Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I share the Senator's understanding of how section 6 differs from the provisions of section 5. I would only add that the drafters considered which parties should have the discretion to enforce the bill in the manner set forth in section 6, and decided that section 6 should be enforced by the FTC only.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as Congress considers Medicare and prescription drugs, I keep remembering the older people whose stories spurred me to choose a career in public service. For 7 years, before I came to the Congress, I worked with seniors and spent many hours visiting with them in their homes. During those visits, seniors would often bring out shoeboxes full of health insurance policies that were supposed to fill the gaps in their Medicare. It was common for a senior then to have seven or eight of these policies, and many of them were not worth the paper they were written on. Slick, fast-talking insurance hucksters kept coming around and scaring the older folks, and it was heartbreaking to see seniors ripped off this way. After working all their lives, seniors would go without each month because they were paying for junk health insurance policies with the precious funds they needed to pay the heating bill or buy some groceries. When I got elected to the Congress, I vowed to stop this fleecing of America's seniors. I helped to write the first and only tough law to stop the ripoffs of private health insurance sold to the elderly. This statute has worked to drain the swamp of fly-by-night Medigap policies that used to rob seniors blind. The days of the shoebox full of health insurance policies are gone, but the skyrocketing drug costs and lack of access to medicine--two of the problems that plagued seniors even back then--are more of a problem today. During those home visits I made with seniors, I saw firsthand the pain they felt when they couldn't afford lifesaving medicine. Their anguish was physical, and it was emotional. They feared for their futures. They worried that the choices that financial constraints forced on them would not be the right ones. We are very familiar with those stories today. Caseworkers in every office in the Senate hear them constantly. A senior is supposed to take four pills, but because they can't make ends meet, they take three or two. Eventually, that senior ends up in the hospital where the hospital portion of Medicare, known as Part A, covers drug treatment, but often it is too late. I have tried to rewrite stories such as that since I came to the Congress. That is why I worked with Senator Pryor's father so that States could bargain aggressively and get more for their Medicaid dollar when buying prescription drugs that would help the low-income elderly. I have tried to expand coverage for generic drugs. I have worked to supplement those efforts by creating new health care options for seniors, including in-home care and increased payments for providers in low-cost areas, funds that can be used to offer prescription drug benefits to some of the elderly. Because of my history, I am acutely aware that there is so much more to do. The reason the debate on this bill is so important is that Government has the obligation to do right by a generation that deserves our respect and care and not give those seniors the runaround. My years working with the older people have governed the decision I have made on this bill. I have tried to keep the focus on determining whether this prescription drug benefit legislation would make a genuine positive difference for a significant number of older people or whether it falls short of that objective. As part of the process, I have developed a set of criteria to evaluate this legislation. I would like to describe the questions I believed were key and the answers I have found. The first question I asked was: Does this bill help a significant number of older people with low incomes or big prescription drug bills? In their editorial endorsing this legislation, the New York Times stated: The bill is strongest when it comes to the most important target groups: Elderly people with low incomes or very high drug bills. It is not my job to take the word of editorial writers simply because they are just one voice in a chorus that comes from both sides. So I have gone to some length to examine the figures and data from all perspectives. I looked at the data that has been available from those strongly in favor of the legislation, such as the Federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I looked at the information from those strongly opposed to the bill, such as the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The critics say the legislation has significant gaps in coverage for seniors, especially those of modest income. Proponents of the bill claim that millions of seniors will have coverage they did not have before. There does seem to be truth on both counts. So I have tried to keep the focus on figures that were beyond any doubt. Using data from the 2000 Oregon census, my staff and I have determined that 78,829 older people in Oregon had prescription costs that exceeded $5,000, and under this bill these seniors would have their prescription drug costs reduced by one-half. Using 2001 data from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, my staff determined that Oregon has 106,765 seniors on Medicare with incomes at or below $12,123 for an individual or $16,362 for a couple. Under this legislation, this low-income group would pay no premium for their drug coverage and would be responsible for a copay of no more than $2 for generic drugs and no more than $5 for brand name drugs. The least fortunate would pay only $1 for generics and $3 for brand name drugs. Most seniors with low incomes and high drug costs are likely to be eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. These older people are known as dual eligibles. This legislation assures that they receive at least some measure of prescription drug coverage through Medicare so they are not left at the mercy of perennial State budget crises and so they will not have to compete against other vulnerable groups in State budget battles. Another factor I considered was the expectations for this legislation. What I hear from seniors at senior centers and at meal sites is that expectations are very high. I know some seniors will find that this bill does not offer benefits that match their expectations. Some seniors fear this bill is going to fence them in and require that they participate in a program they do not support. So at the very least, because this program is voluntary, it strikes me as a plus that no senior will be forced to accept the terms of this legislation. So on this particular issue, with respect to who benefits, what we found that seniors in my State with very high drug bills would have their costs reduced by half. We found a great many low-income people who would receive very significant benefits with no premium and a very modest copay for their drugs. The second question we asked was: How does this bill affect seniors who currently get their prescription drug coverage through corporate retiree benefit packages? Almost every day now we pick up a newspaper and read about another employer dropping their retiree benefits or cutting them back significantly. There has been a dramatic reduction in corporate retiree health benefits, and it is taking place right now before the enactment or rejection of any legislation. The percentage of large employers offering retiree health benefits over a relatively short period of time has dropped from 66 percent to 34 percent. Consistently, the employers who keep coverage have required the retirees to shell out for higher copayments and premiums. Employers say they have to make these cuts because of the rising costs of health care and the effects of a lousy economy. Now along comes the Congress with a bill that many believe will dramatically affect retiree plans in the future. It seems to me that with legislation offering $71 billion to employers to keep their coverage, these funds can only be a plus in developing a strategy for getting more employers to retain existing coverage. This is a subsidy the companies are not going to see absent this legislation. So I ask the Senate: Will companies not be less likely, not more likely, to drop coverage if they get the funds offered tax free under this legislation? I would also note that corporate retiree provisions in the conference report are better than the provisions in the original Senate bill which was approved by more than 75 members of this body. Bernstein Research says employers spend about $1,900 per year per senior on retiree drug benefits. Based on my calculations, this bill gives corporations a significant tax-free incentive to cover not only retiree drug benefits but other senior health care costs as well. The next question I asked was: Does this bill significantly undermine traditional Medicare? Critics of the bill have focused on this issue, and I share their view that seniors believe in Medicare, want to modernize it, and do not want it undermined. The critics seem to believe that any effort, however, to create more choices outside the basic Medicare fee-for-service program is a mistake. I disagree. I believe seniors need good quality choices beyond fee for service. I simply believe those choices must be accompanied by strong consumer protections and that it is essential to strike a balance, making sure that the new choices never, ever cut off access to traditional Medicare that seniors know so well and a program with which they feel so comfortable. I have never been opposed to private sector involvement with Medicare. In many Oregon communities, upwards of 40 percent of the elderly get their Medicare through private plans. The law I wrote stopped the rip-offs of private health supplements to Medicare, standardized 10 private sector policies to help seniors fill the holes in Medicare, and consumer advocates across the country believe that law is working. The key to making the private sector choices work is a combination of strong consumer protections and a level playing field between the private sector choices and health services offered by the Government. I have considerable ambivalence about how this legislation will affect that balance. In the bipartisan prescription drug legislation I drafted with Senator Snowe, we offered private sector options for seniors that contain strong consumer safeguards. Our bill was known as SPICE, the Senior Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It did not tilt the playing field toward the private sector the way the legislation before Congress does today with its health savings accounts and premium support. Unfortunately, the health savings accounts in this bill, which are tax breaks for purchasing health care, are structured to disproportionately benefit the healthy and the wealthy. Seven billion