Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cochran and Senator Kohl for accepting this important amendment to S. 2536, the Agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2001. According to the USDA, Oregon ranks first in hunger and seventh in food insecurity in the nation. This amendment will fund, at $176,000, a demonstration project pairing technology and teamwork: The Food Electronically and Effectively Distributed FEED Website Demonstration Project. As the only state in the nation with a statewide food bank system in place, the Oregon Food Bank, as well as an organized and active agricultural community, Oregon is prepared to develop and use the FEED website to provide a national model for other states interested in pursuing an organized statewide anti-hunger campaign. Developed and used in conjunction with Oregon food producers, processors, distributors, transporters, and anti-hunger agents, as well as the UDA and state agriculture extension agents the FEED website will transform the current anti-hunger food distribution network by using the power of Internet technology to support and facilitate real-time communication links between those with food, those who need food and those who can transport food. The FEED website will also provide a forum for sharing information about innovative anti-hunger efforts, both legislative and organizational, as well as links to other existing government, non- profit, and anti-hunger web sites to increase information sharing between active organizations and people in need. amendment no. 3991 (Purpose: To increase the Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing income limits) At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: ``Sec. . Hereafter, the Secretary of Agriculture shall consider any borrower whose income does not exceed 115 percent of the median family income of the United States as meeting the eligibility requirements for a borrower contained in section 502(h)(2) of the Housing Act of 1949 (42 U.S.C. 1472(h)(2)).

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am introducing today legislation that will allow the Bureau of Reclamation to conduct a feasibility study on ways to improve water management in the Malheur, Owyhee, Powder and Burnt River basins in northeastern Oregon. An earlier study by the Bureau identified a number of problems on these four Snake River tributaries, including high water temperatures and degraded fish habitat. These types of problems are not unique to these rivers; in fact, many rivers in the Pacific Northwest are in a similar condition. However, Oregon has a unique approach to solving these problems through the work of Watershed Councils. In these Councils, local farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders sit down together with the resource agencies to develop action plans to solve local problems. The Council members have the local knowledge of the land and waters, but they don't have technical expertise. The Bureau of Reclamation has the expertise to collect the kinds of water flow and water quality data that are needed to understand how the watershed works and how effective different solutions might be. One class of possible solutions includes small-scale construction projects, such as upgrading of irrigation systems and creation of wetlands to act as pollutant filters. This legislation would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to partner with the Watershed Councils in determining how such small-scale construction projects might benefit both the environment and the local economy. This bill authorizes a study; it does not authorize actual construction. It simply enables the Bureau to help find the most logical solution to resource management issues. I look forward to a hearing on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. I welcome my colleague, Mr. Smith, as an original co-sponsor of this bill. I ask unanimous consent that my statement and a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, for some time now the Senate has been debating, somewhat interchangeably, two issues; one involves protection for roadless areas and the other involves the important issue of fire prevention. I would like to take just a minute or 2 to discuss each one of these so that it is clear where we are with respect to this debate. The original amendment offered by the senior Senator from Idaho, Mr. Craig, my longtime colleague on the Forestry Subcommittee, would have, in effect, presented the Senate with a referendum on the President's roadless proposal, a major environmental initiative, certainly supported by millions of Americans. There have been more than 180 public meetings on this roadless initiative, and more than 500,000 comments. This is certainly the centerpiece of the President's environmental agenda. So had we been presented here in the Senate with an up-or-down vote on this roadless proposal, despite my friendship with the Senator from Idaho, I would have had to oppose that original amendment strongly. To me, the President's proposal on roadless areas makes sense for one reason: Protecting additional unspoiled areas can produce gains for fish runs across this country, as well as improving habitat and watershed quality. These environmental gains outweigh the benefits of commercial development on these particular lands. A lawsuit is pending in Federal court concerning the FACA issue as related to the roadless initiative. Certainly Congress should allow the judicial process to operate without interference. Several of my colleagues have noted that oral arguments are going to be heard on August 7 in that lawsuit. There will be plenty of time for the Senate to act with respect to any issues involving the Federal Advisory Committee. But I say, as the ranking Democrat on the Forestry Subcommittee, I think it would be a great mistake for the Senate to, in effect, ashcan the President's roadless area proposal. Fortunately, the Senate is not going to be asked to vote up or down on that issue today. I have, for some time, along with a number of other colleagues, pursued an effort to modernize our policy with respect to both road and roadless areas. There is much that we can do that protects both habitat and also resource-dependent communities. But to have had a referendum on the President's roadless area proposal today, with a lawsuit pending, and with millions of Americans in support of that proposal, would have been, in my view, a very serious mistake. Now we are presented with a substitute proposal, initiated by the two Senators from New Mexico, involving fire prevention. At this point, we are talking about something very different than the original Craig proposal. We are talking about an effort to protect homes and businesses, and, by the way, habitat as well. I want it understood for the record that this amendment is not going to affect the completion of the roadless area initiative. That is why I am pleased to be able to say that I intend to support this fire prevention initiative. Again, this new amendment does not affect the roadless area proposal. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in October, 1999, I came to the Senate floor to speak about an important amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2000 concerning farm workers. I have worked on this issue for over three years. I worked with my friend, Senator Smith of Oregon, as well as my colleague Senator Graham of Florida, to have our bipartisan amendment adopted by the managers of the bill, Senator Specter and Senator Harkin. I come to the floor today as the Senate completes debate on the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill for fiscal year 2001 to again ask the administration to get serious about addressing the very real problems in the current farm worker system. The amendment that was adopted into last year's Labor HHS appropriations bill required the Department of Labor to report to Congress with plans to improve compensation, working conditions, and other benefits for farm workers in the United States. The adopted amendment became report language in the Labor HHS Conference Report directing the Department of Labor to deliver the administration's farm worker plan to Congress as soon as possible. It is almost ten months since that directive was adopted by the entire Congress--and almost three years since I was first promised by Secretary of Labor Herman that such a plan was being devised--and still the administration has delivered no plan. As we enter the busiest time of the year for American farms, once again I am forced to point out the ineptitude of the Administration in dealing with this critical issue. The General Accounting Office completed a report in 1997 on the farm worker situation in our country. They said there are enough farm workers. But they came to that conclusion only by counting illegal farm workers. Today's agricultural labor program is a disaster for both farm workers and farmers. Estimates are that well over half of the farm workers in this country are here illegally. They are smuggled into the United States by people called ``coyotes.'' Because they are here illegally, these farm workers have no power--they cannot vote. The illegal, but much needed, farm worker is often subjected to the worst possible living and working conditions imaginable. This situation is nothing short of immoral. At the same time, the growers, who need a dependable supply of workers to pick our crops, are also in a completely untenable situation. Senator Smith and I represent Oregon farmers who literally have no where to turn to find legal farm workers. The current situation turns those farmers who want to do the right thing into people who have to make a Hobbesian choice: do they become felons by hiring illegal farm workers or do they go bankrupt. It bears repeating: Well over half of the farm workers in the United States are illegal immigrants. Oregon farmers have told me that in meetings, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Justice, the Administration has admitted that they know farmers must become felons by hiring illegal workers. It is deplorable that farmers are greeted by the Administration with winks and nods--not a legal farm worker system. In 1998, in the second session of the 105th Congress, Senator Graham, Senator Smith, and I put together a bipartisan proposal to change this wholly unacceptable system. We tried to create a new system for dealing with agricultural labor that would be in the interest of both the farm worker and the farmer. Under our bill, workers who were legal would get a significant increase in their benefits and farmers would be assured a consistent, legal work force. But after 67 Senators passed our bill, the administration refused to work with us to hammer out badly needed H2A reform legislation. At that point, Senators Graham, Smith, and I started alternatively waiting for and asking for the Administration to produce their plan for a new agricultural worker system that would address the legitimate concerns of both farm workers and farmers. In the spirit of comity and a desire to reach agreement with the executive branch, we have been waiting to see the Administration's plan. Mr. President, to date, after meetings, phone calls and congressional directives, we have been kept waiting for more than three years to see the administration's proposal. By its inaction, the Administration is perpetuating a system that is a disaster for both the farm-worker and the farmer. It is a system that is totally broken--a system that has condemned the vast majority of farm workers to some of the most terrible and immoral conditions imaginable. It is a system that has made it impossible for farmers who want to do the right thing. Our bipartisan effort was not a good enough solution for the administration. Well, the administration's inaction is not a good enough solution for me. All of us--farm workers and growers, Senators Graham, Smith, and I-- continue to wait. It is time for the administration to get off the sidelines. They should do what they promised to do well over two years ago and what we, as Congress, required them to do over 10 months ago. amendment no. 3706 (Purpose: To ensure that those students at risk of dropping out of school receive appropriate attention and to ensure that all students are given the support necessary to graduate from high school) On Page 59, line 12, before the period insert the following: ``: Provided further, That of the amount made available under this heading for activities carried out through the Fund for the Improvement of Education under part A of title X, $10,000,000 shall be made available to enable the Secretary of Education to award grants to develop and implement school dropout prevention programs.''.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to cite one example of a blockbuster drug that makes the case for why this amendment is so important. That drug is Taxol, a breakthrough drug used to fight cancer in women. It was originally made from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree. The National Institutes of Health developed this drug which last year produced $1.5 billion in sales for the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Let me repeat that. This was a drug that was developed by the National Institutes of Health. This was not a drug that came about through the genius of the private sector. It was a drug developed at the National Institutes of Health by dedicated scientists who worked hard and were pushing with every ounce of their strength to come up with new products to help women. I want to outline specifically what they did in this case because it is a very clear illustration of why this amendment is needed. With respect to Taxol, the National Institutes of Health did the initial collection and re-collection of the bark of the Pacific Yew, which is the material from which the drug came. The National Institutes of Health performed all biological screening in both cell culture and animal tumor systems. The NIH did the chemical purification, isolation, and structure identification. The National Institutes of Health did large-scale production from bark collection through the preparation of material for human use. NIH developed and produced suitable intravenous drug formulations. They did the preclinical toxicology, they filed the Investigational New Drug Application, and they sponsored all the activities, including the efforts directed towards total and partial synthesis of the drug. By the end of the fiscal year of 1992, NIH had invested $32 million. NIH could not manufacture the drug for commercial purposes, so it competitively bid to find a company to manufacture the drug. The Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was able to get exclusive rights to go forward with this pharmaceutical in the marketplace. Frankly, at hearings I held in 1993, the company really could not specify what they had done at all, other than the preclinical work and research into alternatives. So I come back to the fundamental proposition: Why is it that a pharmaceutical that was developed by the National Institutes of Health and resulted in $1.5 billion in sales in 1999 for Bristol-Myers Squibb resulted in no return on investment to the American taxpayer? This drug produced an enormous gain for an individual pharmaceutical company, yet the American taxpayer did not share in that gain. We are responsible to the taxpayer to be good financial stewards of their assets--in a sense the taxpayer saw their research walk out the door without adequate compensation for that massive taxpayer investment. There are other examples of NIH research leading to block buster drugs. One of those drugs