specifically in my own diagnosis and treatment. But life also changed for me in a more unexpected way. After living a life focused, to a great degree, on my own career goals and personal pleasure, I came to a different point of reference. I began to more fully appreciate that we have responsibilities in our journey on earth, not the least of which is the one to our fellow humans. I came to believe that the responsibility is simply to help one another--from the heart--in whatever way we can do it. I changed my definition of success. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ``To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.'' I immediately needed to know that not one, but many lives breathed easier because of me. As I lay down for my surgeon to cut my head open, it became amazingly clear what really mattered to me. It mattered how I treated people--how I developed and conducted myself in relationships, especially my relationship with my maker. It mattered how proud I could be of the way I conducted my life, something no person in the world but me could know. My personal integrity, my adherence to my core beliefs, mattered. That's it. Nothing else. I survived brain surgery and recovered, and I desperately wanted to share my good fortune. I wanted to make someone ``breathe easier.'' My husband and I left established careers in Washington, DC (mine in the energy industry), and I returned to school to pursue an MBA focused on healthcare management. I was determined to use my experience to influence what I believed to be the most significant way to help others: improving the patient's experience in health care delivery. Personally, I experienced exceptional technical care, but I also experienced tender, compassionate care. It mattered greatly to me that a nurse who handed me medications in the middle of the night smiled as she did so. Her tender smile assured me, as I lay in great vulnerability, that the people to whom I entrusted my life cared abut my life. There were other smiles in the hospital, and they had the same effect of me. In retrospect, I'll never know if the smiles really indicated such a care. People could have been smiling for any number of reasons. But, I believed it was care, and that made a difference to me. There was an overall feeling of compassion in the hospital, and I know it had as much to do with my healing as did the expert hands of my surgeon. My plans focused on systemic change. While not attributing health outcomes solely to smiles (!), I wanted to foster compassionate health care delivery. I wanted to provide hospital environments that allowed doctors, nurses and every other employee to deliver compassionate care along with the very important technical care. I believed that basic respect and appreciation of all employees was at the heart of inducing the much-appreciated smile and compassionate care. With a newly found passion, I set an ambitious goal. I believed systemic change could primarily be effected from the top of an organization, therefore, that's where I wanted to be. I envisioned personally catalyzing movement to a higher health service standard by which every patient in the world eventually would be treated! Two years later I had a recurrence of the tumor. Again, my surgeon expertly brought me through surgery, and this time I received radiation therapy in hopes of being done with the patient side of the health care world! Other than the affront to my vanity from lost hair, brain radiation wasn't all that bad, and getting to know other patients in the waiting room was a blessing. In the interim two years, I've worked towards my goal. I completed half of the MBA, and I worked at a major academic medicine center. What I learned most during that time is that there are a lot of compassionate, smart people out there working to make patients breathe easier. I learned that we are a fortunate people to have so much effort directed at the goal of improving the lives of others. I'll finish school this year and God willing, I'll work to effect smiles of compassion in health care delivery. But the recurrence gave me another, perhaps more important, insight. Not only can I improve lives through systemic efforts in health care delivery, but I also can improve the lives, in small ways, of the people with whom I come into contact each day. I can look people in the eye and smile. I can give people the respect we each deserve. I can seek out the good in all people; if I'm looking for the good, perhaps it's what I'll see, and it will probably influence my relationship with that person. That person probably needs to experience a relationship based on that view of him or herself. M.K. Gandhi once said, ``Be the change you want to see in the world.'' I can do that, and I can do it now. That is significant. In my experience, appreciation of mortality becomes a filter through which everything is forevermore received. This appreciation brought an amazing shift in my perception, and it's made the world seem an ever better place to me. I look for and I find more serenity, compassion, and integrity in the world. I find things more beautiful, and I find more beautiful things. I looked up--to God--and I remembered that He is my compassionate and tender caregiver. After experiencing acute depression, He (and a very good psychiatrist!) led me to rediscover pure, unaltered joy--the kind my three year old seems to feel when I allow him to choose any one thing he wants in the bakery near our home. So, that tumor, as unwanted as it was, changed my life for the better--forever. It's been said that it's easy to forget a lesson from a brush with death, and I do catch myself taking life for granted on occasion. Yet, there's an underlying permanence to the shift in perception that cannot be reversed for me. I've talked with other patients--brain tumor and otherwise--who've said the same thing. It amazes me. It takes something terribly frightening to make us appreciate all the fortunes we have. I'll close by going back to my thoughts on responsibility. It seems that many of my friends are searching--soul- searching or otherwise--and it seems that others are too. I want to do my small part to help someone in their search, or to make them breathe easier. Perhaps we all can help. Perhaps those of us who have had the occasion to contemplate mortality, at any level, can perpetuate the important lessons we each learn from the experience. We can tell our stories, thereby reminding ourselves and informing others of what we've found when everything but the basics of life are stripped away. By telling our stories, maybe we help each other to help each other. Maybe then we all breath a little easier. What a success!!