dollars of tax subsidies are directed to these accounts. This has gone from a demonstration project to a major expense, one that siphons away funds that could go to beef up the drug benefits. Another drawback of the legislation is the premium support provisions, which are designed to test competition between traditional Medicare and private plans. These could drive seniors out of the fee- for-service programs they want. Premium support demonstrations could allow insurance companies to cherry-pick the healthy seniors, leaving the truly ill to go to poorly funded Government programs that are sicker than they are. Even though premium support doesn't start until 2010, I don't believe it has a responsible role to play in this legislation. I don't believe this legislation is going to wipe out traditional Medicare. I do believe that Congress is going to have to be extraordinarily vigilant with respect to ensuring that traditional Medicare can coexist and prosper along with the new choices. Without careful management, it is certainly possible that health savings accounts and premium support could tilt the Medicare Program away from providing traditional fee for service for all the seniors who want it. If this legislation passes, it will be the job of the Congress to make sure that does not happen. The next question I asked is especially important. Virtually every senior in America wants to know: What will this legislation do to keep their prescription drug bills down? In my mind, the key to effective containing of prescription costs is to make sure older people have bargaining power in the health care marketplace. Today, when a senior gets his or her prescriptions through a health plan with many members, that plan has significantly more bargaining power than that same senior would have by walking into a Walgreen's, a Safeway, or a Fred Meyer to buy medicine. Getting seniors more purchasing power by getting them into large buying groups is an absolute prerequisite for a long-term strategy for keeping prescription costs down for older people. That was the principle behind the Medicaid drug rebate law that I helped author with the first Senator Pryor. That is the principle that Senator Snowe and I have proposed in our bipartisan legislation. We looked to a market-based proposal that was built around the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, a program that has been proven to contain costs because of the sheer size of the group of Federal employees for which it bargains. I think it is very unfortunate that this legislation did not put in place a model like the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan to contain costs. But I think it has to be noted that some baby steps in the right direction have been taken with respect to cost containment. The bill begins to leverage the potential bargaining power of 30 million seniors by giving older people the opportunity to join large managed care plans and big fee-for-service plans that can use their sheer numbers to negotiate discounts for older people on their medicine. The bill also removes some of the barriers to getting cheaper generics to market faster. It also recognizes that there is great value in comparing the effectiveness of similar drugs so seniors, providers, and the Government can spend funds on the best medicines at the lowest cost. This is very much in keeping with the way my own State has approached cost containment. I do wish this bill went further on cost containment. There should be a way to bargain for even bigger segments of the elderly, not just the fractions of the population who end up in HMOs or various private health plans. I am concerned that while private plans have the power to bargain under this bill, the Medicare Program is barred from giving seniors the kind of bargaining power that Senator Snowe and I wanted them to have in our model that looked to the Federal employee program for seniors. I am also concerned that there is not ongoing monitoring to assure that drug prices are not increased unfairly before the bill takes effect, or in the first few months after it does. So the legislation does not contain costs the way Senator Snowe and I would have liked. It does take some modest steps in the right direction. It borrows from the principles of our legislation, but in the end I strongly believe that more and better cost containment measures with respect to prescriptions are going to be needed in the future. Next, I asked: Does this legislation address Medicare's broader challenges, including the large number of retirees that will join in the near future? A demographic tsunami is about to occur in our country. As the baby boomers come of age, there are going to be extraordinary pressures on our health care system. Health care advances mean that seniors will live longer, and many of those advances will come in pill form. What is exciting is that the more researchers learn about the way medicines affect individuals, the more personalized treatments, emphasizing pharmaceuticals, will become. Drugs that work one way for Bob will work differently for Mary. In the years ahead, I believe a new field known as ``personalized medicine through pharmaceuticals'' is going to help to increase the quality of patient care and cut down on wasteful spending. As of now, however, baby boomers face the prospect of joining a Medicare Program that is already short of funds. That is why the $400 billion authorized in this legislation is a lifeline for the baby boomers who are going to retire in just a few years. Those funds provide some measure of security for future retirees, and some tangible evidence that Congress is laying the groundwork to support the growing Medicare population which will need both prescription drugs and the broader program. There are several modest benefits in this bill, in addition, that sounds exciting to me for Medicare's future. One would focus on an approach known as disease management. This is going to be attractive in the years ahead because it will allow many of our country's future seniors to have better, more cost-effective care for chronic conditions. Medicare has lacked this benefit. In addition to these direct benefits for seniors, the legislation helps gear up Medicare for the baby boomers with significant increases to many deserving health care providers. Over 10 years, hospitals in my State will receive almost $95 million. I am especially pleased that a number of medical providers, a number of our hospitals that now see a small number of patients and those that have a large share of patients who are too poor to pay for their care, would get help. In addition, doctors across the country who are expecting decreases in Medicare reimbursements in 2004 and 2005 would find this reduction blocked in this legislation. In fact, the legislation increases Medicare provider payments in both of the years where otherwise there would be cutbacks. This is important because Government cost shifts have already cut reimbursement to doctors, many of whom have large numbers of low-income patients, to record lows. I would also note that these benefits to providers will be especially useful in rural areas where we have the nationwide crisis with respect to declining access as a result of providers simply not being able to stay in business. Finally, I ask one last question that looked beyond the issue of prescription drugs. I asked: Is there any way this legislation could provide a path to a health care system that works, not just for older people, but for all Americans? There is a provision in this bill that offers health care hope, not just to seniors, but for all Americans. It is a provision that I helped to write with Senator Hatch, based on our Health Care that Works for All Americans Act. This legislation would ensure that, for the very first time, the American people would be involved in the process of comprehensive health care reform. There would be a blueprint for making health care more accessible and more affordable, not just to seniors, but for all Americans. Senator Hatch and I have been able to convince those on the Medicare conference committee that the key is to make sure that the public understands what the real choices are with respect to health care, how the health care dollar is used today, and how it might be used in the future. In 1993, then-President Clinton announced his intention to create a health care system that worked for all Americans. But by the time that 1,390-page bill was written with no input from the public, sent to the Congress, and torn apart on the airwaves by special interest groups, the people couldn't distinguish the truth from the special interest spin, and the effort died. Without public support, the opportunity for change was lost. The bipartisan leadership of the Senate at that time has told Senator Hatch and I that, had our bill been in effect in 1993, our country would be well on its way to implementing a system that ensured coverage for all our citizens. So I think it is of additional benefit that this legislation gives us a chance to restart the debate that died in 1994. Our legislation creates a Citizens Health Care Working Group that would take steps, through on-line opportunities, townhall meetings and other forms, to involve the public; and then there is a requirement, after that public involvement, that the Congress follow up on the views that come from the citizens' participation. There are tough calls to be made in today's health care system, including in the Medicare Program. But it is time to make them together. I think if one lesson has been learned in the last few months of discussion about prescription drugs, it is that health care is like an ecosystem. When you make changes in one area, such as prescription drugs, it can affect many other areas, such as corporate retiree benefits, provider payments, and various other parts of the health care system. The legislation Senator Hatch and I have put together and which is included in this conference report treats health care as an entire and a systemwide concern for the American people. Nothing is taken off the table. I believe there is in that legislation a path to making sure this Congress helps not just older people but sets out ways to ensure that all Americans have access to good quality and affordable health care. Finally, let me note that collegiality hasn't exactly been one of the watchwords of the debate over this legislation. There have been some very cold considerations entering into this discussion. I know that some believe passage of this legislation will hand the President a great victory. Others on the other side of the aisle say Democrats who oppose this bill shouldn't dare raise questions. Those aren't the concerns that ought to drive the debate on Medicare at a time when the country has to get ready for a demographic phenomenon. Polarization and division do not do our country any good. This legislation is a very tough call for me and I think for many