Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Stephanie Zawistowski--I cannot believe I am having trouble with this; my mother's name was Mencha Daneshevsky--be granted floor privileges during the rest of the day.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, since we are, for the moment, stalemated here, I rise to express my strong commitment to our moving forward on a prescription drug benefit. Obviously, we will not be able to do it now, but people in the country are certainly interested in the politics that speak to the center of their lives. I want to see us eventually pass a bill that calls for health security for all citizens. Before we do that, we ought to have a decent prescription drug benefit. I recommend to my colleagues a Sunday story in the New York Times, front-page story by Robert Perrin. I forget the name of the coauthor; I apologize. The gist of the piece was that it is going to be very difficult, within the $300 billion allowance over the next 10 years because of the tax cuts, to have a benefit that is going to work for a lot of elderly people. If the premiums are too high and the copays are too high and the deductibles are too high, many people can't afford it. Quite to the contrary of the stereotype of greedy geezers traveling all over the country playing at the most swank golf courses, the income profile of elderly people is not high at all. Disproportionately, it is really low- and moderate-income people. So, A, people will not be able to afford the benefit. And then, B, if we don't deal with the catastrophic expenses--that is to say, after $2,000 a year, people should not be paying any more additional expenses--then it is going to be a proposal or a piece of legislation that is going to invite mutiny. People are going to say: We thought when you campaigned that you made a commitment to us. We thought you made a commitment to affordable prescription drugs. But you are not willing to do it. I have introduced a piece of legislation called MEDS. At a very minimum, we are going to have to understand $300 billion over 10 years will not do the job. We have to understand that this tax cut that has boxed us all in is a huge mistake. We are going to have to be intellectually honest with the people in the country, and we are going to have to find our courage. Frankly, I predict we will revisit--the sooner, the better--this tax cut proposal. It is too much Robin Hood in reverse, too much going to the very top of the population. And now we are without the revenue and the resources to do well for people with an affordable prescription drug. ``Affordable,'' that is what everyone campaigned on. In addition, yesterday Senator Rockefeller, chairing the Veterans' Affairs Committee, had Secretary Principi come in. He is a good man. I have a great deal of respect for him. I think he cares deeply about veterans. He was talking about prescription drug benefits within the VA. I asked him several times whether or not he felt that their global budget and the discount they insist on has enabled them to hold down the cost. The copay for veterans for prescription drugs right now is $2. He said: Absolutely. Maybe what we are going to have to do--there are Republicans who will agree; I hope all the Democrats agree--is also have some cost containment. We have 40 million Medicare recipients. I suppose we might be able to say that 40 million Medicare recipients represent a bargaining unit and we want a discount from these pharmaceutical companies that are making excessive, obscene profits. There are a lot of issues people care about. There are many issues on which we need to move forward. In particular, in order to do well by people, we are going to have to be not only intellectually honest, but we will have to have some political courage--political courage to talk about the ways in which this tax cut bill puts us in a straitjacket and amounts to a miserable failure from the point of view of our being able to do well for people and from the point of view of our being willing to live up to our promises. Everybody who ran for office talked about an affordable prescription drug benefit. In addition, we are going to have to challenge some of the profits of the pharmaceutical industry and have some cost containment so this works.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, just in the time we have remaining, I really would like for us to move forward on this legislation and, indeed, on other legislation that is important to people's lives. I want to speak to three different questions. First of all, on the Murray amendment--and presumably we will have more time for debate; I do not know whether or not we have a filibuster that is going to be sustained or whether or not there is going to be some agreement, but I want to thank Senator Murray for her good work. I tell you, people in Minnesota, as we look at I-35 coming from the south, are interested in safe drivers and safe trucks and safe highways. They are interested in their own safety. Frankly, I think it is terribly important that all of us support Senator Murray's amendment. For my own part, I also want to give a lot of credit to what Congressman Sabo from our State of Minnesota has done on the House side. He basically has said, we are not going to have the funding to grant the permits because there is just simply no way that right now we are going to be able to have any assurance that the safety standards are going to be there. I want to make one point that perhaps was brought up yesterday in the debate but which I think is really important as well. As a Senator, I do not really make any apology for also being concerned about--above and beyond safety--the impact this is going to have on jobs in our country, frankly, the impact of NAFTA on jobs in our country. In particular, I think the very powerful implications of all this are as we see more and more subcontractors crossing the border at maquilas, it is far better, from the point of view of people in Minnesota, that the subcontractors to our auto plants or to other parts of our economy are located in the United States. With a lot of the transportation being done by American trucks, that is what happens. The Bush administration is pushing this full force, and they are not even interested in respect for the safety standards. The other thing that is going to happen is, you are going to have more and more subcontractors basically located in Mexico because Mexican trucks take whatever is produced there right to wherever it needs to go in the United States, thus eliminating a lot of other jobs. So I think this is not just about truckdrivers, not just about Teamsters, not just about safety--all of which I think is very important--I think it is also about living-wage jobs in our own country. It is also about our economy. Frankly, in some ways, though I support the Murray amendment, I really appreciate Mr. Sabo's effort. And we will see what happens on the floor of the Senate, whether or not we will have an amendment similar to Mr. Sabo's amendment in this Chamber. But I think, at the very minimum, we have to insist on the safety standards, and, at a maximum, eventually we are also going to have to have yet more honest discussion about this new global economy and where people fit into it. All that happened in Italy and all that happened in Seattle I would not defend--not all of it, by any means, but what I will tell you is that there are an awful lot of people in our country and throughout the world who are raising very important justice questions. They are not arguing that we are in a national economy alone. They are not arguing that we ought to put up walls on the borders. But they are arguing, if we are going to have a new global economy and we are in an international time, then above and beyond it working for large financial institutions and multinational corporations; it ought to work for working people; it ought to work for human rights; it ought to work for consumer protection; it ought to work for small producers; and it ought to work for the environment. Frankly, I think that is part of what is being debated in this Chamber. We have a very, what I would call incremental, pragmatic amendment, which Senator Murray has done an admirable job of defending. I am amazed other Senators believe this goes too far by way of assuring basic safety on our highways. I think we need to defend Senator Murray's effort. Above and beyond that, I have some real questions about whether or not all of this will be enforced and then properly certified. Then above and beyond that, I have some real questions about these trade agreements and the impact they have on whether or not we will have living-wage jobs for the people in our country to enable people to earn a decent standard of living so they can support their families. And above and beyond all that, eventually, I am telling you --it may not be this year; it may be 5 years from now; it may be 10 years from now--we are going to design some new rules for this international economy, so that rather than driving environmental standards down, or wages down, with a complete lack of respect for human rights, we can have the kind of standards that lift up people's lives.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Nevada and tell him that, as we move forward, we will talk about some companies that have put together model programs. Again, unfortunately, what a bitter irony that for too many of these women--part of what this is all about is control. They have had the courage to move out of the home because the home is very dangerous for them and very dangerous for their children. Still, about every 15 seconds a woman is battered in the United States. Maybe this guy will come to work--and basically he doesn't want her to be working, so that is part of her independence. He will stalk her and make threats. Then all too often the employer will basically let her go, saying it is too much trouble. Then where is she? Quite often, she is forced back into a horrible situation. In about 50 percent of the cases, it happens where the guy or woman comes to work and the threats are made. We are saying there has to be a way we can provide additional help and support. So we do a number of different things for those who have been victims of violence in homes, sexual assault, and stalking. A number of things are in this legislation. I think it would make a huge difference. I thank my colleague for his comments.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague. In addition, even if women have been in shelters, there is no affordable housing.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, today I am going to introduce legislation, the Victims Economic Security and Safety Act, with Senator Murray--she probably will not be able to be at the press conference because she is doing such an admirable job of standing her proper ground for safety--Senator Schumer and Senator Dodd; and Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Lucille Roybal-Allard on the House side. Basically, this legislation deals with what is a huge problem; that is to say, estimates are that as many as 50 percent of the victims of domestic violence have lost jobs in part due to their struggle. The same thing holds true for victims of sexual assault. The legislation addresses three or four issues. No. 1, it would provide emergency leave for those women--sometimes men, almost always women--who are having to deal with the battering and with the violence, be it in the home, be it sexual assault, be it stalking. It will allow them to take some time off from work to see a lawyer, to see a doctor, to do what they need to do. No. 2, it would extend unemployment compensation to people who are forced to leave their jobs in order to provide for their own safety and their children's safety. Amazingly, this happens in about 50 percent of the cases: Quite often for these women, the man--be it the former husband, a stalker, somebody who has assaulted them sexually--will come to their workplace and constantly be there. And in order to be safe, in order sometimes literally to save their lives, in order for their children to be safe, they then have to leave work. We want to, with documentation, be able to provide some unemployment compensation. No. 3, it would prohibit discrimination against victims of domestic and sexual assault. This is critically important. What happens is the employer--and some of the employers are great--sometimes says: This is creating a lot of trouble. Therefore, we fire you. That is the last thing in the world you want to do. It also provides protection from insurance company discrimination. There is no reason why women should be battered again by an insurance company that says: We understand that this guy has come to work, is threatening you, that you have this problem. We don't think you are a good bet for health insurance. Finally, it provides tax credits to companies that will provide the programs and the help.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I want to make it clear to colleagues that I am ready to speak on the nomination of Wade Horn to be HHS Assistant Secretary for Family Support. We are moving forward and are trying to get some work done. I am ready to speak. I think there are other Senators who want to speak in favor of the nomination. My guess is that it is a relatively noncontroversial nomination and there will be strong support. It can be a voice vote. It doesn't matter to me. But I want to speak and get this work done now. I am ready to do so. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, again, for the sake of my colleagues' schedules, I do not think this will take that much time. I know there are some Senators who want to speak. I think it is a relatively noncontroversial nomination. I certainly do not need 2 hours. I do want to speak on the nomination of Dr. Wade Horn to the position of Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Department of Health and Human Services. This is a very important position. Once confirmed for this position, Dr. Horn is going to have authority over the administration of the Federal welfare, child care, child welfare, foster care, and adoption programs. He is going to have considerable influence in the upcoming reauthorization of the so-called welfare reform legislation. These are issues that all of us care about. But, as my colleagues know, much of my own background, in addition to teaching, was community organizing. Most of that was with poor people. And much of that was with single-parent families, almost always women, sometimes men. Unfortunately, when marriages dissolve, or when it comes to the responsibility of raising children, it disproportionately falls on the shoulders of women. I have devoted a lot of time to these issues. I really believe that, for me, if I have a passion, it is around the central idea that every child in our country should have the same opportunity to reach her or his full potential. That is what I believe. I suppose all of us do. Maybe people have different ideas how we realize that goal, but, for me, that is the core value that informs me as a Senator. And I am for everything--public sector, private sector--that makes that more likely, more possible, and I am opposed to whatever makes it less possible. In my opinion, Dr. Horn's views about the causes of the circumstances of these families--especially single-parent families, almost always headed by women--as well as a number of his stated proposals as to how to address these circumstances make him not the right choice to serve in this position. I do not think he is the right person for this job. I hasten to add that I have met with him. I am sure that this discussion in the Senate Chamber is of great interest to Dr. Horn. As I say, I have met with him. He was more than obliging to come by. I thought we had a very good discussion. And I do not say that as a cliche. He responded in writing to a number of questions I sent to him following the conversation. I think he feels just as strongly about these issues as I do. I think he would fight against any policy he thought would be harmful to low- income families, especially poor children. I do not want to caricature him. We have an honest but fundamental disagreement about the best way to move families in this country from poverty to self-sufficiency. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter and the signatures of more than 90 organizations that oppose this nomination.

Mr. WELLSTONE. A lot of the organizations listed include women and children organizations and, in particular, organizations that do the down-in-the-trenches work dealing with domestic violence. That is what I want to talk about. It does not get discussed enough. In this disagreement, I want to address, in particular, Dr. Horn's focus on ``marriage promotion and responsible fatherhood policies.'' He is a prominent advocate of ``marriage promotion and responsible fatherhood.'' Some of these ideas are going to be central to the reauthorization of welfare ``reform'' next year. Again, I always put ``reform'' in quotes. Just as single moms were the focus in 1996, single dads could very well be in the spotlight next year. I do not think that, in itself, is a bad thing. I doubt whether there is anyone among us who would argue against the importance of where fathers fit in with families, about the importance of investing in the needs of low-income men, just as we should be concerned about the needs of low-income women. The question is, what kind of investments we should make, and how can we best serve the needs of low-income adults, men and women, and also their children? Dr. Horn most recently was president of the National Fatherhood Institute which was created in 1994 ``to counter the growing problem of fatherlessness by stimulating a broad-based social movement to restore responsible fatherhood as a national priority.'' I believe in the importance of responsible fatherhood. Having three grown children and six grandchildren, I certainly believe in it. I am not here to speak against responsible fatherhood. He also sat on the board of Marriage Savers, which is a Maryland- based group promoting community marriage covenants that are designed to make divorces more difficult to obtain. Dr. Horn has in the past urged States to take advantage of opportunities created by welfare reform to address what many cultural conservatives consider to be the root of society's social ills today, the decline of the traditional family. In 1997, he wrote a report, along with Andrew Bush, director of the Hudson Institute's Welfare Policy Center. Dr. Horn recommended that States basically--I have to use this word-- ``discriminate'' against single-parent families by establishing ``explicit preferential treatment for marriage in the distribution of discretionary benefits such as public housing and Head Start slots.'' Now, although he has distanced himself from this suggestion, as recently as June of this year, Dr. Horn has continued to advocate for policies that would provide financial incentives for marriage. Let me go back to 1997. I know this is not the issue that carries the most weight in the Senate Chamber. I am not trying to be self- righteous. There is a reason why so many organizations and so many people around the country work in this area. The notion of women being battered at home and what the children see, that is just not so much on our radar screen, although a woman is battered every 15 seconds of every day in America. When you start making an argument that for Head Start or public housing the way that you are going to encourage marriage is to give preferential treatment to those who are married, what you do is you put poor women in a situation where they dare not leave a home which is so dangerous for them and their children because then they may not have any Head Start benefits for their child or they may not be in line to get the housing they need. Why in the world would anyone ever want to advocate such policies? I am sorry. A lot of this discussion today on my part will be low key for me, but not this part of the discussion. I know that Senators don't think about this, but just think about the harshness of these kinds of proposals. Dr. Horn, I hope, is going through some rethinking on this question as well. I think he is, from the discussion we had. But it concerns me for anyone as recently as 4 years ago to advocate that for low-income families, you give preferential treatment to those who are married so that single-parent homes headed by women, almost always, are put at a disadvantage. Then we are going to make it hard for this woman to get out of this situation. Sometimes you don't want women to stay in the homes. Sometimes you don't want them to stay in the marriages because they are hellish situations. Somebody has to say that in the Senate. The only reason I am speaking today, after having already testified to the goodwill of