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think we are talking about agriculture generally, are we not? Good. I wanted to talk about the farm bill. I had thought that is what we were talking about this afternoon. Apparently other issues are talked about as well. In any event, the bill before us, of course, is the conference committee report on agriculture. That is the one, it seems to me, we need to focus on at the moment. I begin by saying I am pleased we have a conference report on the agriculture bill. The conference report is before us and we can make a decision with respect to agriculture in the bill that is before us. For much of agriculture, of course, this is a key time of the year. Completion here is certainly very timely and one that is very important. I know that colleagues on both sides, the House and the Senate, spent many hours over the past couple of months working to reach a compromise. I thank them and their staff because I know it was very hard work and it takes a very long time. We need a farm bill. We need a farm bill. That is very important to our economy. It is very important to our Nation. It is very important to homeland defense and all the things that are important to us. Producers in rural communities depend on a stable farm policy. Of course, the bottom line, what we ought to be talking about, is a stable farm policy, the kind of policy that will show to us in the future where we want to be in agriculture. I get a little concerned sometimes as we talk about all kinds of subjects and obviously talk about the immediacy of them. And that is the fact. But we really ought to be thinking a little more of where we would like to be in 10 years or 20 years. Where do we see agriculture? Where do we see our families and our communities in 10 or 20 years? What do we want agriculture to look like? That really ought to have an impact on what we do in the long term, and what we do now is going to impact that long term. If we could develop a vision of where we wanted agriculture to be, then, of course, decisions we make in the interim would be much easier and certainly would lead toward the goal that we want. Many of the programs that are in this bill affect Wyoming and are beneficial to Wyoming. The new sugar program is based on marketing allotments. Sugar, interestingly enough, in Wyoming is a major commodity and has been one of our biggest cash crops in our State of Wyoming; in addition to being one of the relatively few products that goes out to the retail markets that is entirely processed in our communities in Wyoming. New policies are designed to keep the market in balance and to have something to do with production and control and to prevent the costly, damaging forfeitures we have had in the past. As you probably know, we have been for years about the second largest producer of lamb. So we needed to ensure that this product is eligible for a marketing loan, and we are happy that it does. I am pleased that the conference provided wool producers with a new opportunity, similar to others, to grow and to strengthen their markets. These producers are making changes. These producers are looking forward and seeking to develop a niche market for their own products and to work with processors so they can move forward. One of the things we have seen in agriculture, of course, is out of the total price for a retail agricultural product, the percentage that goes to the producer is getting smaller and smaller. So we are making some moves there. Wheat, of course, is the only so-called program crop in Wyoming. The report continues to provide assistance, of course, to wheat producers. Conservation is important to all of us in agriculture, and I think maybe it is particularly important to those of us in the West--maybe not any more important but we really like open space and we really like to keep properties, lands open. Of course, the answer to that is to have an effective agriculture, to have a profitable agriculture where people can stay on the land and keep it open and available. So we are pleased with that. It provides a means for producers to comply with Government mandates while voluntarily working to protect the environment. Water quality is one of those things, and we certainly need to be very careful about that. It is a very important thing to us. The report subsequently boosts spending for conservation to $17 billion. That is good. Conservation affects everyone. One of the things we tried to do, and I tried to do as a member of the committee, was to kind of get off of this program crop thing, where the high majority of the money has always gone, and put it over a little bit more on general agriculture so we could have an impact on the broad view of agriculture and not just on cotton and wheat and corn and soybeans. They are important, too, of course, but they are not the only crops in the world. So this conservation approach was one of the best that we could take. As we worked on this bill in committee, as a member of the Agriculture Committee, I spent the bulk of my time working on the conservation title. Efforts such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, helps farmers and ranchers with technical information, with water quality as it comes through their land, with livestock grazing, and so on. This is strengthened. So I thank the conferees for incorporating much needed reforms in this program, such as boosting cost-share dollars, eliminating priority areas, and eliminating bidding-down procedures. I am also pleased with the authorization of a new program for grasslands--the Grasslands Reserve Program. There are efforts here to assist in the protection of native grasslands, and it is particularly beneficial to western ranchlands that are being threatened by land sales and land fragmentation. There are a number of programs in the bill that are critical for rural communities and the Nation's hungry, including rural development and nutrition programs, including food stamps, one of the major expenditures. In my opinion, there is no question that these are important programs. I support them. However, on balance, I have concerns with the farm bill. Even though, as I have enumerated, I support those things that I think are reasonable, I think the final product has missed the mark. I believe Congress should be working to move agriculture more to a market-based economy versus one supported entirely by the Federal Government. Here again, what do we want to see in agriculture in 10 or 20 years? Do we want the Federal Government to be in charge of farm production in this country? I don't think so. We want to develop the market so we can have prosperous agriculture in the private sector and people can make decisions for themselves. This report is a dramatic step away from a market-based economy. Total spending has ballooned to about $83 billion over 10 years, according to the CBO score released yesterday. That is an increase of $9.3 billion over the original budget of $73.5 billion. Most of the increase is in the commodity title. Roughly $48 billion is devoted solely to the commodity title. If you incorporate CBO's new score, we are spending $57 billion for commodity programs alone. In my opinion, the policies in this report will stimulate overproduction in an already fragile market. So we would move away from market control and move into a level set by loans and payments. Further, these same policies will price our products out of foreign markets. The fact is, about 1 in every 3 acres in agriculture must be in overseas markets. We produce much more than what we consume. We need to understand that those markets are vitally important to us. Furthermore, farm policy, as I have mentioned, should benefit all of agriculture, not just select crops. Wyoming is not a crop-oriented State. Yet agriculture is one of our top three economic industries. Farm policies do not benefit my constituents as much as they do producers in the Midwest or even our surrounding States. We should all question how these new policies will impact our trade negotiations and our export markets, which is what we are dealing with when this is over. If we have exceeded the so-called ``amber box'' allocation, our competitors can retaliate against our products because they think we have subsidized our products through this approach. How does retaliation benefit U.S. producers? Being locked out of export markets is a serious concern. We felt that very much when we had the Asian currency crisis and much of beef was going to Asia and the markets were building, and suddenly it did not. Now we find ourselves with relatively high tariffs there, which we ought to