Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I yield myself a few minutes to talk about energy this afternoon, if I may, please. First, I thank my friend from Arizona for a very complete discussion of the tax reduction bill. Certainly, it is one of the most important things we will do during this Congress, and, indeed, over the next number of years. The whole question, in the broad sense, of how you do taxes is very interesting. One question is, How are they fair? How do you make them fair among all the taxpayers? Another question is certainly the amount. How do you justify taking this money from citizens and it going to the Government? And when you have more than enough, what do you do with the surplus? So I thank the Senator very much.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise to talk about taxes, which is the focus of where we are, and prior to that, to mention that despite all the discussions we have had about certain issues, this Senate has accomplished quite a bit in the several months we have been in session. That is our task; we ought to be doing that. A number of things have happened. First of all, we abolished the Clinton ergonomics regulation. We used a technique that allows the Congress to bring back regulations that are put in and to review them, which, quite frankly, is something we ought to be able to do on all regulations. I come from Wyoming. I was in the Wyoming Legislature. There, when you have a statute passed by the legislature, the rules are then put in by the appropriate agency, and those rules come back to the legislature to see if, indeed, they are consistent with the purpose of the legislation. That doesn't happen in the Congress. It is too bad. You can pass a law, and by the time the regulations are in, the concepts under the law can be quite different. In any event, this one was brought back on ergonomics. It was successfully overhauled in the Congress. That is good. Of course, we approved a deficit reduction budget, a budget that still has more expenditures perhaps than we ought to have. But in any event, it probably is about a 5-percent increase, which is less than the increases of the past number of years--less because when you have a surplus, it is awfully hard to hold down spending. It was an appropriate thing to have this budget that does reflect at least some control in spending and we are pleased about that. Of course, currently pending and perhaps the most important thing we will do in a very long time will be the tax reduction that is now being considered by committee. It has passed the Senate as well as the House. And when the conference committee completes their work, it will be back here for consideration. We are anxious for that to happen. The Bankruptcy Reform Act was passed as well. We had brownfields revitalization, which is something that has gone on for a very long time that allows lands to be put back into use more easily. We have construction of a memorial honoring World War II and those who served there. We have intellectual property, a number of things that are quite important and that have, in fact, been achieved during this relatively short time. So we are looking forward to that. But in the meantime, I am going to soon yield the floor to my friend from Idaho. I believe one of the most important bills we will be passing in this session of the Congress is the bill to cut tax rates across the board, bury the death tax, fix the marriage penalty, and double the child credit. We can do a lot to make this economy stronger, more fair, and to allow people to utilize more of their own money for the purposes upon which they decide. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that the scheduled oversight hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to be held on Thursday, June 14, 2001 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC has been cancelled. The purpose of this hearing had been to review the implementation of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program and to review efforts to extend or make the program permanent. For further information, please contact Jim O'Toole or Shane Perkins of the committee staff at (202) 224-1219.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I have no objection to that.

Mr. THOMAS. Certainly.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent the amendment be agreed to.

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed, as amended, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, Senators Specter and Rockefeller have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Veterans' Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 801 and that the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the chairman of the Finance Committee.

Mr. THOMAS. Absolutely.

