Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, summer is upon us. For many college athletes, that means leaving campus and heading back to a home in a different state. Some may take the opportunity to do some traveling, or even to attend sports camps in various parts of the country. Unfortunately, this well-earned break can carry real risks for the athletes and their schools. Why? Because traveling student athletes may be big targets for opportunistic sports agents--and due to highly inconsistent state laws on the subject, the legal protections that an athlete might enjoy in the state where the college is located don't necessarily apply elsewhere. Today I am reintroducing a bill to address this issue, the Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act. The purpose of the bill is simple: to set some basic, uniform nationwide rules to prevent unscrupulous behavior by sports agents who court student athletes. The universities in Oregon with top athletic programs--the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and Portland State University--have all provided letters of endorsement for this legislation. So has the NCAA. Too often, unscrupulous sports agents prey upon young student athletes who are inexperienced, naive, or simply don't know all of the collegiate athletic eligibility rules. The agent sees the student athlete as a potentially lucrative future client, and wants to get the biggest headstart possible on other agents. So the agent tries to contact and sign up the student athlete as early as possible, and does whatever takes to get the inside track. In some cases, the agent may attempt to lure the student athlete with grand promises. In some cases, the agent may offer flashy gifts. To make the offer more enticing, the agent may withhold crucial information about the impact on the student's eligibility to compete in college sports. A majority of States have enacted statutes to address unprincipled behavior by sports agents, but the standards vary from State to State and some states don't have any at all. The universities in my State of Oregon tell me that this creates a significant loophole. Specifically, Oregon has a State law, but it doesn't apply when, for example, a University of Oregon athlete goes home to another State for the summer and is contacted by an agent there. Every time that athlete crosses into another State a different set of rules apply. And if one State's laws on the subject are particularly weak, that is where shady sports agents will try to contact their targets. That is why there ought to be a single, nationwide standard. The bill I am introducing today would establish a uniform baseline, enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission, that would supplement but not replace existing state laws. Specifically, the bill would make it an unfair and deceptive trade practice for a sports agent to entice a student athlete with false or misleading information or promises or with gifts to the student athlete or the athlete's friends or family. It would require a sports agent to provide the student athlete with a clear, standardized warning, in writing, that signing an agency contract could jeopardize the athlete's eligibility to participate in college sports. It would make it unlawful to pre-date or post-date agency contracts, and require both the agent and student athlete to promptly inform the athlete's university if they do enter into a contract. Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee has spearheaded this legislation in the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee have both considered and approved the bill this year. I'm told that consideration on the House floor could occur this week. I applaud Congressman Gordon for his leadership on this issue, and I urge my Senate colleagues to join me in addressing this matter in the Senate. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with the adoption of my amendment as part of the Defense authorization bill, the Senate is shining much needed sunshine on the process of awarding contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. This amendment will ensure that Congress and the public will not be kept in the dark about the billions of dollars of contracts for reconstruction of Iraq that have already been awarded or will be awarded under the auspices of the Department of Defense. This amendment is also critical for ensuring the taxpayers get the best value for their money. An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirms that the Senate has done the right thing. The Journal reports that in ``selecting subcontractors to help with hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs and rebuilding, the work is gearing up under a cloud of politics and distrust.'' The article goes on to say, ``Officially, the U.S. government is saying the subcontractor awarding process is going to be fair and open and that nobody will be discriminated against because of politics. But in unofficial conversations, U.S. officials display quite a different attitude.'' This latest report raises troubling questions about how U.S. agencies and their contractors are playing favorites when it comes to awarding contracts and subcontracts for Iraq reconstruction. There are two primary reasons American taxpayers deserve additional details about what has been up until now a closed bid process. First, there is a lot of money on the line--a projected $100 billion in taxpayer funds for rebuilding. Second, the U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO, has reported that sole-source or limited-source contracts usually aren't the best buy. In my view, the need for explanation increases one hundred-fold if Federal agencies are going to employ a process that may expose taxpayers to additional cost. Yet sole-source and limited-source contracts seem to be the rule, not the exception, for rebuilding Iraq. On March 24, the Army Corps of Engineers announced a sole-source contract to control Iraqi oil fires. It was later reported that the amount of that contract was up to $7 billion. The details of that contract have yet to be made public. The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, has also announced that it would limit competition to companies with demonstrated technical ability, proven accounting mechanisms, ability to field a qualified technical team on short notice, and authority to handle classified national security material. But when it came time to actually award these contracts, USAID ignored or circumvented the Agency's own publicly stated criteria for limiting the pool of applicants. Under the new structure for rebuilding Iraq, these contracts will be overseen by the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in the Department of Defense. In addition, the Defense Department has awarded and will continue to award its own contracts for Iraq rebuilding. So more than ever, I believe that if the Federal Government chooses not to use free market competition to get the most reasonable price from the most qualified contractor, then, at a minimum, they should have to tell the American people why. Sunlight is the best disinfectant--and the recent news reports have shown the need for a clearing of the air. I do understand the argument that these contracts need to be awarded quickly. I do understand that in many cases the companies receiving them have a long history of international work with USAID and other Federal agencies. I simply believe that if the need for speed can adequately justify these closed-bid processes that may expose American taxpayers to additional expenditures, then that justification should be made public. That is why our legislation says that any Federal entity bypassing competitive bidding for Iraqi reconstruction projects has to reveal the justifying documents they have prepared. As it turns out, when it comes to their contracts USAID even seems to think that sunlight is a pretty good policy. One of the requirements for the $680 million contract with the main U.S. contractor for Iraq reconstruction Bechtel, requires that it justify to USAID any subcontract awarded without open bids. If USAID can ask that of its main contractor, surely the American people can make the same demand of Federal agencies awarding these contracts. According to news reports, in 1999, USAID's own inspector general reported that at that time USAID's evaluation program didn't provide sufficient assurance that they were picking the best contractors. Although a follow-up report indicated some improvement, I think that is an argument in and of itself to insist on disclosure of the facts. Here is my bottom line: There are too many questions and the stakes are too high for Congress not to demand public disclosure of this information. The American people are footing the bill for repairs in Iraq that they often can't get in their own cities and towns on U.S. soil. The least Federal agencies can do is be a little clearer about who is getting the money and why. I am pleased to be joined by a distinguished and bipartisan group of colleagues in this effort. I particularly thank the chair of the Government Affairs Committee, Senator Collins of Maine. As chair of the committee that oversees contracting legislation, she is an expert in procurement law, a real authority on the very issue addressed by this bill. Her qualities of leadership on the committee and incredible proficiency on this topic give me great confidence that this bill is the right move for our constituents, the right move for the Senate, and the right move for America. I thank her for her support and participation in this effort. I am also indebted to the other cosponsors of this legislation-- Senator Clinton, Senator Byrd, Senator Lieberman, Senator Lautenberg, and Senator Harkin. In particular, Senator Clinton has been a strong and steadfast voice on this issue. I appreciate her support and the support of all the cosponsors.