be able to negotiate down if we can deal with that. When the United States is party to only a handful of agreements, we effectively limit our possibilities. If we aren't selling the wheat, corn, or beef to the world, someone else is. When we began debate in the Agriculture Committee, I urged all of my colleagues to think about the future, where we were going to be. I think in most all we do we ought to be thinking about the long-term impact. I think that ought to be done here certainly. Unfortunately, I fear this farm bill will create additional reliance on Government assistance, while simultaneously threatening our export market possibilities. So there are some questions in my mind about the conference committee report. I was not on the conference committee. I have a question about packer ownership. As the chairman knows, I have long been concerned about the impact of packer concentration, where three or four packers handle 80 percent of the livestock. During Senate debate, I cosponsored an amendment to ban packing companies from owning and feeding livestock prior to slaughter. I would like to have someone from the conference explain to me why it is no longer a part of the farm bill if this would provide for more competition. Why would we not be for that? If it is better for producers, why would we not be for that? Disaster assistance. Unlike much of agriculture, livestock producers do not have a Federal program. They have received very little assistance over the last few years, despite ongoing drought conditions that have forced many to sell all or part of their herd. I would like to have the conference personnel tell me why, in a time of providing record assistance for agriculture, the conference report does not contain disaster assistance to agriculture, this conference report does not contain disaster assistance for livestock producers. We are providing $94 million in market loss assistance for apple producers and $10 million for onion producers--but not for livestock producers. Again, there are some excellent portions of this bill. On balance, it is not moving in the direction we want to go in in terms of the future of agriculture. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I wish to speak a few minutes about trade and the several bills on trade that have been pending for some time. Trade promotion authority is the central element of what we are seeking to do. Trade is one of the most important issues with which we have to deal. Transactions are made around the world in the billions of dollars every day, and we need the authority to negotiate trade agreements that fit us into world trade and, at the same time, are favorable to the United States, which is a basic issue. The Senator from Nevada was saying a moment ago that we ought to be doing something about unemployment. I suggest doing something with trade promotion authority. This is one of the basic issues with which we have to deal in augmenting employment and stimulating employment. Agriculture is very big in my part of the country and 40 percent depends on foreign markets because we produce more than we consume in this country. I wish to comment a moment on where we are and what I hope can happen. The Andean Trade Preference Act has been amended to include three bills. It deals only with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and it has expired. It needs to be reauthorized so we can deal with those four nations in terms of imports and exports. It was originally passed in 1991 to provide an economic benefit to help those countries such as Colombia with which we have such concern about their internal conflicts, drug activities, illegal drug production and trafficking, and a number of issues that are of great importance to us. Time is running out to reauthorize the Andean Trade Preference Expansion Act. I hope we can reauthorize it. It is the underlying bill. But I have to tell my colleagues, in my view at least and I think in most everyone's view, trade promotion authority is really the basis of our concern. I am a member of the Finance Committee, and trade issues are handled in the Finance Committee. We handled these three issues not as one but as separate issues. I suggest that is what we ought to be doing: dealing with each bill separately. We found ourselves, however, in a position where those who are skeptical of trade promotion authority are insisting on much more in the trade adjustment bill as leverage for their support for trade promotion authority. On the other side, people who want trade promotion authority are saying: We will not do that unless you give us a little less on trade adjustment. So we find ourselves in a conflict. Trade promotion authority is generally known as fast track, which was passed by the committee in December by a 19-to-3 vote, a very strong vote. The discussions about all the aspects of the bill were held in committee, as they should be. Basically, trade promotion authority falls into two categories: One, the President's authority to proclaim changes in tariffs resulting from negotiations of reciprocal trade agreements; two, procedures for implementing provisions of such agreements which provide for changes in the U.S. law, basically known as fast track. Trade promotion authority is a process for the President or his representatives to negotiate, guided by rules that are in law. They bring those agreements back to the Senate when they are completed for an up-or-down vote. It is really the only reasonable approach we can take to accomplish negotiations. Obviously, 535 Members of Congress cannot do the negotiating for the country. The bill does provide a framework, an outline of how this can be done. Its purposes are: Obtaining more open and equitable market access; reducing or eliminating trade barriers and other trade-distorting practices; strengthening the system of trading disciplines and procedures, including dispute settlement; promoting full employment in the United States. It is true that every industry is not always treated the same. Some are very successful; others find it more difficult. That is, I guess, the reality we have in trade of any kind. That is part of it. This bill requires Presidential consultation with the Congress before, during, and after a trade negotiation. Without that, why, we will not have any agreements, and we have, indeed, fallen behind. This has been out of the system since 1994. Other countries have negotiated their agreements among themselves, particularly in South America, and we have not. We have negotiated relatively few. To the extent we can agree that trade is necessary, trade is good for us overall, then we have to have a system for negotiating and not sit back while the rest of the world negotiates agreements and expect that we are going to benefit from that situation. As I indicated, it does provide for Senators to be more involved. It provides legitimate opportunities for the Congress and others to express their concerns, which is proper. It provides for ongoing consultation and debate during the process of agreements. It creates an oversight group of Congress that is broad based and bipartisan. It sets up this system that gives input by the Congress and yet allows the President to make agreements and then bring them back to the Congress for acceptance or rejection. So we hear they are going to give him all the authority and have nothing to do with it. That is not the case. We still do have something to do with it. We do still have final approval as to what is done. So we need to be doing some of those things. A lot of the U.S. products, for instance, in agriculture still have very high tariffs in other places. Our good friends