Mr. THOMAS. The chairman is going to take a few minutes.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period for morning business until 11:30 a.m., with Senators Thomas and Durbin in control. Following morning business, the Senate may begin consideration of any legislative or executive items available for action. The conference report to accompany the tax reconciliation bill is expected to be available no later than Friday. Therefore, we expect votes throughout the remainder of the week. I thank my colleagues for their attention. conference report progress

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I take a few minutes this morning to talk about a topic to which we will soon be moving. We have properly spent a good deal of time on the budget. We spent a good deal of time on taxes, although that is not finished yet. I congratulate the chairman on his excellent work on the tax bill. It sounds as if we will be able to present that to the President and successfully give tax relief to the American people. We also have been heavily involved in education. We have not finished that area yet. We will soon be returning to it. Those have been the most current topics and perhaps, indeed, among Members the most important topics. There is another topic that is very important to everyone and one to which we are moving, and that is energy and energy policy. After having an energy policy, we will begin to implement that policy so we can make sure we can provide the necessary energy in a way that is careful and watchful about the environment. I think we can do this. One of the important things that has happened is there is now an energy policy from the White House that will be open, of course, to great debate and great discussion in the Congress and in the whole country. The fact is we have not had a policy on energy for a very long time. That is one of the reasons we find ourselves in the position we are in now. We have not looked ahead and we have not responded to the market messages that were sent in California. When we have consumption rising and production going down, there is a problem. In the case of energy, as is the case of most other industries, it takes a good deal of time to implement some change. I am very pleased we are moving in that direction and we will continue to move. I applaud the President and Vice President Cheney for the emphasis put by the White House on the energy issue and, specifically, the White House task force that completed its work in a rather short time. Of course, we have that energy package now. I think it will be the basis of our activities over the next several months, a very extensive booklet of issues pertaining to energy and the maintenance of our energy availability. I applaud particularly the Vice President for working in this working group and including more than energy. The involvement of the Department of the Interior and the involvement of the Environmental Protection Agency are equally important, as in the involvement of the Energy Department itself. The things they do, the land they manage, the rules they promulgate certainly are as important as anything else that affects energy. One of the real problems we have had is we have become more and more dependent on imported oil and foreign countries to produce what we need. Obviously, there will be an effort to increase domestic production. That is certainly the proper goal. There has been some criticism that this study was not a public affair. However, the Vice President did talk to 265 different groups. This was not a public decisionmaking; this was the White House putting it out. How the Congress and the public will be involved. That is the proper way for the President to handle policy. Chairman Murkowski, from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, or which I am member, has a broad bill that deals with many issues. There is a hearing going on as we speak, and the Secretary of Energy is talking to the committee about this report and his ideas for implementation. The recommendations are extremely interesting and extremely important. Task force recommendations encourage fuel diversity-- something we clearly need--and to utilize all of our domestic resources rather than relying on a particular resource. We need to talk about coal, which is now producing 52 percent of the electricity used in this country. Our reserves of coal are greater than probably any other fossil fuel. There is great opportunity for their use in the future. There is also in this proposition, I think properly, a good deal of effort and money oriented towards continued developing technology and research in clean coal. I think that is something we ought to do. There is also recognition and support for renewables, whether it is wind energy or solar energy or, in fact, hydro. We do that now. We have been working at that for some time. Frankly, renewables now produce only about 1 percent of our energy requirements but, nevertheless, there are opportunities for them to be a much larger part as we do research. I come from the State of Wyoming. We have the highest coal production of any State and I think the largest resources of coal. We also have a considerable amount of wind and have some wind farms producing energy. Probably there will be a great deal more. I remember, a number of years ago, a meeting in Casper, WY, on energy. This was 10 or 15 years ago. A speaker--I think from Europe-- pointed out we have never run out of a fuel; we changed because we found one that was more efficient or more effective. We didn't run out of wood. We started using coal. We didn't run out of coal; we moved on to other things. I am confident we will move on, whether it is to hydrogen or solar or whatever, but I think we will be looking in that direction. As we look at our automobiles and our travel plans for this holiday