others. Congress could make a mistake by believing the $400 billion available in this legislation will still be there in February of 2005. As a member of the Budget Committee, I know how hard it has been to get funding for this benefit. When Senator Snowe and I began in 1999 to work for funding for a drug benefit, the Senate thought we lassoed the Moon when we successfully got $40 billion in the budget. How then can you argue that Congress should walk away from $400 billion? I wish there were a better bill. I wish it didn't include medical savings accounts and premium support and had done better in the area of cost containment. There are going to be various procedural considerations that may come out, and I intend to weigh each of them before I vote on those procedural concerns. If it finally becomes clear that the bill, as is, represents the Senate's sole opportunity to inject $400 billion in long-sought prescription drug benefits in Medicare, I will vote yes. At the end of the day, I will not vote to let the last train that leaves the Senate go out without $400 billion that can be used to help vulnerable seniors and those who are getting crushed by prescription drug costs. I will continue to fight to make this legislation better and for better health care for all Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, I just want to clarify one matter. My understanding is, and it is printed in the calendar, that there is already an order of speakers that has been established. I want to make clear that that will be recognized as we go forward today. I certainly will not object to the request of the distinguished minority leader. I just want to be clear that that will be the order of the speakers.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, consistent with my policy of publishing in the Record a statement whenever I place a hold on legislation, I am announcing my intention to object to any unanimous consent request on S. 1896, the Tax Relief Extension Act, and to H.R. 1664, the Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act. I am doing so because these bills are the only relevant amendable legislation expected to be taken up in the Senate before the end of the current session and, therefore, they provide the only opportunity to extend unemployment benefits before they expire at the end of the year. Oregon currently has the highest unemployment rate in the Nation with an unemployment rate of 8 percent. Extension of unemployment benefits is critical for many Oregonians who are in jeopardy of running out of benefits if they are not extended before the end of the year. In order to ensure unemployed workers in Oregon and many other states will not be left without benefits, I am objecting to unanimous consent on S. 1896 or H.R. 1664, unless extension of unemployment benefits and reform of a lookback rule that affects Oregon and other high unemployment states is included as part of the legislation.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I have the same understanding of this matter as the Senator from California.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I want to commend Senator Craig. He and I have been working with Senator Feinstein in particular on this legislation in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We have really been a triumvirate with respect to this issue. I am so pleased to have a chance to be on the Senate floor today to speak on this conference report. This is the first forest management bill to pass both Houses in the U.S. Congress in 27 years. The fact is, the forestry legislation that is now on its way to the President of the United States will protect our communities. It will offer the first legal protection for old-growth trees, and it will create jobs. As the distinguished Senator from Idaho, Mr. Craig, just noted, this legislation came together because at every stage of the process Senators said we want to get beyond the old rhetoric. We want to get beyond the polarization that has dominated this issue in the past, and we want to, in particular, take meaningful action to protect our communities. That is what this legislation has been all about. The fires in the West, as the Senator from Idaho has known through his field hearings and other such sectors, have literally be infernos. We just felt it was critical to take steps to ensure that the rural West wouldn't be sacrificed. I am proud today to rise in support of the conference report on H.R. 1904. This conference report is based upon the Senate-based wildfire bill compromise brokered by Senators Feinstein, Craig, Cochran, Domenici and myself passed by the Senate on October 30. With the good faith efforts of Representatives Pombo, Goodlatte, and my friend and colleague from Oregon, Representative Walden, this conference report has made only minor changes to the Senate approved version. This legislation will get us back on track restoring forests, protecting the environment, and putting people back to work in rural communities. This conference report is the first forest management bill to pass both houses of the United States Congress in 27 years. The last time Congress was able to send a forest management bill to the President of the United States, the President was Gerald Ford and it was the Nation's bicentennial. The bill was the National Forest Management Act of 1976. The world has changed a lot in the last 27 years. Forest management and forest-related economies have changed dramatically. Americans have grown more interested in protecting the environment while using natural resources to support rural communities like those in my home state of Oregon. The conference report we passed today reflects some of those changes: it contains the first ever statutory recognition and meaningful protection of old growth forests and large trees, while streamlining a National Environmental Policy Act process that has seemed to favor paperwork over forest health. This conference report will streamline restorative forestry in forests at risk of unnaturally catastrophic fires resulting from 100 years of fire suppression. It provides the authorities and guidelines for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to treat unhealthy forests while preserving public input and protecting old growth it's a truly balanced approach to forest health. There were times when I was not sure this day would come. After the Senate passed our version of H.R. 1904 on October 30, 2003, there was doubt and disagreement on how to proceed with the House of Representatives. As a solution to the gridlock threatening the final passage of wildfire legislation, Senator Feinstein and I proposed informal meetings. The staffs of the two Houses reached the agreement on Title I, the forest health title, through these informal meetings that allowed for a formal conference on all the rest of the Titles. That conference was held Thursday, November 20. I lost a couple of provisions for Oregon that I cared deeply about. But, I am overall pleased that the forest health provisions worked out so diligently by both Houses were preserved intact. The Senate said there were four features that were particularly important to us to maintain in the legislation. First, we said we have to have the funding to do the job right. We are not going to get this work done without funding to get this work done on the ground. I am very pleased with the conference report in that it keeps that funding intact. I am very pleased that the conference report will authorize $760 million annually for the projects, a $340 million increase over current funding. It also ensures that we spend the money in the right place. That is in the area known as the wildland/urban interface. The Senate took one approach, the House had other ideas. With some very minor tweaking, this, too, was preserved in terms of the work done by the Senate. On the old-growth part of the legislation, I am especially pleased because all Americans value these unique treasures, our very large old- growth trees. Professor Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington is considered the leading authority on this subject. He says our provisions with respect to old growth are a major step forward. I am particularly pleased and honored to have Dr. Franklin's comments on this. He is the authority, as Chairman Craig knows, on this subject. For those who have followed the environmental aspects of the forestry legislation, let the word go out that Professor Jerry Franklin from the University of Washington, one of the most distinguished scholars in this field--not just now but at any time--believes this is a significant step forward in terms of environmental protection. We were able to protect the public involvement aspect of forestry policy. Citizens all across this country--whether in Senator Dodd's part of the world in Connecticut or any other part of the country--feel passionately about their natural resources and want to be involved in the debate over this process. As Senator Craig has noted, we have streamlined the process but we have preserved every single opportunity for the public to comment. Every opportunity that exists today, for the public to comment on forestry legislation, has been preserved in this bipartisan compromise. Finally, the Senate conferees did very well at defending the Senate compromise. The Senate kept the number one issue the environmental community was concerned about off the table and preserved the Senate compromise position on judicial process. In negotiating this bill, I did not accept the notion that any special deference beyond the deference that is ordinarily due should be given to any agency determinations under the Act, except where explicitly provided in the statute's text. In fact, the conference report expressly rejected the House bill's language giving special deference to agency determinations. This section, section 106 of Title I, limits venue for these hazardous fuels reduction cases exclusively to the district court for the district in which the federal land to be treated is located. It also encourages expedited review of jurisdictional and substantive issues leading to resolution of cases as soon as practicable. In addition, this section limits the duration of any injunctions and stays pending appeal to 60 days and provides an opportunity to renew an injunction and stay pending appeal. It also requires the parties to the action to present updated information regarding the status of the authorized hazardous fuel reduction project in connection with such injunction and stay renewals. This last provision is intended to provide an incentive and opportunity for the parties to the complaint to work together to resolve their differences or explain to the judge why that is not possible over time. This section also directs the courts to balance the impact to the ecosystem likely affected by the project of the short- and long-term effects of undertaking the agency action, against the short- and long- term