found using NIH research and with more than $1 billion in sales is Prozac. The basic research in the development of Prozac was performed in the 1950s and 1960s by external researchers funded by NIH and researchers in NIH labs. Eli Lilly and Company developed Prozac based on this research. In 1998, Prozac was third on the list of the top 200 brand-name prescription drugs in terms of units sold. Other drugs that relied on publicly-funded research were also on that list including Imitrex, Mevacor, and Zovirax. Cisplatin is an anti-cancer drug discovered by a biophysicist at Michigan State University. National Cancer Institute scientists completed the pharmacology, toxicology, formulation, production and clinical trials. Michigan State University then licensed its patent to Bristol-Myers Squibb and the drug is used today to treat several types of cancer. All of my colleagues have met with constituents suffering from diseases that we are so close to finding cures for. Diabetes and Parkinson's are just two areas that come to mind. In this day of biomedical breakthroughs, it is important that the taxpayer not only see results of the research, but share in the gain that the multi-national drug companies also receive. I have come to the floor, I think, now on more than 30 occasions to focus on the need for bipartisanship on this issue. Senator Daschle, in my view, has done yeoman's work, trying to bring people together. I hope we can, as we are seeking to do in this amendment, address these issues in a bipartisan fashion and particularly look to those areas with respect to prescription medicine that are going to be key for the future. We know that absolutely vital to the health of this country is the research done at the National Institutes of Health. We have had many supporters in this body who have championed the cause of additional funding for NIH. I am especially appreciative of the work done by Senator Mack, for example, Senator Harkin, and Senator Specter. They have been a bipartisan juggernaut, working for additional funding for research at the National Institutes of Health. We also ought to recognize that when blockbuster drugs get to market as a result of that taxpayer-funded research, we have responsibilities to the taxpayers. We are stewards of their funds. It does not pass the smell test at a townhall meeting to say that if the taxpayers spend vast sums for federally funded research and a company then makes huge profits in the private sector, the taxpayers get no return on that investment. What we are making clear in this amendment is that Federal research should not be let go cheaply. It is important that taxpayers have a right to receive reimbursement when a blockbuster drug gets to market largely with their funds. What this does is ensure, in a timely way, that the National Institutes of Health get to the Senate and the relevant committees a specific proposal to ensure, as Congressman Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said recently: Where taxpayers' money is being spent, there ought to be a return on that investment. That is what this amendment does. Because of the Government's increased role in pharmaceutical development, with so many of the breakthrough drugs, particularly the cancer drugs, coming about because the taxpayer has paid for medically significant research, this amendment, in my view, addresses one of the important issues in the health care arena. I want to wrap up by expressing my appreciation to Senator Specter and Senator Harkin. If this amendment is adopted, I believe early next year we will have a specific game plan, a roadmap to ensure that taxpayers' interests are protected when they have done the heavy lifting in pharmaceutical development while, at the same time, having been fair to the entrepreneurs and pharmaceutical firms and others that work in this area. I hope this amendment will be accepted by the majority and the minority. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, very shortly I will be sending to the desk an amendment to deal with an issue of extraordinary importance; that is, the question of pharmaceuticals that get to the market to a great extent through taxpayer-funded research. From the very beginning of this debate on prescription drugs, I teamed up with Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine on this issue. I believe this prescription drug issue is so extraordinarily important that it has to be pursued in a bipartisan fashion. We have seen that there is an enormous interest in this country on the question of prescription drugs, and it has become a heated and contentious debate. In an effort to try to ensure this discussion was bipartisan at every level, in developing the amendment I will very shortly offer, I consulted at some length with the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, as well as Senator Harkin, the ranking minority member. Because he is on the floor, at this time I would especially like to thank Chairman Specter and his staff for all the efforts to work with us on this matter. Chairman Specter has been very gracious as well as his staff--I see Bettilou Taylor here--in making time to work with us on an amendment that I believe will be acceptable to both the majority and the minority when I send it to the desk. In this discussion of the question of pharmaceuticals that get to market largely through taxpayer funds, I think it was said very clearly by Congressman Bill Thomas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, and a member of the Republican leadership: ``When taxpayers' money is being spent, there ought to be a return on that investment.'' I am going to repeat that because I think it says it very well. Congressman Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee subcommittee said: ``When taxpayers' money is being spent, there ought to be a return on that investment.'' I think what is critical at this point is that taxpayers and citizens of this country understand just how extensive the Federal investment in these pharmaceuticals is. We all understand that the development of prescription medicine in this country is a risky business. You are going to have some successful investments. You also are going to have some dry holes. That is the nature of the free enterprise system. That is what entrepreneurship is all about. It is about risk taking, and it is about focusing on bright, creative ideas in the private marketplace. Particularly in the pharmaceutical sector, this approach has lead to nothing less than a revolution. So many of the medicines of today are central to keeping people well, and keeping folks healthy. They help to hold down blood pressure and cholesterol. As a result of those medicines, we end up very often seeing massive savings that would otherwise be incurred by what is called Part A of the Medicare program--the hospital portion of the program. This exciting revolution in the pharmaceutical sector is one that we all appreciate. However, today we want to take special note of the fact that the taxpayers have contributed in a very significant way to that revolution. According to the Joint Economic Committee, Federal research was instrumental in the development of 15 of the 21 drugs considered to have the highest therapeutic impact on society which were introduced between 1965 and 1992. Of those 15 pharmaceuticals, 7 have specific ties to the National Institutes of Health. Of those seven pharmaceuticals with direct connections to the National Institutes of Health, three had more than $1 billion in sales in 1994, and in 1995. Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this amendment is very specific in that it directs the National Institutes of Health to bring to the Senate by March 31, 2001, a specific proposal for ensuring that research funded by the taxpayer be recognized in the development of pharmaceuticals, and that the companies that benefit from that research pay reasonable rates of return on the investment by the taxpayer. I believe it is fair to all parties--to entrepreneurs, to researchers, to those in the pharmaceutical sector--and to all sides because it recognizes that this is a difficult issue. There are some technical questions with respect to how this is done. In particular, the nature of the pharmaceutical discovery is one that has to be thought through very carefully. But at the same time acceptance of this amendment would bring a sense of urgency to this issue. The Congress has a long history on this question. But the fact is that for some years there has not been adequate recognition of the fact that the taxpayer has done much of the heavy lifting in getting these pharmaceuticals to market. With this amendment we will ensure when the taxpayers play a significant role in a blockbuster drug that ends up producing very significant profits for an individual company that the taxpayers' investment will be recognized. I am just going to take a few minutes on this matter and use an example with which I think we are familiar in the Congress but which has special ramifications for folks in my part of the United States, and that is the drug Taxol. Before I do, I will ask unanimous consent to make a modest change, but a very important one, that also includes the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. WYDEN. I send the modification to my amendment to the desk.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Andrew Scott and Tracy Harris of my office have floor privileges for the remainder of the consideration of this amendment.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr President, I rise today to speak about the tragedy that is gun violence. On May 21, 1998, 15 year-old Kip Kinkel walked into Thurston High School in Springfield, OR and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in a crowded cafeteria, killing two classmates and wounding two others. Kinkel had been arrested the day before the shooting for bringing a gun to school. However, police decided that he was not a threat and released him to his parents. The next morning, Kip Kinkel shot his parents to death at home before he went to school and opened fire on his classmates. The entire state of Oregon went into shock. The Mayor of Springfield called upon lawmakers to institute a mandatory detention period for students caught bringing guns to school. In response, Senator Gordon Smith and I introduced S. 2169, a bill that would provide a 25 percent increase in juvenile justice prevention funds to those states that implemented a 72-hour detention period for any student who brought a gun to school. The idea behind the bill is straightforward. If a student brings a gun to school, he or she must be removed from the school and moved to a secure place where the student can be evaluated and the community protected. A month later, on July 23, 1999 Senator Smith and I offered a modified version of S. 2169 as an amendment to the Senate Commerce- Justice-State Appropriations bill. The ``24 Hour Rapid Response for Kids who Bring a Gun to School,'' amendment passed unanimously. Unfortunately, conservative House members, with close ties to the National Rifle Association, objected to any so called ``gun measures'' on the bill, and the amendment was removed. On May 19, 1999, Senators Smith, Hatch, and I teamed up to offer a revised version of the 24-hour Rapid Response amendment to S. 254, the Juvenile Justice bill. The amendment was accepted by the bill managers. Sadly, the bill has languished in the Conference Committee since that time. Consequently, I have offered the 24-hour Rapid Response amendment on S. 1134, the Education Savings Act and S. 2, the Educational Opportunities Act, and will continue to offer it until such time that schools are safe for all our children. This is not about guns. It's about safety. Since this amendment has not been enacted and because the legislation that would give law enforcement the tools to stop gun violence have been stalled, I come to the floor today to continue reading the names of those who fallen to gun violence. Following are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year ago today, June 22, 1999: Sean Atkins, 33, Baltimore, MD; Cedric Biglow, 22, Oklahoma City, OK; Michael A. Clifton, 35, Chicago, IL; Dredunn Cooper, 20, Houston, TX; Max Johnson, 28, Dallas, TX; Willie Ray Lewis, 23, New Orleans, LA; Rico Mosley, 19, Atlanta, GA; Richard Neely, 75, Chicago, IL; James Edward Shea, 75, Cape Coral, FL; Steve Taylor, 25, Philadelphia, PA; Joel A. Thompson, 20, Chicago, IL; Michael Williams, Atlanta, GA; Marduke Jones, Detroit, MI

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask that the following letter be printed in the Record. The letter follows: U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, June 16, 2000. Senator Tom Daschle Minority Leader, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Leader: Two weeks ago, my private relief bill for Marina Khalina, S. 150, was scheduled to come to the floor, but other members objected to this bill coming to the floor before their private relief bills came to the floor. I agreed to let my bill be sent back to the Judiciary Committee so that it and the other private relief bills could be cleared for the floor together on June 15, 2000. Now, I have been informed that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) somehow misplaced Ms. Khalina's fingerprints and that her relief bill cannot be passed by the full Senate until a new fingerprint record for Ms. Khalina can be processed by the INS. Senate action on her bill should not be delayed because of INS incompetence in losing her fingerprints. Since I am concerned that Ms. Khalina will miss her opportunity for justice should these bills go forward without S. 150, I am notifying you that I would object to a unanimous consent request to move any private relief bills unless S. 150 is included with the package. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be included in the record pursuant to the leaders request that such objections be made public. Sincerely, Ron Wyden.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before the Senator from Massachusetts leaves the floor, I want to make clear that, in all the years of Senator Kennedy's championing the cause of civil rights, we have looked to him for his leadership. I believe this is a particularly important cause he champions today at a particularly important time. I hope my colleagues will reflect carefully on what Senator Kennedy has said today. He will be leading us in the debate on this issue next week. I am honored to be working with him. As Senator Kennedy said so eloquently, this is about one proposition and one proposition alone, and that is we are seeking to deter violent crime borne out of prejudice and hatred. So often we hear discussions about preferences for individuals, advantages that might in some way be bestowed with respect to civil rights statutes. That is not what this legislation does at all. This legislation is about deterring violence, deterring crime, deterring these extraordinary acts of violence that, in my view, stain our national greatness. We are not going to be able to remove that stain completely. We are not going to be able to stop individuals from having hateful and prejudicial thoughts. Clearly, we can put the Federal Government in a position to be a stronger, more effective partner with local law enforcement officials in fighting this scourge that has affected so many of our communities. This is not a time for further study. This is not a time to say the Federal Government's response should only be to collect statistics. This is a time for the Federal Government to work in partnership with State and local law enforcement officials so that