Dr. Horn as a person, is because I am going to stay so close to his work, and I am going to insist that not one proposal come from this administration that puts some of these women and these children in jeopardy. This problem of violence in homes is a real problem in our country. In a recent article, entitled ``Wedding Bell Blues, Marriage and Welfare Reform,'' Dr. Horn suggested that Congress could mandate that States implement policies such as West Virginia's current practice. That is, you provide a cash bonus to single mothers on welfare who marry their child's biological father, or perhaps, he has suggested, Congress could provide a $5,000 cash payment to a woman at risk of bearing a child out of wedlock, if she bears her first child within marriage, to be disbursed in $1,000 annual payments over 5 years as long as she remains married. Again, I know if these proposals are made within the framework of promoting responsible fatherhood or promoting intact families or being opposed to divorce, it may sound attractive. But again, think about the ways in which these proposals can be in some circumstances actually dangerous to the well-being of many low-income women and children. Somebody in the Senate has to advocate this position. My wife Sheila--more Sheila than I--has spent years now working on domestic violence issues. There is no doubt in my mind, none, that policies that tie financial incentives to getting married or staying married will result in increased incidents of domestic violence. Think about it for a moment. If a low-income woman is faced with a choice of receiving $1,000 a year, especially a woman who with her children is living in extreme poverty, or leaving a situation where she has been abused, what is she likely to do? What kind of incentive have you built into public policy? You have built in an incentive which says to this woman: You need to stay at home. You need to marry this man. You need to stay married to this man. What if this man has battered her over and over and over again? How can so many Senators who supported the Violence Against Women Act, where we finally have begun to address this issue, now not express concern about these kinds of proposals? By the way, if we can afford to give families with children an extra thousand dollars a year, then by what logic can we possibly suggest that other families with children should be made poor simply because their parents are unmarried? Think about it for a moment. Why should a child, no fault of his own or her own, just because that child is the daughter or son, little daughter or son, of a single parent, a family where the parents are not together, be penalized? This is nonsensical. These are rather perverse priorities or incentives built into public policy. When considering marriage as a solution for poverty, we need to face the reality that violence against women is a significant cause of women's poverty. Domestic violence makes women poor, and it keeps them poor. The majority of battered women attempt to flee their abusers, but many of them end up on welfare or they end up homeless. Study after study demonstrates that a large proportion of the welfare caseload, consistently between 15 and 25 percent, consists of current victims of serious domestic violence. Between one-half and two-thirds of the women on welfare have suffered domestic violence or abuse at some time in their adult lives. Over 50 percent of homeless women and children cite domestic violence as the reason they are homeless. Please understand, whether it be preferential treatment for Head Start or affordable housing, or whether it be bonuses that reward women for staying in a marriage, let's not put low-income women in a position where they are in a very dangerous home, they are being battered, and quite often their children are battered as well. Their children witness the violence not in the movie, not on television, but in their own living rooms. The children can't do as well in school. Don't create a set of financial incentives that are going to make it harder for these women and these children to be able to leave these circumstances. That is what I am saying today. These are my concerns. That is why you have close to 90 organizations--by the way, hardly any of them would have any clout--that have real concerns about this. For these women and children, the cost of freedom and safety has been poverty. Marriage is not the solution to their economic insecurity. By the way, do you know that one of the problems is, even if these women leave and they go to shelters--as my colleague from Nevada said earlier today, in many of our States we have more animal shelters than we have shelters for women and children who experience violence. How about that? Then, if they are in a shelter, there is no affordable housing to go to. As opposed to making proposals, which Dr. Horn has made, that talk about all these bonuses and ways of promoting marriage, why don't we, instead, put the emphasis on responsible fathers? Don Frazier, who was mayor and a great representative of the House of Representatives, did a lot of that in Minnesota. We should do more. But if we have this kind of money, why don't we put it into affordable housing? Marriage is not the solution to their economic insecurity. For some of these women--can I say this one time in this Chamber? For some of these women, marriage could even mean death. I am sorry. I am going to say it again. That is true. I feel strongly about this. I know what the reality is, from what I have seen with my own eyes from the work Sheila and I have done with women who have been faced with violence in their homes. For some of these women, not only is marriage not the answer to their economic insecurity, for some of them marriage could even mean death. It will undoubtedly mean economic dependence on the abuser. Many battered women are economically dependent on their abusers. Between one-third and almost 50 percent of abused women, surveyed in five studies, said their partner prevented them from working entirely. In fact, we introduced legislation today--Senator Murray, Senator Dodd, Senator Schumer were a part of this--in which we said--and we had people from the business community and the labor community testify-- part of the problem is a lot of women, when they try to leave and work, the abuser, the stalker, comes to work, threatens them, comes into the office and makes a scene, and guess what happens. The employers let the women go. They say we can't take this any longer, and then she loses her job. Of the 96 percent of women who report they experienced problems due to domestic violence, 70 percent have been harassed at work, 50 percent have lost 3 days of work a month as a result of abuse, and 25 percent have lost at least 1 job due to domestic violence. Do you want to put these women in a situation where they have to stay in these marriages? Marriage is not always the answer, colleagues. I have been married 37 years--maybe closer to 38 years. It has been the best thing that ever happened to me. God, I will sound corny. I am most religious in my thinking about having met Sheila when we were 16. It is the best thing that ever could have happened to me. I am not just saying some trumped up thing on the floor of the Senate. But marriage is not always the answer or the alternative to poverty for many of these women and children. Dr. Horn has not shown the understanding and sensitivity to these questions he needs to show. He is a good person. He will be nominated. I already said that. But I at least want to speak about my concerns. The Congress has recently recognized that domestic violence is a serious national problem. We have the Violence Against Women Act and other legislation, and it seems to me that we ought to at least be very sensitive to these concerns. Dr. Horn and others in the responsible fatherhood movement argue that many of our most pressing social problems--school violence, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse, to name a few--can be directly related to the absence of fathers in the lives of their children. David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values has gone so far as to suggest that fatherlessness is ``the engine that drives our most pressing social problems.'' And topping the list of concerns, of course, is child poverty. For many of these advocates, the solution to ending child poverty is clear: marriage. They argue that what we really need to do is to teach low-income men to properly value marriage and family, based on the presumption that low-income men don't. Can I also say this at the risk of annoying some colleagues? You know what. I am over and over again struck by the fact that too many Senators seem to know so much about the values of poor people, but they have never spent any time with any of them. It is like I don't know where our understanding of the values of people and how they live their lives comes from. It is certainly not based upon a lot of experience. I believe it is incorrect to presume that low-income men somehow value marriage and fatherhood less than other men. In fact, there is considerable evidence that low-income men value marriage and fatherhood just as much as you do, Mr. President, and as much as I do. But these advocates look at the data indicating a correlation between child poverty and single parenthood, and rather than consider the fact that all too often it is the poverty that leads to the single parenthood, not single parenthood that leads to the poverty, they argue that marriage is the way to eliminate the poverty. That is what I am worried about with Dr. Horn because he is going to be in a key position. Here is the way one low-income mother put it to me, and thank God for her wisdom: They can marry off everybody in my neighborhood, but then all we'll have is two poor people married to each other. This is what is really at the heart of the matter. You don't end poverty by simply promoting marriage. In fact, you probably promote more successful marriages if that is your goal. And do you know what. I think that is our goal. Let me state as a given that every Senator, or almost every Senator wants to promote more successful marriages. One of the ways is by ending poverty. My colleague from Indiana will speak for Dr. Horn. I made it clear that I met him. He cares as much as I do. It is an honest disagreement. I made the argument, I say to Senator Bayh from Indiana--and we will voice vote this with overwhelming support. I needed to come to the floor because some of Dr. Horn's advocacy of preferential treatment for Head Start and affordable housing for two-parent, married households, and arguments that you want to have bonuses for people to get married and stay married--I made the argument that the implications of this, when it comes to violence in homes, is grim and harsh. You don't want some of these women to be in a position of feeling as if they can't leave a home where they are being battered and their children are being battered. That is what some of these proposals do. As to some of his ideas, he said, ``I no longer necessarily believe all of this.'' But I have said some of these arguments about promoting marriage are fine; I am for it. But for some women this is not the answer. You don't want to have financial incentives, or disincentives, if you will, that put women in a position where the choice is, Do I stay in this home where I am being battered, my child can be battered, or my child witnesses this violence, or if I leave then no longer will I get a Head Start benefit, or I will lose my bonus I have received for being in this marriage or I will not be able to get affordable housing. That is one of the things that concerns me the most, I say to two good colleagues. One of the reasons we have so many of these organizations in the trenches working in domestic violence expressing this concern is because of this argument. Someone needs to say it because Dr. Horn will be in this position, and then we will work with him. I am all for promoting responsible fatherhood and marriage, but I do not want to do it in such a way that we end up--I said this before my colleagues came--for some of these women, marriage is death. That is right. For some of these women, staying in a marriage means they will lose their lives. I do not want public policy or social policy that makes it more difficult for them to leave these homes which are not safe homes, where they should leave these homes. That is part of what this debate is about. In just the few minutes I have left, the other part of the argument I want to make is if, in fact, you want to promote successful marriages, especially if you are talking about the low- and moderate-income community, one of the ways to do it is to focus on some of these economic issues. There is a whole world of problems out there, such as unemployment, not having a living-wage job, drug and alcohol addiction, depression and mental illness, poor education, jail time, hunger and homelessness, and, in all due respect, quite often these are the reasons that marriages do break up. Unless we talk about marriages and responsible fatherhood in the context of also dealing with these very tough problems that rip families apart, I do not think we go very far, and I will insist all of them be considered. Frankly, it is not necessarily his fault, but I do not hear much from this administration in terms of being willing to invest some of the resources in any number of these different areas. We had a proposal in Minnesota. I said ``had.'' It was the Minnesota Family Investment Program. It was a pilot program. Too bad, because from my point of view, this is welfare reform. Two former Governors did a great job saying we are going to put a lot of money into childcare, into job training skills development, into making sure these families do not lose their medical care, and we are going to put a lot of money into significant income to disregard when they made more money, they then lost, dollar for dollar, what they were making. Studies compared former AFDC recipients to those on MFIP and found MFIP individuals were 40 percent more likely to stay married and 50 percent less likely to be divorced after 5 years. There you have it. That is part of what we need to do. Mr. President, do you know what. That is not what we are doing in a lot of this so-called welfare reform. As a matter of fact, finally I got the Food and Nutrition Service study the other day. I said to them: Tell me what is going on with food stamps. Why have we had a 30- percent-plus decline in food stamp participation post 1996? They said: In some cases, people are working and maker better income. In most cases, they are not, but they do not know they are eligible any longer. There were cuts in food stamp benefits, massive cuts in benefits to legal immigrants. Frankly, Families USA points out there are some 660,000 people who no longer have medical assistance because of the welfare bill. In too many cases, people have dropped out. Berkeley and Harvard did a study of the childcare situation and found that many of these kids were in dangerous situations or in front of a TV, and it would not surprise anyone if they came to kindergarten way behind. I am for promoting families, responsible fatherhood, and I want these children to have as much a chance as other children, and I want to know from where the commitment comes. Marriage is not, in and of itself, the way to address the root causes of poverty, and it is no reliable long-term solution to poverty, particularly poverty among women and children, and, in general, two incomes are better than one. It is far better to have two parents in the household, but that fact is not sufficient to support an argument that marriage will lead to an end of family poverty. There are many reasons that women, more often than men, experience an economic downfall outside of marriage: Discrimination in the labor market; lack of quality, affordable accessible childcare; domestic violence; and I also say to my colleagues--Senator Reid said it earlier--in many States there are more animal shelters than shelters for women who come out of these very dangerous homes. Moreover, the tragedy of it is, after they get out of shelters, there is no affordable housing. As a matter of fact, this is going to become a front-burner issue for us because we are not doing anything by way of getting resources back to State and local communities, and it is a huge crisis. It is not surprising that the other day there was a report that came out in the Washington Post pointing out the issue really is not poverty, the issue is we have to double the official definition of poverty, which is around $17,000. If you want to be realistic of what it takes for a family to make it, there are many families with incomes under $40,000 who are having a heck of a time making it, and one of the reasons is the cost of housing. If you do not address these factors that keep women from being economically self-sufficient, then your marriage and family formation advocates are merely proposing to shift the woman's dependence from the welfare system to marriage. You see what I am saying? There is a missing piece here, I say to Dr. Horn and others. Some women should not be dependent on their marriage. They should get out of their marriage. They should not be there. They should get out of these homes with their children because if they stay, they are going to be murdered and their children--talk about posttraumatic stress syndrome. What do my colleagues think it would be like to be a little child? I have been with them. I met with some of these families and have seen a mother who has been beaten up over and over, day after day. What do my colleagues think that does to children? With domestic violence and divorce at the current rates, marriage will never be the sole answer. The solution is not, as Dr. Horn and others suggest, to interfere with the privacy rights of poor women but, rather, let's focus on economic self-sufficiency. Congress should not use women's economic vulnerability as an opportunity to control their decisions regarding their marriage or, for that matter, childbearing. Fighting poverty and promoting family well- being will depend on positive Government support, for policies that support low-income parents in their struggle to obtain good jobs so that they can have a decent standard of living, so they can give their children the care they know their children need and deserve. That is what it ought to be about. I disagree with Dr. Horn on this policy, but colleagues and the public should be further aware that certain recent statements and writings by the nominee signal that basic views which underlie his policy positions I think are a little bit over the top. I have already talked about how I like him, I say to both colleagues because I know they know him. I will give a couple examples. Dr. Horn has recently written, for example, that females raised by single mothers ``have a tendency toward early and promiscuous sexual activity.'' That material was given to me by advocate organizations. That is in direct quotes. From where in the world does that come? Where is the evidence for that? He recently wrote that males raised by single mothers have ``an obsessive need to prove their masculinity.'' He reportedly has linked single mothering or father absence to acts of violence carried out by males, such as the shootings at Columbine High, although, by the way, in that case, the families were intact. These were not single-parent families. This is not an attack on character. I want Dr. Horn to know he is going to be nominated on a voice vote. He will be supported. That is fine. But I want to be on record saying I don't think he is the right choice. I certainly want to question some of the statements he has made and, more importantly, some of the positions he has taken. He will be the one in the middle of the welfare reform. He will be the one dealing with a lot of the policy that affects low- and moderate-income families. Ninety organizations have urged the Senate Committee on Finance to oppose his nomination. A majority of them are organizations that deal with domestic violence. That is where the real fear is. I have heard from too many people whose opinions I respect and whose judgments I value, starting with my wife Sheila, to allow the nomination to pass silently. Dr. Horn will be confirmed, but I felt compelled to raise these issues and concerns about some of the policies I think he is likely to promote as Assistant Secretary for Family Support. I hope he proves me wrong; he may very well. I hope he will use the occasion of this appointment to reconsider some of his views--not all; he is entitled to many of his views. The issues are too important and too many lives are affected to not speak out. I hope Dr. Horn and others at Health and Human Services, as well as colleagues in the Senate, will carefully consider the implications of policies that we all propose that affect low-income families. I said earlier, and I meant it as a criticism of Senators on both sides of the aisle, although we cannot generalize, I am always amazed we infer the values of people. We seem to know so much about the values of people and how they live their lives, especially low-income people-- that fathers do not respect fatherhood or the pathology of their lives--when hardly any Members spend any time with them. Dr. Horn is an example of someone who has inferred people's values, which can be downright dangerous, especially when we are talking about violence in homes today. What we really need to do is to support these women and children. Therefore, I hope the Senators, as we go forward with the welfare reauthorization bill and we make policy that affects directly the lives of poor people in this country, will make it our business to be very careful. They are not on the Senate floor, they have very little clout, and in too many ways they are right out of Michael Harrington's ``The Other America.'' They are invisible and without a very strong voice. There are helpful organizations, thank God, such as the Children's Defense Fund, but not enough. I wish Dr. Horn the very best. We will work together. But I want Dr. Horn to know I have a lot of concerns which I have discussed today. I am not speaking for myself, but for a lot of people in the country, especially those down in the trenches doing the work, dealing with the violence in families, trying to protect women and children, to make sure they can rebuild their lives. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator from Indiana for his graciousness. I think the statement he just made, especially dealing with violence in homes, is extremely important. I thank the Senator.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, will the majority leader yield?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I do want to say to the majority leader, I do not think we will need anywhere near that much time. So I say it can probably be done in an hour with people speaking on both sides.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I hope that colleagues will support a bill I am introducing today: the Hubert H. Humphrey Civic Education Enhancement Act. Senator Dayton joins me as an original co-sponsor of this legislation. As a co-sponsor of Senator Dodd's electoral reform bill, I look forward to a debate later this year on a strong electoral reform measure that will ensure that all Americans who wish to vote be able to do so easily and without facing acts of intimidation and to do so using equipment that ensures all votes will be counted. However, as we think about reforming the methods through which our democracy is practiced on Election Day, we should focus attention on an issue that arguably presents a challenge to the vibrancy of that democracy that is even more fundamental: the decline of young Americans' engagement in public affairs. Turning the tide on political detachment by young persons through a new commitment to civic education in our public schools is the purpose of the Humphrey Act. Civic knowledge, civic intellectual skills, civic participation skills, and civic virtue on the part of the American citizenry are all crucial for the vitality of a healthy representative democracy. But, there is growing evidence that many of our younger citizens are lagging in all of the components necessary for their effective engagement in public life as they enter adulthood. Because all these skills and values are vital to effective citizenship, a multifaceted approach to enhancing civic education in our Nation's elementary and secondary schools, expressed in the Humphrey Act, is a true national priority. There are numerous pieces of evidence for a crisis in civic education that threatens the future vibrancy of our democracy. The most recent nationwide survey of incoming college freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles reports that only 28.1 percent of the students entering college in the fall of 2000 reported an interest in ``keeping up to date with political affairs.'' This was the lowest level in the 35 year history of the survey. In 1966, 60.3 percent of students reported an interest in political affairs. In addition, the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, Civics Assessment revealed startling results in terms of American students' competence in civics at grade levels 4, 8, and 12. At each grade level the percentage of students shown to be ``Below Basic'' outnumbered the percentage in the ``At or above Proficient'' and ``Advanced'' levels combined. Thirty-one percent of fourth-grade students, thirty percent of eighth-graders, and thirty- five percent of high school seniors were ``Below Basic'' in their civics achievement. And, a 1999 study published by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin showed that the introduction of mandated state assessments in other fields, but typically not in civics, has resulted in a reduction in the amount of class time spent on civics. Moreover, in the years after leaving high school, young Americans are becoming less engaged in the democratic process. While 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 voted in 1972, only 38 percent of that age group voted in 2000. And, according to a Harvard University survey published in 2000, 85 percent of young people now say that volunteer work is better than political engagement as a way to solve important issues. It is this evidence that links this effort directly to any serious electoral reform effort. Therefore, it is time for a serious national response to all of these troubling indicators on the civic health of those that we are relying upon to be thoughtful, active citizens in the years ahead. The vibrancy of American elections of the future depend upon our revitalizing civic education today. It is most appropriate that this legislation focused on enhancing civic education would also serve as a memorial to one of the great Minnesotans of the twentieth century, Hubert H. Humphrey. As a political scientist, Mayor of St. Paul, United States Senator and as Vice President of the United States, Hubert H. Humphrey exemplified thoroughly the application of civic knowledge, civic intellectual skills, civic participation skills, and civic virtue in our representative democracy. As a teacher of political science at Macalester College, Hubert Humphrey made the case to students that, to be effective citizens, they must be informed about the political process and be analytical about the issues of their time as they take stances on them. By becoming active in party politics and, eventually, by running for office, Humphrey was a role model of a participant in the democratic experience at the local, State, and national levels. His belief in promoting public service was also shown in his nonstop work, beginning in his first campaign for President in 1960, in envisioning and supporting the Peace Corps program. Finally, Hubert Humphrey stood firm in his principles on so many occasions, exemplifying the civic virtue that is a crucial ingredient of complete citizenship. His moving oratory supporting President Truman's civil rights proposals at the 1948 Democratic National Convention helped to shift his political party and, eventually, the entire nation on one of the fundamental issues of his time. He showed fortitude in speech after speech and vote after vote on the floor of this Senate in expressing his heartfelt duty to support America's neediest citizens. As he put it: ``The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the 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.'' There simply is no more worthy person to memorialize in a new significant national commitment to civic education than Hubert H. Humphrey. Recognizing that there is no single answer to revitalizing civic engagement in young Americans, the Humphrey Act includes five sections, each centered on bettering a different aspect of civic education in the elementary and secondary schools of America. Together, these five components of the Humphrey Act offer a thoughtful step forward in American civic education. First, in decades past, new and veteran teachers in the field of social studies had high-quality professional development opportunities made available to them through programs funded by the federal government as part of the National Defense Education Act, the Education Professional Development Act, the National Science Foundation, and other programs designed by the Department of Education. In recent years, most of these federally-funded opportunities, particularly helpful for new teachers, have disappeared. Social studies teachers, most of whom are now nearing retirement age, have told me how crucial these programs, generally in the format of summer institutes, were in aiding their ability to excite and inform their students about civics. We need to offer the same opportunities to younger civics teachers and the same benefits of good civics teachers to their students. Therefore, the Humphrey Act authorizes, at $25 million annually, summer Civics Institutes to promote creative curricula and pedagogy. The establishment of a new set of university and college campus-based summer institutes for teachers of all grades focused both on enlarging the teachers' knowledge of specific content as well as helping them to teach civics in exciting ways is a way that the Federal Government can play a role in quickly making a difference in enhancing the civics classroom for America's students. Next, when high in quality, service learning programs have been shown to increase student efficacy in public affairs and to enhance students' knowledge of how government works and how social change can be brought about. For instance, according to a 1997 study, high school students who participated in service learning programs have been shown to be more engaged in community organizations and to vote than their nonparticipant counterparts 15 years after their service learning experiences. I know that many of my colleagues have heard stories from students and educators engaged in service learning that add depth to this data. I will recount just one description of a recent school-based service learning program in Huntsville, Alabama, coordinated by the St. Paul-based National Youth Leadership Council, that exemplifies the power of service learning as a force in civic education. After the 8th grade students on a field trip to a historic cemetery discovered that it had been ``whites only,'' a second field trip discovered the burial site for the town's African-Americans in the 19th century. That cemetery was found to be in a deplorable state, with vandalized headstones, unmarked graves, and poorly kept records. The students key question: ``What are we going to do about it?'' This led to the creation of the African American History Project and any number of learning experiences emanating out of this service to accurately rehabilitate the cemetery: Math classes platted the unmapped cemetery; history students undertook oral histories; research on those buried in the cemetery took students to the court records and to the pages of a 19th century black newspaper. One of the results of the endeavor was the development of a curriculum on the history of African-Americans in Huntsville for third-graders by the middle-school students with the assistance of their teachers. In this case, service and learning were almost entirely interwoven. It is crucial, however, to connect service learning experiences to classroom civics curriculum to long-term payoff in terms of promoting students' involvement in public affairs. The Humphrey Act would increase the authorization of funds for the school-based Learn and Serve Program and would authorize Service Learning Institutes dedicated to training/retraining service learning teachers. Raising the authorization level of the school-based Learn and Serve program to $65 million would allow an expansion of a program for which the funding levels have been flat in recent fiscal years and would enhance states and local districts to more sharply link service learning programs to civic knowledge and engagement. Moreover, presently there is little money left for the professional development of new service learning instructors, including mid-career teachers who are interested in being retrained in service learning. Therefore, it is important to develop a summer campus-based Service Learning Institutes program, to parallel the Civics Institutes program. Great strides have been made in the field of service learning in recent years even with a limited federal investment; it is time for this national investment to increase in the interest of the future vitality of our democracy. Third, we should do more to encourage local schools' innovation in the development of community service programs that explicitly link volunteer activities to social change in their communities. Therefore, the Humphrey Act incorporates provisions of a bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Lindsey Graham to make spending on community service programs an allowable use of funds for districts under the ``innovative programs'' section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Specifically, it would allow local schools to use federal money to fund community service programs which ``train and mobilize young people to measurably strengthen their communities through nonviolence, responsibility, compassion, respect, and moral courage.'' I applaud the philosophy and work of Do Something, an national organization founded in 1993 guided by the principle that young people could change the world if they believed in themselves and had the tools to take action. Using a project-centered approach, Do Something recognizes young people as effective leaders and, in the projects that they have promoted in hundreds of communities linking students and caring educators together, they have helped young persons turn their ideas into action. This section of the Humphrey Act would promote the work of Do Something and other local community service endeavors in schools all over the country. Next, our Nation's public middle and high schools often miss opportunities to develop and support student governments that are viable voices for students in the operations of those schools. A 1996 study by the National Association of Secondary School Principals showed that fewer than half of high school students believed that their student government ``affects decisions about co-curricular activities.'' Barely one-third expressed confidence in those governments' ability to ``affect decisions about school rules.'' We should also be concerned about the decline in participation in student leadership activities. Between 1972 and 1992, student government participation fell by 20 percent and work on student publications fell by 7 percent. Effective, innovative student government in which the representatives of the students are connected to the decision-making processes in the school do more than simply enhance the experiences of those who are in the elected student leadership positions. It also sends the message to those leaders' constituents that participation in politics and government can truly make a difference in one's daily life. Dynamic student leadership experiences can make a difference in promoting the civic education within America's middle-schools and high schools. Therefore, this bill develops a competitive grants program to provide funding for school districts to use in strengthening student government programs. In a similar manner, student engagement in local or state government activities or on school boards can be crucial in allowing young persons to experience first-hand early in their lives that participation does indeed matter. At present, in some communities, high school students are explicitly involved in the activities of city government and school boards; we should do all we can to make that more common. The grant programs in this portion of the Humphrey Act, therefore, also may be used to develop innovative programs for student engagement in governmental activities. Finally, while a variety of civics education enhancement programs have been implemented through Federal Government efforts and at the state and local level, no comprehensive, national research exists on the short- and long-term efficacy of such programs in encouraging civic knowledge and other learning or in promoting civic engagement. This contrasts with the extensive research on the effectiveness of different approaches to the teaching of reading and mathematics that has driven decisions about curricula in those fields. Therefore, the final section of the legislation authorizes the Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, OERI, to carry out an extensive five-year research project on the frequency and efficacy of different approaches employed in civic education, with attention given to their effectiveness with different subgroups of students. These include traditional classroom-based civics education, the federally-funded ``We the People . . . the Citizen and the Constitution'' curricular program, experiential learning programs such as the Close Up program, service learning, student government, as well as more innovative programs such as the ``public works'' approach to civic engagement, designed by the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, that involve work on common projects of civic benefit with a focus on bringing together individuals with ideological, cultural, racial, income, and other differences in carrying out the project. So that we make wise curricular and funding decisions in the future we need to know which approaches, and combinations of approaches, to civic education are the most effective in achieving the outcomes we expect. We should celebrate the efforts of all who have been involved in the civic education of America's students. This bill does not denigrate their efforts. But, because the engagement in public affairs by our young people is so important for the long-term health of our democracy, it is time to take a step forward in establishing a comprehensive new federal commitment to civic education. The Humphrey Civic Education Enhancement Act combines new commitments to the professional development of civics teachers, an increase in funding for school-based service learning and the professional development of service learning teachers, local innovation in community service programs in schools, and an encouragement of a revitalized student involvement in student leadership programs and in local government. I am proud that a broad range of organizations recognize the need for this legislation and have endorsed this bill. These include the National Council of the Social Studies, the State Education Agency K-12 Service-Learning Network, the National Youth Leadership Council, Do Something, the National Community Service Coalition, Earth Force, Youth Service America, the American Youth Policy Forum, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the National Association of Student Councils. Hubert Humphrey said, ``It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.'' Let us extend democracy and, in so doing, create a new generation of civic engagement. I strongly urge my colleagues to memorialize Hubert H. Humphrey and his life of civic engagement with the passage of this legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, along with my colleagues, Senators Murray, Schumer, Dodd, Dayton, Clinton and Inouye, I am introducing legislation that if adopted would have a most profound and even life- saving effect on people who are victims of domestic and sexual violence and their families. It is called the Victims' Economic Security and Safety Act. Similar to the Battered Women's Economic Security and Safety Act, which I introduced last session, the legislation acknowledges that the impact of domestic and sexual violence extends far beyond the moment the abuse occurs. It strikes at the heart of victims' and their families' economic self sufficiency. As a result, many victims are unable to provide for their own or their children's safety. Too often they are forced to choose between protecting themselves from abuse and keeping a roof over their head. This is a choice that no mother should have to make. Nor should any person face the double tragedy of first being abused and then losing a job, health insurance or any other means of self sufficiency because they were abused. In response to this cycle of violence and dependence, and in response to domestic and sexual violence's devastating impact on a victim's financial independence, this legislation would help to ensure the economic security of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking so they are better able to provide permanent safety for themselves and their children and so they are not