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, for seven years Senator Grassley and I have teamed up in a bipartisan way to champion the cause of the sunshine hold in the United States Senate. The sunshine hold is the less popular step sister of the more commonly used ``secret'' hold. Even though it is one of the Senate's most popular procedures, neither the sunshine nor the secret ``hold'' can be found anywhere in the United States Constitution or in the Senate Rules. It is one of the most powerful weapons that any Senator can wield in this body, and in its stealth version, known as the ``secret hold,'' it is far more potent and far more insidious. The ``hold'' in the Senate is a lot 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. Today, Senator Grassley and I are resubmitting the resolution we sponsored in the 107th Congress to amend the Senate Rules to require that any Senator who wishes to object to a measure or matter publish that objection in the Congressional Record within 48 hours. The resolution does not in any way limit the privilege of any Senator to place a ``hold'' on a measure or matter. It is the anonymous hold that is so odious to the basic premise of our democratic system: that the exercise of power always should be accompanied by public accountability. Our resolution would bring the anonymous hold out of the shadows of the Senate. The resolution would assure that the awesome power possessed by an individual Senator to stop legislation or a nomination should be accompanied by public accountability. Beginning in 1997 and again in 1998, the United States Senate voted unanimously in favor of amendments Senator Grassley and I offered to require that a notice of intent to object be published in the Congressional Record within 48 hours. The amendments, however, never survived conference. So we took our case directly to the leadership at that time, and to their credit, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott agreed it was time to make a change. They recognized the significant need for more openness in the way the United States Senate conducts its business so Tom Daschle and Trent Lott sent a joint letter in February 1999, to all Senators setting forth a policy requiring ``all Senators wishing to place a hold on any legislation or executive calender business [to] notify the sponsor of the legislation and the committee of jurisdiction of their concerns.'' The letter said that ``written notification should be provided to the respective Leader stating their intentions regarding the bill or nomination,'' and that ``holds placed on items by a member of a personal or committee staff will not be honored unless accompanied by a written notification from the objecting Senator by the end of the following business day.'' At first, this action by the Leaders seemed to make a real difference. Many Senators were more open about their holds, and staff could no longer slap a hold on a bill with a quick phone call. But after six to eight months, the clouds moved in on the sunshine hold and the Senate began to slip back towards the old ways. Abuses of the ``holds'' policy began to proliferate, staff-initiated holds-by-phone began anew, and it wasn't too long before legislative gridlock set in and the Senate seemed to have forgotten what Senators Daschle and Lott had tried to do. My own assessment of the situation now, which is not based on any scientific evidence, GAO investigation or CRS study, is that a significant number of our colleagues in the Senate have gotten the message sent by the Leaders, and have refrained from the use of secret holds. They inform sponsors about their objections, and do not allow their staff to place a hold without their approval. My sense is that the legislative gridlock generated by secret holds may be attributed to a relatively small number of Senate offices. The resolution we are submitting today will not be disruptive for a solid number of Senators, but it will up the ante on those who may be ``chronic abusers'' of the Leaders' policy on holds. The requirement for public notice of a hold two days after the intent has been conveyed to the leadership may prove to be an inconvenience but not a hardship. No Senator will ever be thrown in jail for failing to give public notice of a hold. Senators routinely place statements in the Congressional Record recognizing the achievements of a local Boys and Girls Club, or congratulating a local sports team on a State championship. Surely the intent of a Senator to block the progress of legislation or a nomination should be considered of equal importance. I have adhered to a policy of publicly announcing my intent to object to a measure or matter. This practice has not been a burden or inconvenience. On the contrary, my experience with the public disclosure of holds is that my objections are usually dealt with in an expeditious manner, thereby enabling the Senate to proceed with its business. Although this is not the ``high season'' for holds, the time is not far off when legislation will become bogged down in the swamp of secret holds. The practice of anonymous multiple or rolling holds is more akin to legislative guerilla warfare than to the way the Senate should conduct its business. It is time to drain the swamp of secret holds. The resolution we submit today will be referred to the Senate Committee on Rules. It is my hope that the Committee will take this resolution seriously, hold public hearings on it and give it a thorough vetting. This is one of the most awesome powers held by anyone in American government. It has been used countless times to stall and strangle legislation. It is time to bring accountability to the procedure and to the American people, and to put sunshine holds in the Senate Rules.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I thank Senator Murray, the lead sponsor for this legislation. Oregon and Washington are really ground zero as far as the economic hurt in this country, and I thank her for all of her leadership and support. I will take only a few minutes tonight because I know we have had a number of speakers on this topic, but I think it is time to put a human face on this issue and try to make sure that people really understand what is at stake. In Eugene, OR, where I went to school, parents have recently been selling their own blood plasma--that's right, their own blood plasma-- to pay for a math teacher's salary for one more year because the school district has been unable to come up with the cash to pay for a math teacher. I think that really says it all. As Senator Murray and other colleagues talked about, we are not talking about luxuries. We are not talking about something that would be frivolous or on somebody's wish list. We are talking about the most essential services in our society, making sure that kids get a good start, and decent health care. What it has come to in my State, which is in its third year now of financial meltdown, is we have parents actually going out and selling blood. Something is really out of whack in this country when somehow the Congress is going to find ways to come up with billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, but the Congress of the United States will not come up with the dollars that are needed to rebuild the States. That is what this effort on a bipartisan basis is all about. In my home State, we now have schools closing a month early. We brought an end to the medical-needy program which helped nearly 9,000 low-income Oregonians with unusually high health costs who do not qualify for our innovative health plan. More than 2,500 older adults and persons with disabilities have lost adult care, assisted living care, nursing home care, and the list really goes on. I particularly wanted to highlight the fact that these cuts and the hardship that has been engendered as a result of these cuts comes about at a time when some of our States have been on the cutting edge of innovation. I will take a minute to describe our health plan. The State of Oregon has been the only State in the country--in fact, the only political jurisdiction on the planet--that has been willing to force a discussion about tough calls in health care. Many feel, given the demographics tsunami that is ahead with millions of baby boomers retiring and the technology explosion, it is not on the level if you are not willing to make some tough choices in health care. That is what my home State did a number of years ago with the Oregon Health Plan; we held the first nationwide debate about how to go about making choices in health care, making sure you are doing prevention first in kids and pregnant mothers. And all the services we know will reap great benefits in the years ahead. That is the program that has been slashed. It was not a program that engendered a lot of fancy services or Cadillac health care or profligate spending. It was a program that focused on the basics, on the essential health care services, on services that by anyone's analysis are just plain vanilla, essential services for our citizens. I bring this up by way of saying, as we move tonight to close out the discussion of these amendments, I certainly support the Collins amendment. It is very helpful. I would like to go further, for all the reasons Senator Murray has described tonight, that we think about these consequences in human terms: What is going on today in Eugene, OR, what is going on with the Oregon Health Plan where people did make tough and courageous calls. A lot of the States must be wondering now, what was the point of trying to be innovative? What was the point of trying to