effects of not undertaking the agency action. There can be environmental risks associated with both management action and inaction. America is acutely aware that the past few fire seasons have been among the worst in modern history in terms of effects on natural resources, people and private property. Air pollution problems are rising and wildland fires have forced thousands to evacuate. In 2002 in one state alone, Colorado, 77,000 residents were evacuated for periods of a few days to several weeks. Seventeen thousand people in Oregon's Illinois Valley were on half-hour evacuation notice the same year. In 2002, millions of dollars of property damage included the destruction of over 2300 homes and other buildings. It is becoming increasingly evident that while one cannot uncut a tree, similarly one cannot unburn a forest. In hazardous fuel reduction projects it is important to focus on the removal of the right vegetation to modify fire behavior-- primarily surface and ladder fuels. At the same time, there can also be adverse environmental consequences of hazardous fuel reduction projects, including but not limited to loss of wildlife habitat, increased sedimentation in streams, soil compaction, and fragmenting of unroaded areas. As documented by the General Accounting Office, poorly designed vegetation treatments in the past have contributed to increased fire risk by removing the large and fire resistant trees, while leaving highly flammable smaller trees behind. This Act is intended to foster prompt and sound decision making rather than perfectly executed procedures and documentation. Environmental analyses should concentrate on issues that are essential to the proposed projects rather than on amassing needless detail. Section 106 is intended to reinforce Congress's desire that the totality of circumstances be assessed by the courts to assure that public interest in the environmental health of our forests will be served. Let me be more specific about a few of the other provisions of this legislation. The Senate also prevailed in keeping the Senate funding requirements and levels, preserving the Senate NEPA language on at-risk lands outside the wildland urban interface; preserving the Senate old growth and large tree protections, and preserving the Senate administrative appeals process. The legislation changes the environmental review process so the Forest Service still considers the effects of the proposed project in detail, but can focus its analysis on the project proposal, one reasonable alternative that meets the project's goals and the alternative of not doing the project, instead of the 5-9 alternatives now often required. In the highest priority areas within one mile and a half of communities, the Forest Service need only study the proposed action and no alternatives. There is no relaxation from current law in any areas, however, in how closely the Forest Service must study the environmental effects of the project it is proposing to undertake. The changes that were made to the Senate compromise on H.R. 1904 include more relief and respect for rural forested communities. This conference report allows a single action alternative to be analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act inside the wildland urban interface defined as 1.5 miles from the community boundary. Within the area identified for protection as the wildland urban interface under a community fire plan, the agency is not required to analyze the ``no action'' alternative under NEPA, but is required to analyze two action alternatives. This conference report also limits the treatment of diseased forests to those with epidemics, whereas the Senate compromise allowed the treatment of forests with only an infestation of bugs. This conference report preserves all current opportunities for public input and appeal, while streamlining the appeals process and eliminating some of its worst abuses. Not one current opportunity for public comment would be lost under the compromise. The compromise will require the Forest Service to rewrite their appeals process using the pre-decisional appeals and comment process that has been used by the Bureau of Land Management since 1984. It works by encouraging the public to engage in a collaborative process with the agency to improve projects before final decisions have been rendered upon them by the agency. This model places a premium on constructive public input and collaboration, and less emphasis on the litigation and confrontation of the post-decisional appeals process currently used by the Forest Service. The compromise is designed to move from the current model of confrontation, litigation and delay to one which places a premium on constructive, good faith public input. Whereas in the past, parties could ``sandbag'' the appeals process by not raising salient points in hopes of later derailing the entire proposed action in the courts, parties would not be allowed to litigate on issues they had failed to raise in the comment or appeal period unless those issues or critical information concerning them arose after the close of the appeals process--as a result of the revised agency decision. This conference report provides the first-ever statutory recognition and meaningful protection of old growth forests. Never before has Congress recognized by statute the importance of maintaining old growth stands. Under the compromise, the Forest Service must protect these trees by preventing the agency from logging the most fire-resilient trees under the guise of fuels reduction under these new authorities. The issue of old growth continues to be the subject of considerable scientific inquiry and debate. What is not subject to debate is the special character and ecological value of old growth. Clearly, it is the intent of Congress that in interpreting the provisions of section 102(e), federal agencies affirmatively recognize the special importance of old growth forests while maintaining the deference they are due unless their determinations are arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion. This legislation is designed to address past mismanagement of federal forests, and to protect old-growth so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. The majority of old-growth stands are healthy, and don't require management. In some old-growth stands in the drier parts of the west, where natural fire regimes have been disrupted by a century of fire suppression, silviculture with a minimum of disturbance can be appropriate that will restore natural forest structure and fire regimes. Where old growth stands are healthy, as they are throughout much of the forest on the west side of the Cascade Ridge in Oregon, the compromise requires that they be ``fully maintained.'' Section 102(e) of the conference addresses the treatment by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management of old growth stands that may occur on authorized hazardous fuels treatment projects. Since recently issued resource management plans of the two agencies are supposed to provide guidance on the treatment of old growth Section 102(e) directs the agencies to rely on the old growth definitions contained in resource management plans that were established in the ten-year period prior to the enactment of the legislation. Older plans must be reviewed, and if necessary, revised and updated, to take into account relevant information that was not considered in developing the existing definitions or other direction relating to old growth. Any revision or update must meet the requirements of subsection 102(e)(2), which requires the Secretary, in carrying out authorized hazardous fuels treatment projects, to fully maintain, or contribute toward the restoration of, the structure and composition of structurally complex old growth stands according to the pre-fire suppression old growth conditions characteristic of the forest type, taking into account the contribution of the stand to landscape fire adaptation and watershed health, and retaining the large trees contributing to old growth structure. Nothing in the bill is intended to prohibit or restrict establishing other standards for old growth stands where purposes other than hazardous fuel management are being pursued under other authorities. The intent of section 102(e)(4) is to avoid disrupting resource management plan revisions that are already underway. Comprehensive revision of older resource management plans may be preferable to separate amendments or updates for old growth standards, and the bill allows additional time for operating under older plans where revisions are in progress. In negotiating this bill, I did not agree to the imposition of any more restrictive standards than the ``substantial supporting evidence'' explicitly set forth in the statute for members of the public's identification of old growth stands during scoping in subsection 102(e)(4)(C). The compromise makes it less likely that old growth will be harvested under current law by mandating the retention of large trees and focusing the hazardous fuels reduction projects authorized by this bill on thinning small diameter trees. In moving this legislation, it was my intent to see that the right work get done in the right way in the right place using the right tools. In other words, to see that the risk of catastrophic fire is reduced through legitimate hazardous fuel reduction activities. These activities are referenced in Section 101(2) of the bill and are spelled out in detail in the Implementation Plan for the Comprehensive Strategy for a Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risk to Communities and the Environment, dated May 2002. That document lists the following tools as being appropriate for hazardous fuel reduction: prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and various mechanical methods such as crushing, tractor and hand piling, thinning, and pruning. In other words, this bill does not authorize a new wave of large tree commercial timber sales. It must be noted that the bill emphasizes the avoidance of the cutting of large trees in Section 102(f), where it specifically states that protects must focus largely on small diameter trees, thinning, strategic fuelbreaks and prescribed fire to modify fire behavior and that projects maximize the retention of large trees. Section 104(f) requires the agencies to focus on small diameter trees, thinning, fuel breaks and prescribed fire to modify unnaturally severe fire effects, and to maximize the retention of large trees. Large trees are important ecological components of most forest systems. In particular, they are often more fire and insect resistant than smaller diameter trees, and therefore, with rare exceptions do not contribute to hazardous fuels overloads. They are also considered to be critical ecological legacies because they are essential to the desired future structure and composition of forests. However, large trees are now often underrepresented components of many forest