from Japan have very high tariffs on beef, for example, which comes partly from my State. So we need to be involved and protect our interests as well as be fair with others and participate in this whole business of trade. So it is important. As I mentioned, in agriculture, one out of every three acres planted is basically for export because we produce more. Under the farm bill that is pending, we will be producing even more if we do not run into a conflict with trade because of the farm bill itself. We will be talking about that starting tomorrow. In 2001, American farmers exported $55 billion in agricultural products. That supports a great number of jobs. I know people have different views about it. The fact is it is there and we need to participate. We can argue about how we do it and what the outcome is, but it is pretty apparent we need to participate actively in deciding how these things are going to be done. The European Union, for example, has 15 free trade agreements in which we are not involved. Mexico has signed 28 trade agreements; the United States has signed 3. So we are kind of being left behind in terms of what we are seeking to do. One of the problems which we are going to have to deal with--it has already been discussed a great deal, and I think it is being discussed now in terms of hoping to come up with some agreement--is the trade adjustment authority, which is a legitimate concern about being able to deal with people who might be put out of work and to have some kind of a program that would be helpful to them. There was a program in place, but it has expired. But we basically need financial and training assistance for workers displaced by import competition or for firms that face a significant adjustment. Those things were done in conjunction with NAFTA, and they increase the number of weeks adversely-affected employees could receive assistance. Now the question is: Are those made to be entitlements? Are those to be made welfare programs that are everlasting? How do we define who is available, who should be receiving those benefits? I think those are things we have to be concerned with when talking about upstream and downstream employees, people who are feeding into this industry who are affected. Where do we stop? How far do we go? How far do we go on the retail side? Without some definition, it could be a huge sort of welfare program, when it is designed to be an assistance program that helps people be trained and available to move back into the workplace. That is what it is for, and that should be our goal. I hope it will be the goal. We have had some unusual things happen since the bill has left the committee. It left the committee in one form, and now it has been amended into quite a different form. So we go back to kind of where we were on the energy bill, where the committee did not have an opportunity to talk about it. So all those details, rather than being discussed in committee, which is the process normally used, have to come to the floor to be discussed because they have not been available to be discussed with recommendations coming from the bipartisanship of the committee. It is my understanding we are going to go to the farm bill tomorrow and Wednesday and conclude after 12 hours of debate on the report from the conference committee, and then we will be returning, after that, apparently to the trade promotion bills. I am hopeful we can deal with them in a direct manner, that we can deal with them with an attitude as to how important it is to the United States and what is our best process for getting the best arrangement for Americans to participate in trade, because we are going to be participating in it one way or another; there is no question about that. The question is: What kind of a process can we put in place that gives us the best opportunity to equally participate, to our benefit hopefully, in world trade? I look forward to the debate. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we have heard a number of topics discussed this morning which, of course, is the purpose of morning business and that is fine. We will, however, at the expiration of this time, move back into the topic that is before us--the one that seems to me is of major importance right now, the issue of which we are required to take some action within the next week is trade promotion authority. It is accompanied with several other bills, and so it has become a little more difficult to understand and more difficult to pass, in fact, because of the leverages. I think we ought to focus on trade, creating jobs, and to the extent that trade stimulates our economy, and to talk a bit about that. The President has had this on his priority list for a good long time. The basic idea here is to provide the outline for the President to follow--the President and the Trade Representative and his other helpers--in terms of how we negotiate trade agreements around the world. Quite obviously, constitutionally, the Congress has authority there, the Senate has authority over trade, trade negotiations. But it is also clear that 535 people are not going to be able to negotiate trade agreements. Therefore, there needs to be a system, which has been in place until 1994, when it was not renewed, of doing this. It provides an outline for the President to follow with regard to developing trade negotiations and trade agreements with people around the world. Because of the expiration of that outline, we have fallen far behind those countries making agreements, and the impact of that has been rather marked. Certainly the time has come for us to do something about this situation. In this time of economic uncertainty, when we are seeking to build the economy, it is one of the bills the President has called on us to pass. The effects of it are fairly obvious. It can expand markets for American goods and services. It creates higher paying jobs. It taps the most effective workforce in the world to compete and boost productivity. It has all kinds of advantages. It is clear that when we have trade, some elements in the economy do not do as well, and I understand that. What we are trying to do is find trade agreements that will emphasize the positive aspects, which I think is very likely to happen, and to hold down to a minimum negative impacts. Economists say reducing tariffs by even one-third will reduce the world economy by $613 billion and boost our economy by $177 billion a year. All economists who are knowledgeable about this issue indicate there is a great deal to be gained from moving forward with a process that allows us to do what we need to do in areas where trade is prominent. We can stand back and let other countries have trade agreements, and we will find ourselves on the losing side. We were involved in the committee, of which I am a member, on this issue. We reported out a package, the bill on which we voted this morning to consider, the Andean trade bill, reauthorizing trade with poor countries in South America. This bill is an opportunity to renew that trade. One country is Colombia, in which there are a great many problems, a great many drug problems that affect us. Some other countries are Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. This is not new trade. We have had this agreement before, and we will, I am sure, continue it. There is a question about the textile industry, of course, and Senators from those States are concerned about what it will mean to the textile industry. As I said, invariably there will be certain industries that will be impacted more than others. We need to deal with that situation. Attached to that bill, as I understand the plan, is trade promotion