be innovative because when there were tough financial circumstances nationally beyond their control, the Federal Government said: That is the way it goes, we are not going to do anything to help tide you over so innovative programs such as the Oregon Health Plan are not decimated. These are critical issues. The budget cuts we have seen in health care and education are not going to be quickly healed. Regarding the national economy, we all hope for a speedy recovery, but it seems to me, by any calculation, the States are going to need significant and ongoing help to ameliorate the damage that has been done and to start pulling together the tatters of the social safety net and begin to help our citizens again. We are not going to repair that tattered safety net with just a few needles and thread; we will do it with real and tangible help, the way the Murray amendment seeks to do. I come to the Senate tonight to make it clear, what we seek to do in these important amendments is to try to give our States the tools in this struggle to provide the most critical of services, to tell them they are going to have a little bit more to get by with during unprecedented times. School finance in Oregon has been cut so drastically they have curtailed the school year in some districts. We have been laying off teachers left and right. We have no way to attract them. Senator Smith and I co-hosted an important economic development summit at the end of last year with 1,300 business leaders from all over the State. They are worried, as a business community, that with the shortening of the school year in the country, it will be very tough to grow existing businesses and to attract new ones. Suffice it to say, we are not really happy about the Doonesbury cartoons either. We have been first so often in my home State--with environmental protection, mass transit--but we are not pleased to be first in terms of economic hurt and unemployment and the kinds of problems we have been outlining on the floor tonight. We have to start filling the holes in these devastated budgets. The situation is dire. In the face of this unprecedented suffering, many in the Senate believe the $20 billion allocated is not enough and the Senate must do better. Ultimately, budgets are about choices. Budgets are not just about charts and graphs and figures and lots of dark ink on paper. Budgets are about hopes and aspirations and what kind of country we want. I don't want a country and I don't want a State to have to sit by while the Government does not respond when people have to sell blood to finance a teacher's salary and we end up having the devastation to an innovative state-of-the-art health plan, the way the Oregon Health Plan was at the outset. I don't want to tell the people of my home State, and I don't think others in this body want to either, that the U.S. Congress can figure out a way to come up with billions and billions of dollars to reconstruct Iraq, hundreds of millions of dollars for tax cuts, and simply not come up with the critical dollars needed to keep our kids in school for a full year, to keep older people in health care systems that are a lifeline for them. I hope our colleagues will support the Murray amendment. The very least the Senate can do is to keep the huge budgetary hole the States have found themselves in from getting deeper and wider. The Murray amendment ensures that can be done. I urge the passage of this critical amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wish to inform my colleagues about why I would object to a unanimous consent request to proceed to the intelligence authorization bill or any other legislation that may contain a provision undoing or modifying a straightforward law establishing congressional accountability for the Total Information Awareness Program. Just this past February, as part of the fiscal year 2003 supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate considered, debated and adopted unanimously an amendment sponsored by myself and Senators Feinstein, Reid, Boxer, Corzine, Leahy, Cantwell, Harkin, Levin, Durbin, Biden, Daschle, and Clinton. That amendment requires specific congressional approval for any deployment of technology developed by the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness Program; the Defense Department must seek authorization and appropriation for any deployment of the TIA technology to another agency or department. DARPA may continue to research and develop TIA technology as long as it submits a report required by the amendment. The report is due May 20, 2003, and it requires an explanation of the intended and actual use of funds for each project and activity of the TIA Program, the schedule for proposed research and development of each project and activity and target dates for the deployment of each project and activity. The report will also address the efficacy of systems such as TIA in predictive assessments of terrorist capabilities and plans, the likely impact of the TIA Program on privacy and civil liberties, the laws that will require modification to use the TIA Program and recommendations for eliminating or minimizing the adverse effects of the TIA Program on privacy and other civil liberties. The TIA technology will give the Federal Government the capability to operate the most massive domestic surveillance program in the history of our country. It will put the financial, medical and other details of America's private lives at the fingerprints of tens of thousands of bureaucrats. The American people have the right to know if the federal Government intends to deploy this technology against them, when it will do and how, and Congress should preserve its oversight over the program. The amendment enacted in February provides that accountability. Just last week the American people got a painful reminder about the shameful abuse of power and secrecy in the McCarthy era, and are rightfully wary about the protection of their privacy. In fact, although some in the Defense Department and elsewhere claim they are only interested in mining ``lawfully-collected'' information, just about any piece of information about any U.S. citizen can be ``lawfully'' collected or obtained by the federal government. It is for these reasons that I will object to any motion to proceed to any legislation affecting the Total Information Awareness Program unless and until I have fully reviewed it to guarantee that the accountability in the TIA amendment is preserved.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before she leaves the floor, let me commend our colleague from Texas, Senator Hutchison, who has spent an enormous amount of time on this issue. It has been particularly helpful to this Senator as I worked on some of the privacy issues I will be discussing. I thank my colleague for all of her good work. Earlier this year I spoke on the floor about what I think has been the most important privacy issue of our time. That is the proposal for what is known as the Total Information Awareness Program. This would constitute the biggest surveillance program in American history. In the U.S. Senate, Senators Inouye, Stevens, and Feinstein have been working on a bipartisan basis with our colleagues in both political parties. We put in place sensible restrictions so as to ensure accurate congressional oversight. What we called for was a requirement that first there be a report by the proponents of the program and the agencies involved on how the program would work. Second, there is a requirement that to deploy any of the technology under the Total Information Awareness Program, there would have to be explicit congressional approval. This was a momentous step for the Senate to pass this legislation unanimously. I am rising today to discuss what I think is yet another very significant privacy question which is an issue that needs debate in committee on this particular bill: the air cargo security legislation. The air cargo security legislation includes a proposal that I offered regarding what is known as CAPPS II, the passenger prescreening system that the Transportation Security Administration is developing. This program would do a computer search on each airline passenger to determine who should be subject to more careful security screening and, in some cases, who shouldn't be allowed to get on a plane. All of us in the U.S. Senate understand that it is critically important to protect the security and safety of those who fly, and we certainly want to look at ways to do it that are smart and, particularly, target resources in an efficient way. But to set up a system that seeks information on each and every aircraft traveler and uses that system to assign scores to every individual--a score as to who might possibly be a threat--does raise some very significant privacy questions for the Senate. The American people will want to know whether that system is narrowly limited for a specific purpose or whether it would become an all- purpose electronic snooping system. The public wants to know whether there are accurate safeguards to be sure the system won't be abused and sound procedures to provide passengers with the means to address mistakes. Verbal assurances that these technologies will be used only on ``lawfully collected information'' are not enough. For one thing, ``lawfully collected information'' can include almost anything--my medical information, financial information, the books I have read, places I have visited. This same information--for each of my distinguished colleagues and millions of law-abiding citizens--can also be ``lawfully collected.'' In order to protect our civil liberties and right to privacy, Congress must be fully and publicly briefed on these types of new technological efforts. As the New York Times