weekend, oil and gas has to be one of the things most important to us. Those volumes need to be improved. Our biggest problem at the moment is not crude oil amounts; it is really refining. We are up to 98 percent of capacity. So we need to do some things in that area. I mentioned hydro. Along with that clean energy source, of course, is nuclear. Interestingly enough, most people do not recognize about 20 percent of our electric generation right now is nuclear. It is the most clean source, certainly of electric generation. It has difficulties. One of them is the waste, what to do with nuclear waste. We have been trying to deal with that for some time. We have the question of permanent storage out at Yucca Mountain, NV. We have spent billions getting into that place and have more to spend. We now find resistance from the State. They didn't resist spending the billions of dollars there, I might add. In any event, we have to do something there, perhaps take advice from France and Scandinavia, where they recycle this and have less waste than we do. With Hydro, again, there are some paradoxes. Some of the environmental groups are critical if there is not enough emphasis on hydro but, interestingly enough, those are the same people who, a couple of years ago, were talking about tearing down the dams, the ones that generate the hydro. So there is always conflict in these things. We have to take into account, on the economic end, environmental factors. We need to find a way to produce more clean energy and more secure energy in our future. So our strategy ought to be, and generally is here in this policy book, to repair and expand the Nation's antiquated infrastructure. That is difficult. There is always a great deal of concern about electric transmission lines, of course. I suppose nobody really wants one in their backyard. On the other hand, if you are going to have electricity in California, you have to have a transmission line to get it there. We need to find a way to do that more expediently. We need to find a way to do that, frankly, with more respect for people's private property. The same with gas pipelines, we have to have an infrastructure to do that. We are still often dealing with outdated equipment, particularly in the area of gasoline refineries. There have not been any new refineries built for a very long time, so the ones we have, of course, are old. There have been some rules from EPA that have made it difficult to upgrade refineries. They have the new source rule, which says if you make it more efficient, or update the old refinery, you have to meet the environmental standards of a new plant. That has discouraged upgrading the plants we have now. Another thing we ought to be doing--and, again, it is in this report--is conservation. That is a choice you and I have to make. There is no question but what we can conserve. Look around your house. There are lots of times when we can be using less electricity than we are. The same is true, of course, with gasoline. We have to find more efficient use of this resource, and we can do that. I don't know if it always has to be a legislative question. I think we have some personal responsibility in that area of conservation. Boost supply, of course, alternative sources, encourage new technology--those are things we can do and must do. In the West, one of our greatest challenges is access to public lands and care for those public lands. In my State of Wyoming, about 50 percent of the State belongs to the Federal Government. In some States, it is even higher than that. I think Nevada is almost 86-percent federally owned lands. So there are rules and regulations about access to those lands. Indeed, there should be. But the fact is, they are a resource that belongs to the American people and there ought to be an opportunity for access to these lands for all kinds of uses, whether it is hiking, hunting, grazing, mineral exploration. I think we can do that in a way that is consistent with preserving these resources. Indeed, we should. We have been developing energy for a very long time in Wyoming. For the most part, it has turned out quite well. We reclaim coal mines and the land recovers. When they are through, the land probably is more productive than it was before they started. You can see the deer and antelope come around to those places because there is more grass than there was before. We can do that. We have to recognize there are different kinds of public lands. There is a great deal of difference between a national park, which is limited in its uses, and should be--we are not going to produce energy in Yellowstone National Park unless it is out of hot water or something; we are not going to do that and should not. Wilderness--wilderness is set aside for singular uses. But most of the public land in Bureau of Land Management land that was never set aside for anything. It was there. It was there after they closed down the Homestead Act and these lands were unclaimed so they became Bureau of Land Management lands. They are available, in my view, and in most cases they are for multiple uses. We need to ensure that is happening. However, since 1983, access to mineral reserves in the West has declined by about 65 percent. Less than 17 percent of the total mineral estate is leased as compared to 72 percent in 1983. I do not suggest we return to that, but we do have to take a look at accessibility. We have to take a look at good environmentally sound ways of exploring and extracting minerals. We can do that. The Bush-Cheney plan addresses this problem. Not only how to do it, but it talks about renewables. It talks bout the environment and issues we need to talk about. We have a great deal to do, but we have some great opportunities to do it. Here are a few of the things that are in the Bush-Cheney national energy policy. We help