authority and the Trade Adjustment Act. It makes sense to separate these bills and deal with them independently. We dealt with them before. There is no reason we ought to be using one as leverage on the other. They ought to stand on their own merits. I hope we come to some agreement to separate these issues and deal with them independently. That makes sense to me. The renewal of Presidential trade promotion authority should be one of our top legislative priorities, and indeed it is one of the President's priorities. We have in the last few months dealt with the President's priorities. I am pleased with that, and I hope we can continue to consider his priorities. We have dealt with energy. We have dealt with the farm bill. We have dealt with tax reductions. We have dealt with education. These are issues the President has been pushing, and I do not see why we cannot work together to include trade promotion authority, which certainly has an impact on our economy and on families in this country. It passed the House by a very close vote; nevertheless, it passed. We are going to be dealing with a bill that will ultimately go to a conference committee to deal with the House or, as some prefer it, to take the House's version so there will not have to be a conference committee. I suspect that is unlikely. Nevertheless, that is the situation with which we are faced. In general terms, the procedures are a little difficult to understand, but they fall into two categories: The President's authority to proclaim changes in tariffs resulting from negotiations of reciprocal trade agreements with foreign nations and procedures for implementing provisions of such agreements entailing changes in U.S. laws. These procedures, commonly known as fast track, require an up-or- down vote in the Senate. Again, the process is one of having the experts on trade making agreements and bringing them back to the Senate. That process has been used for a very long time. The key provisions of the bill are: Establish negotiation objectives of the United States. These objectives are designed to provide congressional guidance to the President in the negotiations he undertakes. He is not totally uninhibited when negotiating. It requires Presidential consultation with Congress before, during, and after trade negotiations, again to make sure there is congressional involvement, as there should be. It creates a congressional oversight group, a broad-based, bipartisan, and permanent organization to be accredited as official advisers to U.S. trade negotiating delegations--again, the voice of Congress in negotiations. It requires special consultation procedures for including agriculture, fishing, and textiles, recognizing these are segments of our economy that are impacted and need special consultation. As I said, it requires an up-or-down vote by the Congress. The administration, of course, is urging we pass a clean bill so we are able to make some adjustments with the House. Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, the chairman and ranking member of the committee, have urged we hold it to limited issues. I hope we can, indeed, do this. The trade adjustment bill is more controversial. Most people agree there is merit to taking a look at the impact trade agreements will have on workers in the United States and that there ought to be some recognition of that impact and some assistance. Generally in the past, these programs have included financial and training assistance for workers displaced by import competition, assistance for firms facing a significant adjustment due to increased import competition, and assistance programs established in conjunction with NAFTA. This has been done in the past. This Trade Adjustment Act has been in place, and I believe most people believe there should be some help. However, it has generally been training, an effort to help people become reemployed, and not to set up a longstanding welfare relief program. That is what many of us try to guard against. I mentioned the programs that will expire, but there are some new provisions that have been put into the bill that I think will be controversial: Health insurance subsidies. No agreement has been reached as to how that will be done. Some people prefer temporary assistance be given in tax relief or tax assistance, where payments can be made for a period of time and let the workers select their health care. One of the proposals, however, is to have the Government pay up to 75 percent of continuing what is called COBRA; that is, continuing the insurance program that was provided by the company. Unfortunately, there are no time limits on this proposal. We are developing another health care relief entitlement, which is troublesome to some, when we ought to be thinking about how do we get people back to work rather than providing a longstanding program. In addition to that, it increases the coverage to farmers, ranchers, independent fishermen, iron workers, and truck operators. Along with that is what is called assistance for secondary workers, those who supply the goods to the industry, whether it is upstream or downstream, and without a very clear definition as to what that means. It would be very difficult to identify the various people who could be impacted, and one can imagine how many would be suggesting they were impacted. These are the kinds of conflicts I think we have to deal with, and we should. We have to do something about it. Amendments will be offered. There is an amendment I was involved in, where a sugar anticircumvention provision was put in. What that deals with is, in the past, we have had a situation from Canada in which sugar was mixed up in molasses, brought over the border where sugar is not allowed but molasses is, the sugar is then taken out, and the molasses is sent back. We have been able to put a stop to that, but this is a permanent anticircumvention provision, which all it does is go around the law. So I hope that is not struck. There are a number of other things, of course, that could well be included. This is basically an issue that is very important to the United States. It is very important to the administration to be able to do their job. I do not think there is any question about that. I come from a State that is involved in agriculture. Agriculture is very much a part of trade. About 1 out of every 3 acres, almost 40 percent of the production, goes into foreign markets. We produce much more than we consume. So one of our real issues is to be able to develop some fair overseas foreign markets for agricultural products. That really has not happened as it should. As well as we get along, for instance, with Japan, we still have very high tariffs on U.S. beef. Japan could be a great market for us. In balance, it is like most everything else we have to face up to, which is that not everyone agrees. We will hear someone say we ought to do it the right way. I do not know of anyone who wants to do it the wrong way, but there are differences of views as to what is the right way. That is the reason we come together and vote. It is perfectly legitimate to have different points of view, but it is not legitimate to not deal with the issues that are before us. We spent a very long time on energy. I am very pleased we have a bill, but we now have to do something in the conference committee. Certainly, in terms of our situation, in terms of defense, in terms of terrorism, in terms of our economy, these are issues that have real impact. We can deal with lots of little things. We could list a number of major issues that have a great deal to do with the way we want to see our country in the future, and what we see down the line