Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send this second-degree amendment to the Abraham amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me supply a copy.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I guess what I will say on the floor of the Senate, in part, is an effort to speak to the families of Officer Chestnut and Officer Gibson, but I guess it is also an effort on my part not only to speak to their families, but also to speak to the Capitol Hill Police. Early Monday morning, Sheila, my wife, and I were walking from our apartment, which is near the Hart Senate Office Building, over to the doctor's office. Usually that takes about 7 minutes. It took about 40 minutes because of all of the officers who we ran into and all of the embraces, the hugs and the tears, just the embrace of real pain that people feel. I want to say--I don't really have any words--this is a very, very sad day in Washington, DC, but I want to say to all of the Capitol Hill Police that all of us in the Senate--but I am now speaking for myself as a Senator from Minnesota--want you to know of our love and our support. We want Officer Chestnut and Officer Gibson's families to know that their husbands and fathers, sons, brothers were so courageous. I wish personally that there is something I can do to change everything. I wish that none of this had happened. It is horrifying. It seems senseless. They were two wonderful men. I only knew them to say hello. I know the Capitol Police much better on the Senate side. It never should have happened, but these men deserve all of our praise. Their families deserve all of our love and support. Especially as a U.S. Senator, I say to the other police officers--I guess that is mainly the one thing I want to do today--I want them to know how much I appreciate what they do. I want them to know how sorry I am that this happened. I want them to know that I hope and pray it will never happen again. And I want all of my colleagues to know, Democrats and Republicans alike, that I think today we are all together. Everybody can feel this, everybody can understand this, and I think probably the best thing we can do in memory of two very brave police officers is to understand how precious each day is, understand how precious people are, understand how important life is, appreciate the people who help us and go out of our way to make sure we live our lives in the most honest way possible. To the Capitol Hill Police, thank you for some of you being really great friends to Sheila and me. I know how much pain you are in, but please know that you have our support.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. That is the newspaper of Louisville, KY. This remarkable series of five articles, principally by a reporter named Gardiner Harris, is titled ``Dust, Deception and Death.'' The series documents an apparent pattern of falsification of coal dust sampling tests by coal mine operators and it details the consequences of that dishonesty: unnecessary suffering and early death for American coal miners. It is an extraordinary report. I do not believe it has received enough attention, although hearings have been taking place at the state level in Kentucky to look into the charges. The paper conducted a year-long investigation. Hundreds of current and former miners were interviewed. More than 7 million government records were examined. Based on that research, the Courier-Journal's reporters concluded that cheating on air-quality tests in coal mines has contributed to great suffering and to a large number of deaths from black lung disease among American coal miners. Their reporting reveals that the Federal Government, at least until very recently, largely ignored readily observable indications of that cheating. I do not draw absolute conclusions at this time from what is reported in the Courier-Journal. But I can say that what is reported in this series is consistent with what I saw and heard when I visited with miners in Eastern Kentucky a year ago. I was told then that cheating goes on in the dust sampling program in American coal mines. And I heard from sick and dying miners and their families about the connection between coal-mine conditions and black lung disease-- especially in non-union mines. We in the Federal Government have a responsibility to these workers and their families. At the end of my statement, I will make some suggestions regarding actions I believe we should take in the Senate. And I hope that colleagues, as they become more aware of this situation, might add to those suggestions and help determine the most appropriate response to what I believe is a national shame. The initial shame is that the suffering and death of thousands of Americans appears to be the direct result of systematic cheating on a government-monitored health-protection program. The deeper shame is that we in the Federal Government have had the opportunity to know it, yet so far we haven't done very much about it. Dedicated people in the appropriate Federal agency, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), are beginning to address this problem. J. Davitt McAteer, who is the Assistant Secretary for MSHA, has begun during recent years to take a number of steps, and he has called for further steps beyond those he has taken. But we still are not doing enough. Before I cite some details from the series, I would like to read a portion of the newspaper's editorial on this subject into the Record. This Louisville Courier-Journal editorial, printed on Sunday, April 19, is headlined, ``Death and Denial.'' It begins as follows: Coal is an outlaw industry. It is now, and it always has been. Coal is the closest thing to brute, unrepentant late 19th Century capitalism that we have left in American life. If you don't believe that, just consider the fact that ranks of miners choke to death every year because coal operators routinely cheat. They cheat on air-quality tests which could save lives. When they do that, they cheat workers of the years they would be able to spend with families and friends but for an early death from black lung. And this grotesque disease continues as the principal killer of coal miners, just as it has been for a half-century. That is not the conclusion of some outside group of hostile critics of the coal industry. It is the editorial position of a major newspaper in the state of Kentucky, where that industry remains important to the economy. Let me recite the conclusion of that same editorial: ``One- third of all the nation's underground mines get cited for excessive dust. And those are just the operations that are caught in the flawed, sporadic dust tests. Miners are more than exhausted with this continuing outrage. They're dying.'' Mr. President, every article in this series warrants reading in its entirety. There are some sad and shocking quotes from former foremen in the mines, as well as from miners themselves about their own roles in test falsification. There are heartbreaking profiles that illustrate the human consequences of this reality. Men who are suffocating to death, whose lungs are destroyed, who cannot even crawl up two steps at their home without stopping and gasping for breath. I hope Senators will read the story of Leslie Blevins, 45-year old former coal miner who is dying of silicosis, a form of black lung. I hope Senators will read the story of Terry Howard and his family. Terry died in 1995 of black lung disease. He was 45. Let me try to summarize some of the series' important findings. The first and most important conclusion of the series is that coal miners today continue to breathe hazardous amounts of coal dust because falsification of dust sampling is still widespread. In 1972, strict dust limits in coal mines went into effect. That was a result of the 1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. Today, under that Act, every two months, operators of underground coal mines have to test the air in the mines for dust. They use air pump machines attached to certain of the miners' belts to collect air samples. Then government laboratories weigh the amount of dust collected in those machines' plastic cassettes. Also, in addition to weighing the dust cassettes once they have been turned in, Federal government supervisors actually oversee the company-conducted testing on one occasion per year. How is the Federal dust-sampling program working? Not very well. In fact, the dust-sampling program, crucial as it is, today is a big part of the problem. Numerous miners, former mine owners and managers told the Courier-Journal that the sampling is routinely falsified. ``Most of the time, we just turn them off,'' one miner said of the machines. Many miners described how the pumps often were hung where the air was clear of dust, or placed in lunch buckets. Some are run outside the mines or not at all. According to the newspaper's reporting, in 1997, at about half the nation's underground coal mines, at least 15 percent of the air samples taken were almost completely dust-free. It is virtually impossible for those tests to have been accurate, according to experts. Assistant Secretary McAteer, who I believe is an honorable man and