we have the strongest, most effective, most coherent mobilization against these acts of violence and prejudice that we possibly can muster. Our bipartisan amendment, led by Senator Kennedy, does three things: It removes the restrictions on the types of situations in which the Justice Department can prosecute defendants for violent crimes based on race, color, religion, or national origin. Second, it will assure that crimes targeted against victims because of disability, gender, or sexual orientation that cause death or bodily injury can be prosecuted if there is a sufficient connection to interstate commerce. Third, it requires the Attorney General to certify in writing that he or she has reasonable cause to believe that the crime was motivated by bias and that, in fact, the Federal Government had been in close consultation with State and local law enforcement officials and that they did not have any objection to Federal help or that they had asked for Federal assistance. This is not a question of the Federal Government coming in and saying: We are going to call all the shots, and preempt the local jurisdictions. In fact, we want to support those local jurisdictions. We have 28 States in this country that have no authority to prosecute bias-motivated crimes based on disability or sexual orientation. We have a substantial number of States in this country that lack the legal authority to address these issues that are so important to the fundamental values of this country. We are not saying that every single crime in America is a hate crime. We certainly know that all crimes are tragic, and we grieve for the families, but not all crimes are based on hate. A hate crime is one where the perpetrator intentionally chooses the victim because of who the victim is. It is our view that a hate crime affects not only the victim, but if it goes unaddressed, it cheapens all of us. It makes our country a little bit less special because it demeans an entire community, it demeans all of us in our Nation. This is not providing special protection to certain groups. It makes sure we stand up for the rights of those individuals who are singled out solely for reasons borne out of hatred and prejudice and we not allow those in our country who do wish to harm these individuals to perpetrate these brutal acts with no response from our communities. Some argue that hate crime laws threaten free speech. In the law we are hoping the Senate will adopt, it does not punish beliefs or thoughts. We are not punishing those in this legislation; we are punishing violent acts. I know of no Member of the Senate who is pro- violence. I do not think there is a single Member of the Senate who wants to be on the cause or in support of violent acts. Here we draw the line in the sand and we say we are not going to get in the way of people's thoughts and beliefs, lawful expression of one's deeply held religious views, but we are saying that causing or attempting to cause bodily injury is not speech protected by the first amendment. I am very hopeful that in the next few days the Senate will support this legislation. We are not federalizing criminal activity that is better left to the States. I mentioned the fact that so many States in our country lack these laws, and we have gone beyond the time to just study this and collect further statistics. If one looks at what happened in the brutal instance of Matthew Shepard and the horrific murder of James Byrd, Jr., it is awfully hard to say as you look at those brutal acts: We ought to study things a little bit more and collect some statistics before the Federal Government, in effect, acts to be a better partner with State and local authorities in addressing these issues. It is time to correct the deficiencies in current law. A crime motivated by race, religion, or ethnic origin can be prosecuted by Federal authorities because it occurred on a public sidewalk but not if it took place in a private parking lot across the street. This is just one example of the gaps and the deficiencies in the current hate crimes statute. When we vote on this issue, there will be support from Senators on both sides of the aisle. I commend my friend and colleague from Oregon, Senator Gordon Smith, who has stood with me again and again on this issue. When we vote on this, it seems to me, this will be nothing short of a referendum in the Senate on whether this body is going to continue to tolerate violent acts born of prejudice. As I mentioned, I do not know of any Senator who is in favor of violence. Violent acts, born of prejudice--acts that we all know are wrong--are taking place in too many communities in our country. They are a stain on our national greatness. The evidence is in, and it is clear. It is time, through Federal legislation, to send a strong and unequivocal message that we will not look the other way in the face of these crimes, that they will not be tolerated, that the full force of Federal law enforcement will be brought, and will be brought in conjunction with State and local authorities, to ensure that these violent acts are prosecuted and we have taken every step to deter them. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have two articles printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, almost a year ago, this country's airlines made a grand announcement about a new, although albeit voluntary, commitment to the rights of airline passengers. I tend to look with a very skeptical eye at any promise to consumers that contains the notion of both ``voluntary'' and ``rights'' together in the same sentence. Now, 1 year later, my conversations with Federal investigators about the work they have done, at the Senate's request, leaves me to be even more skeptical of what the airlines have promised. What I have learned from Federal investigators is that there are more questions than answers about the quality of airline customer service, flight delays, and the airline ticket distribution system. Frankly, as I said a year ago, the evidence indicates that the airlines' so-called customer first package has proven to be worth little more than the paper it was written on. In fact, just recently, in the last few months, the Washington Post Business Section had a headline that said: ``Airline Service Dips n 3 of 4 Categories.'' They went on to describe what can only be categorized as a pretty bumpy operation with respect to guaranteeing the rights of passengers in this country. I will take just a few minutes to outline what I think the central problems are, and what I have learned from Federal investigators about their work. Then I hope the Senate will support my amendment on a bipartisan basis. First, after a year of trying to get the airlines to be straight with the American consumer with respect to finding the lowest fare available on a particular flight, I can report that finding the lowest airfare remains one of the great mysteries of our time. On any given flight, there may be as many different fares paid as there are passengers on the plane. Finding out if the flight you want to take is overbooked is sort of like playing hide and seek. First, you have to know what to ask for. Then you need to know the difference between a flight that is oversold and a flight that is overbooked. Suffice it to say, there seem to be a fair number of people in the industry who can hardly explain that difference. When I first called for the passage of a real, enforceable passenger bill of rights for airline consumers, I made it very clear to the Senate that I was not talking about establishing a constitutional right to a fluffy pillow on your airplane flight. I was not talking about folks being entitled to a jumbo bag of peanuts. What I was talking about has the public's right to know, the public's right to know information about basic services, just as they do in every other area of our economy. In every other area of the economy, such as when you have a reservation for a particular item or you want to find out about how it is priced, you can get that information. You can get it whether it is on the telephone, at the counter, online, or through a variety of intermediaries. And you are told, in straightforward kinds of terms, the real reasons behind these scheduling arrangements, and prices, and the kind of information that is so relevant to the consumer. That is not what is happening today in the airline industry, despite the grandiose pledges from folks in the industry. For example, the annual survey by leading scholars at Wichita State who have been doing these surveys for many years came out in April and found that consumer complaints on air travel in 1999 were up 130 percent over the previous year. That study showed that 7 out of 10 airlines posted lower quality ratings than they did in the previous year. Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation consumer division reported that the number of complaints they had received was about double that of the previous year. The complaints were up and the ratings were down after the airlines had pledged to the Congress to do better. Suffice it to say, these professors at Wichita State are not airline industry bashers. These are individuals who, by their own description, take a very conservative orientation to these issues. Yet they found that in virtually every important area of consumer service, there had actually been a deterioration in the quality of service to airline passengers during this period since the airlines' so-called customer first pledge went into effect. When the industry's Air Transport Association reported recently that customer satisfaction was at an all-time high, many of us struggled to find out to whom exactly they were talking. They weren't talking to the folks I sit next to on an airplane or the people I meet in ticket lines at home in Oregon or around the Pacific Northwest. I can understand the inclination of the Senate to give the airlines some time to try to make their voluntary program work. I got my head handed to me when we had the vote in the Commerce Committee and it was 19-1 with respect to airline passenger rights. I respected that. Given the results in the Commerce Committee, I decided we ought to try to do some followup and offered several amendments that were accepted as part of this appropriations bill in the last year. I believed it was important to continue to monitor the situation to see if we would get any improvements since the industry's pledges went into effect. What we adopted in the last appropriations bill was part of the final law. It was binding, and it gave the Transportation Department inspector general a statutory mandate to look at whether airlines are giving customers access to the lowest fares no matter what technology they used to contact the airline. It is outrageous to know that even today airline passengers can be quoted one price over the telephone and yet a much lower fare is available to them on the Internet and they aren't given that kind of information. The Department of Transportation inspector general was directed in the last appropriations bill to investigate that issue and, in addition, to make sure we monitor this question of the lowest fare. We directed the inspector general to tell us about overbookings of flights--again, a right-to-know context. I have no problem with an airline selling a ticket to a passenger on a flight that is overbooked, if the consumer is told that the flight is overbooked at the time they are going to make the purchase. It is fairly straightforward; it is informed consent. We have found that has not been done. The Department of Transportation inspector general is also looking at a new scheme the airlines have cooked up known as T-2. It is our understanding this is a new online pool of airfares where nearly all of the major air carriers will offer their lowest fares but which will not be accessible to those who offer travel services. In a few weeks, the inspector general of the Department of Transportation is going to issue an interim report on the airlines' customer service commitment plans. What I have heard about this report is that the airlines are coming up short, and seriously so, with respect to following up on the commitments they made to the Congress. For example, recent weather delays at Chicago's O'Hare Airport resulted in numerous planes being stranded on the runways for periods of 3 hours or more and as long as 8 hours. The Presiding Officer must have heard from some of his constituents on that matter. I happen to have been on the flight that was going from Chicago to Portland where some of those folks had been on the flight that had been stranded in Chicago. They told me all they had received during this extended wait was granola bars and almost no information at all about the options they had. A recent power failure at National Airport in the Nation's Capital stranded scores of passengers without any accommodations or emergency provisions. Again, we have the consumer complaints pouring into the Department of Transportation at record levels each month of this year, after the airline industry's voluntary pledge went into effect. This notion from the airline industry that they just need more time, give them a little bit more opportunity to make this so-called voluntary program work, is contradicted by what we have seen each month since the so-called voluntary pledges went into effect. The customer service commitments don't even address one of the most frustrating areas of air travel; that is, the fundamental underlying issue of delays and what the airlines and the FDA will do to combat them. It is important that we get the Department of Transportation interim report. It is going to offer the American people an unbiased view of exactly how well airlines are treating passengers. It is going to give us an independent assessment of these so-called voluntary passenger commitments. I believe what this report is going to show is that the pledges the airline industry made are in effect a kind of cosmetic program to try to keep the Senate from enacting real passenger rights that are enforceable and truly protect the American public. I suspect what we will hear from the inspector general will be a blueprint for enforceable concrete legislation that protects the rights of passengers. What the Senate ought to be doing is keeping the airlines' feet to the fire. That is why I am offering an amendment to this year's Department of Transportation appropriations bill that would instruct the Department of Transportation IG to continue his fact finding and information gathering in key areas that are so important to the public. I am talking about whether these customer service practices amount to anything, getting the public straight information on the lowest available fare, information about overbooking. Importantly, for the first time the Senate would direct the Department of Transportation IG to look at the question of whether mergers in the airline industry are causing customer service to deteriorate. We ought to be looking at that issue. We ought to be looking at whether legislation should be enacted to require that customer service be a factor in granting an airline merger in this country. We have all heard so much about these airline mergers. We are having a lot of problems with customer service today. We ought to be looking at the ramifications these mergers are having on the quality of airline service in this country. I am particularly interested in knowing whether the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, should write a law that would stipulate whether or not customer service ought to be a factor in the merger review process. In addition, this amendment would review the reasons for