and that is really what we ought to be doing, is sort of setting some goals as to where we want to be in terms of freedom, in terms of economy, in terms of safety. Having set those goals, it is then reasonable to deal with the issues that are in the interim and determine whether those issues will lead us to the goals we have established. Unfortunately, too often I think we sort of deal with the issue that is at hand without much thought to where it is going to be over time. It is also true that we represent 50 States, and each of us is a little different. Some this morning were talking about health care. I am chairman of the caucus on rural health care. Wyoming is a rural State, so when one talks about health care, it is different in Meeteesi, WY, than it is in Pittsburgh, PA. There has to be a system to recognize those differences. The same is true with trade. It is different in different parts of the country. Overall, it is to our advantage, and I hope we move forward. In conclusion, we need to get on with some other things, like the budget, like appropriations, some of the things that have to be done in order to keep our Government rolling. I am sure we can do that. I urge we move forward and complete our work as soon as we can. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

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

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I wish to speak on the bill before us. At 6 o'clock, as my friend from Nevada mentioned, we will be voting on the motion to proceed to one of the more important bills before us this year. I am glad we have some opportunity to talk about this legislation. H.R. 3009 is the vehicle on which the Senate will be voting as to whether or not the Senate will proceed to three bills--the Trade Promotion Act, the Trade Adjustment Act, and the extension of the Generalized System of Preferences. I wish to focus on what I believe to be the more critical issue, and that is the Trade Promotion Act. This is often called fast track. It is designed to give us a system to bargain, if you will, and negotiate treaties with other countries, hopefully to the benefit of the United States. I believe it is very critical to our economic future. While other nations are negotiating treaties--and have been for some time--to open markets and strengthen their economies, the United States during these negotiations has been on the sidelines. Of the 134 free trade agreements in force, the United States is only party to 3. Mexico has signed 28 agreements. One-third of the world's exports are covered by the European Union's trade and customs agreements, where ours is less than 11 percent. Since the authority for the President expired in 1994, the rest of the world has gone forward seeking to make trade agreements that are favorable to their countries. We have not been able to do that. The TPA bill passed the Finance Committee 18 to 3, and, of course, has passed the House. I think it provides a reasonable solution to where we ought to be and where we need to be. All of us are concerned that trade be fair, that it be equitable, that it gives us the best opportunities it can, but that there is trade. Trade is there and billions of dollars move around the world every day. We need to make sure our trade is as favorable as it can be and we are in step with the rest of the world in terms of being able to do that fairly. President Bush said earlier it is important for America to understand we are good at what we do. We can compete with anyone in the world. We have the most productive workforce on the face of the Earth. Therefore, let us open our markets to sell our products. He asked the Senate to give him the ability to do that. As I mentioned, the Trade Promotion Act expired in 1994 and we have sort of stood on the sidelines ever since. In December, the House passed a bipartisan trade promotion bill. The Senate Finance Committee then moved fairly quickly. I was fortunate enough, as was the Presiding Officer, to be a part of that and listened to that debate. It passed 18 to 3 to move it on and to do the things we want to do. Certainly, there is room for discussion about trade and trade agreements. We have different views of it, depending a little on where we are and what we do at the time, but the fact is that trade agreements are very important to us. They expand markets for U.S. goods and services. They create higher paying jobs in America for those kinds of things that are exported. They give us a chance to show our productivity and our efficiency in doing the things we do well. So it tends to invigorate our economy, and certainly now is a time when we want to do that. The absence of trade opportunities has created sort of an invisible tax on America that we pay whenever we shop. Better trade deals and lower tariffs can boost savings even higher, and I think it is time we do that. Trade is essential, of course, to America's economy and our growth and our prosperity. Exports accounted for more than one-fourth of all economic growth in the 1990s. The jobs that are dependent on exports are estimated to be 13 to 18 percent higher than the national average. One-tenth of American workers, 12 million, are in jobs that depend on exports. So we need to think long and hard about the process we use. Fast track sounds as if we are giving all the authority to the President to make these decisions, but that is not the case. What we are doing is setting up a system which allows the President and his people to do the negotiations within guidelines that are set in the bill, and then bring the results of those negotiations back to the Congress. The Constitution provides that the Congress deal with those Federal trade issues. So as I mentioned before, a lot of these have been going on while we have not been able to do much about it, and the impact is fairly simple. One example is a $187,000 Caterpillar tractor made in America and shipped to Chile is slapped with a $13,000 trade tariff. The same tractor made in Brazil and sold to Chile is $3,000. The same tractor made in Canada and shipped to Chile, there is no tariff. So in terms of being able to compete, in terms of being able to be part of world trade, without an agreement and a system to bring in these kinds of things, we are left on the sidelines to some extent. Trade is good for American farmers and ranchers. We have had several meetings and a couple of news conferences on agriculture. One in every three acres in this country is planted for exports. American farmers exported about $55 billion in agricultural products last year. Almost a third, nearly 40 percent, of agricultural products go into exports. I understand different commodities are different and have different impacts, but, nevertheless, overall agriculture is certainly a valuable tool and one we have to have to have a strong economy. The same is true of small business. The same is true, of course, of all we do in the world. Our relationships and our leadership, at least in part, have to do with the economic arrangements we have and our economy. The trade promotion authority is the one we are really looking at. I mentioned it passed the House. It was a very close vote, as a matter of fact, but it was passed on and the committee has dealt with that. It would renew the trade agreement authority that expired in 1994. Basically, it falls in two categories: the President's authority to proclaim changes in tariffs resulting from negotiations of reciprocal trade agreements and, two, procedures for implementing the provisions of these agreements which entail changes in U.S. law. These procedures are commonly known as fast track, and they require