is moving in the right direction in addressing the problem, told the paper that these samples are ``inaccurate,'' ``unfathomable,'' and ``statistically impossible.'' In other words, Assistant Secretary McAteer was saying that those results were not accurate. They could not have been accurate. They indicated cheating. That was in 1997. Cheating is reprehensible, of course. But what matters even more is the reason for the cheating. The paper's reporting provides compelling evidence that this widespread cheating is for the purpose of covering up the existence of severely hazardous conditions--dusty conditions which exceed federally allowable levels and which are still causing black lung disease today. How can that be, one might ask? We put the law in place. We have an agency devoted to enforcing it. Surely the mine operating companies are not interested in endangering their workers. And yet they do. It appears from the evidence that mine operators don't comply with the Federal dust-sampling program mainly because it would cost them time and money to do so. It is a sad and maddening observation, but it appears to be true. Furthermore, it apparently also is the case that the coal mine operating companies do not comply with the Federal dust sampling program today because up to this point they have had little to fear from the Federal Government when they cheat. Even when convictions have been obtained in cases of falsification of dust tests, penalties seem to have been light. So far, the Federal Government has not been up to the job of protecting miners' health. MSHA appears over a period of years to have largely ignored readily available evidence that cheating was occurring. They are not ignoring it now, although I believe we need to make sure they are doing everything that is possible to do. Penalties for violations, as well as investigations and prosecutions, have been a largely ineffective deterrent. One-third of the mines are cited for dust-level violations, but the fines are generally small. For years average fines were about $100, and even now the average fine is just a few hundred dollars. Those are for the violations which are caught-- instances where the measurable dust exceeded allowable levels. The kind of cheating which is documented in the Louisville series, which is a separate issue, has gone largely unpunished because it has gone largely uncaught. Furthermore, even after miners have contracted one or more of the diseases which are known collectively as black lung disease, few are able to qualify for government benefits intended to relieve their plight. The most important information in this series of articles is not only that American miners continue to suffer and die from black lung disease today. Many Senators are aware that, whereas we pledged as a nation to eliminate black lung disease 28 years ago, we still have not accomplished that goal. The Federal Government pays approximately $1 billion annually for programs directly related to black lung diseases. States pay worker's compensation health benefits to miners with black lung disease. So we know that thousands of Americans suffer from black lung disease. The important information in this series, however, which would have been new and surprising to me had I not visited with coal miners in Eastern Kentucky last year, is information which I think should shock Members of the Senate. That information is that it appears that the cheating on air-quality testing by coal mine operators, the falsification of coal dust sampling tests, continues to go on today on a widespread scale. That--if true, and it appears to be--is what we must acknowledge is a national disgrace. What does this mean? It means that the cause of future suffering and dying is going on, unabated, in today's coal mines. Right now, today. We can talk about responsibility and accountability for dishonesty in the past, which has led to today's suffering. We should. We should investigate it thoroughly, and if federal laws have been broken, then we should prosecute. But if false sampling continues today, and if we allow it to go on, then we in the Senate are failing in our responsibility to protect thousands of American coal miners from serious health hazards while they are on the job. We literally would be encouraging through our inaction the continued exposure of miners to conditions and practices that we have every indication will condemn thousands of them to suffering and early death. We are responsible. We cannot allow coal operators to cause avoidable suffering and death. I say avoidable because suffering and death from black lung disease is avoidable. Coal can be mined profitably without subjecting miners to dirty conditions that will give them black lung disease. Mr. President, we may not solve this problem during the remainder of this Congress. It will probably not be a simple matter, and we have only a few remaining legislative weeks. It cannot be solved overnight, even though every day that cheating occurs American miners are exposed to deadly levels of black-lung-causing coal dust. Nonetheless, we can do some things immediately. We should. We should hold at least an initial hearing on the subject of the effectiveness, or the lack of effectiveness, of current Federal measures to eliminate black lung disease. Such a hearing should include testimony regarding the voluminous evidence presented in the Louisville Courier-Journal series indicating widespread cheating on dust sampling tests. It might take more than one hearing to get to the bottom of the problem, not to mention the best solutions to it. But there should be a hearing, and I have directed a request for such a hearing to the Chairman of the Labor Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, Senator Frist, as well as to that Subcommittee's Ranking Member, Senator Kennedy. We need to call attention to the issue, and we need to send a signal to American miners and their families that we will meet our responsibility to learn the truth and protect their health and safety. Second, we need to ensure that MSHA has sufficient resources to carry out more of their own dust sampling, as well as more monitoring of tests conducted by the coal mine operators. I hope when we consider the Labor- HHS Appropriations bill that we will provide adequate funding to MSHA to do more testing. The companies have shown that they will not carry out accurate tests. At the same time, I do not believe that we should simply increase our own Federal spending and testing, and meanwhile take the companies off the hook. The companies should continue to test, as well, and they must be held thoroughly accountable for their results. A more rigorous testing and monitoring program by MSHA would both improve the reliability of the test results, and it would also help us identify more of the individuals and companies that are cheating on the tests and endangering the health of miners. MSHA already has increased its spot-inspections of mines that have turned in tests with suspiciously low dust levels. The agency should go further, and they should have the resources to ensure they are able to go further. I believe Federal enforcement agencies should consider whether increased criminal and civil prosecution is warranted for what appears to be the systematic circumvention of the Mine Safety Act. By enforcement agencies I am referring to MSHA and the Department of Justice. The number of criminal prosecutions has been low if the claims asserted in the Louisville newspaper series are correct. Between 1980 and early 1997, there were only 96 cases in which criminal charges were successfully brought by the Federal government for violations in the area of coal mine safety and health. That is 96 cases over a 16 year period, or about six a year. It is my understanding that very few, if any, even of that small number of successful prosecutions were for the kind of cheating documented in the newspaper series. If cheating on dust sampling, which endangers people's lives, is as widespread as has been alleged, then I believe current Justice Department prosecution has been less than it should be. I do not know if the problem has been at MSHA, or if the problem has been at the Department of Justice. It may be difficult to prove this cheating. It may be difficult to get miners to testify. But if what the series portrays is true, then we are simply not doing a good job of deterring these illegal practices--practices which are causing illness and death. Finally, the Secretary of Labor last year proposed new rules governing implementation of the Black Lung Benefits Act--rules which to my knowledge still have not taken effect. This set of proposed revisions to the Black Lung Benefits Act is sound, justified and needed. It should be implemented. Only about 7.5 percent of Black Lung claims have been granted since the early 1980s, with nearly one-third of claims tied up in lengthy hearing and appeals processes. Litigation consumes almost half of the Black Lung Trust Fund's administrative expenses. The Department of Labor's new rules were published in the Federal Register in January of last year, and they should be put into effect. Mr. President, I will return to the floor to speak further about this issue before the year is over. I hope we can conduct a hearing in the Labor Committee. I hope we will provide adequate appropriations for the Mines Safety and Health Administration. And I hope we will do right for the safety and health of American miners. I intend to do all I can as a United States Senator to see that we do so. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to call to the attention of colleagues a disturbing set of circumstances and facts which I believe merit investigation and probably legislative action on the part of the Senate. I also believe that the facts I am about to discuss warrant more attention than they have received so far from the Justice Department. There is evidence of significant violation of Federal law leading to great harm. I hope that in addition to the Congress responding appropriately, the Justice Department might look further into this matter. I am referring to what appears to be a record of widespread systematic cheating on occupational air quality tests by operators of many of our Nation's coal mines. This alleged cheating, of which there appears to be nearly incontrovertible evidence, apparently has led to much unnecessary suffering in thousands of American families. It likely also has led to the unnecessary death from black lung disease of thousands of American coal miners. Unfortunately, I am not referring to conditions that existed early in this century, or even conditions of the 1950s or 1960s. I'm talking about circumstances of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I'm talking about allegations related to existing conditions and practices in American coal mines today. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, to have printed in the Record a series of articles that appeared in April of this year in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to discuss a provision contained in the Commerce/Justice/State Appropriations bill: ``Grants to Combat Violent Crime Against Women on Campuses,'' which provide $10 million a year to the Department of Justice for dissemination to colleges. I want to thank Senator Gregg, the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, for working with me to ensure that this provision becomes law. In the 1980s, several high profile violent crimes on campuses raised concern about campus crime and security, resulting in the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act (C.S.A.) in 1990. Though overall crime rates are declining, sexual assaults throughout the United States, including on college campuses, are on the rise. Studies tell us: Twenty percent of college-aged women will be victims of sexual assault at some point during their college careers. According to a 1995 study, 82 percent of rapes or sexual assaults in 1992-93 involved a person the victim knew. Rape remains the most under reported violent crime in America, with approximately 1 in 6 rapes reported to police. I am very concerned about sexual assault on college campuses. A 1991 survey of more than 6,000 college students found that 42 percent of women students reported some form of sexual assault, including forcible sexual contact, attempted rape, and completed rape. This is simply unacceptable and we must do something to turn this around. We have already taken an important step in addressing violence on campuses. Already included in the Higher Education Act are efforts to strengthen reporting so that we can get more accurate statistics and a national baseline study has been commissioned to look at the policies and procedures regarding sexual assault, and how effective they are. That's a great start, but it's not enough. It's not enough to simply get better statistics. It's not enough to look at how sexual assaults are dealt with on campuses. We have to go further. We have to combat sexual assault on campuses. We have to end the violence. Even one victim of sexual assault is too many. A critical component to addressing violence against women on campus is good collaboration among those who work with victims of sexual assault--campus police, local law enforcement, campus administrators, and victim services. We need to improve the coordinated response to violence on campuses. We need consistent enforcement and implementation of policies regarding sexual assault. We need enhanced communication between the campus and local community. And in turn, this increased communication will result in more accurate statistics. According to a GAO report released last March, one of the reasons we don't have good statistics is that campuses have had trouble deciding how to include crimes reported to campus officials who are not campus police. It's not unusual for crimes on campus to be reported to local police and not reported in campus crime reports. Improving collaboration within and between campus and off-campus agencies will improve the statistics--and therefore give us a more realistic picture of violence on campuses. It will also improve services and care for victims. The grant program we've created--Grants to Combat Violent Crime Against Women on Campuses--would make $10 million a year available to college campuses so that campus personnel and student organizations could work with campus administrators and police. The aim is to improve security and investigation methods to combat violence against women on campus and to improve victim services. These efforts may include partnerships with local criminal justice folks and community victim services organizations. Collaborating with community resources is especially critical when campuses have minimal victim support services and students are isolated from community support systems. Some say, ``Why do this federally? Shouldn't schools do this themselves?'' But why should we be surprised that schools have yet to properly initiate these collaborations when communities haven't even started. We need to hold the line on violence everywhere, in schools and in communities. And the only way to overcome violence involves setting up collaborative programs, and that takes funds. That's what the federal government does when it is functioning best--get the ball rolling. Campus safety is an educational access issue. Violence on campus is a huge barrier to education for many students who are in fear of being attacked because they feel unprotected on their own campuses. Without adequate prevention and protection services, many students--women in particular--continue to become victims of attacks, while others remain afraid to take night classes or to study late at the library. And victims of sexual assault may choose to leave school because they feel unprotected. How are college women supposed to focus on their educations when one out of five college women will be a victim of sexual assault? And if it's not themselves personally, it will surely be their roommates, their classmates, their sorority sisters, or their friends. College is the time when many young people begin to break away from the protection of their families, a time of learning--both in the classroom and out--a time of freedom. But for many young women, it's also a time of trauma, a time of victimization, a time of violence. It's time to make campuses safe. During the Higher Education Act Markup in the Senate, I reached a public agreement with Senator Gregg to work together to develop a Campus Safety Collaborative Grant Program. On May 6th, Senator Gregg agreed to the language I proposed, creating a $10 million grant program administered by the Department of Justice for collaborative grants to colleges in order to combat violence on campus. Consequently, the Senate Working Group--Senator Jeffords, Kennedy, Coats, and Dodd-- adopted the language into the Manager's Substitute of the Higher Education Act. And I am very pleased that Senator Gregg has inserted funding for this program into the Commerce/State/Justice Appropriations Bill. The Wellstone/Gregg Collaborative Grant Program states: ``enough is enough. It's time to end the violence.'' I thank Senator Gregg for all of his efforts, and I urge my colleagues to support this important provision. iowa communications network (icn)