forced, because of economic dependence, to stay in an abusive relationship. In the fight against violence against women, and after the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, this legislation is a next, critical step. The link between poverty and domestic and sexual abuse is clear. For example, according to the United States Conference of Mayors, domestic violence is the fourth leading cause of homelessness. A 2000 study conducted by the Manpower Research and Development Corporation of Minnesota's welfare program, the Minnesota Family Investment Program, showed that 49 percent of single-parent long term recipients were in abusive relationships while they were receiving or had recently been receiving MFIP benefits. A 1998 GAO study found that when compared with women who report never experiencing abuse, women who report having been abused experience more spells of unemployment; greater job turnover; and significantly higher rates of receipt of welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. Economic dependence is a clear reason people who are in abusive relationships may return to abusers or even may not be able to leave abusive situations in the first place. Abusers will go to great lengths to sabotage their partner's ability to have a job or get an education so that their partners will remain dependent on them. If we want battered women and victims of sexual violence to be able to escape the dangerous, often life-threatening situations in which they are trapped, they need the economic means to do so. Yet, victims of domestic and sexual violence face very serious challenges to self-sufficiency every day. Multiple studies of domestic violence victims who were working while being abused found that as many as 60 percent of respondents said they had been reprimanded at work for behaviors related to the abuse, such as being late to work, and as many as 52 percent said they had lost their jobs because of the abuse. Almost 50 percent of sexual assault survivors reported they had lost their jobs or were forced to quit in the aftermath of the assaults. A study from the National WorkPlace Resource Center on Domestic Violence found that abusive husbands and partners harass 74 percent of employed battered women at work. The effects of this are felt not only by the victims of such abuse and their families, but also by employers and the nation as a whole. From the perspective of employers, a 1999 CNN report found that 37 percent of domestic violence victims said that domestic violence impacted their ability to do their job and 24 percent said it caused them to be late from work. A survey of employers confirmed this--49 percent of corporate executives said that domestic violence harmed their company's productivity. The Bureau of National Affairs has estimated that domestic violence costs employers between $3 billion and $5 billion in lost time and productivity each year. Ninety-four percent of corporate security and safety directors at companies nationwide rank domestic violence as a high security concern, and homicide continues to be the leading cause of death of women in the workplace. The United States Department of Labor, in 2000 reported that Domestic Violence accounted for 27 percent of all incidents of workplace violence. More generally, prior to 1994, the Congress gathered years of testimony and evidence as to the negative impact of gender violence in the national economy and found that gender violence costs the economy $10 billion per year. Victims need to be able to deal with these problems without fear of being fired and without fear of losing their livelihoods and their children's livelihoods. Corporations, too, need to be able to ensure their employee's safety and productivity. That is the goal of this legislation. VESSA would help break down the economic barriers that prevent victims from leaving their batterer or abuser, protect victims from violence in the workplace and mitigate the negative economic effects of violence on employers and on the national economy. The bill would provide emergency leave for employees who need to address the effects of domestic and sexual assault. That way, if a victim had to go to court to get a restraining order or leave work to find shelter, the victim could take limited leave without facing the prospect of being fired, demoted or financially penalized. The bill would also extend unemployment compensation to people who are forced to leave their job to provide for their safety or their children's safety. As mentioned above, homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace, 15 percent of these deaths are due to domestic violence, 11 percent of all rapes occur at the workplace. These grim statistics do not begin to address the many women that are physically injured or otherwise harassed at work each day. Often, the only way to escape that kind of brutal stalking is for a victim to leave her job so she can relocate to a safer place. In circumstances in which a victim is forced to leave a job to ensure her own safety, unemployment compensation should be available to her, so that she does not have to make the terrible choice of risking her safety to ensure her livelihood. Further, VESSA would prohibit discrimination in employment against victims because of domestic and sexual assault. Victims should not be fired or passed over for promotions for reasons beyond their control. Maintaining a victim's dependence is the insidious goal of an abuser. The abuser must never be rewarded for his crime and a victim should never face severe punishment because of being abused. The bill would also prohibit insurance providers from discriminating against such victims because of a history of domestic and sexual assault. Such discrimination only forces people to lie about their victimization and avoid medical treatment until it is too late. It punishes victims for a perpetrator's crime. Finally, the bill recognizes the positive role that companies can play in helping victims of domestic and sexual violence at the same time that they can increase their own productivity. It would provide a tax credit to businesses that implement workplace safety and education programs to combat violence against women. For women attempting to escape a violent environment, this legislation could be a lifeline. I urge that all my colleagues support it so that we can help ensure that no more women are forced to trade their family's personal safety for their economic livelihood. I urge that my colleagues support it so that no more women have to face the double violation of first being assaulted and second losing their job or their self-sufficiency because of it. In what seems to many like a hopeless situation, we can take very strong actions to improve the safety and the lives of the millions of victims of domestic and sexual violence. The cycle too many people face can end. Today we have the opportunity not just to help victims escape violence, but also to provide for so many people a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Today we can give victims hope that they will not only survive, but that they will be able to maintain or regain their independence and have a safe, happy and productive future. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill and to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I hope that colleagues will support a bill I am introducing today: the Hubert H. Humphrey Civic Education Enhancement Act. Senator Dayton joins me as an original co-sponsor of this legislation. As a co-sponsor of Senator Dodd's electoral reform bill, I look forward to a debate later this year on a strong electoral reform measure that will ensure that all Americans who wish to vote be able to do so easily and without facing acts of intimidation and to do so using equipment that ensures all votes will be counted. However, as we think about reforming the methods through which our democracy is practiced on Election Day, we should focus attention on an issue that arguably presents a challenge to the vibrancy of that democracy that is even more fundamental: the decline of young Americans' engagement in public affairs. Turning the tide on political detachment by young persons through a new commitment to civic education in our public schools is the purpose of the Humphrey Act. Civic knowledge, civic intellectual skills, civic participation skills, and civic virtue on the part of the American citizenry are all crucial for the vitality of a healthy representative democracy. But, there is growing evidence that many of our younger citizens are lagging in all of the components necessary for their effective engagement in public life as they enter adulthood. Because all these skills and values are vital to effective citizenship, a multifaceted approach to enhancing civic education in our Nation's elementary and secondary schools, expressed in the Humphrey Act, is a true national priority. There are numerous pieces of evidence for a crisis in civic education that threatens the future vibrancy of our democracy. The most recent nationwide survey of incoming college freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles reports that only 28.1 percent of the students entering college in the fall of 2000 reported an interest in ``keeping up to date with political affairs.'' This was the lowest level in the 35 year history of the survey. In 1966, 60.3 percent of students reported an interest in political affairs. In addition, the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, Civics Assessment revealed startling results in terms of American students' competence in civics at grade levels 4, 8, and 12. At each grade level the percentage of students shown to be ``Below Basic'' outnumbered the percentage in the ``At or above Proficient'' and ``Advanced'' levels combined. Thirty-one percent of fourth-grade students, thirty percent of eighth-graders, and thirty- five percent of high school seniors were ``Below Basic'' in their civics achievement. And, a 1999 study published by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin showed that the introduction of mandated state assessments in other fields, but typically not in civics, has resulted in a reduction in the amount of class time spent on civics. Moreover, in the years after leaving high school, young Americans are becoming less engaged in the democratic process. While 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 voted in 1972, only 38 percent of that age group voted in 2000. And, according to a Harvard University survey published in 2000, 85 percent of young people now say that volunteer work is better than political engagement as a way to solve important issues. It is this evidence that links this effort directly to any serious electoral reform effort. Therefore, it is time for a serious national response to all of these troubling indicators on the civic health of those that we are relying upon to be thoughtful, active citizens in the years ahead. The vibrancy of American elections of the future depend upon our revitalizing civic education today. It is most appropriate that this legislation focused on enhancing civic education would also serve as a memorial to one of the great Minnesotans of the twentieth century, Hubert H. Humphrey. As a political scientist, Mayor of St. Paul, United States Senator and as Vice President of the United States, Hubert H. Humphrey exemplified thoroughly the application of civic knowledge, civic intellectual skills, civic participation skills, and civic virtue in our representative democracy. As a teacher of political science at Macalester College, Hubert Humphrey made the case to students that, to be effective citizens, they must be informed about the political process and be analytical about the issues of their time as they take stances on them. By becoming active in party politics and, eventually, by running for office, Humphrey was a role model of a participant in the democratic experience at the local, State, and national levels. His belief in promoting public service was also shown in his nonstop work, beginning in his first campaign for President in 1960, in envisioning and supporting the Peace Corps program. Finally, Hubert Humphrey stood firm in his principles on so many occasions, exemplifying the civic virtue that is a crucial ingredient of complete citizenship. His moving oratory supporting President Truman's civil rights proposals at the 1948 Democratic National Convention helped to shift his political party and, eventually, the entire nation on one of the fundamental issues of his time. He showed fortitude in speech after speech and vote after vote on the floor of this Senate in expressing his heartfelt duty to support America's neediest citizens. As he put it: ``The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the 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.'' There simply is no more worthy person to memorialize in a new significant national commitment to civic education than Hubert H. Humphrey. Recognizing that there is no single answer to revitalizing civic engagement in young Americans, the Humphrey Act includes five sections, each centered on bettering a different aspect of civic education in the elementary and secondary schools of America. Together, these five components of the Humphrey Act offer a thoughtful step forward in American civic education. First, in decades past, new and veteran teachers in the field of social studies had high-quality professional development opportunities made available to them through programs funded by the federal government as part of the National Defense Education Act, the Education Professional Development Act, the National Science Foundation, and other programs designed by the Department of Education. In recent years, most of these federally-funded opportunities, particularly helpful for new teachers, have disappeared. Social studies teachers, most of whom are now nearing retirement age, have told me how crucial these programs, generally in the format of summer institutes, were in aiding their ability to excite and inform their students about civics. We need to offer the same opportunities to younger civics teachers and the same benefits of good civics teachers to their students. Therefore, the Humphrey Act authorizes, at $25 million annually, summer Civics Institutes to promote creative curricula and pedagogy. The establishment of a new set of university and college campus-based summer institutes for teachers of all grades focused both on enlarging the teachers' knowledge of specific content as well as helping them to teach civics in exciting ways is a way that the Federal Government can play a role in quickly making a difference in enhancing the civics classroom for America's students. Next, when high in quality, service learning programs have been shown to increase student efficacy in public affairs and to enhance students' knowledge of how government works and how social change can be brought about. For instance, according to a 1997 study, high school students who participated in service learning programs have been shown to be more engaged in community organizations and to vote than their nonparticipant counterparts 15 years after their service learning experiences. I know that many of my colleagues have heard stories from students and educators engaged in service learning that add depth to this data. I will recount just one description of a recent school-based service learning program in Huntsville, Alabama, coordinated by the St. Paul-based National Youth Leadership Council, that exemplifies the power of service learning as a force in civic education. After the 8th grade students on a field trip to a historic cemetery discovered that it had been ``whites only,'' a second field trip discovered the burial site for the town's African-Americans in the 19th century. That cemetery was found to be in a deplorable state, with vandalized headstones, unmarked graves, and poorly kept records. The students key question: ``What are we going to do about it?'' This led to the creation of the African American History Project and any number of learning experiences emanating out of this service to accurately rehabilitate the cemetery: Math classes platted the unmapped cemetery; history students undertook oral histories; research on those buried in the cemetery took students to the court records and to the pages of a 19th century black newspaper. One of the results of the endeavor was the development of a curriculum on the history of African-Americans in Huntsville for third-graders by the middle-school students with the assistance of their teachers. In this case, service and learning were almost entirely interwoven. It is crucial, however, to connect service learning experiences to classroom civics curriculum to long-term payoff in terms of promoting students' involvement in public affairs. The Humphrey Act would increase the authorization of funds for the school-based Learn and Serve Program and would authorize Service Learning Institutes dedicated to training/retraining service learning teachers. Raising the authorization level of the school-based Learn and Serve program to $65 million would allow an expansion of a program for which the funding levels have been flat in recent fiscal years and would enhance states and local districts to more sharply link service learning programs to civic knowledge and engagement. Moreover, presently there is little money left for the professional development of new service learning instructors, including mid-career teachers who are interested in being retrained in service learning. Therefore, it is important to develop a summer campus-based Service Learning Institutes program, to parallel the Civics Institutes program. Great strides have been made in the field of service learning in recent years even with a limited federal investment; it is time for this national investment to increase in the interest of the future vitality of our democracy. Third, we should do more to encourage local schools' innovation in the development of community service programs that explicitly link volunteer activities to social change in their communities. Therefore, the Humphrey Act incorporates provisions of a bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Lindsey Graham to make spending on community service programs an allowable use of funds for districts under the ``innovative programs'' section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Specifically, it would allow local schools to use federal money to fund community service programs which ``train and mobilize young people to measurably strengthen their communities through nonviolence, responsibility, compassion, respect, and moral courage.'' I applaud the philosophy and work of Do Something, an national organization founded in 1993 guided by the principle that young people could change the world if they believed in themselves and had the tools to take action. Using a project-centered approach, Do Something recognizes young people as effective leaders and, in the projects that they have promoted in hundreds of communities linking students and caring educators together, they have helped young persons turn their ideas into action. This section of the Humphrey Act would promote the work of Do Something and other local community service endeavors in schools all over the country. Next, our Nation's public middle and high schools often miss opportunities to develop and support student governments that are viable voices for students in the operations of those schools. A 1996 study by the National Association of Secondary School Principals showed that fewer than half of high school students believed that their student government ``affects decisions about co-curricular activities.'' Barely one-third expressed confidence in those governments' ability to ``affect decisions about school rules.'' We should also be concerned about the decline in participation in student leadership activities. Between 1972 and 1992, student government participation fell by 20 percent and work on student publications fell by 7 percent. Effective, innovative student government in which the representatives of the students are connected to the decision-making processes in the school do more than simply enhance the experiences of those who are in the elected student leadership positions. It also sends the message to those leaders' constituents that participation in politics and government can truly make a difference in one's daily life. Dynamic student leadership experiences can make a difference in promoting the civic education within America's middle-schools and high schools. Therefore, this bill develops a competitive grants program to provide funding for school districts to use in strengthening student government programs. In a similar manner, student engagement in local or state government activities or on school boards can be crucial in allowing young persons to experience first-hand early