types. In those forest types, forest health will not be restored without a diversity of age classes and types, including large trees. Section 102(f) deals with federal agency treatment of large trees in authorized hazardous fuels treatment projects outside of the areas identified under section 102(e) and requires the Forest Service and Bureau of Land management to maximize the retention of large trees, as appropriate for the forest type, to the extent that the trees promote fire-resilient stands. From an ecological standpoint, and in regards to modifying future fire behavior, large trees are the very last ones that should be removed, if at all. This is an appropriate limitation in that the last trees that need to be removed from an ecological sense, as well as to modify fire behavior, are the large trees. The clear intent of this legislation is to focus primarily on surface fuels such as brush and dead and down woody material and ladder fuels consisting of small diameter trees and saplings. This direction is very important to me and I intend on remaining vigilant and responsive to concerns where projects veer from this important direction. This conference report restores balance to healthy forests legislation by authorizing $760 million annually for these projects. This is a $340 million authorized increase over the currently appropriated level of $420 million for hazardous fuel reduction projects. The conference report maintains the requirement that at least 50 percent of funds spent on restorative projects to be spent to safeguard communities which face the greatest risks from fire. This conference report also includes improved monitoring language that will help Congress track the successes and failures of this legislation. Section 104(g) requires the Secretaries to monitor and assess the results of authorized projects and to report on the progress of projects towards forest health objectives. This evaluation and reporting will help guide the agencies in future hazardous fuels reduction treatments in existing project areas and in other project areas with similar vegetation types. The Senate intends that treatments authorized under this Act be directed to restoration of fire-adapted ecosystems as well as hazard reduction. The threat of uncharacteristically severe fires and insect and disease outbreaks decreases when the structure and composition of fire-adapted ecosystems are restored to historic conditions. Thus, section 104(g)(4) directs agencies to evaluate, among other things, whether authorized projects result in conditions that are closer to the relevant historical structure, composition and fire regime. The Senate recognizes that fire ecologists have learned that fire is a landscape process and that treatments are most effective when conducted in accordance with landscape- or watershed-scale analyses. Section 104(g)(4) requires the agencies to evaluate project results in light of any existing landscape--or watershed--scale direction in resource management plans or other applicable guidance or requirements. Managers should also evaluate and use available relevant scientific studies or findings. Section 104(g) also requires the Secretaries, in areas where significant interest is expressed, to establish a multiparty monitoring and evaluation process in order to assess the environmental and social effects of authorized hazardous fuel reduction projects and projects implemented pursuant to section 404 of this Act. Many forest-dependent communities support multiparty monitoring, which simply means that communities and individuals may participate with the Federal agencies in monitoring the projects. The Managers recognize the importance of multiparty monitoring as a way to rebuild trust between rural communities and the agencies. In conclusion, we have a lot of work to do. We will have others raise questions about the ramifications of this legislation as it relates to the National Environmental Policy Act and other concerns. We want to get this done and implemented properly. As Chairman Craig and I have seen in the subcommittee on forestry, we know, for example, it will be tough to get all the funds that are going to be necessary to do these projects on the ground. Our bipartisan coalition is committed to doing that. Then we can turn our coalition to looking at other areas where we can find common ground and move forward in the natural resources area. A lot of people never thought we would get to this day. Look at the editorials that have been written, some of the interest groups with respect to this legislation, and some of the attacks made on Members. I recall some of those to which Senator Feinstein was subjected. She showed the courage to make it clear she would hang in there and work to get this legislation enacted. We had a lot of Members of the Senate on both side of the aisle say they would put the public interests first, they would concentrate on protecting communities. That is what has brought us to this day. I want to thank the following Senate staff for all their hard work on this important legislation: Lance Kotschwar and West Higginbothom of the Senate Agriculture Committee staff, Frank Gladics and Kira Finkler of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources staff, Calli Daly of Senator Craig's staff, John Watts of Senator Feinstein's staff and Sarah Bittleman and Josh Kardon of my own staff. Josh Penry and Doug Crandall, staff from the House Resources Committee, did yeomen's work to get this bill to conference. These folks, and many others, put in countless and numerous evenings and weekends into this bill and they deserve our appreciation for their hard work and dedication. This legislation will now go to the President's desk for his signature. I look forward to that happening. Just this week it snowed in Oregon--the fire season has passed for another year but it will come again next year as sure as the spring follows the winter. With this bill in place as law I am hopeful that we will be a bit better prepared. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee for his eloquent statement. He has been so supportive of this effort. Essentially what he and I and Senator Grassley have been talking about is the quaint notion that the public's business ought to be done in public. This is not a complicated idea. As I have mentioned earlier, I am sure the vast majority of Americans have no idea what a secret hold is. It is not written down anywhere. This is something you wouldn't find 1 of 1,000 people having any idea about. But this is, in fact, one of the most powerful weapons, one of the most significant tools a Member of this body could possibly have. It is utilized without any accountability whatsoever. The distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee pointed out in hearings, and we heard it echoed by Senator Dodd, the bizarre kind of process of trying to track down Senators who are thousands of miles away from Capitol Hill and still claiming to have an objection when, in a lot of instances, they may not even know about it; their staff will have objected to it. So what we have sought to do in this effort is to not limit the powers of any Member of the Senate but simply to say that power ought to be accompanied by responsibility. Yes, there should be rights. There ought to be rights of every Member of the Senate to stand up and be heard on matters important to their constituents and to this country. But there also ought to be responsibilities. Chairman Lott has addressed this issue very eloquently by saying one of our most important responsibilities is to let the public see what we are up to. Yes, sunlight is the best disinfectant, but it is especially important, as Chairman Lott has noted, at the end of a session. If someone exercises a hold in the beginning of a session, there is an opportunity, as the distinguished chairman of the committee has noted, for the leaders to come together with the chairs and work out an effort to resolve a matter in a process that is fair to all sides. When you are down to the last few days of a session and you are talking about a measure that may involve billions of dollars, the well- being of millions of our citizens, someone can exercise the power to hold up the public's business without any accountability whatsoever. What happens is then the leaders and the chairs traipse all over here, practically going almost the equivalent of door to door, desk to desk on the Senate floor. It got to a point, when I was trying to deal with one particularly exasperating hold, where a Senator came up to me and apologized because he was told there was a hold about which I was concerned. He said: I knew nothing about it. It was put on by a staff person. I asked for its removal. There are a variety of technical issues on which Chairman Lott and Chairman Grassley and Senator Byrd and I have worked. There is a difference between a consult and a hold. A consult, in effect, is just a request to be informed when a measure is going to be brought up. A hold is something different. A hold is when you want to shut down the effort to go forward and examine an important issue altogether. It is all powerful in the last few days of a session, as the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, Senator Lott, has noted. There is something very wrong with the process when, in effect, you have to traipse all over the Senate trying to figure out whether or not your measure is going to see the light of day. We have had an objection to our bipartisan effort today, but I think I speak for all of the sponsors when I say we are going to be back at it. Chairman Lott has initiated a very important process in the Rules Committee to examine some of the antiquated practices of the Senate. The holds is one that we see working great injury in the last days of a session. But under the leadership of Chairman Lott, we are going to be looking at other practices in the Rules Committee. I think that is long overdue. I have great confidence that the chairs, Chairman Lott, Chairman Grassley, Senator Byrd, who knows more about the rules of the Senate than I could ever dream of knowing, are going to be able to work with us on a bipartisan basis to address this responsibly. We have done that. We have asked only that this be done for the rest of this session. I personally do not believe Western civilization is going to come to an end because a Member of the Senate has to be clear about whether or not they are holding up the public's business. But to make it absolutely clear what would transpire, we have in effect a test period, as Chairman Lott has described it, to examine the effect of our sunshine holds, a process that would end some of the stealth and secrecy that surround this issue. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Dayton as a cosponsor of S. Res. 216.

Mr. WYDEN. I am happy to yield without losing my time.

Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, how much time remains under my control?