consumers in the short run. We increase LIHEAP funding to $1.7 billion. LIHEAP is for low-income people whose home energy bills went up. We double the weatherization funding, work with Governors to encourage regional energy planning, and work with FEMA so the emergency agency can respond to energy emergencies. There is a good deal of emphasis on conservation, increasing efficiency. Indeed, it is made a national priority in this book. We need to expand DOE's appliance standards programs to make standards higher. We need to take a look at the mileage standards on vehicles, and this plan provides incentives for fuel-efficient technologies. These things are all in this plan, and I think are a very important part of it. We need to increase the supply of conventional fuels. We can do that. I know there is great controversy about ANWR. Whether or not we end up in ANWR is not the issue; the issue is whether there is access to those lands that should be available for exploration and production. There are a great many of those lands. We have already extensive gas production. We need to increase the infrastructure there and have a natural gas pipeline; provide royalty relief for deep water and enhance that recovery, as well as low production wells. We can do that which would increase considerably production of energy here. There are a lot of things to do. We need to extend renewables and alternative fuels. This is a good one. As I mentioned, it currently only produces less than 2 percent--a little over 1 percent--of the total, but it has the potential to do a great deal more. And it is very clean energy. That is what a lot of people would like to do. It streamlines the hydroelectric licensing process. It expands tax credits, again, for the production of electricity from renewable sources. We hear from environmentalists that all that is talked about is more production of oil. That is not true. This book contains all these areas, with a considerable amount of emphasis on conservation, and with a considerable amount of emphasis on renewables. So we can do that. Obviously, one of the difficult things to do is strengthening and increasing the infrastructure so we can move energy. There is a good deal of talk in my State, again, about mine mouth generation. It is very efficient. But then you have to move it. You have to move it on a transmission line or a gas pipeline. We can do that. I think we have done some research to reduce the line loss that is in that kind of transportation. But that is probably our most available source of electric generation. It needs to be moved to where the market will be. We can do that. There needs to be a considerable amount of work done on refining. One happy thought is that there is a surplus of gas that is beginning to build up. I think we see a leveling off of the price. I met with some refiners the other day, and they say there is likely to be a turnaround here, probably after this weekend. It will not be a great rush, but we will see it at least not move up as it has in the past. Finally, I am a strong proponent of the environment. I grew up in a place right outside Yellowstone Park, where the environment is very close. In our plan, as we look forward to where we want this country to be in the next 20 years, in the next 50 years, we need a strong economy. And if we want a strong economy, we need jobs. We also need energy so we can provide for this economy and do the things we need to do, which includes the military and military defense. At the same time, we want to have an environment with a certain amount of open space protecting this environment so that we end up preserving the mountains in Teton Park, so that we end up preserving the open spaces in Nevada, so that we end up preserving the trees and the mountains and the hills in Vermont because those are very close to all of us and very important. So I think we have a great opportunity now. We have to move quickly because it is something that affects everyone. And it is starting to affect us now, of course. There is always this question of needing to do something today. We need to put in price caps. We need to do this. It is very difficult. Obviously, price caps have not been an asset in terms of causing things to happen over the long term, to cause investments to take place so that we do solve the problems. We took oil out of SPR, out of storage last time, and it had no overall impact. So we are going to have to sit down, probably look for conservation in the short term, and take a look at what we can do with infrastructure, with sources to develop our fuels for the future. I thin we have a great opportunity to do that. We have guidelines for doing it in President Bush's and Vice President Cheney's national energy policy.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The purpose of this hearing is to review the implementation of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program and to review efforts to extend or make the program permanent. The hearing will take place on Thursday, June 14, 2001, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, SD-354, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510- 6150. For further information, please contact Jim O'Toole or Shane Perkins of the Committee staff at (202) 224-1219.