in their lives that participation does indeed matter. At present, in some communities, high school students are explicitly involved in the activities of city government and school boards; we should do all we can to make that more common. The grant programs in this portion of the Humphrey Act, therefore, also may be used to develop innovative programs for student engagement in governmental activities. Finally, while a variety of civics education enhancement programs have been implemented through Federal Government efforts and at the state and local level, no comprehensive, national research exists on the short- and long-term efficacy of such programs in encouraging civic knowledge and other learning or in promoting civic engagement. This contrasts with the extensive research on the effectiveness of different approaches to the teaching of reading and mathematics that has driven decisions about curricula in those fields. Therefore, the final section of the legislation authorizes the Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, OERI, to carry out an extensive five-year research project on the frequency and efficacy of different approaches employed in civic education, with attention given to their effectiveness with different subgroups of students. These include traditional classroom-based civics education, the federally-funded ``We the People . . . the Citizen and the Constitution'' curricular program, experiential learning programs such as the Close Up program, service learning, student government, as well as more innovative programs such as the ``public works'' approach to civic engagement, designed by the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, that involve work on common projects of civic benefit with a focus on bringing together individuals with ideological, cultural, racial, income, and other differences in carrying out the project. So that we make wise curricular and funding decisions in the future we need to know which approaches, and combinations of approaches, to civic education are the most effective in achieving the outcomes we expect. We should celebrate the efforts of all who have been involved in the civic education of America's students. This bill does not denigrate their efforts. But, because the engagement in public affairs by our young people is so important for the long-term health of our democracy, it is time to take a step forward in establishing a comprehensive new federal commitment to civic education. The Humphrey Civic Education Enhancement Act combines new commitments to the professional development of civics teachers, an increase in funding for school-based service learning and the professional development of service learning teachers, local innovation in community service programs in schools, and an encouragement of a revitalized student involvement in student leadership programs and in local government. I am proud that a broad range of organizations recognize the need for this legislation and have endorsed this bill. These include the National Council of the Social Studies, the State Education Agency K-12 Service-Learning Network, the National Youth Leadership Council, Do Something, the National Community Service Coalition, Earth Force, Youth Service America, the American Youth Policy Forum, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the National Association of Student Councils. Hubert Humphrey said, ``It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.'' Let us extend democracy and, in so doing, create a new generation of civic engagement. I strongly urge my colleagues to memorialize Hubert H. Humphrey and his life of civic engagement with the passage of this legislation.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, along with my colleagues, Senators Murray, Schumer, Dodd, Dayton, Clinton and Inouye, I am introducing legislation that if adopted would have a most profound and even life- saving effect on people who are victims of domestic and sexual violence and their families. It is called the Victims' Economic Security and Safety Act. Similar to the Battered Women's Economic Security and Safety Act, which I introduced last session, the legislation acknowledges that the impact of domestic and sexual violence extends far beyond the moment the abuse occurs. It strikes at the heart of victims' and their families' economic self sufficiency. As a result, many victims are unable to provide for their own or their children's safety. Too often they are forced to choose between protecting themselves from abuse and keeping a roof over their head. This is a choice that no mother should have to make. Nor should any person face the double tragedy of first being abused and then losing a job, health insurance or any other means of self sufficiency because they were abused. In response to this cycle of violence and dependence, and in response to domestic and sexual violence's devastating impact on a victim's financial independence, this legislation would help to ensure the economic security of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking so they are better able to provide permanent safety for themselves and their children and so they are not forced, because of economic dependence, to stay in an abusive relationship. In the fight against violence against women, and after the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, this legislation is a next, critical step. The link between poverty and domestic and sexual abuse is clear. For example, according to the United States Conference of Mayors, domestic violence is the fourth leading cause of homelessness. A 2000 study conducted by the Manpower Research and Development Corporation of Minnesota's welfare program, the Minnesota Family Investment Program, showed that 49 percent of single-parent long term recipients were in abusive relationships while they were receiving or had recently been receiving MFIP benefits. A 1998 GAO study found that when compared with women who report never experiencing abuse, women who report having been abused experience more spells of unemployment; greater job turnover; and significantly higher rates of receipt of welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. Economic dependence is a clear reason people who are in abusive relationships may return to abusers or even may not be able to leave abusive situations in the first place. Abusers will go to great lengths to sabotage their partner's ability to have a job or get an education so that their partners will remain dependent on them. If we want battered women and victims of sexual violence to be able to escape the dangerous, often life-threatening situations in which they are trapped, they need the economic means to do so. Yet, victims of domestic and sexual violence face very serious challenges to self-sufficiency every day. Multiple studies of domestic violence victims who were working while being abused found that as many as 60 percent of respondents said they had been reprimanded at work for behaviors related to the abuse, such as being late to work, and as many as 52 percent said they had lost their jobs because of the abuse. Almost 50 percent of sexual assault survivors reported they had lost their jobs or were forced to quit in the aftermath of the assaults. A study from the National WorkPlace Resource Center on Domestic Violence found that abusive husbands and partners harass 74 percent of employed battered women at work. The effects of this are felt not only by the victims of such abuse and their families, but also by employers and the nation as a whole. From the perspective of employers, a 1999 CNN report found that 37 percent of domestic violence victims said that domestic violence impacted their ability to do their job and 24 percent said it caused them to be late from work. A survey of employers confirmed this--49 percent of corporate executives said that domestic violence harmed their company's productivity. The Bureau of National Affairs has estimated that domestic violence costs employers between $3 billion and $5 billion in lost time and productivity each year. Ninety-four percent of corporate security and safety directors at companies nationwide rank domestic violence as a high security concern, and homicide continues to be the leading cause of death of women in the workplace. The United States Department of Labor, in 2000 reported that Domestic Violence accounted for 27 percent of all incidents of workplace violence. More generally, prior to 1994, the Congress gathered years of testimony and evidence as to the negative impact of gender violence in the national economy and found that gender violence costs the economy $10 billion per year. Victims need to be able to deal with these problems without fear of being fired and without fear of losing their livelihoods and their children's livelihoods. Corporations, too, need to be able to ensure their employee's safety and productivity. That is the goal of this legislation. VESSA would help break down the economic barriers that prevent victims from leaving their batterer or abuser, protect victims from violence in the workplace and mitigate the negative economic effects of violence on employers and on the national economy. The bill would provide emergency leave for employees who need to address the effects of domestic and sexual assault. That way, if a victim had to go to court to get a restraining order or leave work to find shelter, the victim could take limited leave without facing the prospect of being fired, demoted or financially penalized. The bill would also extend unemployment compensation to people who are forced to leave their job to provide for their safety or their children's safety. As mentioned above, homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace, 15 percent of these deaths are due to domestic violence, 11 percent of all rapes occur at the workplace. These grim statistics do not begin to address the many women that are physically injured or otherwise harassed at work each day. Often, the only way to escape that kind of brutal stalking is for a victim to leave her job so she can relocate to a safer place. In circumstances in which a victim is forced to leave a job to ensure her own safety, unemployment compensation should be available to her, so that she does not have to make the terrible choice of risking her safety to ensure her livelihood. Further, VESSA would prohibit discrimination in employment against victims because of domestic and sexual assault. Victims should not be fired or passed over for promotions for reasons beyond their control. Maintaining a victim's dependence is the insidious goal of an abuser. The abuser must never be rewarded for his crime and a victim should never face severe punishment because of being abused. The bill would also prohibit insurance providers from discriminating against such victims because of a history of domestic and sexual assault. Such discrimination only forces people to lie about their victimization and avoid medical treatment until it is too late. It punishes victims for a perpetrator's crime. Finally, the bill recognizes the positive role that companies can play in helping victims of domestic and sexual violence at the same time that they can increase their own productivity. It would provide a tax credit to businesses that implement workplace safety and education programs to combat violence against women. For women attempting to escape a violent environment, this legislation could be a lifeline. I urge that all my colleagues support it so that we can help ensure that no more women are forced to trade their family's personal safety for their economic livelihood. I urge that my colleagues support it so that no more women have to face the double violation of first being assaulted and second losing their job or their self-sufficiency because of it. In what seems to many like a hopeless situation, we can take very strong actions to improve the safety and the lives of the millions of victims of domestic and sexual violence. The cycle too many people face can end. Today we have the opportunity not just to help victims escape violence, but also to provide for so many people a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Today we can give victims hope that they will not only survive, but that they will be able to maintain or regain their independence and have a safe, happy and productive future. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bill and to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Joe Steinberg, an intern in our office, be allowed to be on the floor during today's deliberations.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Stephanie Zawistowski be granted floor privileges.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that helps to correct the injustice that finds American consumers the least likely of any in the industrialized world to be able to afford drugs manufactured by the American pharmaceutical industry. The reason is the unconscionable prices the industry charges only here in the United States. I am under no illusion that this legislation provides comprehensive or ultimate relief to Americans who are struggling to afford the prescription drugs they need. However, this bill does expose and highlight the problem American consumers face and it provides a certain measure of immediate relief for individuals struggling with the high cost of prescription drugs. When I return to Minnesota which I do frequently, I meet with many constituents, but none with more compelling stories than senior citizens struggling to make ends meet because of the high cost of prescription drugs, life-saving drugs that are not covered under the Medicare program. Ten or twenty years ago these same senior citizens were going to work everyday--in the stores, and factories, and mines in Minnesota, earning an honest paycheck, and paying their taxes without protest. Now they wonder, how can this government, their government, stand by, when the medicines they need are out of reach. It is not just that Medicare does not cover these drugs. The unfairness which Minnesotans feel is exacerbated of course by the high cost of prescription drugs here in the United States, the same drugs that can be purchased for frequently half the price in Canada or Europe. These are the exact same drugs, manufactured in the exact same facilities with the exact same safety precautions. A year ago, most Americans did not know that the exact same drugs are for sale at half the price in Canada. Today, you can bet the pharmaceutical industry wishes no one knew it. But the cat is out of the bag, and it is time for Congress to begin to address these inequities. Legislators, especially from Northern States but also from all around the country, have heard first-hand stories from constituents who are justifiably frustrated and discouraged when they can't afford to buy prescription drugs that are made in the United States, unless they go across the border to Canada where those same drugs, manufactured in the same facilities are available for about half the price. It is time to codify the right of Americans to go to Canada and certain other countries to buy the prescription drugs they need at a price they can afford. And it is time to allow Americans to obtain those necessary medications through the mail as well. Driving to Canada every few months to buy prescription drugs at affordable prices isn't the solution; it is a symptom of how broken parts of our health care system are. Americans regardless of party have a fundamental belief in fairness, and know a rip-off when they see one. It is time to allow Americans to end-run that rip-off. While we can be proud of both American scientific research that produces new miracle cures and the high standards of safety and efficacy that we expect to be followed at the FDA, it is shameful that America's most vulnerable citizens, the chronically ill and the elderly, are being asked to pay the highest prices in the world here in the U.S. for the exact same medications manufactured here but sold more cheaply overseas. That is why today I am introducing with Senator Stabenow the Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act, a bill which will amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to allow Americans to legally import prescription drugs into the United States for their personal use as long as the drugs meet FDA's strict safety standards. With this legislation, Americans will be able to legally purchase these FDA- approved drugs in person or by mail at huge savings. What this bill does is to address the absurd situation by which American consumers are paying substantially higher prices for their prescription drugs than are the citizens of Canada, and the rest of the industrialized world. This bill does not create any new Federal programs. Instead it uses principles frequently cited in both house of the Congress, principles of open trade and competition, on a personal level, to help make it possible for American consumers to purchase the prescription drugs they need. The need is clear. A recent informal survey by the Minnesota Senior Federation on the price of six commonly used prescription medications showed that Minnesota consumers pay, on average, nearly double, 196 percent, that paid by their Canadian counterparts. These excessive prices apply to drugs manufactured by U.S. pharmaceutical firms, the same drugs that are sold for just a fraction of the U.S. price in Canada and Europe. Now, however, Federal law allows only the manufacturer of a drug to import it into the U.S. It is time to stop protecting the pharmaceutical industry's outrageous profits, and they are outrageous, and give all Americans the legal right to purchase their prescription drugs directly from a pharmacy in a limited number of countries with regulatory systems the FDA has found meet certain minimal standards. Last year, the editors of Fortune Magazine, writing about 1999 pharmaceutical industry profits, noted that ``Whether you gauge profitability by median return on revenues, assets, or equity, pharmaceuticals had a Viagra kind of year.'' In 2000, drug company profits were just as excessive. Let's take a look at the numbers, so there can be no mistake: Where the average Fortune 500 industry in the United States returned 4.5 percent profits as a percentage of revenue, the pharmaceutical industry returned 18.6 percent. Where the average Fortune 500 industry returned 3.3 percent profits as a percentage of their assets, the pharmaceutical industry returned 17 percent. Where the average Fortune 500 industry returned 14.6 percent profits as a percentage of shareholders equity, the pharmaceutical industry returned 29.4 percent. Those record profits are no surprise to America's senior citizens because they know where those profits come from, they come from their own pocketbooks. It is time to end the price gouging. We need every piece of legislation we can get to help assure our Senior Citizens and all Americans that safe and affordable prescription medications can be legally obtained from countries with a track records of prescription drug safety. The Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act is one such step. We all know that the giant step this Congress should be taking is the enactment of a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit. Such a benefit should address two issues. First, Medicare beneficiaries are entitled to a drug benefit as good as Congress provides for itself. That means a low deductible, 20 percent copay, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses of about $2,000, and affordable premiums. Second, we need seriously to address the outrageously high prices that Americans are forced to pay for prescription drugs. If we address those high prices, we can provide a comprehensive benefit at a price that is affordable to Medicare beneficiaries and to the Federal Government. I have already introduced a bill, S. 925, the Medicare Extension of Drugs to Seniors Act of 2001, that provides affordable comprehensive benefits and makes it possible to enact them by reigning in the ever increasing cost of pharmaceuticals using three complimentary approaches. But, while we wait for the Finance Committee and this Congress to act on a Medicare drug benefit, we should not lose the opportunity to provide some needed relief. That is why I am introducing the Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act today. This bill includes specific protections, which were not included in a recent House-passed amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill. These protections include: 1. importation for personal use only of no more than a 3 month supply at any one time; 2. limitation on country of origin; 3. no importation of controlled substances or biologics; 4. requirement that imported drug be accompanied by a form prescribed by the Secretary of HHS in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury that makes clear what overseas pharmacy is dispensing the drug, who will be receiving it, and who will be responsible for the recipients medical care with the drug in the United States. The only things that are not protected in this bill are the excessive profits of the pharmaceutical industry. My job as a United States Senator is not to protect those profits but to protect the people. Colleagues, please join in and support this thoughtful and necessary bill that will help make prescription drugs more affordable to the American people.