Mr. WYDEN. I see Senator Lott and other colleagues have other business to attend to. I will wrap up only by quoting the foremost authority on Senate rules who served as majority leader of the 95th, 96th and 100th Congresses; that is, our friend and colleague, Senator Robert C. Byrd. In chapter 28, ``Reflections of a Party Leader,'' volume 2 of his publication in the Senate, Senator Byrd wrote: To me, the Senate's rules were to be used when necessary to advance and to expedite the Senate's business. Giving the sunshine hold a place in the Senate's rules, creating sunshine holds so as to ensure that there is new openness and new accountability in the way the Senate does its business, seems to me to be an ideal way for the Senate to honor those eloquent words of Senator Byrd. We have not been successful today, despite the best effort of Chairman Lott, Senator Grassley, and others. But we will be back. This practice is continuing to increase. Even when I came to the Senate, I found it used frequently but not to the extent it is being used today. It is time to do the public's business in public. We will stay at this effort to accomplish just that. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, my good friend from Montana and I have worked together on so many issues. He has objected to this bipartisan resolution which would give the Senate a chance to end one of the most pernicious practices in Washington, DC, and that is the practice of secret holds. Walk down Main Street anywhere in the United States, and I bet you would not find one out of a million Americans who know what a secret hold is. The hold does not appear anywhere in the dictionary. It is not even in the Senate rules. Yet it is one of the most powerful weapons that any U.S. Senator has. It is, of course, a senatorial courtesy whereby one Senator can block action on a bill or nomination by telling the respective Democrat or Republican leader that he or she would object. The objection does not have to be written down, and it does not have to be made public. It is a little bit like the seventh inning stretch in baseball. There is no official rule or regulation that talks about it, but it has been observed for so long that it has become a tradition. Now, the capacity to use this hold, which is in secret--there is no transparency, no accountability--the prospect of using these secret holds is notorious and has given birth to several intriguing offspring: The hostage hold, the rolling hold, and the May West hold. Suffice it to say, at this time of the year secret holds are more common than acorns around an oak tree. Senator Grassley and I have been working on this for almost 7 years. I am extremely proud that the chairman of the Rules Committee, Senator Lott, has joined us on this matter. Senator Byrd is a cosponsor. There is no one in this body who has a better understanding of the rules than Senator Byrd, and Senator Byrd has made it clear this practice is out of hand. It is out of hand because the rules are designed to expedite the business of the Senate and not hold it up. What we heard earlier in the objection to the effort to end secret holds is emblematic of what has happened. The objection was based on the idea that now was not a good time for the Senate to address this. It is never a good time to address it if you are in favor of doing business behind closed doors. If you are in favor of doing the public's business without accountability, it is never a good time. If you are in favor of doing business in secret, of course, we are never going to bring it up in the Senate. The minority leader, Senator Daschle, has been supportive of this effort from the very beginning. From the very first day I went to him to discuss this, he said: You are right. The hold is an important power for a member of the Senate, but it ought to be exercised with some accountability. So there was no objection from this side of the aisle. Unfortunately, we had an objection from the other side. I think it is unfortunate because I have sought throughout--throughout-- to make this a bipartisan effort. Chairman Grassley and Chairman Lott deserve an extraordinary amount of credit for the effort to work with me and with others on this issue. The fact is, during this time of the session, one Member of the Senate can spend days asking all 99 other Senators whether they have a secret hold, only to find that Senator does not even know about the secret hold because it was generated by staff. The Senator who can successfully track down and lift the last secret hold almost feels around here as if they have won the national title. Every Senator has a favorite example of torturous search for the sponsor of a secret hold. My favorite was during the Rules Committee hearing on holds, Senator Dodd--by the way, who, is very supportive, like Chairman Lott, of this proposal--we heard about the chairman trying to call Senators in airports around the country, trying to find out who had a hold on a bill. Senator Dodd was concerned about this when he was faced with his election reform bill. I went through the very same exercise on the spam bill where I had to literally go from desk to desk in the Senate to find out who was holding up a measure that everybody was for. Everybody said they were against spam but there were holds, and we had to try to figure out where they were. The same thing happened on the Internet tax bill. At one time there were seven holds on the Internet tax bill. When I tried to find out which Senators had the holds, I was told that this information would not be shared with me. Think about the consequences of not dealing with that issue. I say to my colleagues, we may have a virtual ``Grinch'' visiting the consumers of this country because the Senate has not dealt with the Internet tax issue. Come the holiday season, if some States and localities choose to do it, they can go out and tax e-mail, they can go out and tax Internet services that are delivered through wireless devices or DSL because the Senate has not updated the law. I believe it has not updated the law because there was not the opportunity to have a real debate, and we were held up because there were secret holds. I am very pleased that the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee has come to the Chamber to join me in this effort. Perhaps more than any other Member of this body, he understands the implications of this because of his service as chairman of the Rules Committee as well as having served as the distinguished majority leader of this body. He has held hearings on this issue. He reached out to Senator Byrd and Senator Grassley. We have been working on this issue for years and years. At this time of the session, the secret hold is all powerful. It is one of the most powerful weapons that a Member of Congress has. We do not seek to have it stripped from the Senate. We do not come together on a bipartisan basis to say, let us outlaw the holds. We come together--Chairman Lott, Senator Grassley, Senator Byrd, and myself--to say: There ought to be some sunshine. Our proposal is for sunshine holds, for saying that the powers exercised by a Member of the Senate should be accompanied by some accountability. You ought to be straight with your constituents. My good friend, the chairman of the committee, is here. I would like, without losing the remainder of our time, to yield to the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, who has been so supportive of the effort to end secret holds, so he could make his remarks, knowing he has a very busy schedule.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, in light of the objection, on behalf of myself, Chairman Grassley, Chairman Lott, and Senator Byrd, I ask unanimous consent that no later than March 1 of 2004 the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 216, if not reported, and that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 216 at a time determined by the majority leader following consultation with the Democratic leader.

Mr. WYDEN. Has the Senator objected? I was under the impression you reserved the right to object.