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I do want to talk a moment about the nomination of Howard Baker to be Ambassador to Japan. I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific Rim. We held a hearing today for Howard Baker. Fortunately, we were able to move it today so that his nomination can be voted on for confirmation. Mr. President, I am pleased to accept Howard Baker as Ambassador to Japan. I am chairman of that subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific rim. Certainly one of the most important countries in that area is Japan, a country with which we have worked closely for a very long time. We have had some of our highest profile Ambassadors in Japan, people in the past who had come from the Senate, also including a Speaker of the House and a majority leader of the Senate several years ago. Now we have the opportunity--and I was very pleased to be able today to hold that hearing--to have Howard Baker as our nominee whom the President nominated to this important task. We are very proud to pass it on. We thank the leader for being able to bring it to the floor today so we can get our Ambassador in place in Japan. Japan is key, of course, to much of what we do in the Asian area, and it is key to what we do in Korea, particularly North Korea and the Korean peninsula. We need to work with Japan to do that. The same is true with Taiwan and China. Japan is our partner. Of course, they are the largest economy in that area and continue to have some economic problems, particularly banking problems. We have some things we have to work out with them with regard to our Armed Forces being in Okinawa and work out things to see if we can reduce the deficit with have in trade. I cannot think of a better person to represent us. He has great experience and great compassion. He worked in the White House, in the Senate, and has been the Senate floor leader. He has done all things in public. I am delighted Howard Baker is our nominee. I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we have been spending all of our time this week on taxes. I am delighted the tax bill has passed. Certainly there are different views on how to do it. There will always be different views when one raises the question of taxes or spending. There are different points of view. Much has to do with the priorities of people. Much has to do with the philosophy of what one thinks the appropriate role of the Federal Government is, what kinds of programs should be funded by the Federal Government. Those are the broad issues. I was very pleased when we did follow through, and the House, of course, passed tax relief in the amount of approximately $1.6 trillion, which is what the President requested. The bill that passed the Senate is something less than that. It is still a huge amount of money. Most of us cannot conceive what $1.3 trillion is, but nevertheless it is very close to the same amount and I think deals with the same principles that are so important. Taxes are one of the highest priorities for this Congress and, indeed, should be. Taxes are high priorities for this Congress because of the fairness question. It is a question of adequately funding appropriate programs. It is a high priority for the American people for much the same reason in that no one wants to pay more taxes than they have to, but most of us are willing to pay taxes. It is necessary to do that. Fairness is an issue. This is one of the President's first priorities. Interestingly enough, this and education are the two highest priorities, and soon we deal with the energy issue. Those are the three things that have been talked about the most in the last several months, so it is appropriate this Congress has focused on and made progress in those areas. The Senate will be going to conference with the House, and hopefully we will have it down to the President perhaps before this week is over. That is an excellent performance. On the tax bill we went through 50-some votes on amendments, which gave everybody a good opportunity to talk about the different issues. Yet the bill survived pretty much as it was reported out of committee. I congratulate the committee and the leaders. There are a number of principles involved. We talk about amount always but limited Government is part of it. One of the reasons for a return of taxes is because the citizens, the American people have paid more taxes than are necessary, and we have a surplus. Clearly, it should go back to the people who paid it. Quite frankly, my experience is if we have a surplus for very long, we will find a way to spend it even though it may not be one of the highest priorities. The principles of limited Government are very much a part of what we do. There are questions as to, when one projects out 10 years, how close the projections will come to the actual surpluses. I think any economic projection for 10 years has some variability in it. However, I believe all the professionals who have made this projection indicate it is a very modest projection and, indeed, it is very likely the surpluses will, in fact, even be higher. It is a time, too, when it is necessary to stimulate the economy. This is one of the ways the economy is stimulated--by letting people spend more of their own money. It is true it takes a while for all of this to kick in, but there will be some immediate impact, and that is vital to the economy. Fairness in the Tax Code is very important, and we have a hard time with fairness in the Tax Code. This bill provides more fairness in the marriage penalty where two single people who earn a certain amount of money marry, and their tax on the same amount of money is increased. That is a fairness issue and needs to be changed. It is something we need to do. We talk a lot about the simplicity of the Tax Code. We didn't do much about that. We are always wanting to give tax credits, so the Tax Code keeps getting larger. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. Yes. Objection.