editorial page said earlier this year, identifying travelers who may pose a terrorist threat is ``a worthy goal'' but also ``raises serious privacy and due process concerns, which the government needs to address in a forthright manner.'' I ask unanimous consent that the text of this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this article identifies the issue with respect to travelers. I spoke about those who may pose a terrorist threat. It is a worthy goal. But I also said that this issue raises serious privacy concerns which the government needs to address in a forthright way, and addressing privacy concerns in a forthright manner is what the legislation now does as a result of the amendment involving this passenger prescreening program. What you are going to have under the legislation now is a chance to get the key questions answered with respect to how this program would work. It is my intention that the information with respect to how this program would work would be available for public scrutiny as well. I met with those at the TSA who spearhead this passenger prescreening program. They certainly raise a number of issues with respect to privacy protections which they would like to include. But at this point, the only written information that we have on CAPPS II was published in the Federal Register on January 15 of this year. That program outlines a broad-based initiative that would house records such as ``risk assessment reports,'' financial and transactional data, public source information, proprietary data, and information from law enforcement and intelligent sources. This broad array of information may then be disclosed to ``Federal, State, territorial, tribal, local, international, or foreign agencies.'' Suffice it to say, based on the Federal Register description on January 15, 2003, the public is concerned about how this kind of program is going to work. Clearly, our country wants to fight terrorism ferociously. We want to take the steps necessary to protect our airline passengers. But something which is as sweeping and as broad as the proposal that was outlined in the Federal Register for screening airline passengers certainly ought to give the American people and the U.S. Senate pause. I think it is important that the public not be kept in the dark on this issue. That is why the legislation on the program which I was able to include in the air cargo security bill is important. It is going to bring some sunshine to this issue--some long overdue sunshine. I hope my colleagues will continue to work with me and others in a bipartisan basis on the privacy issues. We made very significant progress with respect to the limitations that were put on the Total Information Awareness Program. The effort that is now underway with respect to screening airline passengers presents some other very significant privacy issues. We ought to continue to make sure that as we take steps to protect the public safety, we remember that it is critically important to protect privacy rights and civil liberties. We now are making an effort to do that in the air cargo security legislation. I urge my colleagues to support the bill tonight. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the distinguished Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, and I control the next half hour as if in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, to wrap up, I would like to reaffirm a point that the distinguished Senator from New York mentioned with respect to the feeling of our citizens at a time when there are so many schools that are underfunded and seniors can't afford their medicine and other services. When I was home over the break--perhaps the Senator from New York heard this as well--many constituents came up to me and said: We are really glad that you are pushing this bill at more competitive bidding and reconstruction contracts. But, to tell you the truth, why don't you just have Iraqi oil pay for all of the reconstruction? We don't need the taxpayer money. There already is a sense about the Nation that we have to be careful about how these funds are being used. I think there is a role for the United States to play. I think it is clear that is a part of an important contribution that our country can make with the conflict winding down. But it just reaffirms in my mind how critical it is to use this money wisely. With the American people hurting now with what one might say is the highest unemployment rate of our country, you can't explain to the taxpayers of this Nation frittering away dollars on contracts that are let without competitive bids. We look forward to colleagues of both political parties joining us in this effort. It seems to me a bill such as this should be passed unanimously with all 100 Senators onboard. We look forward to seeing the resolution of this legislation to protect the taxpayers. Again, I want to close by expressing my thanks to the chairman of the committee where this legislation was sent. Senator Collins has been a critical partner in this effort to direct procurement law. Senator Byrd, who holds, of course, a longstanding interest in this matter and serves on both the Appropriations and the Armed Services Committees, has been invaluable to me in particular in providing counsel with respect to how to move this legislation forward. Together we look forward to passing this bill and protecting the taxpayers' interests as perhaps $100 billion of taxpayer money is spent in the rebuilding of Iraq. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. The Senator from New York has summed it up. This is Congress's call. The buck in fact does stop with the Congress. What we are talking about here is making sure Congress keeps in place vigorous oversight about the process. The process is what has, in our view, put taxpayers' dollars in some peril. People have focused on one company or another. There are inquiries underway. What we are going to do is protect the process that ensures, as the Senator from New York suggests, that the taxpayers are protected and Congress in fact has the last word in making sure this money is spent responsibly.

Mr. WYDEN. I will.

Mr. WYDEN. The Senator is correct. Again, that is what the legislation is about. There is a certain irony in that that information is in fact already available. The bipartisan legislation we have put together with the Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins, says what is already completed work, in terms of the analysis and justification, simply would be made public so as to reinforce the proposition that there be the maximum amount of transparency, the maximum amount of accountability, and so the public can see why, if necessary, a special process that doesn't involve open bids would be necessary.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, we rise today to discuss the call of a bipartisan coalition for some badly needed sunshine in the process of awarding Iraqi reconstruction contracts. I particularly commend several of my colleagues for joining me in the bipartisan legislation, the Sunshine in Iraqi Reconstruction Contracting Act introduced April 10. First, Senator Clinton and I are especially grateful to the chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins of Maine. Not only is she an excellent chair of the committee that will take up this legislation, she is also an expert on procurement law, a real authority on the very issue we have addressed in our legislation. We are very proud to have her as our lead bipartisan coalition builder on this legislation because her leadership qualities on the committee and special proficiency on this topic give me great confidence this bill is the right move for America, the right move for the Senate, particularly the right move for our taxpayers, and we are very grateful for Senator Collins' support and participation in this effort. Our legislation has a simple aim. It says if a Federal agency awards an Iraqi reconstruction contract without the benefit of open and competitive bidding, that agency must publicly justify their decision to do so. I will tell the Senate and my colleagues the events and news reports of the 21 days since our bill's introduction have only strengthened our bipartisan conviction that Iraqi reconstruction contracts must be awarded in the sunshine and not behind a smokescreen. There are two primary reasons we believe it is so important American taxpayers deserve additional details about this closed and secretive process. First, there is a huge amount of money on the line, a projected $100 billion in taxpayer funds. Second, the General Accounting Office has already reported sole-source or limited-source contracts almost always are not the best buy for the taxpayer. In my view, the need for explanation increases a hundredfold if Federal agencies are going to employ a process that may expose taxpayers to additional cost. When we introduced this legislation, we were concerned that the U.S. Agency on International Development had already awarded four of eight major Iraqi contracts through a closed bid or no-bid process. Even at that time, sole-source and limited- source contracts already seemed to be the rule and not the exception for rebuilding Iraq. USAID announced it would limit competition to companies they felt had the technical ability and accounting ability to handle these matters. But since our legislation was introduced, not only have a number of Federal agencies continued to award no-bid or closed-bid contracts, but once the bids have been solicited, they even started to ignore or circumvent their own publicly stated criteria for limiting the pool of applicants. More than ever, our bipartisan coalition believes if the Federal Government chooses not to use free market competition to get