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, on behalf of myself, Chairman Grassley, Chairman Lott, and Senator Byrd, I ask unanimous consent the Rules Committee be discharged from consideration of S. Res. 216; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a period of up to 20 minutes of morning business under my control to discuss S. Res. 216.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a legislative fellow in my office, Kevin Vranes, be granted the privilege of the floor during the duration of consideration of the conference report on the Energy bill.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Bingaman for a chance to talk for a few minutes now. He has done a tremendous job in terms of advocating so many issues vital to the public, and I thank him for his thoughtfulness letting me begin this debate. Throughout this discussion, we have been told this legislation should not be looked at in terms of any particular provision, but it should be evaluated on its overall merit. We heard that yesterday. We heard that again today. We have been told that a conference report, particularly, is part of a give-and-take kind of discussion among various legislators and the various parties. Let me be real clear on that. If we are using the give-and-take measure as a barometer of evaluating an Energy bill, it ought to be clear that on this one, it is the public that is giving, and the powerful and the influential are taking a whole package of goodies. In my view, if you look at this legislation and its provisions that in effect begin with the ``get out of jail free'' card that is given to the MTBE producers, and you go on to this grab bag of tax goodies that are given to powerful interests, on every measure this overall legislation breaches the fundamental principles of good energy policy. Let me begin by talking about how it would affect our dependence on foreign oil. I believe reducing America's dependence on foreign oil is the dipstick for measuring an Energy bill. By that measure, this legislation is more than several quarts low. Thirty years ago the people of this country waited in long lines to fill up their tanks. They dreamed then of the day when the United States would no longer be dependent on foreign oil. Our citizens were asked to hold their thermostats down, and they said: What is going to be done to make this country and our electric supply less dependent on fossil fuels? We all understand our dependence on foreign oil has increased. Fossil fuels still provide more than 85 percent of all the energy produced in the United States. If you look at this legislation, what it does is it gives, on a virtual 5 to 1 ratio, most of the tax relief to those powerful interests that, in my view, have contributed mightily to the mess that our country is in. What is needed, of course, is a bold and aggressive approach in terms of clean and renewable energy. That is regrettably sorely lacking in this legislation. So the Senate is aware exactly of the numbers: Renewable energy in this legislation gets about $3.4 billion over the next 10 years. The combined credits for those involved in fossil fuels comes to well over $15 billion. I am of the view that when you look at this legislation and the fact that it does virtually nothing in terms of the key areas like transportation to promote conservation and help us find a way to a different energy future. This legislation simply does not meet the need at this time for a fresh approach in energy. What is so unfortunate about it is, I believe, a new approach on energy is just about the most patriotic thing our country could do. We all understand the role of oil and energy dependence with respect to global security. Yet this legislation is basically a tribute to yesteryear, a hodgepodge of subsidies for the well connected, and these huge energy conglomerates basically would get additional funds for what they are already doing. We tried over the last couple of days to amend the legislation. On all of the pro-consumer amendments, they were just gunned down almost in a perfunctory manner. The American people were given 2 days to scan 1,100 pages, more than 40 percent of which by some estimates was brand new text that was not in either the House or the Senate bill. Essentially, we have 500 pages of brand new text that had not been seen by either the Senate or the House. For purposes of this opening discussion, let me talk about some of the areas about which I am particularly concerned. The people of my part of the country were shellacked by the Enron scams. One of our major utilities used up hundreds of thousands of dollars of scores of workers' retirement accounts. Now these workers have virtually nothing as a result of Enron. The conference report did virtually nothing to deal with the market manipulation that went on in the Enron case--all of the smoking gun memos we read about in the papers for days involving Death Star, the Ricochet tactics that were used to drive up market prices, the energy traders who used schemes such as Get Shorty or use a Fat Boy to manipulate energy markets with impunity. What this legislation does, in effect, is say we will ban just one of the manipulative practices used in Enron but for everything else you have free rein to manipulate the American consumer. It is sort of like building a 4-inch dam across our mighty Columbia; you stop one relatively small practice, but it is going to be drowned out by all the other manipulative schemes. In my view, this legislation is an open invitation to future Enrons. With respect to other priorities about which we felt strongly, I tried, for example, to prevent the weakening of current export controls on highly enriched uranium. It seems astounding that at a time when President Bush correctly talked about how important it is to fight terrorism--and we have all been concerned about yellowcake. I sit on the Intelligence Committee. Of course, I can't get into what is discussed there. But I don't think anybody in the United States doubts the seriousness of the terrorist threat around the world. Controls in current law are intended to end the dependence of foreign companies on nuclear-bomb-grade materials, but the conference report, incredible as it may seem, goes in just the opposite direction and is going to make it easier for terrorists to traffic in these nuclear- bomb-grade materials. The conference report would give foreign producers a fresh 9-year holiday on converting highly enriched uranium into the much safer low- enriched uranium, a conversion, in my view, that should have happened years ago. I fought in the conference to keep in place the current export controls on highly enriched uranium. I believe had my amendment passed, it would have empowered President Bush to be able to fulfill his goal of keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Unfortunately, this too went down on strictly party lines. There are other areas with respect to pro-consumer amendments I thought were important which I will discuss briefly. Many of our parts of the country have been subjected to price spikes in the gasoline market. We saw last summer that many consumers were spending more than $2 a gallon for gas. In parts of the Southwest, it was up to $4 per gallon for gas. I sought to give the Federal Trade Commission authority to go after documented anti-consumer practices such as redlining and zone pricing. At present, every time there is a price spike, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham most recently put out various kinds of press releases saying they are doing an inquiry into why gasoline prices have spiked up. Just as sure as the night follows the day, the next time there is a price spike we will hear the very same thing from the Secretary of Energy. The fact is when you look at the statutes on the books, you will find that the Secretary of Energy has absolutely no authority to do anything with respect to skyrocketing gasoline prices. What I have sought to do in the conference and over the last few months is give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to go after documented anti-competitive practices in markets where you basically have three or possibly four of the oil companies controlling more than 60 percent of the gas that is sold in this area. Many Members of the Senate represent just those communities-- communities where in effect you have seen the competitive marketplace forces sucked right out of the gasoline markets in their communities. Unfortunately, that too was rejected on a straight party line vote. In addition, I offered an amendment to create an advocate for the energy consumer. I believed that if you were going to have a whole passel of deregulation and regulatory changes, somebody ought to have the authority to stand up for the consumer. The great majority of our States do exactly that. We all understand that the energy markets have changed. Now there is much more being done in terms of interstate trading of energy, and there is nothing the States could do to go after abuses in the interstate trading of wholesale power. In the conference, I offered an amendment. I made it clear I was willing to work with both Republican chairs, Senator Domenici and Congressman Tauzin, on it. Yet that went nowhere as well despite bipartisan support. Pat Wood, head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, thought it was ``a great idea'' to have an advocate--those are his words, not mine--for the consumer. Regrettably, that idea went nowhere as well. I have talked about what the conference report doesn't do. I want to talk for a few minutes about what it does do. It gives, for example, oil and gas extractors a blanket exemption under the Safe Drinking Water Act from pumping noxious and carcinogenic fluids underground. It gives energy producers immunity from Clean Water Act protection to present contaminated storm water runoff from polluting our lakes, streams, and marshes. It gives $30 million to a whole host of mining interests to pursue direct leaching of radioactive mine tailings into the ground. In other words, the conference report either explicitly allows or it pays to create America's future Superfund sites. I have talked about the get-out-of-jail-free card for the MTBE producers. This in effect would allow these producers protection from lawsuits that forced them to clean up the problem they created. In our State, even Republicans in the State legislature are concerned about not only losing the ability to fund MTBE cleanup in Oregon but they are concerned about the precedent it sets for future cleanup of various other dangerous materials such as perchlorate and TCE. I think this is part of what concerns me the most. I have always believed that anything important in this town has to be done on a bipartisan basis. It is probably the concern I have that has dominated my career in public service. I think we had an opportunity for a bipartisan bill in this area. As I have been able to do in my home State with our colleague, Senator Smith, I think there was an opportunity for common ground on a whole host of key kinds of cases that would have laid out a vision for a very different energy future. But essentially what you had for weeks and weeks was a blackout. You had energy blackouts last summer with respect to this legislation. Senator Bingaman and I and others who were in the conference faced an information blackout. Any time you go behind closed doors, any time you do something along the lines of a conference in secret, it is an invitation to special interests to exploit their clout and their influence. That is exactly what has happened here. I will outline one other provision. I know colleagues are waiting, and I am particularly grateful to Senator Bingaman for this chance to take a few minutes at the outset of the debate and touch on the proposal with respect to standard market design. In our part of the world, in my home state, we have the highest unemployment rate in the country. Reasonable energy prices have been a key to our well-being. What we have now in this legislation is a glidepath to set up something called standard market design, a one- size-fits-all approach with respect to energy regulation. I come to that view because there are two provisions in the report and they are essentially contradictory in nature. The first part of the conference report says you cannot engage in a standard market design regulatory regime in effect until 2007. The second part says it is basically OK for FERC to do anything they want. At a minimum, we have a lawyer's full employment program as a result of this regulatory limbo. But what is more likely to happen, because of the power of the interests that want the standard market design, they are going to exploit the regulatory confusion in this legislation to work their will. On September 30th I received a letter from a Republican FERC commissioner, Joseph Kelliher, in which he explicitly told me that standard market design is a bad idea for Oregon, a bad idea for the Pacific Northwest, and should not be implemented in our region. I say to the people of my State and my region, I am still going to fight this with everything I have. Finally, at a time when our country can be held hostage by oil- producing nations, we had a chance to go forward with legislation that would make us truly energy independent. At a time when cutting-edge renewable resources are at our fingertips, what this conference report does is it lets these exciting technologies slip through our fingers. At a time when the people of our country have been clamoring for a fresh approach, a different energy future, this conference report looks at energy policy through the rearview mirror. I hope my colleagues will reject this conference report and look forward over the rest of this day and perhaps others to talk about it at some length. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I thank the distinguished Senator from Alaska for clarification of this matter and I wholeheartedly agree with him regarding the potential benefits of nanotechnology in the field of health care.