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that helps to correct the injustice that finds American consumers the least likely of any in the industrialized world to be able to afford drugs manufactured by the American pharmaceutical industry. The reason is the unconscionable prices the industry charges only here in the United States. I am under no illusion that this legislation provides comprehensive or ultimate relief to Americans who are struggling to afford the prescription drugs they need. However, this bill does expose and highlight the problem American consumers face and it provides a certain measure of immediate relief for individuals struggling with the high cost of prescription drugs. When I return to Minnesota which I do frequently, I meet with many constituents, but none with more compelling stories than senior citizens struggling to make ends meet because of the high cost of prescription drugs, life-saving drugs that are not covered under the Medicare program. Ten or twenty years ago these same senior citizens were going to work everyday--in the stores, and factories, and mines in Minnesota, earning an honest paycheck, and paying their taxes without protest. Now they wonder, how can this government, their government, stand by, when the medicines they need are out of reach. It is not just that Medicare does not cover these drugs. The unfairness which Minnesotans feel is exacerbated of course by the high cost of prescription drugs here in the United States, the same drugs that can be purchased for frequently half the price in Canada or Europe. These are the exact same drugs, manufactured in the exact same facilities with the exact same safety precautions. A year ago, most Americans did not know that the exact same drugs are for sale at half the price in Canada. Today, you can bet the pharmaceutical industry wishes no one knew it. But the cat is out of the bag, and it is time for Congress to begin to address these inequities. Legislators, especially from Northern States but also from all around the country, have heard first-hand stories from constituents who are justifiably frustrated and discouraged when they can't afford to buy prescription drugs that are made in the United States, unless they go across the border to Canada where those same drugs, manufactured in the same facilities are available for about half the price. It is time to codify the right of Americans to go to Canada and certain other countries to buy the prescription drugs they need at a price they can afford. And it is time to allow Americans to obtain those necessary medications through the mail as well. Driving to Canada every few months to buy prescription drugs at affordable prices isn't the solution; it is a symptom of how broken parts of our health care system are. Americans regardless of party have a fundamental belief in fairness, and know a rip-off when they see one. It is time to allow Americans to end-run that rip-off. While we can be proud of both American scientific research that produces new miracle cures and the high standards of safety and efficacy that we expect to be followed at the FDA, it is shameful that America's most vulnerable citizens, the chronically ill and the elderly, are being asked to pay the highest prices in the world here in the U.S. for the exact same medications manufactured here but sold more cheaply overseas. That is why today I am introducing with Senator Stabenow the Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act, a bill which will amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to allow Americans to legally import prescription drugs into the United States for their personal use as long as the drugs meet FDA's strict safety standards. With this legislation, Americans will be able to legally purchase these FDA- approved drugs in person or by mail at huge savings. What this bill does is to address the absurd situation by which American consumers are paying substantially higher prices for their prescription drugs than are the citizens of Canada, and the rest of the industrialized world. This bill does not create any new Federal programs. Instead it uses principles frequently cited in both house of the Congress, principles of open trade and competition, on a personal level, to help make it possible for American consumers to purchase the prescription drugs they need. The need is clear. A recent informal survey by the Minnesota Senior Federation on the price of six commonly used prescription medications showed that Minnesota consumers pay, on average, nearly double, 196 percent, that paid by their Canadian counterparts. These excessive prices apply to drugs manufactured by U.S. pharmaceutical firms, the same drugs that are sold for just a fraction of the U.S. price in Canada and Europe. Now, however, Federal law allows only the manufacturer of a drug to import it into the U.S. It is time to stop protecting the pharmaceutical industry's outrageous profits, and they are outrageous, and give all Americans the legal right to purchase their prescription drugs directly from a pharmacy in a limited number of countries with regulatory systems the FDA has found meet certain minimal standards. Last year, the editors of Fortune Magazine, writing about 1999 pharmaceutical industry profits, noted that ``Whether you gauge profitability by median return on revenues, assets, or equity, pharmaceuticals had a Viagra kind of year.'' In 2000, drug company profits were just as excessive. Let's take a look at the numbers, so there can be no mistake: Where the average Fortune 500 industry in the United States returned 4.5 percent profits as a percentage of revenue, the pharmaceutical industry returned 18.6 percent. Where the average Fortune 500 industry returned 3.3 percent profits as a percentage of their assets, the pharmaceutical industry returned 17 percent. Where the average Fortune 500 industry returned 14.6 percent profits as a percentage of shareholders equity, the pharmaceutical industry returned 29.4 percent. Those record profits are no surprise to America's senior citizens because they know where those profits come from, they come from their own pocketbooks. It is time to end the price gouging. We need every piece of legislation we can get to help assure our Senior Citizens and all Americans that safe and affordable prescription medications can be legally obtained from countries with a track records of prescription drug safety. The Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act is one such step. We all know that the giant step this Congress should be taking is the enactment of a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit. Such a benefit should address two issues. First, Medicare beneficiaries are entitled to a drug benefit as good as Congress provides for itself. That means a low deductible, 20 percent copay, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses of about $2,000, and affordable premiums. Second, we need seriously to address the outrageously high prices that Americans are forced to pay for prescription drugs. If we address those high prices, we can provide a comprehensive benefit at a price that is affordable to Medicare beneficiaries and to the Federal Government. I have already introduced a bill, S. 925, the Medicare Extension of Drugs to Seniors Act of 2001, that provides affordable comprehensive benefits and makes it possible to enact them by reigning in the ever increasing cost of pharmaceuticals using three complimentary approaches. But, while we wait for the Finance Committee and this Congress to act on a Medicare drug benefit, we should not lose the opportunity to provide some needed relief. That is why I am introducing the Personal Prescription Drug Import Fairness Act today. This bill includes specific protections, which were not included in a recent House-passed amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill. These protections include: 1. importation for personal use only of no more than a 3 month supply at any one time; 2. limitation on country of origin; 3. no importation of controlled substances or biologics; 4. requirement that imported drug be accompanied by a form prescribed by the Secretary of HHS in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury that makes clear what overseas pharmacy is dispensing the drug, who will be receiving it, and who will be responsible for the recipients medical care with the drug in the United States. The only things that are not protected in this bill are the excessive profits of the pharmaceutical industry. My job as a United States Senator is not to protect those profits but to protect the people. Colleagues, please join in and support this thoughtful and necessary bill that will help make prescription drugs more affordable to the American people.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin. I am very proud to join him. I have a lot of time reserved tonight. I say to colleagues who are here in the Chamber and who are wondering what our timeframe is that I can shorten my remarks. I am speaking in opposition to the nomination of Mr. John Graham to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, within the Office of Management and Budget. I believe the President should have broad latitude in choosing his cabinet. I have voted for many nominees in the past with whom I have disagreed on policy grounds. I have voted for a number during this Administration, and I'm sure I will vote for more nominees with whom I disagree on policy, sometimes very sharply. Mr. Graham has been nominated to a sensitive position: Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In this role Mr. Graham would be in a position to delay, block or alter rules proposed by key federal agencies. Which agencies? Let me give you some examples. One would be OSHA. This happens to be an agency with a mandate that is near and dear to my heart. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to do a lot of community organizing, and I have worked with a lot of people who unfortunately have been viewed as expendable. They do not have a lot of clout--political, economic, or any other kind. They work under some pretty uncivilized working conditions. The whole idea behind OSHA was that we were going to provide some protection. Indeed, what we were going to be saying to companies--in fact, we did the same thing with environmental protection--is, yes, maximize your profits in our private sector system. Yes, organize production the way you choose to do. You are free to do it any way you want to, and maximize your profit any way you want to--up to the point that you are killing workers, up to the point that it is loss of limbs, loss of lives, harsh genetic substances, and people dying early of cancer. Then you can't do it. Thank God, from the point of view of ordinary people, the Government steps in, I would like to say, on our side. We had a perfect example of that this year in the subcommittee that I chair on employment, safety, and training. I asked Secretary Chao to come. She didn't come. I wanted to ask her about the rule on repetitive stress injury, the most serious problem right now in the workplace. It was overturned. The Secretary said she would be serious about promulgating a rule that would provide protection for the 1.8 million people, or thereabouts, who are affected by this. I wanted to know what, in fact, this administration is going to do. So far it is really an obstacle. As Administrator of OIRA, Mr. Graham can frustrate any attempt by OSHA to address 1.8 million repetitive stress injuries workers suffer each year, as reported by employers. I will just say it on the floor of the Senate. I think it is absolutely outrageous that rule was overturned. I see no evidence whatsoever that this administration is serious about promulgating any kind of rule that would provide workers with real protection. The Mine Safety and Health Administration, MSHA. The Louisville Courier Journal conducted a comprehensive investigation of illnesses suffered by coal miners due to exposure to coal dust--workers who are supposed to be protected by MSHA regulation. We urgently need vigorous action by MSHA. As a matter of fact, I couldn't believe it when I was down in east Kentucky in Harlan and Letcher Counties. I met with coal miners. That is where my wife, Sheila, is from. Her family is from there. I hate to admit to colleagues or the Chair that I actually believed that black lung disease was a thing of the past. I knew all about it. I was shocked to find out that in east Kentucky many of these miners working the mines can't see 6 inches in front of them because of the dust problem. Senator Durbin's predecessor, Senator Simon, worked on mine safety. It was one of his big priorities. Part of the problem is the companies actually are the ones that monitor coal dust. MSHA has been trying to put through a rule--we were almost successful in getting it through the last Congress--to provide these miners with some protection. From the point of view of the miners, they don't view themselves as expendable. The Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of prescription drugs for children, for the elderly, for all of us. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates pollution of the water and air. For example, EPA will determine what level of arsenic is acceptable in American drinking water. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is charged with the task of protecting us to the extent possible from salmonella, foot and mouth disease, BSE and other food-borne illnesses. These and other important Federal regulatory agencies exist to protect Americans and to uphold standards that have been fought for and achieved over decades of struggle. It is not true that people in Minnesota and people in the country are opposed to Government regulations on their behalf and on behalf of their children so that the water is not poisoned, so that the mines they work in are safe, so that the workplace they work in is safe, so that there are civilized working conditions, so that they don't have too much arsenic in the water their children drink, and so that the food their children eat is safe. Don't tell me people in Minnesota and in the country aren't interested in strong regulation on behalf of their safety and their children's safety. The Administrator of OIRA must be someone who stands with the American public, someone who sees it as his or her mission to protect the public interest. In my view, John Graham's evident hostility to regulation that protects the public interest, in particular his over- reliance on tools of economic analysis that denigrate the value of regulatory protections, is disqualifying. This is particularly troublesome when it comes to workplace safety, for example, because his approach flies in the face of statutory language requiring OSHA--again I am fortunate to chair the subcommittee with jurisdiction over OSHA--to examine the economic feasibility of its regulations, as opposed to undertaking the cost/benefit analyses upon which he over-relies. As the Supreme Court noted in the so-called Cotton Dust Case, embedded in the statutory framework for OSHA is Congress' assumption ``that the financial costs of health and safety problems in the workplace were as large as or larger than the financial costs of eliminating these problems.'' Instead of cost/benefit analyses to guide standard setting, OSHA is statutorily bound to promulgate standards ``which most adequately assur[e], to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such employee has regular exposure to the hazard dealt with by such standard for the period of his working life.'' In its 30 years of existence the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has made its presence felt in the lives of tens of millions of Americans at all levels of the workforce. OSHA and its related agencies are literally the last, best hope for millions of American workers whose lives would otherwise be put on the line, simply because they need to earn a paycheck. Experience has shown, over and over, that the absence of strong government-mandated safeguards results in workplace exposure to everything from odorless carcinogens to musculoskeletal stress to combustible grain dust to other dangers too numerous to mention. Since its founding, hundreds of thousands of American workers did not die on the job, thanks to OSHA. Workplace fatalities have declined 50 percent between December of 1970 and December 2000, while occupational injury and illness rates have dropped 40 percent. Not surprisingly, declines in workplace fatalities and injuries have been most dramatic in precisely those industries where OSHA has targeted its activities. For example, since OSHA came into existence, the manufacturing fatality rate has declined by 60 percent and the injury rate by 33 percent. At the same time, the construction fatality rate has declined by 80 percent and the injury rate by 52 percent. It is not a coincidence that these two industries have received some of OSHA's closest attention. OSHA's role in assuring so far as possible that every worker is protected from on-the-job hazards cannot be denied. Unfortunately, however, compared to the demand, there is still a whole lot of work to be done. Indoor air quality, hexavalent chromium, beryllium, permissible exposure limits for hundreds of chemicals in the workplace--this list goes on and on--not to mention repetitive stress injuries. The unfinished agenda is huge. It is precisely this unfinished agenda that should give us pause in confirming, as head of OIRA, someone whose entire professional history seems aimed at frustrating efforts to regulate in the public interest. That is my disagreement. It is a different framework that he represents than the framework that I think is so in the public interest. Let me just give one example: the chromium story. Chromium is a metal that is used in the production of metal alloys, such as stainless steel, chrome plating and pigments. It is also used in various chemical processes and it is a component of cement used to manufacture refractory bricks. The first case of cancer caused by chromium was reported in 1890. Since then, the evidence that it causes cancer continued to grow. Chromium has been declared a carcinogen by the EPA, the National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In the early 1980s, it was estimated that 200,000 to 390,000 workers were exposed to hexavalent chromium in the workplace--200,000 to 390,000. Lung cancer rates among factory workers exposed to hexavalent chromium are almost double the expected cancer rate for unexposed workers. Lung cancer rates for factory workers exposed to hexavalent chromium are also double the expected cancer rate for unexposed workers. OSHA has known the risks associated with exposure to this dangerous carcinogen since its inception but has failed to act. OSHA's assessment, conducted by K.S. Crump Division of ICG Kaiser, was that between 9 percent and 34 percent of workers exposed at half the legal limit for a working lifetime would contract lung cancer as a result of this exposure. On April 24, 2000, OSHA published its semiannual agenda, which anticipated a notice of proposed rulemaking would be published in June 2001. If confirmed as Administrator of OIRA within the Office of Management and Budget, however, John Graham's actions could affect OSHA's stated willingness to undertake a proposed rule this year, as the agency has finally promised and as is urgently needed. I will finish by just giving a few examples of how Mr. Graham could negatively impact the process. No. 1, reduce OSHA's ability to collect information in support of a new standard. To develop a new hexavalent chromium standard, OSHA would likely need to survey scores of businesses for information about their use of the chemical and about workplace exposures. During the committee hearing on his nomination, Graham said that he supports requiring the federal agencies to do cost-benefit analyses of information requests sent to industry in preparation for a rulemaking. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, before an information request can be sent to ten entities or more, it must be approved by OMB. Because it is very difficult to judge the value of the information being collected prior to receiving it, Graham could use the paperwork clearance requirement to tangle up the agency in justifying any information requests needed to support a new rule on chromium. No. 2, insist upon a new risk assessment, despite compelling evidence that chromium poses a cancer risk. OSHA has conducted its own risk assessment of chromium and reviewed numerous studies documenting that workers working with or around the chemical face considerable increased risk of lung cancer. But it is likely that Graham could exercise his power at OMB to require a new risk assessment of hexavalent chromium, which could further delay the issuance of a rule. Graham has supported requiring every risk-related inquiry by the federal government to be vetted by a panel of peer review scientists prior to its public release, which would be costly and create significant delays in the development of new regulations. He has argued that the risk assessments done by the federal agencies are flawed, and that OMB or the White House should develop its own risk assessment oversight process. This would allow economists to review and possibly invalidate the findings of scientists and public health experts in the agencies. No. 3, flunk any rule that fails a stringent cost-benefit test. Graham is a supporter, for example, of strict cost-efficiency measures, even in matters of public health. Because he views regulatory choices as best driven by cost-based decisionmaking, the worthiness of a rule is determined at least partly by the cost to industry of fixing the problem. This is the opposite of an approach that recognizes that workers have a right to a safe workplace environment. The OSHA mission statement is ``to send every worker home whole and healthy every day.'' Under the law as it now stands, OSHA is prohibited from using cost- benefit analysis to establish new health standards. Instead, OSHA must set health standards for significant risks to workers at the maximum level that the regulated industry, as a whole, can feasibly achieve and afford. This policy, set into law by the OSHA Act, recognizes the rights of workers to safe and healthful workplaces, and provides far more protection to workers than would be provided by any standards generated under a cost-benefit analysis. Putting John Graham in the regulatory gatekeeper post would create a grave risk that OSHA protections, such as the hexavalent chromium standard, will not be set at the most protective level that regulated industry can feasibly achieve. We know from his own statements that John Graham will require OSHA to produce economic analyses that will use antiregulation assumptions, and will show protective regulations to fail the cost-benefit tests. It is true that OSHA is technically authorized to issue standards that fail the cost-benefit test. However, it would be politically nearly impossible for an agency to issue a standard that has been shown, using dubious methodologies, to have net costs for society. Unfortunately, although I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong, I fear this is not a farfetched scenario. And let there be no question--such steps would absolutely undermine Congress' intent when it passed the Occupational Health and Safety Act 30 years ago. Let me quote again from the Supreme Court's Cotton Dust decision: Not only does the legislative history confirm that Congress meant ``feasible'' rather than ``cost-benefit'' when it used the former term, but it also shows that Congress understood that the Act would create substantial costs for employers, yet intended to impose such costs when necessary to create a safe and healthful working environment. Congress viewed the costs of health and safety as a cost of doing business. Senator Yarborough, a cosponsor of the [OSH Act], stated: ``We know the costs would be put into consumer goods but that is the price we should pay for the 80 million workers in America.'' There is one final point I want to make. I will tell you what really troubles me the most about this nomination. And let me just kind of step back and look at the bigger picture, which really gives me pause. The essence of our Government--small ``d'' democracy--is to create a framework for the protection of the larger public as a whole. I believe in that. And I believe a majority of the people believe in that. It is the majority's commitment to protect the interests of those who cannot protect themselves that sets this great Nation apart from others. That is the essence of our democratic way of life. That is the core of this country's incredible heritage. But there are a series of things happening here in the Nation's Capitol--stacked one on top of another--that fundamentally undermine the capacity of our Government to serve this purpose of being there for the public interest. I think we have a concerted effort on the part of this administration--and I have to say it on the floor of the Senate-- and its allies to undermine the Government's ability to serve the public interest. First, there was a stream of actual or proposed rollbacks of regulations designed to protect the health and well-being of the people of this country--arsenic in drinking water, global warming emissions, ergonomics--or repetitive stress injuries in the workplace, drilling in the wilderness, energy efficiency standards--it goes on and on. Then there was the tax cut, making it absolutely impossible for us to protect Social Security and Medicare, or to do near what we should do for children or for the elderly, for the poor or for the vulnerable, for an adequate education or for affordable prescription drugs--no way--in other words, to fund Government, to do what Government is supposed to do, which is to protect the interests of those who cannot protect themselves. And then, finally, the administration seeks to place in key gatekeeper positions individuals whose entire professional careers have been in opposition to the missions of the agencies they are now being nominated to advance. I am troubled by this. I think people in the country would be troubled by this if they really understood John Graham's background and the power of his position and, unfortunately, the capacity not to do well for the public interest. This is unacceptable. This is a concerted, comprehensive effort to undermine our Government's ability to protect and represent the interests of those who don't have all the power, who don't have all the capital. The goal is clear: Roll back the regulations that they can. That is what this administration is about: Defund government programs and place in pivotal positions those with the will and the determination to block new regulations from going forward--new regulations that will protect people in the workplace, new regulations that will protect our environment, new regulations that will protect our children from arsenic in the drinking water, new regulations that will protect the lakes and the rivers and the streams, new regulations that will make sure the food is safe for our children. This is not acceptable. We should say no. That is why I urge my colleagues to join me in defeating this nomination. I include as part of my statement a letter in opposition from former Secretary of Labor Reich and other former agency heads. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. There are any number of former Federal regulators who have signed on, along with former Secretary Reich. One paragraph: In his written work and testimony before Congress, Dr. Graham has repeatedly argued for an increased reliance on cost-benefit and cost effectiveness analysis in the regulatory process. We agree that economic analysis plays an important role in policy making. But increasing the role that economic analysis plays in rulemaking threatens to crowd out considerations of equal or perhaps greater importance that are harder to quantify and to put in terms of dollars--for example, what is the dollar value of making public spaces accessible so a paraplegic participate fully in community values? How should we quantify the worth of protecting private medical information from commercial disclosure? Why is the value of preventing a child from developing a future cancer worth only a small fraction of the value of preventing her from dying in an auto accident? How do you quantify the real value of a healthy ecosystem? That is what is at issue here. Did you notice the other day the report about how children are doing better but not with asthma? Where is the protection going to be for these children? In this cost-benefit analysis, the thing that is never looked at is the cost to the workers who suffer the physical pain in the workplace. What about the cost of a worker who has to quit working and can't support his family because he has lost his hearing or because of a disabling injury in the workplace? What about people who have years off their life and end up dying early from cancer when they shouldn't have, but they were working with these carcinogenic substances? What about the cost to children who are still exposed to lead paint who can't learn, can't do as well in school? What about the cost to all of God's children when we don't leave this Earth better than the way we found it? We are all but strangers and guests in this land. What about the cost of values when we are not willing to protect the environment, we are not willing to be there for our children? I believe Senators should vote no. Frankly, the more people in the country who find out about this agenda of this administration, they are going to find it to be extreme and harsh and not in the national interest and not in their interest and not in their children's interest. This nomination is a perfect example of that. I urge my colleagues to vote no and yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, my understanding is that there may be a number of other Senators who are coming to the floor to speak in opposition to the bankruptcy bill. Senator Durbin may try to come down. So Senator Durbin and others know, when they come I will simply break my remarks and others can speak at their convenience. At the beginning of last week, the majority leader moved to proceed to the bill and I objected. Then we had a cloture vote on the motion to proceed. In the time I had, I implored, called upon, begged the Senate to step back from the brink and to decline to go to conference with the House on this so-called bankruptcy reform. I believe we would be making a grave mistake. I am trying to figure out a way not to repeat all the arguments I made last week. I will simply say I think this is a measure we are going to deeply regret. There are a lot of people--Elizabeth Warren comes to mind, law professor at Harvard--who have done some very important scholarship at Harvard in this area. I don't know that I can think of a single law professor who has argued in favor of this bill. Maybe there is someone somewhere. The opinion of the scholars in the field, the opinion of people who work in the field, is almost unanimous that this is a huge mistake. We need to understand that bankruptcy is something most families do not think they will ever need. They do not think they will ever need to file for bankruptcy. But it is really a safety net, not just for low- income families but for middle-income families as well. Fifty percent of the people who file for bankruptcy in our country today do it because of a medical bill. You have a double whammy. It is not just the situation where you have the expense of the medical bills but also it may be that, because of the illness or injury, you yourself are not able to work so you are hit both ways, or it might be your child's medical bill, but also you may not be able to bring in the income because you are not able to go to work because you need to be at home taking care of your child. That is 50 percent of the people. We are not talking about deadbeats. Frankly, most of the rest of the cases can be explained--it should not surprise anybody--by loss of job or divorce. These are the major explanatory variables why people file for bankruptcy, file for chapter 7. The irony of it--and I tried to make this argument last week as well--is that for a long time my colleagues were facing a problem that did not exist; that is to say, they were talking about all the abuse and all the ways in which people were gaming the system in American bankruptcy, but they came out with a record that said that is 3 percent of the debt. So let's come out with legislation that deals with the 3 percent, but let's not have legislation where people who find themselves in terrible economic circumstances no longer are able to rebuild their lives, all because of a small number of people who abuse the system. Moreover, actually the bankruptcies were going down. So quite to the contrary of the claim we had this rash of bankruptcies and people no longer felt any stigma or shame and people were no longer responsible, none of it really held up very well if you closely examined the arguments. Now what we have, in case anybody has not noticed, is an economy that is leveling off with a turn downward. It is not the boom economy we saw while the Presiding Officer's husband, President Clinton, was President of the United States of America. It is a different economy now. There are going to be more people who will lose their jobs and more people who will be faced with these difficult economic circumstances through no fault of their own. We are going to make it well nigh impossible for them to rebuild their lives. Madam President, I argued last week that we are hardly talking about deadbeats. This bill assumes people who file for chapter 7 are deadbeats and they are not. The means test aside, there are 15 provisions in the House and Senate-passed bills that will affect all debtors, regardless of their income--15 provisions. The means test will not protect them. The safe harbor will not protect them. These provisions are going to make bankruptcy relief more complicated, more expensive, and therefore harder to achieve for debtors--again, regardless of income. That means they will also fall the hardest, in terms of the people who will be most affected by this legislation, on low- and moderate-income debtors. The irony is that those who advocate for this bill justify it by arguing that we need to go after the wealthy deadbeats. But if the cost of filing for bankruptcy doubles, which is exactly what it does in this bill, who gets hurt the most? A middle-income family who had to save for 6 months, under current law, to pay for an attorney and for filing fees, or a multimillionaire like the ones the proponents cite in this statement? It just makes no sense. There will be no problem for millionaires who are gaming the system. They are not the people who get hurt by this legislation. This legislation is the most harsh on the most vulnerable. I also argued and tried to make the case that this couldn't be a worse time to do this in terms of where the economy is headed. So while the bill would be terrible for consumers and for regular working-class families even in the best of times, its effects will be all the more devastating now that we have a weakening economy. Colleagues, you are going to regret this. It boggles the mind that at a time when Americans are most economically vulnerable and when they are most in need for protection from financial disaster we would eviscerate the major fiscal safety net in our society for the middle class. It is the height of insanity that we would be contemplating doing what we are doing right now given what is happening to this economy. Colleagues, I couldn't support this legislation in the best of times. Even in the sunniest of economic circumstances, there are many families who are down on their luck and who are sent to the sidelines. Bankruptcy relief lets these families rebuild their lives again. It is a little bit like ``there but for the grace of God go I.'' I think Time magazine had a series which was just a blistering attack on this bill. They did it in two ways. They did it, first of all, by talking about what this legislation means in times--which quite often on the floor of the Senate we don't make those connections as we should--to a lot of these families and what happened to these families because of their economic circumstances. They did not ask that their child be stricken by a terrible illness. They did not ask for the physical pain. They did not ask for the economic pain. But we are going to make it harder for them to rebuild their lives. People do not ask to be laid off work. People do not ask that their families be shredded because there is a divorce. You wish it would not have to happen. But it does happen. Sometimes someone is at fault and sometimes no one is at fault, but it happens. It is usually the woman who is the one taking care of the children, and she doesn't have the income she once had. These are the kinds of citizens who file for bankruptcy relief. That is why every labor organization, civil rights, women's, and consumer organizations in the country and more--religious organizations--oppose this legislation. This legislation is a testimony to the absolutely sickening power of the financial services industry in Congress. We wouldn't be doing this otherwise. I did not say this is a one-to-one correlation. Anyone can play the game that people vote this way because they are in the pockets of the financial services. That is not the argument that I make. Everybody can say that about everybody who votes in the Senate on every issue. What I am saying is not at the personal level but at the institutional level in terms of who has the lobbying coalition, who is ever present, who has all the financial resources, and who has the political power. This industry has a heck of a lot more power than ``ordinary consumers and ordinary citizens'' who are the very people we ought to be representing. I want to make it clear that this is not a debate about winners and losers because we all lose if we erode the middle class in this country. We all lose if we take away some of the critical underpinnings that shore up working families. Sure, in the short run big banks and credit card companies may take their profits. But in the long run, it is going to be ordinary families and entrepreneurs--all businesspeople--who take the risk and who are going to pay the price. This isn't a debate about reducing the high number of bankruptcies. In no way will this legislation do that. Indeed, I would argue that by rewarding reckless lending that got us here in the first place, you are going to see more consumers overburdened by debt. By the way, there isn't hardly a word in this legislation that calls on these credit card companies to be accountable. It is all a one-way street. This debate is about punishing failure--whether self-inflicted or uncontrolled and unexpected. This is a debate about punishing failure. If there is one thing that our country has learned, punishing failure doesn't work. You need to correct the mistakes. You need to prevent abuse. But you also need to lift people up when they stumble and not beat them down. I thought I made a pretty good case last week. I didn't think it was really refuted. The proponents of the bill came down and they did their thing, but I don't think they did much damage to my argument. What did the proponents of this legislation say? We need to talk about this. It might be that it is going to go through. But, darn it, there ought to be some discussion before the Senate about what we are doing. What do the proponents say? My friend from Alabama got up and complained that I was taking on or presenting this critique of the big banks and credit card companies. He said this is a bankruptcy bill, and it only deals with the bankruptcy code and bankruptcy court reform. Therefore, holding the lender accountable is not appropriate. That was one criticism. It sounded a little bizarre to me, as much fondness as I have for him. I think it sounds kind of bizarre to most commonsense Americans in Minnesota who reach in their mailboxes every day of the week and pull out a handful of credit card solicitations. But apparently some of my colleagues see no connection whatsoever between the irresponsibility of the lenders and the high number of bankruptcies. That is preposterous. The reason colleagues do not see any connection between the irresponsibility of the lenders and the high number of bankruptcies is because they don't want to see any connection because these folks have a lot of clout and a lot of power. Both the House and the Senate bills basically give a free ride to banks and credit card companies that deserve much of the blame for the high number of bankruptcy filings because of their lose credit card standards. Even the Senate bill, which is better than the House bill, does very little to address this problem. There are some minor disclosure provisions in the Senate bill. But even those don't go nearly as far as they should. Lenders should not be rewarded for reckless lending. Where is the balance? If you are holding a debtor accountable, why are you not holding lenders accountable