increases in flight delay. We have had some folks say it is the FAA's fault. We have had other folks say that it is the airline industry's fault. I think the Department of Transportation IG ought to dig into that issue. My amendment also requires a review of the airline ticket distribution system that I mentioned earlier involving T-2. Suffice it to say that there are a number of questions there about whether that is contributing to problems that consumers are having. The bottom line is, will the Senate keep the airlines' feet to the fire? Are we going to have the Department of Transportation continue in this investigative effort to try to at least put some kind of collective focus by the Senate on how important it is to improve passenger service? We have all heard from constituents, at a time when the airlines are, in many instances, making great profits, about why it is that some of that money can't be devoted to improving passenger service. I am not going to go through all of the recent news stories but just a few of the headlines. The Washington Post headline is ``Airline Service Dips In 3 of 4 Categories.'' The Los Angeles Times headline is ``Air Passengers `Fed Up' With Poor Service, Survey Finds.'' They go on to cite the fact that ``Consumer complaints against airlines have more than doubled from last year.'' In conjunction with the recommendations we are getting from the Department of Transportation's IG and their leading official, who I think does a superlative job in this area, I would like to see the Senate working with the Transportation inspector general to keep the focus on trying to force these airlines to improve the quality of passenger service to the people of this country. I have just been informed by the staff that Chairman McCain and Senator Hollings and Senator Rockefeller would be willing to join me today in committing to send a letter asking the Department of Transportation inspector general to investigate and report to the committee on the issues that are the subject of my amendment. So that the record is clear, Chairman McCain, Senator Hollings, and Senator Rockefeller--and they are all the leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee and spend many hours looking into these issues--have all asked that they join me in a letter to the Department of Transportation inspector general inquiring into the issues that are the subject of my amendment. The fact that we are getting the bipartisan leadership of our committee behind this effort is very important. It is certainly important to me because all of them have great expertise regarding this issue. My inclination, frankly, is to have a vote on this amendment on the floor of the Senate to send the strongest possible message. But I note that Senator Rockefeller cannot be present today. He has done extremely good and important work on a whole host of aviation issues, including the air traffic control system. As a member of the Commerce Committee and the Aviation Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over these issues, I am going to agree this afternoon, on the basis of the fact that we will now have a bipartisan letter sent to the inspector general by the bipartisan leadership of the Commerce Committee directing that the IG look into all of the issues outlined in my amendment, to withdraw my amendment. But I want to make it clear to people in the airline industry and the passengers that are so frustrated by these delays that this fight is going to continue. It is not being dropped. In fact, we are expanding it. As I mentioned, we are going to look, for the first time in recent years, at the ramifications of mergers on customer service. I happen to believe very strongly that mergers and customer service are inextricably linked. I think we ought to change the law and stipulate that one of the criteria on whether or not an airline merger ought to go forward is customer service. Amendment No. 3433, Withdrawn I note the absence of Senator Rockefeller, who believes strongly in this. Chairman McCain and the ranking Democrat, Senator Hollings, have both done very important work on aviation issues. They have pledged to join with me in directing the Department of Transportation inspector general to investigate these issues. In view of that announcement that is being made today, and in view of the bipartisan support for the Department of Transportation looking into these issues, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment this afternoon.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk involving the rights of airline passengers in this country.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to voice my concerns about Section 335 of the Transportation Appropriations bill. This section flatly bans the Department of Transportation from even considering any reform of the commercial drivers' Hours of Service (HOS) regulations, which limit the time that drivers spend behind the wheel of large trucks and buses. The provision shuts off all funding for DOT current and future efforts to ensure drivers receive adequate rest. This sweeping ban on any further consideration of HOS regulations goes too far. Section 335 would not even give DOT a chance to try to address concerns that have been raised about its proposed regulations. DOT would be prohibited from holding public hearings on the changes (several are planned for this month alone) or from even talking with drivers, law enforcement groups, and highway safety groups about the proposed changes. The measure also halts efforts to enhance HOS enforcement through on-board recorders--one of the National Transportation Safety Board's ten most wanted safety improvements. The ban on any consideration of HOS reform also contradicts Congress' recent action to improve truck safety. Just last year Congress mandated the creation of a new truck safety agency within DOT, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. It is FMCSA's proposal to change the HOS regulations which has led to the ban in section 335 of the Transportation Appropriations bill. Moreover, in 1995, the Congress, through the medium of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA), directed DOT to study the HOS regulations and suggest reforms. DOT and FMCSA have done so. The result of their efforts should not be the foreclosing of all debate on new driver safety rules.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the conference agreement on digital signatures that is going to be overwhelmingly approved tomorrow morning may be the big sleeper of this Congress, but it certainly was not the ``big easy.'' The fact of the matter is, when we started on this in March of 1999, Senator Abraham and I envisioned a fairly simple interim bill. We were looking at electronic signatures to make sure that in the online world, when you sent an electronic signature, it would carry the same legal weight as a ``John Hancock'' in the offline world. But as we prepared--after this passed the Commerce Committee--to move forward with a pretty innocuous bill, the financial services and insurance industries came to us with what we thought was a very important and thoughtful concept; and that was to revolutionize e- commerce, to go beyond establishing the legal validity of e-signatures to include electronic records, keeping important records electronically. We were told by industry--and correctly so--that this would give America a chance to save billions and billions of dollars and thousands of hours, as our companies chose to spend their funds on matters other than paper recordkeeping. At the same time, the consumer groups that sought this proposal were extremely frightened. They saw this as an opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to come on in and rip off senior citizens, to foreclose on people's homes, to cut off health insurance, and things of that