Mr. WYDEN. I would just like to take a moment to clarify some of the types of nanotechnology applications that are possible through the research involving biotechnology at the nano-level, which are encompassed by this legislation These examples include applications ranging from industrial manufacturing to advances in medicine to breakthroughs in defense against bioterrorism. For instance, biotechnology is spurring the development of proteins that will be capable of manufacturing biological structures on the nano-scale. This technology will allow the development of nano- electronics such as micro-transistors and silicon chips. In the area of photonics there is potential for developing new micro-optical switches and optical micro-processing platforms. Researchers recently discovered a first of its kind carbon-silicon compound in freshwater diatoms. This discovery promises to open the door to understanding the molecular process of biosilicification, or the ways plants and animals build natural structures. This understanding may lead to applications ranging from low cost synthesis of advanced biomaterials to new treatments for osteoporosis. These are only a few examples of advances made through the interface between biotechnology and nanotechnology. I just want to confirm this legislation should help facilitate the synergy between the biological sciences and material sciences.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to clarify the legislative intent of S. 189, the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. In reviewing the section of the substitute text dealing with the purpose and definitions of fundamental research in nanotechnology that our bill references, I believe that they are not intended to limit research and development to the physical sciences and are intended to include a wide variety of research, including the biotechnology- nanotechnology interface. Senator Stevens, is that your reading of this legislation?

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce a substitute text for S. 189, the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. I thank Commerce Committee Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Hollings, and my colleagues Senators Allen, Clinton and Lieberman for their tremendous bipartisan assistance and cooperation. With this bill, we pave the way for greater discoveries and applications in an area that will soon become a major economic driver for this country. The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act will provide a smart, accelerated, and organized approach to nanotechnology research, development, and education. This legislation will marshal America's nanotechnology efforts that are spread out across the State and Federal levels into one driving force. This bill will develop much needed strategic interagency cooperation and coordination through a National Nanotechnology Program. A National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel will advise the President on nanotechnology matters and the American Nanotechnology Preparedness Center will evaluate important workforce and ethical issues to ensure that societal and citizen concerns about nanotechnology are addressed now--at the outset of this science--and will support, not hinder, the development of this important science. As I have said before, nanotechnology has the potential to change America on a scale equal to, if not greater than, the computer revolution. Nanoparticles and nanodevices will become the building blocks of our health care, agriculture, manufacturing, environmental cleanup, and even national security. By getting behind nanotechnology now with organized, goal-oriented support, the Federal Government will play a pivotal role in keeping the United States at the forefront of this discipline. It is estimated that nanotechnology will become a trillion-dollar industry over the next 10 years. With the Nation's unemployment still high and real economic recovery still out of reach, nanotechnology holds the promise of new trade and jobs needed to jump start the economy. As the nanotechnology industry grows, the ranks of skilled workers needed to discover and apply its capabilities must grow too. In the nanotechnology revolution, areas of high unemployment could become magnets for domestic production, engineering and research for nanotechnology applications. I am determined that the United States will mine the opportunities of nanotechnology and this legislation will ensure that the United States takes full advantage of the opportunities nanotechnology presents. Our Nation's current National Nanotechnology Initiative is a step in the right direction. This nation has already committed substantial funds to nanotechnology research and development in the coming years. But funding is not enough. There must be careful planning to make sure that money is used for sound science over the long-term. That is the reason for the substitute amendment to S. 189 I introduce today. The strategic planning it prescribes will ensure that scientists get the support they need to realize nanotechnology's greatest potential. With this bill, Congress is challenging the government to accept new responsibilities in promoting and developing nanotechnology. Again, I thank the House Science Committee and House Science Chairman Boehlert for their cooperation and I thank the other cosponsors, Senators Alexander, Warner, Mikulski, Landrieu, Levin, Bayh, Cantwell, Corzine, Hutchison, Kerry, Lautenberg, Baucus, and Rockefeller, for their valuable assistance. I am also pleased to report that this amendment has the support of nanotechnology industry members, such as the Nano Business Alliance. This amended version is the work of bipartisan and bi-cameral cooperation and I look forward to working with my colleagues to get this to the President's desk. Inclusion of Biotechnology

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I think you have given us an ideal way to wrap up our half hour. I want to tick off yet another area where we have outlined an opportunity for an alternative path. We have spent our half hour describing a way in Florida and Oregon where you can deal with judges in a bipartisan fashion. We have talked about health care issues. Orrin Hatch and others have helped me, as have other Democrats. I think that has been constructive and a real path to try to deal with what is coming in 2010 and 2011. Senator Allen was here and we talked about technology and the fact that the Senate got 80 votes a few days ago for forestry legislation-- an unprecedented bipartisan vote. Finally, the Senator from Florida puts us on this question of fiscal responsibility, another avenue for cooperation between the parties. I think about the outstanding work done by the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, who chairs the committee overseeing the operations of Government. She and I have been very concerned about the lack of openness in competition in the contracting process for these reconstruction contracts. It looks, given the events of this week, as though you are going to get more information out of Baghdad than you are going to get out of Government agencies in Washington, DC. There wasn't a shred of partisanship with respect to how we tackle this issue. So I think what we wanted to do in our half hour of time--the Senator from Florida and I--is not just talk about everything that has gone wrong, but to outline on specific issues an alternative path--a path that shows that we are listening; that the notion that somehow Washington, DC, is like a great wall of China, an unpenetrable community for the American people doesn't have to be that way. Whether it is judges, health care, technology, forestry, or the fiscal morass that the Senator from Florida has talked about, we want people who are listening this morning to know that we do think there is another way for the Senate to do its business. I say to my friend from Florida, we came to Congress essentially together in the other body and then here. I have really enjoyed this and particularly the tone that I think he set out when we began--that the Senate needs to do better, and if you want to get anything important done--which is why we are sent here--it has to be bipartisan. I thank my colleague.

Mr. WYDEN. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Florida and I have tried to spend our half hour talking about specific ways in which the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, can come together to find common ground. Let me repeat them as we move to the end of our half hour. The Senator from Florida and I have talked about an alternative approach on judges, which works in the State of Florida and in the State of Oregon. I have talked about the health care issue, the issue that I feel the most passionate about, going back to my days when I worked with the elderly, and the wonderful help I have gotten from Orrin Hatch, trying to focus on getting the country ready for this huge set of population changes that is coming. I thought it was very fitting that the Senator from Virginia was here, Mr. Allen, who has worked with me on technology issues. A fourth area--something that is fresh in the Senate's mind--is that just a few days ago, we got 80 Senators--far more than anyone could have imagined--to support a major natural resources bill dealing with the forest fire issue. This is something of enormous concern in my part of the country and, obviously, all Americans. Our hearts go out to the people in California where they have had this terrible tragedy. Senator Feinstein and Senator Cochran--I always wanted to work with Senator Cochran on an issue as chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I haven't had the opportunity until now. He could not have been more constructive and helpful. I think that is why the Senate got 80 votes for that forest rebuild. So I think the Senator from Florida is setting the right tone and certainly, in our 20 minutes, on the question of judges, health care, technology, and on the question of forestry, the two of us have shown that there is an alternative to a lot of the smallness, a lot of the harshness that we are seeing dominate this debate. I thank my colleague for all of this extra time, and I believe the tone he is setting is one that will respond to what I hear the country talking about, and certainly what I hear people of Oregon talking about at our 36 town meetings in every part of the State.