an up-or-down vote of the Congress. It seems to me that is a reasonable thing. I cannot imagine 535 individuals trying to come up with some kind of trade negotiation. That does not work. So we have to delegate that and then have the overview of it in the Congress. That is basically what this does. The key provisions include establishing the objectives of negotiations. Obviously, when we negotiate for the United States and the U.S. representatives, the purpose is to get as good a deal as we can possibly get for our country. There are congressional guidances to the President. It requires Presidential consultation with the Congress before, during, and after trade negotiations. So, again, it is not something that is apart from but is done in a particular way. It creates a congressional oversight group, a broad-based bipartisan organization, that has oversight of what is going on and can report and give information to the Congress. It is designed to do that. So the Congress is very much involved. That is the key now. The way this is happening is what is called the Trade Adjustment Act. That is the bill that is before us with these other two that will be coming a part of that. One of them is Andean trade, which is a specific trade agreement set forth to work with States in South America. We, again, do not have agreements with them. One of them is Colombia where we are seeking to try to make some changes, of course. Another is Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. So this is one of the bills addressing that. Then the trade adjustment authority is the one that has been in effect before. It has expired. It provides programs for employees who have felt the impact of trade agreements, such as the loss of jobs and the loss of their businesses. Financial trading and assistance has been available to firms and companies, and for displaced workers who face significant adjustments. I always think about agriculture. Years ago, farmers and ranchers lived on the ranch and provided almost everything for themselves: clothing and food. They built their own houses. They did all of those things. Then as things changed we sought to do the things we do best and make our profits there and then buy from other people what they do best. That is sort of what happens in trade. The new provision, however, is designed to go much further than what it did in the past, and I suspect this will be the controversial aspect of this negotiation in which there is a tendency on the part of particularly the folks on the other side of the aisle to bring forth a program that will be permanent, such as financing COBRA, where the insurance can be extended that one had with their company, paying for 75 percent of it from Government funds, and developing a permanent program where we are really looking for some rather short-term assistance until these folks can readjust or perhaps get rehired. So that is kind of where we are. Certainly this is one of the issues the President has talked about a great deal in terms of our economy and in terms of all the many things that affect us. This has been one of his highest priorities. I have to say, despite some of the conversation that goes on, the President's priorities have done rather well in terms of taxes, in terms of energy, and I think this is another one that must necessarily be handled and put into place. Trade promotion is critical to our economic future. The President needs the authority to extend and expand our international trade capacities. Trade negotiators need legislation to ensure they are afforded a seat at the negotiation table. I have already mentioned that many of these negotiations have gone on without us. This bill provides a reasonable and effective procedure for congressional consultation and involvement. It avoids establishing unwarranted mandates that would adversely affect the negotiating authority of the President. It ensures that the laws of the United States are maintained and protected. I suspect this will be somewhat controversial. Each of us will have some of our parochial feelings about it. Wyoming is very involved in agriculture. Trade is important to Wyoming agriculture. It is important to beef, wool, wheat, and lamb. We have been through this. But TPA will provide the negotiators a chance to reduce those barriers and get us a better seat at the table. Despite our relationship with Japan, I think there is still about a 40-percent tariff on beef. That is a high tariff in Japan. We need to work at reducing those tariffs because, for agriculture, one of the best futures we have is the opportunity to expand markets beyond our domestic market. I look forward to this debate and discussion, and, frankly, I look forward to finishing the discussion this week so we can get on with protecting our markets and making our economy even stronger. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I rise to speak on the amendment now before the Senate. As the Senator from New Mexico mentioned, he and I and others have worked very long and hard on this electricity portion of the energy bill. When the Daschle-Bingaman bill was brought to the floor, we went into it and tried to work at it to make it more workable and, indeed, more simple, to give the States more authority but continue to have the protection, of course, for consumers. So that is what we sought to do. I believe this amendment is not necessary. Certainly it does not add to but, in fact, detracts from that goal of protecting consumers and making the system more simple. It seems we have heard an awful lot about the California problem, and it was a difficult one. It affected the rest of the west coast States, of course. Senator Bingaman held two hearings to examine the California collapse and the Enron collapse and its impact on the energy markets. The result of these hearings was a clear consensus that Enron had little, if any, impact on wholesale or retail electric markets. So this continued effort to do something with FERC because of that simply doesn't connect. I hope we can deal with it as it is in reality. I rise in strong opposition to the pending amendment. The amendment proposes a major change in the standard FERC would use to review asset sales, mergers, and acquisitions. Under the proposed standard, in order to approve an asset sale, merger, or acquisition, FERC would have to affirmatively find that the action would, at a minimum, enhance competition in the wholesale markets, produce significant gains in operational and economic efficiency, and result in a corporate and capital structure that facilitates effective regulatory oversight. This proposed change in the review standard, when coupled with an earlier amendment adopted by the Senate, expands the type of actions FERC must review and puts industry restructuring into gridlock. We are always talking about the overamount of regulation and so on, and we have sought a balance here between States and FERC. This adds back to the problem that we sought to resolve. It will take FERC forever to go through the procedural steps necessary to allow even the most mundane asset sale. Slowing restructuring and competition would be bad for both competition and consumers. The amendment also establishes a full new set of rules and procedures for FERC to follow in regulating the wholesale power market. It gives FERC sweeping authority to do just about anything it wants to do--the very provisions that the bipartisan Thomas amendments adopted by the Senate struck from the underlying Daschle-Bingaman bill. That is what we voted on before. Now we are seeking to go back to what we tried to eliminate and did eliminate. The amendment also modifies the Banking