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, it is hard to do justice to the topic in 5 minutes. Let me say I think something is happening on the floor of the Senate that takes us backward as a nation. There have been many people that have given their sweat and tears and even blood to try and improve conditions for farm workers. There have been Senators in the past that have done that. This amendment really undercuts some of this very important work. What we are saying in this amendment is essentially this: We are saying to the growers, listen, you don't have to really worry about the market. If the growers can't find the workers, pay better wages and have better working conditions. How many more reports do we have to have, from Harvest of Shame, to reports today of working conditions? The wages and uncivilized working conditions of farm workers are a national disgrace. If the growers want to have people working for them, then just have civilized working conditions and decent wages. What this amendment essentially says is that what we are going to do is actually add to the exploitation by enabling you growers to essentially rely on a new guest worker program. Mr. President, we don't need a new guest worker program. Senator Kennedy talked about the GAO report. I heard the farm worker justice fund mentioned earlier. They don't talk about this as reform; they talk about it as deform. We have a very strange situation here. We are saying that the growers can't get the workers, and now what we have is a program that cuts payments for guest workers. This cuts the payments for the guest workers. So in order to attract more workers, we enable growers to rely on people coming in from other countries, and we cut their wages. I don't call this reform. I don't call this a change for the better. What we are essentially doing is putting the Federal Government at the service of a sector--in this particular case the growers--as a source of cheap labor. It is a huge mistake. Now, if we want to do better by way of working conditions for legal workers, I am all for it. If we want to reform the Guest Worker Program, I am all for it. But that is not what this is about. This is a huge step backward. I hear about the vouchers. I mean, I did a lot of organizing in rural communities. The question is whether there is any housing. What good does it do to have vouchers if there isn't adequate housing there? We no longer deal with that protection. Then, in addition, the three- fourths minimum work guarantee is eliminated. Workers who used to travel long distances are now promised wages for at least three-fourths of the season for which they are being hired. That guarantee is no longer there. This essentially takes the Guest Worker Program backwards. It adds to exploitation. It undercuts the working conditions of farm workers, which are already atrocious in this country. I say to the growers, with all due respect, if you want to have more people working for you, pay decent wages, have civilized working conditions. We ought not to be asking the Federal Government to essentially move in and supply these growers with a form of cheap labor, exploited labor. This isn't reform, this is deform. I hope there will be a strong vote against it. Mr. SMITH of Oregon addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Almost 200,000 people behind bars in the United States of America, according to Mr. Butterfield, are known to suffer from schizophrenia, manic-depression, or major depression--the three most severe mental illnesses. This rate is four times greater than for the general population. And there is strong evidence, particularly among juveniles, that their numbers in the jails are growing. The vast majority of these people, colleagues, have not committed serious violent crimes. Some are homeless people charged with minor crimes that are a byproduct of their mental illness. They just get swept up and incarcerated. Others are picked up with no charges at all, in what police call ``mercy arrests,'' simply for acting strange. Jails and prisons often find themselves unprepared to deal with the mentally ill. For instance, medication may not be properly monitored or guards do not know how to respond to disturbed inmates who are simply not capable of standing in an orderly line for meals. A common result is that these inmates find themselves in solitary confinement. Colleagues, 200 years ago the most common treatment for the seriously mentally ill was jail. Thousands of people with severe disorders were brutally locked away and forgotten. This did not change until Dorothy Dix, and other reformers in the middle of the last century, successfully fought to have these people transferred form jails to hospitals. I fear that our jails are once again becoming dumping grounds for ill people who need treatment and care and that as a result we are recriminalizing the mentally ill in America today. On July 1, Mr. President, I went with the National Mental Health Association to the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. Mr. President, I want to just briefly summarize this trip and then focus on mental health and children. First of all--and I have talked with my colleagues from Louisiana who care a great deal about this. Let me say that, in particular, the warden, David Bonnette, is very committed to trying to make the changes. I went there because I had seen some preliminary Justice Department reports that essentially said there were kids who really had not committed any crimes--by the way, the vast majority of children, over 90 percent in the juvenile corrections system, have not committed violent crime. But I heard that there were kids who had been dumped in this facility--but the same can be said for other facilities in our country--who had not committed any violent crimes. Some had not committed any crime. And then, to make matters worse, there is no medication, no counseling, and there they are. It is unconscionable. I went to visit this facility. When I got there, I first met with people in the administrative building. A lot of officials from Louisiana were there, quite a bit of media was there--journalists, TV, radio. But forget all that. We had some initial negotiations because I wanted to visit where the solitary confinement cells were. I wanted to find out why kids were put in these cells for up to 6 or 7 weeks at a time, up to maybe 23 hours a day--if my colleagues are listening. I wanted to find out why. Before visiting there, we first went to a building where these kids-- and they are kids from age 11 to age 18--were eating. I say to my colleague from South Carolina, he might be interested in this. Again, I am not trying to point the finger of blame, but I saw these kids eating, and probably 85 percent of them were black, African American, ages 11 to 18. There are 500-plus kids in this facility. I went over to where some of these kids were eating, and I said, ``How are you doing?'' And this one kid said, ``Not so good.'' I said, ``What do you mean?'' He said, ``This food, they never serve this food. They just did this for today. We don't ever get this kind of food. These clothes, we never had these clothes. Every day it's the same clothes. Every day it's the same underwear. It's hot. There's no air conditioning. And we don't have any clothes like this, clean clothes. These shoes, we never had any shoes like this. Smell the paint on the table. These tables have all been freshly painted. This is just a show for you, Senator.'' Then I turned to officials from Louisiana, and I never heard them contradict that. Again, I am going to end up very much in the positive about what I think is going to happen now. And then we walked across the compound--that is what I will call it-- because I wanted to get to where these solitary confinement cells were. And this one young man climbs up on a roof, leaps up on a roof, and runs toward me and a whole lot of people who are with me. And I said to him, ``You're going to get in a lot of trouble. Why are you doing this?'' He said, ``I want to make a statement.'' I said, ``What is your statement?'' He said, ``This is a show. And we're all going to get beaten up when you leave. We get beaten up all the time.'' Then I met with four young guys. One had stolen a moped. That is why he was there. One was there for breaking and entering, and another was breaking and entering. The point is, they talked about being beaten up all the time. Now, the Justice Department has also chronicled some of these conditions. The truth of the matter is, I believe the warden there and the State of Louisiana knows that things have to change. That is the good news, I hope. There has now been a civil rights lawsuit filed. There is a tremendous amount of interest. What I want to say to colleagues, and I believe this Fox Butterfield article was terribly important as well, but I want to just simply talk about some of what I observed, regarding the mental health in children. One hallucinating child was in isolation for observation, yet his transfer to an appropriate mental health facility was uncertain. Another child I met was taking three different types of powerful psychiatric medications but had only seen a psychiatrist twice in the last 8 months. The Justice Department chronicled instances where boys were being repeatedly sexually and physically abused, and children with mental illness were being housed with youths who had committed violent crimes--mentally ill children who had received no therapy, and when they are having the symptoms they are often isolated or punished for their illness. Mr. President, I just say that what is happening to these troubled children who were dumped in these facilities and get no care, many of whom shouldn't be there in the first place, is a national tragedy. All across our country we are dumping emotionally disturbed kids into juvenile prisons. Each year more than 1 million youth come in contact with the juvenile justice system, and more than 100,000 of these youth are detained in some type of jail or prison. These children are overwhelmingly poor, and a disproportionate number of them are children of color. By the time many of these children are arrested