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, last week we had the opportunity to introduce a bill called the ``Rural Mental Health Accessibility Act of 2001.'' I am pleased to be joined by Senators Conrad, Domenici, Johnson, Roberts, and Nelson from Nebraska to bring forward the opportunity for us to strengthen medical provisions for mental health in rural States in particular. As you might imagine, rural States have many unique problems. We have small towns and small cities where not all medical specialties are present. We have to build sort of a network of health care for small towns. One of the things that has been most difficult to provide in those rural areas is mental health in small towns where kids need some counseling, and where there are real problems with no one there who is a specialist in mental health. This Rural Mental Health Accessibility Act reflects on those unique needs and provides States and local communities flexibility. The Federal programs that assist in health care needs in Wyoming are different than they are in Pennsylvania, or in Rhode Island. We need to have flexibility in all cases, particularly in the case of mental health which is more of a speciality. This act provides for creative and collaborative provider education to help provide education for the mental health provider so they can come to those rural areas and give some assistance in education. It increases access to mental services to vulnerable children and seniors in unserved rural areas throughout these States. Certainly the circumstances are unique. With the stigma associated with mental illness, people do not seek the services. They are not handled there, and it cannot be done easily. Seventy-five percent of the 518 nationally designated mental health professional shortage areas are located in rural areas, which, I guess, is not hard to understand. One-fifth of all rural communities have no mental health services of any kind. Frontier communities have even more drastic numbers. Ninety-five percent have no psychiatrists. Sixty-eight percent have no psychologists. Seventy-eight percent have no social workers. You can see that it is really necessary to have a network where people can move around to provide the services that the communities do not have. Suicide rates among rural children and adolescents are higher in urban areas. That is a very surprising statistic. We don't think of it that way. In fact, it is true. Twenty percent of the Nation's elderly population lives in rural areas. Only 9 percent of our Nation's physicians practice in rural areas. Often the primary care physicians are the only ones who are the source of treatment in these particular areas. Primary care physicians do not necessarily have the specialized training in terms of mental health. To address these issues, this bill does the following: Create the Mental Health Community Education Grant Program; States and communities to conduct targeted public education campaigns focused on mental illness, focused on suicide, and focused on substance abuse. These are things that all communities to some extent are trying to keep out of the public eye, kind of acting as if it really isn't true. But, indeed, we know that it is, and especially in rural communities. I must tell you, frankly, that I am surprised at the suicide rate in a rural State such as Wyoming, which is higher than most places. It really points out the need for the kind of health services that we are hoping to provide. It creates an Interdisciplinary Grant Program; permits universities and other entities to establish interdisciplinary training programs so they can provide, hopefully, training for these kinds of health providers. Mental health and primary care providers are taught side by side in the classroom, so that with clinical training in rural areas we can help provide for all of these kinds of needs that exist. We encourage more collaboration, certainly, amongst providers, so we can have this network we talk about. It actually authorizes $30 million for 20 mental telehealth demonstration projects. And it is equally divided. I think as we get more and more into high-tech telemedicine, it will be even more important. Of course, to do that you have to have equipment, you have to have people on both ends who have some training to provide these kinds of services. It provides mental health services to children and elderly residents at long-term care facilities located in mental health shortage areas. Projects also provide mental illness education and targeted instruction on coping and dealing with the stressful experiences of childhood, adolescence and aging. One might even think it is appropriate where we have some of the kinds of problems we have in public schools. There is often the necessity to have help in these stressful experiences. It requires a study. The Director of the National Institute of Mental Health of the Office of Rural Health Policy will report to Congress on the efficacy and effectiveness of mental telemedicine. So I think it is something that is very much needed, something we can help provide in communities where it does not now exist. Frankly, without some special assistance, it probably will not exist in the foreseeable future. There are a number of supporting organizations. The Rural Mental Health Accessibility Act is strongly supported by the National Rural Health Association, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association. So I believe it is critically important that we consider this legislation as we talk about health care. Again, I cannot overemphasize the need for flexibility and taking a look at all the areas to be served. It is one thing to serve in a downtown metropolitan center--and they have their difficulties, of course--but it is also difficult to serve in Medicine Bow, WY, where you have to reach out from somewhere else to bring in people to provide these kinds of services. So, first of all, I thank the Presiding Officer for being a sponsor, but also I thank him for the time and the support he has given to helping those in need of health care and mental health care. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 10 minutes as if in morning business.

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