Committee PUHCA repeal provisions. For example, the pending amendment takes away the provisions dealing with State access to utility books and records. That is a part of the Banking-reported bill. The amendment also imposes a host of new transaction approval requirements under the guise of so- called transaction transparency. The transaction transparency provisions of the amendment do not just require the disclosure of information, they require FERC preapproval of all interaffiliated purchases, sales, leases, or transfer of assets, goods or services, and financial transactions. Talk about creating a regulatory nightmare--Federal bureaucratic redtape--this is it. Madam President, it is not clear what problems this amendment is intended to address that are not already addressed by other provisions or existing law. It cannot be aimed at curbing market power since it makes it more difficult for utilities to sell assets, such as generation and transmission. It cannot be aimed at protecting consumers from undue price increases because, under existing law, FERC has jurisdiction over wholesale rates and the State public utility commissions have jurisdiction over retail rates. With or without this amendment, the retail/wholesale electric rates have been and will continue to be subject to State and Federal review. Moreover, this issue is already addressed in the bipartisan electricity amendments adopted by the Senate on March 13. For the benefit of the Senate, let me read some of the language from the amendment adopted by the Senate. Section 203 of the Federal Power Act, as amended by the bipartisan amendment, will read: No public utility shall, without first having secured an order of the Commission authorizing it to do so . . . merge or consolidate, directly or indirectly . . . by any means whatsoever. The Commission shall approve the proposed disposition, consolidation, acquisition or control, if it finds that the proposed transaction-- (A) will be consistent with the public interest; (B) will not adversely affect the interest of consumers; and (C) will not impair the ability of FERC or any State commission . . . to protect the interests of consumers or the public. Exactly. It is already there. Frankly, we are wasting our time with this. In addition, there are other consumer protection provisions already in the underlying bill. For example, in the PUHCA title there are provisions which specifically give FERC and State public utility commission access to books and records so that they can do their job to protect consumers. In the PUHCA title there is a Federal task force to review the status of competition. In the PUHCA title there is a provision requiring a GAO study and report on competition. And in another amendment, the Senate has already adopted an office of Consumer Advocacy in the Department of Justice. Mr. President, in today's rapidly changing electric marketplace, utilities need to be able to buy and sell generation and other assets in order to be able to respond quickly to market conditions. This amendment will tie FERC and industry restructuring up in red tape. I ask: How does slowing industry restructuring and handicapping competition benefit consumers? We know the answer. It doesn't. Requiring utilities to wait months--possibly years--for FERC to review and approve even relatively routine transactions simply does not make sense. It satisfies no public purpose, and it threatens to bury an already overburdened FERC staff in a blizzard of needless paper shuffling. In sum, the proposed amendment appears to be a heavy-handed solution in search of a non-existent problem to solve. It is an extreme amendment that is intended to overturn a bipartisan, Senate-adopted amendment. It appears to be a thinly-disguised attempt to throw sand in the gears of competition, not to improve the legislation. The amendment should be rejected.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to introduce the Medicare Equity for Veterans Act of 2002 with Senators Rockefeller, Jeffords, Specter, Carnahan, Snowe, and Cleland. This legislation, known as Medicare Subvention, will require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, (CMS), to reimburse VA facilities for services provided to certain Medicare-eligible veterans. These servicemen and women have paid into the Medicare system over the course of their careers, just as every other American has done, but are prohibited from utilizing the program when treated at a VA facility. It is only fair that they be allowed to use their Medicare coverage in the private sector or at a VA facility. The number of veterans enrolled in the VA health system has more than doubled since 1996. In many VA facilities, Medicare-eligible veterans, called Priority 7 or Category C veterans, compose the largest increase in patient caseloads. At the VA facility in Cheyenne, WY, only 131 Priority 7 veterans were treated in fiscal year 1997. However, in fiscal year 2001 the same facility treated over 2,200 Priority 7 veterans. Clearly, the VA is experiencing substantial growth and even more obvious is the fact that veterans want to receive their health care services at a VA facility. Unfortunately, funding for the VA health care system has not kept pace. In my state, Medicare Subvention would expand access to services as most communities are designated primary care health professional shortage areas. Private sector physicians and other primary care providers are not as readily available as they are in other part of the country, which means that the VA is sometimes the only option. Specifically, the Medicare Equity for Veterans Act of 2002 establishes a three-year demonstration program at ten VA sites, three of which must be in rural areas. The Secretaries of VA and HHS may either choose Medicare+Choice or Preferred Provider Option model for the sites. These options give the Secretaries flexibility to determine which model works best for each particular site--ensuring veterans receive quality and timely care. The VA can provide Medicare covered services more efficiently and cost effectively than the private sector, which could potentially save the Medicare program money. Under the Preferred Provider Option, the VA would be reimbursed at 95 percent of the comparable private sector rate and 100 percent of the Medicare+Choice applicable rate, after excluding such targeted private hospital adjustments as Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, Graduate Medical Education, Indirect Medical Education and capital-related costs. The VA will be responsible for continuing to pay for services provided to Medicare-eligible veterans who have been treated prior to fiscal year 1998. This ensures a good faith effort on the part of the VA, but will also allow the agency to immediately begin billing Medicare for services provided to Medicare-eligible veterans after fiscal year 1998. Additionally, this bill protects the Medicare Trust Fund by capping Medicare payments to the VA at $75 million a year for the duration of the three-year demonstration. Prior to the end of the demonstration, the Government Accounting Office, GAO, must conduct a thorough program evaluation. The GAO report ensures the demonstration met its goal of providing quality and cost effective care to our nation's veterans. The GAO is further required to provide specific recommendations to the Secretaries of VA and HHS on how best to expand Medicare Subvention nationwide. Veterans deserve quality, efficient and equitable health care treatment. Enactment of this legislation is the first step toward attaining that goal. I urge all my colleagues to consider cosponsoring the Medicare Equity for Veterans Act of 2002.