in this legislation? Let me just give you some examples of some of the poor choices that can be made. In this particular case I am talking about the lenders-- not the borrowers. Here are some real world examples. In June of 1999 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reached a settlement with Providian Financial Corporation in which Providian agreed to pay at least $300 million to its customers to compensate them for using deceptive marketing tactics. Among these were baiting customers with ``no annual fees'' but then charging an annual fee unless the customer accepted the $156 credit protection program-- coverage which was itself deceptively marketed. The company also misrepresented the savings their customers would get from transferring account balances from another card. In 1999, Sears, Roebuck & Co. paid $498 million in settlement damages and $60 million in fines for illegally coercing reaffirmations-- agreements with borrowers to repay debt--from its cardholders. But apparently this is just the cost of doing business: bankruptcy judges in California, Vermont, and New York have claimed that Sears is still up to its old strong arm tactics but is now using legal loopholes to avoid disclosure. Now, I say to my colleagues, Sears is a creditor in one third of all personal bankruptcies. And by the way, this legislation contains provisions that would have protected Sears from paying back any monies that customers were tricked into paying under these plans. That is unbelievable. I will tell you something. With the one- sidedness of this legislation, there is no wonder. Again, I am not attacking colleagues at a personal level but at an institutional level. No wonder ordinary people think the political process in Washington is dominated by powerful folks and that powerful interests are opposed to them. How else can one explain the complete lack of balance? July 2000, North American Capital Corporation, a subsidiary of GE, agreed to pay a $250,000 fine to settle charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission that the company had violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by lying to and harassing customers during collections. Another example: October 1998, the Department of Justice brought an antitrust suit against Visa and Mastercard, the two largest credit card associations, charging them with illegal collusion that reduced competition and made credit cards more expensive for borrowers. To make the argument that when we look at bankruptcies we only hold those who are the lenders accountable and not the creditors makes no sense whatsoever. The goal of this bill was supposed to be to reduce bankruptcies. That is why the big banks and credit card companies have been pushing for it. They are the only ones pushing for it. I am hard pressed to find one bankruptcy judge in the United States who supports this legislation. I am hard pressed to find one bankruptcy expert in the United States who supports this legislation. This legislation was written by and for the lenders. It is that simple. Maybe it is different in Rhode Island; I doubt it. I can't remember a conversation in a coffee shop anywhere in Minnesota, be it metro or be it in greater Minnesota, out in rural Minnesota, where people have rushed up to me and said: What we want you to do is please support that bankruptcy bill which will make it more difficult for people who are going under because of medical bills or because they have lost their job or because of a divorce in their family to rebuild their lives. Please, Senator, that is our priority. I hear people talking about children and a good education. I hear young working people talking about affordable child care. I hear elderly people talking about the price of prescription drugs. I hear elderly people terrified, along with their children, about what will happen to them at the end of their life if they are faced with catastrophic medical expenses. I hear people talking about all of the health insecurity they feel because they don't believe they have good coverage or because it costs much more than they can afford. I hear veterans who are concerned about veterans health care. This Thursday we are going to have a hearing in the veterans committee, which Senator Rockefeller chairs, on homeless veterans. I am guessing that probably a third of all the homeless males--too many are women and children--are veterans, and most of them are Vietnam vets. Many of them are struggling with PTSD. Many are struggling with substance abuse. It is a scam that these veterans are homeless in America. I hear discussion about why can't we do better for veterans. I hear concern about the environment. I hear concern about energy costs. I hear concern about a fair price in farm country. I hear small businesspeople talk to me about how hard it is to have access to capital. I don't see the ground swell of support all around the United States for this piece of legislation. What in the world are we doing debating this piece of legislation in the Senate today? Why is this legislation out here? What kind of good does this do for the people we represent? It does a lot of good for the credit card companies. It does a lot of good for the financial services industry. I know that. I would just like somebody to explain to me how it does a lot of good for ordinary people, those folks who don't hire the lobbyists, the people who don't have the big bucks, the people we see every day. I hope we see them every day when we are back home. It is ridiculous on its face that we can divorce the behavior of the credit card companies from the high number of bankruptcies. Indeed, all the evidence points to the fact that the lenders and their poor practices are a big part of the problem. It is just outrageous we don't take them on. I call this going down the path of least political resistance. It is easy to pass legislation that has such a cruel and harsh effect on people who are being put under because of medical bills or because they have lost their jobs. They don't have that much economic clout, and they don't have that much political clout. As a matter of fact, I will come up with an amendment on our bill sometime when there is an appropriate vehicle that will go after the credit card companies and the lenders on their lending practices; we will have a vote on it. Then it will be more difficult because we have to go against those interests, but we ought to at least have some balance. In the debate last week, my friend from Alabama stood up and said that the core of this bill is the means test. All the means test does is force those folks with high incomes to go to chapter 13. What is wrong with that? Therefore, the bill doesn't hurt low-income people. The means test is only 9 pages of a 200-page bill. If the means test were all this bill consisted of, then it would have passed 12 years ago. We have been trying to hold this matter up for 2\1/2\ years, something such as that. The bankruptcy bill purports to target abuses of the bankruptcy code by wealthy scofflaws and deadbeats who make up 3 percent of the filers, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. Yet hundreds of thousands of Americans file for bankruptcy every year, not to game the system but because they are overwhelmed by medical bills or job loss or divorce. Unfortunately, there are at least 15 provisions in both bills that make it harder to get a fresh start regardless of whether the debtor is a scofflaw and/or a person who must file because they are made insolvent by their medical debt. These include, but are in addition to, the means test. Neither the means tests nor the safe harbor in this bill applies to the vast majority of the new burdens placed on debtors under both bills. Debtors will face these hurdles to filing regardless of their circumstance. The final point made by proponents last week was actually made by several Senators. I think in some ways it is the most insidious. The argument advanced is that the bill is good for women and children because it places child support as the first priority debt to be paid in bankruptcy. First, it is the case that this is a useful change in the law as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it doesn't go very far. Child support is already nondischargeable in bankruptcy. In theory under this bill, a woman who is owed child support is more likely to receive that support from her deadbeat husband while he is going through bankruptcy. But once he emerges from bankruptcy, the other provisions of these bills will make it less likely that his ex-wife or kids will get anything. Under current law, an ex-spouse postbankruptcy often has few other debts; they have all been discharged. The child support is nondischargeable. After his other debts are gone, the ex-spouse can devote more of their income to their support obligations. In this way, the current law actually helps women and children because they don't have to compete with other more sophisticated creditors postbankruptcy. But under this bill, the ex-spouse will emerge with much more debt than under current law. Less credit card debt is dischargeable. Creditors will have more leeway to force reaffirmations, agreements where debtors reaffirm their intention to pay back debt, and so the debt is not wiped out in bankruptcy. The net effect is that women and children whose spouses file for bankruptcy under this bill will have to compete more than ever with auto dealers, with big retailers such as Sears, and with credit card companies for the paycheck of their ex-husband. Do we think they are going to do well? The Senate giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. That is part of the reason that 31 groups that are devoted to women's and children's issues oppose this bill. I can't think of one women's or children's organization that supports this legislation. May I make one other point. There is another reason. That is, one group of citizens--in fact, it is the fastest growing number of citizens who file for bankruptcy--are women. Since 1981, the number of women filing increased 700 percent. Divorced women are the ones who end up supporting the children. Income drops. Are single women with children deadbeats? This bill assumes they are. The new nondischargeability of credit card debt will hit hard those women who use the cards to tide them over after a divorce until their income stabilizes. The ``safe harbor'' in the House bill, which proponents argue will shield low- and moderate-income debtors from the means test, will not benefit many single mothers who need help the most because it is based on the combined income of the debtor and the debtor's spouse--are you ready for this--even if they are separated, the spouse is not filing for bankruptcy, and the spouse is providing no debt for the debtor and her children. That is figured in as the mother's income. I will tell you something. This is one harsh, mean-spirited piece of legislation, and I am stunned that so many Senators are supporting it. Now, while I am waiting for Senator Durbin to come to the floor, let me talk about the pending amendment to this bill, which is actually the text of the bill that the Senate passed earlier this year. Here is where I will give the Senate some credit. We started this year with a truly terrible, completely one-sided bill. It was basically identical to the House version. The committee marked it up over the chairman's objections and made improvements. Once it was considered by the Senate, additional improvements were made. The Senate bill is still a very bad piece of legislation. Unfortunately, most of what we have accomplished has been nibbling around the edges. But it is better than the House bill; that is clear. The Senate bill has better credit card disclosure provisions. They are inadequate, but the House is completely silent on that. The Senate bill allows more credit to be discharged, thanks to an amendment by Senator Boxer. The Leahy amendment fixed the ``separated spouse problem'' with the safe harbor. Why there was even a fight on that is beyond me. The House bill has no such fix. The Senate bill is less harsh when it comes to filing chapter 13 cases. We also limited some but not all of the hurdles this bill creates in the successful filing of chapter 13 cases. A Feingold amendment adopted in committee protects, to some degree, renters from eviction if they pay the overdue rent when they file for bankruptcy. Very significant is the Kohl amendment on the homestead exemption. With its adoption, the Senate takes on wealthy debtors who file frivolous claims and shield their assets in multimillion-dollar mansions. This is a real abuse of the current system and it ought to be corrected. Five States, under current law, allow a debtor to shield from creditors an unlimited amount of equity in their home. In fact, the Florida Supreme Court, in a case last month, established that even if a debtor uses Florida's unlimited homestead exemption for nakedly fraudulent purposes, there is nothing the courts can do. You would think that with all the bluster of the proponents of the bill about curbing abuse of the deadbeats they would rush to close this loophole. Not so. Senator Kohl had to drag the Senate kicking and screaming to plug this obvious gap. Unfortunately, the House and the President have drawn a line in the sand over this issue. While the House of Representatives--or at least the majority party in the House--and the President of the United States of America support harsh, punitive hurdles to a fresh start for low- and moderate-income folks who virtually nobody claims are abusing the system, they are unprepared to go to the mat for folks who want to protect their mansions and who are openly flouting their obligation. May I repeat this again. The Republicans in the House of Representatives and the President of the United States support a very harsh and punitive piece of legislation making it very difficult for people to rebuild their lives--people who have been put under because of medical bills, for example. On the other hand, they have no problem with folks who want to protect their property and protect their income by buying these multimillion-dollar mansions in States in the country and shielding themselves from any obligation. It doesn't get any weirder than that--actually, it does. It does if the Senate conferees--and I don't have any illusion; this bill will go to conference--knuckle under to the House on any of these issues. I think the Senate conferees should be trying to improve this bill further in conference. I think that is Senator Leahy's intention, and I salute him for it. But I certainly hope you can get the backing of the Senate conferees. I have to worry about what is going to happen in the conference committee. Look at the past. Look at the evidence from the past. Since 1998, the House has passed terrible bills. The Senate has passed better bills. Every time it emerges from conference, it is a nightmare. I hope that doesn't happen again, and I certainly hope all of the Senate conferees will stick with the Senate position on the Kohl amendment, the Schumer amendment, and other efforts which have made the bill at least slightly better. This time, I am sorry to say, this legislation is much more likely to become law. With this President, this ridiculous giveaway to the big banks and credit card companies is going to make it. To the everlasting credit of President Clinton, he vetoed this legislation. Look, I was certainly one of his critics in the Senate. I have to admit that sometimes as I look at the values and policy preferences of this administration, I certainly miss the Clinton administration. I certainly do. But to give credit where it is due, President Clinton vetoed this legislation. The White House has all but said they will sign the bill, as long as it protects wealthy deadbeats and their mansions. That is the position of the White House: We will sign this piece of legislation as long as you guarantee us that you will protect the wealthy deadbeats and their mansions--as in Texas. I am afraid, given what wealth and power get you in this town, given the kind of backing this bill has, and given that some of the biggest investors of both parties are involved, it is going to be far too easy for the majority of the conferees to go along with this proposition. I am sorry, I am going to repeat this again. People in Minnesota--I do no damage to the truth--and I think people in Rhode Island do not know about this legislation or any of the details. I promise you, they will be deeply offended with this proposition, that a whole lot of people-- because a few people game the system. True, a small percentage. Every independent study says that regarding bankruptcy. If we pass this piece of legislation that basically makes it impossible for a lot of good people, middle-class people, low- and moderate-income people, who, through no fault of their own--there but for the grace of God go I-- through the loss of job, medical bills, you name it, find themselves in brutal circumstances, this legislation is going to make it difficult to rebuild their lives. At the same time, this piece of legislation, because of the insistence of the President and the Republicans in the House of Representatives, is going to protect wealthy deadbeats and their mansions and enable people to shield their assets--not the people I am talking about but the wealthy people. Does that make any sense whatsoever? That offends me as a Senator from Minnesota. I hope I am wrong. I hope the Democratic conferees in the Senate will support Senator Leahy, the chairman. He has done good work on this bill under very difficult circumstances. He did good work with an equally divided Senate. I don't agree on the final product, but I am not going to ignore some of the improvements. I just hope the Democrats in the Senate do not let him down. Mr. President, I will conclude on this note. Last week, the Senate voted to move forward to conference. The Senate voted overwhelmingly. I think it is fair to say that. The die is cast. It is going to happen. I can block the Senate, I suppose, for a week, but the result will be no different. I know that. I came to the Chamber last week. I have come to the Chamber today. I will have another amendment probably postcloture, but I do not know how to stop this any longer. I do not know of any way to stop it. Let me say this: I will have an amendment that is going to call for a GAO study of this bill over the next 2 years, and I say to Senators, there should be 100 votes for it. I will wait to use my hour after the vote to talk about it, but there should be 100 votes for it. I am going to go over each of the arguments and ask GAO to look at them, and we will see who is right or wrong. I am not saying that in some macho way. I am saying at a minimum we ought to be willing to have an evaluation of this legislation and what it is going to do to people. I do not regret holding up this legislation. Maybe it comes with being 5 foot 6 inches. I am almost defiantly proud, along with the help of other Senators, in stopping this, in blocking it, in fighting it. I do not regret it at all. This bill should not be moving forward. I do not think it should be a priority. I am in disagreement with the Senate majority leader on this question. I think it is too harsh and too one- sided. Unfortunately, it is a perfect reflection of who all too often has the power in the Nation's Capital. With the economy heading in the wrong direction right now and slowing up and people losing jobs and people being underemployed--that is to say, they are not counted among the ranks of the official unemployed, but they are not working at the kinds of jobs they would be working at with a better economy, and people under more economic pressure and more economic strain--this is the worst time to pass this legislation. In fact, I do not know--maybe this is a stretch. I read an article the other day in the New York Times that a number of economists were expressing their concern that it has been the consumer spending which has kept the economy going because a lot of business investment is way down now. They are saying they do not know how much longer consumers will continue to spend. There is a fair amount of debt. I imagine this legislation may, in fact, add to our economic troubles. People may be even more skiddish about consuming; they may be even more reluctant to be buyers, especially if they are going to wind up in the poorhouse for the rest of their life. This legislation does not make sense on economic grounds. It does not make sense in terms of what people in our States are asking us to do and what our priorities should be. This legislation should not be before the Senate. I am in disagreement with my majority leader on this question. This legislation violates the basic standard of elementary justice. It is going to pass, but it should not. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.