and incarcerated, they have a long history of problems in their short lives. As many as two-thirds suffer from mental or emotional disturbances. One in five has a serious disorder. Many have substance abuse problems and learning disabilities, and most of them come from troubled homes. Tallulah is not the only offending facility. The Justice Department has exposed gross abuses in Georgia, Kentucky, and other juvenile facilities all across our country. Other States are experiencing similar problems. Investigators found extreme cases of physical abuse and neglected mental health needs, including unwarranted and prolonged isolation of suicidal children who are hog-tied, and chemical restraints are used on youth with serious emotional disturbances, as well as forced medication and even denial of medication. Children with extensive psychiatric histories who are prone to self-mutilation never even saw a psychiatrist. This is a Justice Department report, Justice Department findings on conditions in our juvenile ``correction'' facilities. Mr. President, our current system fails mentally ill adults and children. The screening and treatment of mental and emotional disturbances are inadequate or nonexistent at correctional facilities. Mental illness typically is addressed solely through discipline, isolation, and restraint. At Tallulah, children told us they were beaten and put in isolation for long periods, even months, echoing in painful detail what has been revealed in the Justice Department reports. The tragedy of this situation is that we know what works--treatment. But our current system for adults and children with mental illness favors punishment over treatment. For children, we know that family focused, individualized treatment, delivered in a child's community can improve that child's mental health and prevent them from offending in the first place. It is proven that if you integrate these mental health and substance abuse services with schools and child agencies and you make it happen at the local level, it provides even greater success. In fact, linked with community services, these other treatment programs have been shown to reduce contact with the juvenile system by 46 percent. This amendment, really, builds on this. Under this amendment, States receiving Federal prison construction moneys would be able to use these funds to implement mental health screening and treatment of adult and juvenile offenders within their correctional systems. It is badly needed. Those States receiving Federal prison construction moneys would also be required to develop a plan for mental health treatment of mentally ill offenders. Finally, States receiving these funds would be required to provide the attorney general an initial baseline study of mental illness in their correction facilities. We can't any longer ignore this tragedy. What I saw in Tallulah is a national disgrace. The wholesale neglect of adults and youth with emotional disturbances in our prisons must end. We, as a society, have the moral obligation to see that they get the help they need. I thank both of my colleagues for supporting this amendment. I want to end on this note. I said it once earlier. I want to make it crystal clear, because I am sensitive to not doing any bashing of any one State. Yes, I visited the facility in Tallulah. I will tell you something, those conditions shouldn't exist. I will tell you something else, beyond the connection of mental health in children and children who have never committed a crime, they just get dumped in these correction facilities, and then when they are there they get no treatment, no vocational ed treatment, precious little education, no counseling, inadequate medical attention, on and on and on. Mr. President, the other thing I want to say, which is another point which I guess speaks back to the vote we just had, I tell you I am all for holding people accountable when they commit a brutal or heinous crime. I have said it before and I will say it again, when three 16- year-olds beat up an 85-year-old woman and leave her for dead, I don't feel sorry for them. But I tell you Democrats and I tell you Republicans, anybody who believes that those kinds of conditions that I saw at Tallulah Correctional Center--they exist in a lot of other centers, and people in Louisiana are taking action to make things better, and I believe they will--anybody who thinks that is the answer, is way off base. A lot of those kids, those 11-year-olds and 12-year- olds I met, I wouldn't have been afraid to meet then at 10 at night before they came to this ``correction'' facility, but I wouldn't want to meet some of these kids at 10 at night alone after they have been in these facilities. What do you think we will get from this with these kinds of conditions? What do you think we will get from this when you put kids in brutal conditions? You make them brutal. Every one of these children who I visited with is a mother's child and a father's child. This is disgraceful. This is disgraceful. I wouldn't say this is necessarily the central issue in the country. That is why I thank my colleagues for their support. But I am telling you I really believe this amendment will be very helpful, because what this amendment will do is it will say to the States, look, if you want to do the assessment before you incarcerate a kid, if you want to find out what happened by way of violence in the home or substance abuse, or whether or not the kid should even be in a correctional facility versus somewhere else, and you want to figure if they should be incarcerated-- some should--or what kind of treatment is needed, you can use some of this money to do that. We have estimates of up to 25 percent-plus of the kids in these juvenile correction facilities are struggling with these mental problems and we just abandon them. The second thing it said is, look, States, with your prison system, you have to lay out the plan that you have for dealing with some of the people who are in the system who are struggling with these mental problems and what kind of treatment they will get. We are worse off as a nation in terms of losing our soul if we don't do this. Frankly, it is in the self-interest of every family in America to make sure we get treatment to these kids and treatment to some of these people who are incarcerated. If they don't get the treatment, or the conditions that I described today from Fox Butterfield in the New York Times article, we are all worse off for it. So I thank both my colleagues for their support. I hope I will get strong support in conference committee as well. I am very proud to have had a chance to introduce this amendment, and I am pleased that the amendment is going to be accepted. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today I am offering an amendment--and I thank both Senator Hollings and Senator Gregg for their support--that would allow States to use Federal prison construction moneys for mental health treatment in our Nation's adult and juvenile corrections facilities--allow States; States make that decision. I am a Senator from the State of Minnesota. Hubert Humphrey, a great Senator from Minnesota, once said: The moral test of government is how the government treats those who are in the dawn of life, children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life --the sick, the needy, and the handicapped. Today, throughout America, we are failing the moral test of how we treat adults and children. I want to focus on children in mental health, in the criminal and juvenile justice system, too many of whom live in the shadow of mental illness. According to a recent article in the New York Times by Fox Butterfield--this was a front page piece. The title of it is ``Profits at a Juvenile Prison Come With a Chilling Cost.'' I ask unanimous consent that this very fine piece of journalism be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Chris Schoenbauer, an intern, and Ellen Gerrity, a fellow, be allowed to be on the floor during the debate on this piece of legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I read today in the paper--and I am not quite sure where we are headed, and I always look forward to having a chance to meet and talk with the majority leader, agree or disagree, on all issues--but I read in the paper the majority leader said he didn't think he would have time to bring up the nomination of James Hormel. That is a terrible mistake. I have spoken on the floor. I said after the tobacco legislation, I was looking for an opportunity to offer an amendment. Frankly, on the basis of discussions I had with a lot of different people, I decided that it would be better to wait because I was hoping, if you will, that cooler heads would prevail on this matter and we would figure out a way to bring this nomination to the floor. If it is a debate or discussion, it will be a good debate and good discussion. Too much of the climate has become too poisonous. If the majority leader is basically shutting the door on any action on the floor of the Senate--I hope he isn't; I guess that is my plea to the majority leader: I hope you have not done that--I want to find out as soon as possible. Then, I