the most reasonable price from the most qualified contractor, then at a minimum they should tell the American people why that is necessary. Sunshine is the best disinfectant and the news reports of recent days simply beg for a clearing of the air. On April 11, the day after we introduced our bill, one firm secured a $2 million Iraq school contract through an invitation-only process. On April 18, USAID awarded the biggest contract yet through an invitation- only bid process. A $680 million contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure was awarded to Bechtel. On April 19, a $50 million policing contract was awarded through a closed bidding process. On the same day, the Washington Post reported that a renewable $7.9 billion contract for personnel services in Iraqi reconstruction was awarded February 25, nearly a month before the war began, with a single company invited to bid for the job. According to the press reports, that invitation came a full 55 days before the start of the hostilities. As each of the contracts was awarded, Federal agencies justified the no-bid or closed-bid process only by saying that they simply had to move quickly. That is basically one of the only arguments the agencies have left. Originally, USAID said the only companies with security clearances could be invited to apply. But that argument fell apart just a couple of days ago. USAID's own inspector general revealed that USAID waived the security clearance requirement when one bid was awarded. It turned out that the winner of a $4 million ports contract, in fact, did not have the security clearance that was supposedly essential when the limited bid process started. In effect, USAID eliminated the very criteria it used to limit bidders on the project. USAID suddenly said the outbreak of war in Iraq simply made the security clearance process unnecessary. The only reason the United States would be awarding contracting to rebuild Iraq would be if the United States went to war. So if the requirement for security clearance was needed before the war broke out, it is hard to see what would have changed once the war started. As a Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I thought the argument was a bit shaky at the outset. I was not certain why you would need all of the security clearances to fix the sewer system. Weeks ago, it was clear that most of the Iraqi work would be subcontracted out to companies who did not meet the security requirements in the first place. But the report from the inspector general this week has significantly increased my concern. It turned the agency's argument about security clearances from suspect to essentially ludicrous. This incident makes the case better than any other that agencies should have to clearly and publicly state how they are choosing companies for these invitation-only bids. Perhaps if they know they have to face the public on these issues they will have better explanations or a more open process. We want to be clear, in the presence of actual security concerns, our legislation assures the protection of classified information. But at the same time, it does give the Congress oversight over the billions in taxpayer money that Americans are being asked to commit in Iraq and that is desperately needed. Historically, open and competitive bidding by Federal agencies has been the tool to get the best value for the taxpayers of our Nation. Again, independent reports from the General Accounting Office show that in the past, the soul-source or limited-source contracts have not been before the buy. According to the General Accounting Office, military leaders have often simply accepted the level of services given by a contractor without ever asking if it could be done more efficiently or at a lower cost. In the case of Iraq, again, with estimates being low-balled at $25 billion and some exceeding $100 billion, taxpayers in our country have a great interest in making sure this money is spent efficiently. I also note in wrapping up that many of these contracts are so-called cost-plus contracts. They pay a company's expenses, plus a guaranteed profit of 1 to 8 percent. There are no limits on total costs, so the more a firm charges in expenses, the more profit it is going to make. If the Federal Government is going to spend the money of the people of Oregon in this fashion without asking for competitive bids, I think the people of Oregon and the people of this country deserve to know why. There simply should not be a place for waste when you are talking about at least $100 billion of taxpayers' cash. I understand the argument that these contracts need to be awarded quickly. I understand in many cases the companies receiving them have a long history of international work. I simply believe if the need for speed can adequately justify these closed-bid processes that may expose the taxpayers to additional expenditures, then those agencies need to make public why they would take these extraordinary measures that could very well waste significant amounts of taxpayer money. I want to yield my time to Senator Clinton. I thank her. She is on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She and I and Senator Collins have been a bipartisan coalition. I would also like to note a number of other Senators--Senator Byrd in particular, who serves on the Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee--have been very helpful as well. But I yield to Senator Clinton and particularly express my support to her. With Senator Collins, we have tried to make the focus that there is a bipartisan need for protecting taxpayers, to make sure this money is spent wisely at a time when there is so much economic hurt across the Nation. I yield to the distinguished Senator from New York.

Mr. WYDEN. The point of the Senator about the credibility of the Government I think is fundamental. I think we all know if people see something taking place behind closed doors, in secret, without the open and full process of competitive bidding, it just engenders suspicion, it just engenders a sense of skepticism and cynicism about government that just does not have to be. It is particularly troubling here because the General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan organization of auditors, has already documented there is a problem. So we have a combination of taxpayer skepticism about work done in secret coupled with the long history of the General Accounting Office's skepticism about these reports, and here is an area that just cries out for sunshine. I talked about sunshine being the best disinfectant, but certainly since we introduced this bill with Senator Collins over the last 21 days, the fact we have seen all these contracts--in fact, one of them where the agency just waives their own process, without an explanation--I think highlights the Senator's point that the Government's credibility is at stake.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased today to be teaming up again with my good friend Senator Burns to reintroduce legislation to address the rising tide of unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as ``spam.'' In the last Congress, our anti-spam legislation was approved unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee. Since that time--nearly a year ago now--the problem of spam has been increasing at an alarming rate. Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months. By 2004, according to some estimates, a typical company that fails to take defensive action could find that over 50 percent of its e-mail messages will be spam. This isn't just annoying, it's costly: one consulting group has estimated that spam will cost U.S. organizations more than $10 billion this year, due to expenses for anti-spam equipment and manpower and lost productivity. If nothing is done, the situation is only likely to get worse. The fundamental problem--and what makes spam different from other types of marketing--is that it is so cheap to send huge volumes of messages. With the stroke of a key, the spammer can let fly a massive torrent of e-mails. And since the sender doesn't pay any per-message postage, the incentive is to send as many as possible. The cost of all these extra messages is borne by the Internet service providers, ISPs, and the recipients, not by the sender. So as far as the spammer is concerned, the sky is the limit. Anyone who uses e-mail should be deeply concerned about this trend. In a few short years, e-mail quickly went from a novelty to a core medium of communication for millions of Americans. They came to rely on it daily, for business and personal communications alike. But just as quickly as e-mail rose to prominence, its usefulness could dwindle-- buried under an avalanche of endless ``Get Rich Quick,'' ``Lose Weight Fast,'' and offensive pornographic marketing pitches. As consumers grow frustrated with bloated in-boxes, and as ISP networks and e-commerce websites are slowed by mounting junk e-mail traffic jams, enthusiasm for the entire medium of e-mail and e-commerce could sour. Right now, e-mail users and ISPs are trying to manage the problem as best they can. They use filtering software, or lists of known spammers, or sign up for special anti-spam services. But these tactics can be burdensome, costly, and only partially effective. The fact is, existing laws do not provide sufficient tools. More help is needed. Many States have moved to address the issue. But e-mail is not a medium that respects, or even recognizes, State borders. Indeed, e-mail addresses tell nothing about which State the user is located in, so the sender and recipient of an e-mail message may have no clue where the other is located. Therefore, this is one area where a State-by-State patchwork of rules makes no sense. It is time for