believe, it will be important for some of us to bring amendments to the floor and, basically, one way or another, have a debate and have an up-or-down vote. Every Senator is entitled to their own opinion about whether or not James Hormel would be an able Ambassador to Luxembourg, and every Senator is entitled to a vote. I am entitled to my opinion, and I am entitled to a vote. I think the majority of us --well over 60 of us-- would vote to confirm this nomination. I cannot see anything in Mr. Hormel's record--anything in his record, anything in his record--that would disqualify him from this job. I see someone with an enormously successful background in education--that means a lot to me; education has been my life's work--a very successful business person, philanthropist, and very active in the legal profession. For the life of me, there is no reason to stop this nomination, except for the fact--and if this is the fact, let's get it out in the open--that he is gay. If that is what troubles colleagues, come out here and say it. If colleagues want to say he is gay, or if they want to say he has been too outspoken on gay causes, then let's get that out here. Too many comments have been made in the last several months --made here, there--and I don't think that is good for the Senate. Frankly, the failure of the U.S. Senate to at least bring this nomination to the floor and have an honest discussion and an honest debate--frankly, this is less about Jim Hormel than it is about the Senate. The Senate is far more on trial than is Jim Hormel. This is not good for this institution. If this is just a case of discrimination against somebody because of their sexual orientation, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror. If not, fine, we will have the discussion, we will have the debate, and we will have the vote. But I don't think, as much as I might respect the majority leader or respect his prerogatives, necessarily his word would be the final word, at least in terms of a discussion and a debate. My hope is, we can figure out a way of bringing Mr. Hormel's nomination to the floor and that there will be a vote.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Finally, Mr. President, seeing no other colleague on the floor, I want to talk about this more in detail and in depth when we have the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill before us, which I think will be in the next day or so. I am working on an amendment--I hope it can be ready--that actually evolves from a piece of legislation I have been working on for some time dealing with mental health in children. I have been very lucky to have done a lot of the mental health work with Senator Domenici from New Mexico, my Republican colleague. He has certainly been more of the leader than I have, but I have been honored to work with him. Mr. President, I went on a visit--I will talk about this in more detail, in more depth later--to Lula, LA, about 2 weeks ago as a Senator. I think it was some of the best work I have done as a Senator outside of Minnesota--the best work is in Minnesota. I wanted to go there because I have read some Justice Department reports about the need for real dramatic improvement in the conditions affecting these children. I see pages here. This is a corrections center, and the kids that are here in the center range in age from 11 to about 18. A lot of the kids I talked to were 14, 15. I did talk to several 11-year-olds as well. I went down there determined--I talked to both of my colleagues from Louisiana, not to sort of say, well, how terrible, Louisiana; only in Louisiana. I do not believe that for a moment. I think we can do a lot better. My focus had to do with mental health and children. The estimates now made by the Justice Department--there was a pretty powerful front-page story in the New York Times that was written last week that I will get in the Record when I offer this amendment. But the fact of the matter is, the estimates are that about 25 percent of the kids here struggle with mental problems. Many of them actually never committed a crime. I mean, they would be picked up, they would run away from home, be out in the street. A very small percentage committed a violent crime; I guess probably less than 10 percent, closer to 5 percent. I will talk about that in a moment. But what happens is that these facilities--and this is certainly what happened in Lula--become a dumping ground with kids struggling with mental illness. They should not be there in the first place. To compound the problem, they are there, but with no treatment. And to compound that problem, it becomes pretty brutal with them. They should not be there. I went to Lula--and, again, I am going to be very careful as not to speak with that much emotion because there is plenty to be emotional about, but to just give a report on the floor of the Senate. I will focus on this again in more detail with the amendment so my colleagues know what the amendment is about. In the administrative building there were a lot of people from Louisiana that were there, a lot of officials, which was fine. I met the new warden, whom I believe is trying to make changes. He just got there, so it would be unfair to pin any of this on him. I wanted to go to the solitary confinement cells because I also heard kids were locked up in solitary confinement as many as 23 hours a day for as long as 6 or 7 weeks. I wanted to know which kids. I wanted to know, What does a kid do to be put in solitary confinement like this? What is the criteria you use? I wanted to know more about that. Initially, we negotiated, and the idea was I would get there, but first I would start off with kids who were eating lunch. I went in, and it was interesting. There were kids eating lunch. I also say, since I think race is still a reality in America, my guess is over 80 percent of the kids of about 500-plus kids were African American. I do not know what the population is in Louisiana--certainly nowhere close to 80 percent. Kids were eating, and I went up to some kids who were eating, and I just said, ``How are you doing?'' This one young guy said to me, ``Not that good.'' I said, ``What do you mean?'' He said, ``Well, you see this food?'' By this time lots of officials were with me. He said, ``See this food?'' I said, ``Yeah.'' He said, ``We never eat this food. We never have a meal like this. This is just because you're here.'' He said, ``The table--smell the paint. This was just painted. These tables don't look like this.'' He said, ``These clothes I have on,''--I am just reporting what he said to me--he said, ``These clothes I have on, they just gave us this stuff last night. These aren't the clothes we usually wear. It's hot. There's no air conditioning. You know, we smell--the same clothing, same underwear. We never get new clothing like this.'' Then he went on and he said, ``When you go outside and you look at the baskets there, when you look at the hoops, the nets were put on the hoop. We didn't have any nets on these hoops. This all just happened. This is a show.'' That is the way it started out. I just give that report. Then I walked across the yard, heading over to where the solitary confinement cells are, and there was a group of kids outside. It was very hot. And this one young man just basically broke away from the guards and leaped on to a roof of a building and started running toward me. I had a whole lot of people that were with me, a lot of media people from Louisiana, and again a lot of people from the State. I went over to where he was, and I said, ``You're going to get in a lot of trouble.'' And I think he said, ``I know.'' I said, ``Why are you doing this?'' He said, ``I want to make a statement.'' I said, ``What is your statement?'' He said, ``I want to tell you this is a show. And I want to tell you, when you leave we're going to be beaten up; we're going to be retaliated against.'' Mr. President, I then met with four kids and their lawyer from the Southern Poverty Law Center--a great lawyer--for about an hour. They talked about some of the retaliation--which, by the way, I have to give the warden credit. There has been some reduction in this. But the more I was there, the more it became clear to me--and, again, I will, from Fox Butterfield's article in the New York Times, I will spend more time on this with the amendment. But it became clear to me that there was precious little by way of vocational ed, hardly any education, not adequate counseling services, not an adequate way of assessing kids. Did they come from a home where there was violence in the home? Were there substance abuse problems? Were they themselves in need of treatment, especially in the mental health area, pharmacological treatment, or other treatment? Hardly adequate medical facilities. I just have to tell you, Mr. President, I am not so angry at Louisiana because I know you can find plenty of these conditions around the country. But I am wondering how in the world we can let this happen in America. Some of the kids I met with--one boy had stolen a moped, and thus he wound up here. One was there for breaking and entering and had broken into somebody's home. Another cut somebody with a knife in a fight, so on and so forth. But here is my question: I have two questions now. One, which will speak to the amendment that I hope to have ready, and the other goes beyond that. On mental health and children, I really do believe--and I spoke with the warden afterwards and, again, I give him credit for, I believe, trying to make changes, and I believe the same with the commissioner of corrections. I am always interested in having things change. Senator Breaux said that there is going to be an all-out effort to do a lot more by way of training with the staff there. But my question is whether or not--when it comes to Louisiana or any State in the country, from Louisiana to California, to New York, to Minnesota; though I think there are great differences, great differences right now--the question really is this: Whether or not we are going to, within some kind of framework of integrated mental health services, provide these States with some resources so that, in fact, an assessment can be made, and so that we just do not dump kids in these facilities. And if they are in these facilities because they really have committed a crime, and they need to be in such a facility--although there are many alternatives-- then we ought to make sure they get the treatment. The second thing that I want to say, Mr. President, in this particular case is this has been all contracted out to--I forget the name of the company--and I have to wonder about how we do this. I mean, I have to say, I am all for profit. I am all for a strong private sector, especially the more small business focused it is, the more I like it. But when you are talking about juveniles, they are supposed to be receiving additional help. They are supposed to get the educational and vocational opportunities. And they are supposed to be able to receive the kind of support services that will enable them, when they are 15 or 16 and after they have been in these facilities, to get out and rebuild their lives. I have to tell you, America, that I do not think too many of these kids are going to be able to do that. And, frankly, if they went in mixed up, having made a mistake, having done something they should not have done, they are going to come out very different. You might not want to meet them at 10 p.m. at night. I think what we are doing in some of these facilities is so shortsighted, it is so myopic, it is such a big mistake. Yes, hold people accountable. And if people commit crimes and should be in a corrections center, so be it. But you know what? There are certain standards of decency. There are certain standards about how we treat young people. Every one of these children is some mother's child, is some father's child. I do not care whether they are in Lula, LA, or in California, New York, Minnesota, or any other State. Now, one of the things in Minnesota that I will brag on a little bit, although it is not heaven on Earth, we have tried very hard to do an assessment at the front end of the system and look for alternatives to incarcerating kids. I just think it is an area that even if we don't want to look at--sometimes we don't want to know what we don't want to know--we better look at this with our eyes open. These are kids. These are kids. A lot of them shouldn't be there. A lot of them are struggling with mental problems. A lot of them aren't getting any care whatever. We are talking about the criminalization of mental illness. Above and beyond that, the other issue I point out is that the overall conditions of this facility are unconscionable. I want to make it clear again to the warden and to Louisiana, it is not just Louisiana. I know that. That just happened to be my first visit. But I do have to tell you that after 3 hours--and I don't think I am naive; I have done a lot of organizing in a lot of communities with a lot of people who have struggled on the bottom--I have to tell you I was reeling for 3 hours there. I believe we have to do better. I am looking forward to introducing this legislation and maybe it will be an amendment on this bill. I hope I will get good support from my colleagues. I thank both of my colleagues from Louisiana, in particular, for being supportive, talking with me about the trip, and their very strong interest in working with officials in Louisiana to make things better. There are some people in Louisiana State government who are absolutely committed to doing that. I know that. I certainly hope, as a Senator with an interest in this area, I can help out with their efforts. What I can't, however, forget, as I speak on the floor of the Senate, is what I saw. I saw conditions that I didn't think existed today in America. I saw kids living under conditions that should not be. Kids shouldn't be assaulted or beaten up for no good reason. That will take us nowhere. There are new people who are moving in as security guards. There are changes that are being made. But I tell you, the sooner the better; the sooner the better. That is one of the reasons I speak on the floor of the Senate to try to help make these changes happen. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, last week I had a chance to speak about the auto workers' strike in Flint, MI. Today, this strike is about local issues, but it is of national importance. Today the presidents and the other active members of United Auto Workers locals from around the country are in Flint, MI. I wanted to one more time say that we now are more than 5 weeks into this strike. This has affected, I think, well over 100,000 workers in the country, not just the workers of Flint. The issues are clear cut--health and safety issues, which still are very important issues at the workplace in America, the speeding up of production lines, and the sending of work or the contracting out to outside suppliers. My own view is that GM has made a mistake with what I characterize as hardball tactics, because I think what happens is with hardball tactics--the walking away from negotiations, the threat of cutting off health care benefits of those who are out on strike, the threat of shutting down the two parts plants in Flint, MI--what it does is it undercuts the very good labor relations that actually are so critical to productivity. On the floor of the Senate, I say to GM in particular that I think good labor relations begin with a handshake, not a 2 by 4, and I hope to see both parties back in negotiations, and the sooner the better. What is happening in Flint, MI--again, the issues are local but the significance of it is national. What is at stake is American jobs, good jobs, living-wage jobs, jobs that pay a good wage with good fringe benefits. As I stand today on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I want to make it clear that as a Senator, that even though I am on the floor of the Senate, I also feel like my heart and soul are with the auto workers in Flint, MI. I extend my support as a Senator from Minnesota. There is a whole tradition to this. When I was a college teacher, I used to teach labor history, a labor politics class, and some of the most famous sitdowns took place in Flint, MI, in 1937--a very courageous, very courageous action by workers. These auto workers come out of a very rich tradition, a lot of courage by their parents and their grandparents, and I believe they are showing the same courage today. My hope is that we will see that negotiations will resume, that there will be a fair settlement, and that the United Auto Workers will not only have done well for themselves, but, more importantly, will do well for workers around the country. There are key issues here--health and safety issues. People who work have a right to say, ``Look, we're going to work, but we're going to work under civilized working conditions.'' People have a right to have a decent wage. People have a right to focus on pension and health care benefits. People have a right to be concerned about the contracting out of jobs. They have a right to be concerned about the trade agreements, as a matter of fact. That is why the workers in Flint, MI, are on the picket line today, and that is why, as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, I strongly support these workers who are out on the picket line.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Wyoming, way over there, if he needs more time, we don't have many people on the floor. I don't want him to rush on my account. Does he need more time? If so, I am pleased to wait.