a nationwide approach. That is why Senator Burns and I are reintroducing the ``Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act''--the CAN SPAM Act, for short. This bipartisan legislation says that if you want to send unsolicited marketing e-mail, you've got to play by a set of rules--rules that allow the recipient to see where the messages are coming from, and to tell the sender to stop. The basic goal is simple: give the consumer more control. Specifically, the bill would prohibit the use of falsified or deceptive headers or subject lines, so that consumers will be able to identify the true source of the message. A sender of unsolicited marketing e-mail would also be required to provide the recipient with a return address or similar mechanism that can be used to tell the sender, ``no more.'' And once a consumer says ``no more,'' a sender would be required to honor that request. Senders of unsolicited commercial messages would also be required to include a clear notification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation, and a valid physical postal address. The bill includes strong enforcement provisions to ensure compliance. Spammers that intentionally disguise their identities would be subject to misdemeanor criminal penalties. The Federal Trade Commission would have authority to impose civil fines. State attorneys general would be able to bring suit on behalf of the citizens of their states. And ISPs would be able to bring suit to keep unlawful spam off their networks. In all cases, particularly high penalties would be available for true ``bad actors''--the shady, high-volume spammers who have no intention of behaving in a lawful and responsible manner. Our goal here is not to discourage legitimate online communications between businesses and their customers. Senator Burns and I have no intention of interfering with a company's ability to use e-mail to inform customers of warranty information, provide account holders with monthly account statements, and so forth. Rather, we want to go after those unscrupulous individuals who use e-mail in an annoying and misleading fashion. I believe this bill strikes that important balance. Senator Burns and I have been at this for three years now, and have worked with many different groups in shaping the legislation. We believe we have made real progress in addressing some of the legitimate concerns that were raised about previous versions of the bill. Naturally, there are interested parties who have additional ideas for measures they would like to see. We will be happy to continue to work with them, and I would also point out that the bill calls for a study to evaluate this initial Federal step against spam and to determine whether further provisions are needed. But the bill we are introducing today offers a workable, common-sense approach that should be politically viable this year. I am pleased that Senators Breaux, Landrieu, Schumer, and Thomas are joining Senator Burns and me in cosponsoring this legislation. I urge the rest of my Senate colleagues to join with us on moving it forward as promptly as possible, so that the Senate won't still be debating the issue, with no action taken, several years from now.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senators Collins, Clinton, Byrd, Lieberman and I want the rebuilding of Iraq to be done in the best way possible-- for the Iraqi people and for the American taxpayers who will foot the bill. To ensure that happens, we're introducing bipartisan legislation today to ensure accountability in the awarding of U.S. contracts to rebuild Iraq. Usually in situations like this, open and competitive bidding is used to get the best deal for the taxpayers. The same needs to hold true here. Contracts to rebuild Iraq should be awarded in the sunshine--not behind a smokescreen. If the Federal Government chooses not to use free market competition to get the most reasonable price from the most qualified contractor, then, at a minimum, they should have to tell the American people why. The bill we're introducing today is called the Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Contracting Act. It's intended to shine light into the secretive practices the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and other Federal agencies are using to hand out in Iraqi work. There are dollars-and-cents reasons for doing this. The potential cost of rebuilding Iraq has been estimated at around $100 billion. That's a lot of taxpayer money. And the U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO, reports that sole-source and limited-source contracts aren't usually the best buy. Investigator found that Army officials often just took whatever level of services the contractor gave, without ever asking if it could be done more efficiently or at a lower cost. Despite that, sole-source and limited-source contracts look like the rule, not the exception, for rebuilding Iraq. And these are costing some big cash. Contracts awarded for oil fire fighting and other projects are so-called ``cost-plus'' contracts. They pay a company's expenses, plus a guaranteed profit of one to eight percent. There are no limits on total costs, so the more a firm charges in expenses, the more profit it makes. If the Federal Government's going to spend my constituents' money that way, without asking for competitive bids, I think my constituents deserve to know why. Let me give you two concrete examples of the kind of secrecy I'm talking about. A lot of the known details come from press reports. In February and March, USAID invited a handful of companies to bid on $1.7 billion in Iraqi projects--rebuilding highways, bridges, schools. Competition for one $600 million contract was limited to seven large U.S. engineering firms. USAID apparently put out some bid invitations before the war even started. On March 24, the Army Corps of Engineers announced a sole-source, unlimited contract to two American companies to control Iraqi oil fires. The no-bid contract is still classified. Information that should be available to the public was finalized on March 8 but is still under wraps. What we know is that other firms that had experience putting out oil well fires in Kuwait in 1991 were left out of the process altogether. And we also know that as early as last fall, the parent company of these contractors got an exclusive contract to study how to supply oil services during an invasion of Iraq. Anybody looking to find an explanation for this closed-door contracting is likely to come up short. So far the agencies haven't said much. Last month, USAID announced that it would limit competition to companies with demonstrated technical ability, proven accounting mechanisms, ability to field a qualified technical team on short notice, and authority to handle classified national security material. The USAID Director told The New York Times that to work in Iraq you have to have a security clearance, and only these few American companies have that clearance. I sit on the Intelligence Committee, and don't know of any good reason why a contractor bidding to rebuild a school, hospital, sewer system or any other part of Iraq's infrastructure would need a security clearance. In any case, four of USAID's eight reconstruction projects will allow subcontracting to companies that don't have to meet the security requirements. So that argument doesn't hold up. Our bill has a simple premise to ensure accountability in the awarding process. It says that any Federal entity bypassing competitive bidding for Iraqi reconstruction projects has to disclose some key information. Most importantly, that means revealing the documents used to justify a sole-source or limited contract. Agencies are already required by law to prepare this rationale for sole source bidding. Our bill just makes the information accessible. We've written provisions to protect classified information, while still giving Congress full oversight over the billions in taxpayer money that Americans are being asked to commit in Iraq. There are too many questions and the stakes are too high for Congress not to demand public disclosure of this information. I am pleased that Senators Collins, Clinton, Byrd and Lieberman are joining me in introducing this legislation to bring greater accountability and openness to the contracting for Iraq reconstruction. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of our bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am pleased today to be teaming up again with my good friend Senator Burns to reintroduce legislation to address the rising tide of unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as ``spam.'' In the last Congress, our anti-spam legislation was approved unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee. Since that time--nearly a year ago now--the problem of spam has been increasing at an alarming rate. Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months. By 2004, according to some estimates, a typical company that fails to take defensive action could find that over 50 percent of its e-mail messages will be spam. This isn't just annoying, it's costly: one consulting group has estimated that spam will cost U.S. organizations more than $10 billion this year, due to expenses for anti-spam equipment and manpower and lost productivity. If nothing is done, the situation is only likely to get worse. The fundamental problem--and what makes spam different from other types of marketing--is that it is so cheap to send huge volumes of messages. With the stroke of a key, the spammer can let fly a massive torrent of e-mails. And since the sender doesn't pay any per-message postage, the incentive is to send as many as possible. The cost of all these extra messages is borne by the Internet service providers, ISPs, and the recipients, not by the sender. So as far as the spammer is concerned, the sky is the limit. Anyone who uses e-mail should be deeply concerned about this trend. In a few short years, e-mail quickly went from a novelty to a core medium of communication for millions of Americans. They came to rely on it daily, for business and personal communications alike. But just as quickly as e-mail rose to prominence, its usefulness could dwindle-- buried under an avalanche of endless ``Get Rich Quick,'' ``Lose Weight Fast,'' and offensive pornographic marketing pitches. As consumers grow frustrated with bloated in-boxes, and as ISP networks and e-commerce websites are slowed by mounting junk e-mail traffic jams, enthusiasm for the entire medium of e-mail and e-commerce could sour. Right now, e-mail users and ISPs are trying to manage the problem as best they can. They use filtering software, or lists of known spammers, or sign up for special anti-spam services. But these tactics can be burdensome, costly, and only partially effective. The fact is, existing laws do not provide sufficient tools. More help is needed. Many States have moved to address the issue. But e-mail is not a medium that respects, or even recognizes, State borders. Indeed, e-mail addresses tell nothing about which State the user is located in, so the sender and recipient of an e-mail message may have no clue where the other is located. Therefore, this is one area where a State-by-State patchwork of rules makes no sense. It is time for a nationwide approach. That is why Senator Burns and I are reintroducing the ``Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act''--the CAN SPAM Act, for short. This bipartisan legislation says that if you want to send unsolicited marketing e-mail, you've got to play by a set of rules--rules that allow the recipient to see where the messages are coming from, and to tell the sender to stop. The basic goal is simple: give the consumer more control. Specifically, the bill would prohibit the use of falsified or deceptive headers or subject lines, so that consumers will be able to identify the true source of the message. A sender of unsolicited marketing e-mail would also be required to provide the recipient with a return address or similar mechanism that can be used to tell the sender, ``no more.'' And once a consumer says ``no more,'' a sender would be required to honor that request. Senders of unsolicited commercial messages would also be required to include a clear notification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation, and a valid physical postal address. The bill includes strong enforcement provisions to ensure compliance. Spammers that intentionally disguise their identities would be subject to misdemeanor criminal penalties. The Federal Trade Commission would have authority to impose civil fines. State attorneys general would be able to bring suit on behalf of the citizens of their states. And ISPs would be able to bring suit to keep unlawful spam off their networks. In all cases, particularly high penalties would be available for true ``bad actors''--the shady, high-volume spammers who have no intention of behaving in a lawful and responsible manner. Our goal here is not to discourage legitimate online communications between businesses and their customers. Senator Burns and I have no intention of interfering with a company's ability to use e-mail to inform customers of warranty information, provide account holders with monthly account statements, and so forth. Rather, we want to go after those unscrupulous individuals who use e-mail in an annoying and misleading fashion. I believe this bill strikes that important balance. Senator Burns and I have been at this for three years now, and have worked with many different groups in shaping the legislation. We believe we have made real progress in addressing some of the legitimate concerns that were raised about previous versions of the bill. Naturally, there are interested parties who have additional ideas for measures they would like to see. We will be happy to continue to work with them, and I would also point out that the bill calls for a study to evaluate this initial Federal step against spam and to determine whether further provisions are needed. But the bill we are introducing today offers a workable, common-sense approach that should be politically viable this year. I am pleased that Senators Breaux, Landrieu, Schumer, and Thomas are joining Senator Burns and me in cosponsoring this legislation. I urge the rest of my Senate colleagues to join with us on moving it forward as promptly as possible, so that the Senate won't still be debating the issue, with no action taken, several years from now.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senators Collins, Clinton, Byrd, Lieberman and I want the rebuilding of Iraq to be done in the best way possible-- for the Iraqi people and for the American taxpayers who will foot the bill. To ensure that happens, we're introducing bipartisan legislation today to ensure accountability in the awarding of U.S. contracts to rebuild Iraq. Usually in situations like this, open and competitive bidding is used to get the best deal for the taxpayers. The same needs to hold true here. Contracts to rebuild Iraq should be awarded in the sunshine--not behind a smokescreen. If the Federal Government chooses not to use free market competition to get the most reasonable price from the most qualified contractor, then, at a minimum, they should have to tell the American people why. The bill we're introducing today is called the Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Contracting Act. It's intended to shine light into the secretive practices the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and other Federal agencies are using to hand out in Iraqi work. There are dollars-and-cents reasons for doing this. The potential cost of rebuilding Iraq has been estimated at around $100 billion. That's a lot of taxpayer money. And the U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO, reports that sole-source and limited-source contracts aren't usually the best buy. Investigator found that Army officials often just took whatever level of services the contractor gave, without ever asking if it could be done more efficiently or at a lower cost. Despite that, sole-source and limited-source contracts look like the rule, not the exception, for rebuilding Iraq. And these are costing some big cash. Contracts awarded for oil fire fighting and other projects are so-called ``cost-plus'' contracts. They pay a company's expenses, plus a guaranteed profit of one to eight percent. There are no limits on total costs, so the more a firm charges in expenses, the more profit it makes. If the Federal Government's going to spend my constituents' money that way, without asking for competitive bids, I think my constituents deserve to know why. Let me give you two concrete examples of the kind of secrecy I'm talking about. A lot of the known details come from press reports. In February and March, USAID invited a handful of companies to bid on $1.7 billion in Iraqi projects--rebuilding highways, bridges, schools. Competition for one $600 million contract was limited to seven large U.S. engineering firms. USAID apparently put out some bid invitations before the war even started. On March 24, the Army Corps of Engineers announced a sole-source, unlimited contract to two American companies to control Iraqi oil fires. The no-bid contract is still classified. Information that should be available to the public was finalized on March 8 but is still under wraps. What we know is that other firms that had experience putting out oil well fires in Kuwait in 1991 were left out of the process altogether. And we also know that as early as last fall, the parent company of these contractors got an exclusive contract to study how to supply oil services during an invasion of Iraq. Anybody looking to find an explanation for this closed-door contracting is likely to come up short. So far the agencies haven't said much. Last month, USAID announced that it would limit competition to companies with demonstrated technical ability, proven accounting mechanisms, ability to field a qualified technical team on short notice, and authority to handle classified national security material. The USAID Director told The New York Times that to work in Iraq you have to have a security clearance, and only these few American companies have that clearance. I sit on the Intelligence Committee, and don't know of any good reason why a contractor bidding to rebuild a school, hospital, sewer system or any other part of Iraq's infrastructure would need a security clearance. In any case, four of USAID's eight reconstruction projects will allow subcontracting to companies that don't have to meet the security requirements. So that argument doesn't hold up. Our bill has a simple premise to ensure accountability in the awarding process. It says that any Federal entity bypassing competitive bidding for Iraqi reconstruction projects has to disclose some key information. Most importantly, that means revealing the documents used to justify a sole-source or limited contract. Agencies are already required by law to prepare this rationale for sole source bidding. Our bill just makes the information accessible. We've written provisions to protect classified information, while still giving Congress full oversight over the billions in taxpayer money that Americans are being asked to commit in Iraq. There are too many questions and the stakes are too high for Congress not to demand public disclosure of this information. I am pleased that Senators Collins, Clinton, Byrd and Lieberman are joining me in introducing this legislation to bring greater accountability and openness to the contracting for Iraq reconstruction. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of our bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object, I will be very brief. I am very reluctant to do this because the chairman has been very gracious to me. Senator Collins and I had worked throughout the day on a bipartisan amendment. We would like a few minutes. It has been heard by the committees of jurisdiction, and we would like a few minutes to work with the chairman because if we are going to spend billions, we certainly ought to make sure there is a repetitiveness in the contracting. The Senator from Maine, the Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, has done exceptional work in this area. If we could work with the chairman, I think in a few minutes we could work this out. I am very reluctant to make this reservation.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, suffice it to say, the Senate missed an opportunity tonight to stand up for openness and competition in contracting and to make sure there was an opportunity to spend prudently on the effort to rebuild Iraq. It seems to me that too much taxpayers' money is at stake in rebuilding Iraq to allow Federal officials to use a secret process to handpick companies to do this work. There ought to be an open and full and competitive process to ensure the prices charged are reasonable and the contractors selected are the most qualified. Senator Collins of Maine and I worked for 48 hours on a bipartisan basis to make it possible to offer an amendment that would ensure that there be real openness in contracting and that there be an effort to make sure that the billions of dollars that are going to be spent rebuilding Iraq be part of a contract process that is governed by competitive bid. It is a very simple proposition. We ought to make sure it is out in the open, it is transparent, that the public can see what is going on, and that contracts should not just go to a handful who have power and influence, particularly in this city. Unfortunately, because of an objection, that amendment was not added tonight. I come to the floor to say that I intend to keep coming back until the Senate stands up for openness in Government contracting and competitive bidding so that the taxpayers' money is used well. That is not what is happening with $1.7 billion worth of contracts for rebuilding highways and bridges and rehabilitating Iraq's school system. Recently, the U.S. Agency for International Development handpicked a selective group of companies to participate in a secret bidding process for awarding four separate contracts totaling $1.7 billion. That is just one example of what is ahead with respect to how taxpayers' money is going to be used. In the past, the General Accounting Office has been very critical of this kind of approach. The General Accounting Office has found that contractors had not done enough to contain costs on projects involving engineering support in areas where the military was involved. According to a September 2000 report by the General Accounting Office, Federal officials said: Frequently, they have had accepted the level of services the contract provided without questioning whether they could be provided more efficiently and more frequently and at lower cost. What could be more important for this Senate to stand up for? What could be more important than to make these contracts involving billions of dollars be let in a way that is efficient and open? The current plan to select contractors for reconstruction work in Iraq without competitive bidding creates the potential for more of the same, more of the same where noncompetitive contracting work is conducted by the Federal Government and we have a repeat of the overpriced contracts and less acceptable services that come about when contracting is not competitive. Given the enormous sums of taxpayer money that will be involved, there ought to be competitive bidding across the board. Certainly there ought to be competitive bidding unless someone shows a compelling national security reason to do otherwise. I am of the view that if Federal agencies are not going to use full and open competition, at a minimum they ought to have the burden of demonstrating why competition is not the proper way to avoid the contracts. Senator Collins and I wanted, tonight, with the very helpful counsel of Senator Clinton of New York, who also worked in this area, to offer an amendment to require the Federal agencies to make public the documents used to justify their decision to waive the normal requirements for open and fully competitive bidding. Think about that proposition. Heaven forbid we actually make public the documents that describe why we are not having competitive bidding. That strikes me as a very modest step when you are talking about billions of dollars' worth of taxpayer money. But because there was an objection tonight, now we are not going to have the refusal to go forward with competitive bidding even made public. It seems to me the way to make sure the taxpayers get the best value for their money and we have companies that compete for this work is to make sure that the standards for exempting contracts from competition are strict and rigorous and are designed to protect the needs of taxpayers and the national security. Our amendment would have required agencies to make the justification and approval documents it used, if you were to have a contract exempt, public. And it would ensure we have full and vigorous competition and would have required other Federal agencies to make their justifications public before they entered into any contracts to rebuild Iraq. I don't think the Senate wants to sit by and see these kinds of articles in our newspapers day after day: USAID Defends Secret Bids to Rebuild Iraq. Contracts to Rebuild Iraq Go To Chosen Few. Unless we have the Wyden-Collins bipartisan amendment to open up this process, to promote competition, to have full disclosure, we are going to have articles like this in our newspapers day after day after day. It is going to contribute to the cynicism and frustration that taxpayers have in this country with respect to how their money will be used. It will be a long year. We are going to see these articles again and again. I intend to come back to the Senate and stay at this. I wanted to make sure we would have a bipartisan amendment on this effort and worked very closely with the bipartisan leadership throughout the day. I thought we were there. I thought we had this amendment in a fashion acceptable to both sides. It is very regrettable it has not been accepted. I will continue to work with my colleagues. The taxpayers of this country ought to be angry about this kind of process used to let contracts. Certainly, if there is a national security reason or some sort of contract that requires an expedited arrangement, that needs to be treated in a way that protects our national security. That is not what is going on here. What we are seeing is businesses in Missouri, Oregon, Maine, and across the country not being part of the privileged circle. A lot of businesses are going to be angry about this because they are not part of that hand-picked elite that will have a chance to get the contracts. What is going on now is bad for business, it is bad for competition, it is bad for taxpayers, and I think it is bad for national security. I don't think we will get the most for our money if we continue to have the contracts, as the papers say, go to a chosen few. The Senate made a mistake. It is particularly unfortunate because two Senators worked for the last 48 hours in a bipartisan way to try to prevent the things we have seen in the last few days from happening again and again. It will happen again and again. That is why I intend to come back to the Senate. It is unfortunate there was an objection tonight to our bipartisan legislation. I look forward to seeing the Senate in the days ahead stand up again on a bipartisan basis for a process that is open, a process that promotes competition, that is good for taxpayers, good for business, and good for our country. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, of course, the debate throughout the day has been about the wise use of taxpayers' money. Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, there was an article entitled ``USAID Defends Secret Bids to Rebuild Iraq.'' At the same time, there was an article in the Washington Post entitled ``Contracts to Rebuild Iraq Go to Chosen Few.'' ``No Bidding War on Contracts in Iraq.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these two articles be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I speak today with a profound sense of loss. A brave, young soldier from my home State of Oregon, Brandon S. Tobler, was killed in Iraq. Oregon's first war fatality, Army Reserve SP Brandon Tobler, who was only 19, lost his life in a Humvee accident during a sand storm. I have the last correspondence Brandon's parents received from their son, an e-mail sent just 2 weeks prior to his death on March 22, 2003. Brandon was the only son of Leon and Gail Tobler of Portland. He grew up there and joined the military to help pay for college. He was in a convoy headed to Baghdad providing engineering support to the combat troops. Private Tobler's death reminds us that a soldier doesn't have to be on the combat line to face tremendous danger and possible death. His letter reminds of the bravery of each and every person who puts on a uniform for the United States. Private Tobler will be laid to rest in the Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, OR, on April 3, 2003. I ask unanimous consent that Brandon's letter be printed in the Record.