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, there are a number of matters I thought I would cover, since there are not a lot of people here on the floor today yet. First of all, I want to talk about the appropriations bill that we passed for VA and HUD last week. While I submitted a statement for the Record, since we were in a rush and squeezed for time, I didn't have a chance to talk about FEMA and in particular the Director, James Lee Witt. I feel bad about that. I want to talk about FEMA, and I want to talk about Mr. Witt today on the floor because this small agency with a very big heart has made a huge difference to a lot of our States--to a lot of people in our States. As we go to conference, I hope the conferees will remember the very big job I think FEMA does and will honor the level of funding requested by the President in the President's budget. My contact with James Lee Witt--I want to talk about him, and then I want to talk about FEMA. It is about more than one person. It goes back to 1993. The Chair today, from Kansas, of course, knows agriculture as well as anyone and knows what happens when you are faced with record flooding. We were hit with just terrible flooding in 1993. Farmers couldn't plant the crop. There was a lot of economic pain. I think that is the first time that I had a chance to just watch James Lee Witt in action. What I was most impressed about was just what we call the hands-on approach. I felt he was the opposite of somebody who was impersonal, the opposite of a ``bureaucrat.'' By the way, there are many bureaucrats who aren't ``bureaucrats.'' There are many people in Government who do their very best for people. I get tired of the bashing sometimes. But he was so personable and really came through for people. Then, of course, not that long ago--what was it, a year ago, a year- and-a-half ago--we had the floods in North Dakota. Everybody remembers Grand Forks, the flooding, the fire, the cold winter weather, and East Grand Forks in Minnesota, and other communities--Ada, Warren--it was just devastating. I just want to say, again, the bad news is that, with FEMA, you know FEMA people are going to come out because there is a real crisis. The bad news of a James Lee Witt, the Director, visiting your State, is you know he wouldn't be there and other FEMA people wouldn't be there except for some kind of disaster, except for some kind of a crisis. The good news is that always good things happen afterwards. Once upon a time, I remember, there was all sorts of frustration about FEMA. I don't want my colleagues to forget what Mr. Witt has done. I think he is one of the best appointments the President has ever made. He has done an excellent job of making this agency so much more responsive to people in our communities, people who are facing a real crisis. What he did, and what FEMA did, to help people who had been affected by the devastating flood of the Red River, was just remarkable. It was just remarkable. I want to comment on that on the floor. Again, this past year, we were hit with tornadoes, and again the town of Comfrey was essentially leveled to the ground, St. Peter was hit hard, Le Center--I could talk about a lot of communities. Again, James Lee Witt came. The people in Minnesota, the people in these communities who have been faced with these crises, have tremendous appreciation for this Director--tremendous appreciation. He has gone the extra mile every time to try to push the categories of assistance as far as he can, to try to get the help to people, to try to make sure there is not unnecessary delay, to try to make sure he cuts through as much of the bureaucracy as possible. And he has done that. I just want to say to colleagues, especially to the conferees, I hope we give this agency the funding they really deserve. The other thing I think is real important is, FEMA is now focused on this predisaster mitigation program, which I think is real important. This is another example of FEMA being in a good partnership with our local communities and with our businesses, to figure out, given what we have been faced with, how, in fact, we can do the mitigation work to prevent a lot of the damage and a lot of the pain and a lot of cost that happens afterwards. This is a very proactive Director. My last point is, I have fallen in love with FEMA people. I don't know if I would ever do this or not, but I am tempted, if I have the skill, when I am no longer in politics or public life, to work for FEMA. It is really fascinating when you get to know people. These are people from all around the country, and they travel around, they respond to these crises, they come into your State, they live in the State--it is like a family. It is constant responding to people--people who have been flooded out of their homes, people who don't have any clothing, people who don't know where they are going to stay, people whose businesses have been destroyed. Of course, it is so difficult, but I am so impressed with a lot of the FEMA people and the job that they do. It is just quite amazing. You meet a former head of the State patrol of California, retired military person here, retired business person there--a whole lot of pretty fascinating people who work for FEMA who are just experts at dealing with these crisis situations. I don't think that any of us had an opportunity to speak about FEMA as we were going through the VA-HUD appropriations bill. I wanted to speak about FEMA, and I wanted to speak about FEMA's very able Director. I am positive that I am not just speaking for myself. I am also positive that I am not just speaking for Democrats. I think there are many Republicans who would echo my sentiments about Mr. Witt and about FEMA.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to acknowledge the good work of my colleagues, Senator Bond and Senator Mikulski, for taking on the difficult task each year of drafting the VA-HUD appropriations bill. I don't think many of us envy the job they have or the difficult choices they have had to make. I have come to the floor today to talk about a small but very important agency that is funded in under the VA-HUD Appropriations bill--the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. My first experience with FEMA was during the devastating floods that swept through Minnesota in the Spring of 1993. Most recently, I traveled with James Lee Witt to tour the damage caused by tornadoes this spring from Comfrey to St. Peter, Minnesota. I never thought that I would be forced to learn the intricate ins and outs of FEMA's programs and other emergency assistance programs, but I have. Since the flood of 1993, FEMA has been there on several occasions to help Minnesotans as they struggled through the early days after tornadoes and blizzards and floods to rebuild their lives and communities. I want to thank James Lee Witt the Director of FEMA for all of his help over the years. I really had the opportunity to get to know James Lee during last year's devastating flood of the Red River. He is one of the President's most outstanding appointments, a dedicated public servant and a great guy. Spending time with James Lee always has a catch, because it usually means that something really bad has happened in your state. The good news is that it also means that something good is about to happen. Because FEMA comes in fast, comes in ready and works in partnership with state and local communities and authorities. FEMA is a great partner to have. Under the direction of James Lee Witt, FEMA has undertaken a new program called Project Impact, a predisaster mitigation program. With Project Impact, FEMA joins in partnership with local communities and private sector businesses to educate residents on the steps they can take to reduce the damage disasters bring to our families and communities. This is another example of FEMA being a good partner. FEMA and Director James Lee Witt have been there on many instances to help my state. I want to thank them for their assistance. Following our action here on the floor of the Senate, this bill will move to conference. At that time I hope that our conferees will remember the needs of a small agency with a big job--FEMA--and support the level of funding that was requested in the President's budget.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I offered this amendment on behalf of Senator Murray, Senator McCain and myself. This amendment speaks to an injustice. This amendment would restore benefits to veterans for smoking-related diseases. We had a lot of smoke and mirrors, we did a lot of things in the budget resolution that we should not have done. We have never had an up-or-down vote. What this amendment essentially says is we should not have used that offset for highways, taking benefits that go to veterans. It is that clear. Mr. President, let me just be crystal clear. There have been a lot of OMB stories that I would question. I believe there will not be that much that will be required, but this funding ought to go to veterans. In fact, I would argue you will never get the $17 billion for highways, and we will ultimately have to go to surplus anyway. I have heard my colleagues talk about the surplus that we are going to have. We can at least take a little bit of that surplus and give it back to veterans. We never should have taken their benefits away. It was an injustice. This amendment by Senator Murray, Senator McCain, and myself would restore those benefits.

Mr. WELLSTONE. If I can have but 30 seconds and then I will move on this. I say to my colleagues, this is an up-or-down vote on whether we restore the benefits. I used the same gimmick that was used with direct scoring. There is no sequestration at all in this amendment. None of what my colleague from New Mexico has just said is going to happen. I move the Budget Act be waived. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.