nature, by just perhaps an e-mail into cyberspace. Chairman McCain is here. This is truly a bipartisan effort in every respect. I had a chance to work with my senior colleagues on this side, Senator Leahy, Senator Hollings, Senator Sarbanes, and our friend Senator Kerry, who is here. And let me tell you, it ultimately took three Senate committees 8 months and thousands of hours to get it done. We had to bring together key principles of what is known as the old economy, such as consumer protection and informed consent, and fuse them together with the principles of the new economy and the online world, and the chance to save time and money through electronic records and electronic signatures. What we tried to say, on this side of the aisle, and what we were able to get a bipartisan agreement around, is the proposition that consumer rights are not virtual rights. We have to make sure--and we have it in this legislation--that the protections that apply offline would apply online. We were able to do it without enduring all kinds of unnecessary redtape and bureaucracy. I wanted the bill to unleash the potential of electronic signatures and records for industry without shattering a cornerstone of American commerce: the right of individual consumers to have meaningful and informed consent and to keep accurate records of their contracts and transactions. I believe the conference agreement before the Senate has met the challenge of protecting consumer rights in the new economy. Consumer rights are not virtual rights. Consumers must enjoy the same basic rights in the online world as they have in the off-line world. Through the electronic consumer consent provision in Section 101(c) that I authored with Senators Leahy, Hollings and Sarbanes, I believe we have adequately translated offline consumer protections into online consumer protections. Let me just spend a minute describing this key provision of the conference agreement. This provision requires that consumer consent must be meaningful. We all know of cases where someone said, ``Just e- mail me that document,'' only to have that person call later, saying ``Gee, I couldn't open the document, can you fax it to me?'' I can't recall how many times this exact thing happened to our own staff during the negotiation of this agreement. Meaningful consumer consent doesn't mean being given a pageful of hardware and software specification gobbledygook. It means consenting electronically so that a consumer knows he or she can receive, read and retain the information in an electronic record. Section 101(c) provides that if a statute, regulation or other rule of law requires that information relating to a transaction be provided or made available to a consumer in writing, the vendor can use electronic means if the consumer, prior to consenting, has been given a clear and conspicuous statement of his or her rights. The consumer must be informed of the option of getting the record on paper, and what the consequences are if he or she later withdraws the electronic consent in favor of returning to paper records. Some vendors, for example, may be able to achieve considerable savings by using electronic records, and offer customers a much more attractive price for doing business online rather than through traditional paper and snail mail. But a vendor might not want to be locked into a lower price if the buyer reverts to paper later in the life of the contract. This provision will assure a consumer will be informed up front of any change in the cost if the consumer withdraws consent to receive records electronically subsequent to consummation of the contract. This could happen, for instance, if a consumer finds he cannot access the documents electronically, or the vendor chooses to upgrade his software and the consumer does not want to go to the expense of upgrading his system to accommodate the change. The consumer must also be informed of the hardware and software necessary to access and retain records electronically, how to withdraw electronic consent, how to update information needed to contact the consumer electronically, the categories of records that will be provided or made available electronically, how a consumer may request a paper copy of an electronic record and whether a fee will be charged for such copy. If a vendor changes the electronic system used to obtain the original consent electronically, the vendor must obtain the consent electronically again using the new system and the same two-way consent process. Most importantly, the consumer must consent electronically or confirm his or her consent electronically in a manner that reasonably demonstrates that the consumer can access the information in the electronic form that will be used to provide the information. This is critical. ``Reasonably demonstrates'' means just that. It means the consumer can prove his or her ability to access the electronic information that will be provided. It means the consumer, in response to an electronic vendor enquiry, actually opens an attached document sent electronically by the vendor and confirms that ability in an e- mail response. It means there is a two-way street. It is not sufficient for the vendor to tell the consumer what type of computer or software he or she needs. It is not sufficient for the consumer merely to tell the vendor in an e-mail that he or she can access the information in the specified formats. There must be meaningful two-way communication electronically between the vendor and consumer. At the heart of these provisions is the concern--shared by many in the industry as well--that electronic communication, e-mail, is not as reliable or as ubiquitous as traditional first class mail. Until advances in electronic mail technology eliminate such concerns and until the vast majority of Americans are comfortable using the technology of the New Economy, consent to use electronic records requires special care and attention. Because of such concerns, there are some areas where the use of electronic notice and records are simply not appropriate today. Section 103 of the conference agreement recognizes this by continuing to require paper notice. These areas include shutting off a consumer's utilities, canceling or terminating health insurance or benefits or life insurance benefits, foreclosing on someone's primary residence, recall of a product that risks endangering health or safety and documents required to accompany the transportation or handling of hazardous materials, pesticides, or other toxic or dangerous materials. What happens, for example, if a hazmat truck loaded with toxic waste spills its cargo, endangering a community, and the only notice about the hazardous cargo was posted on the company's website? Is it fair to allow a mortgage lender to foreclosure on someone's home just because their ISP went out of business and they weren't receiving their payment notices electronically? The exceptions we fought for in this section of the conference agreement will protect consumers. Before paying tribute to those who worked so hard on this bill. I believe it is important to the legislative history to say a brief word about the process. This is necessary because, unfortunately, statements are being made or inserted in the Record and colloquies are being offered that seek to weaken, undermine and even directly contradict the actual words of the text of the Conference Agreement. This appears to come from some quarters that do not share the majority view of those who signed the Conference documents. As one of the principal sponsors of the Senate measures, S. 761, I am compelled to point out that the actual text of the legislation can and should stand on its own. The negotiations that led to the final legislative document were very difficult and contentious. Because of this, part of the agreement on the final language included a commitment--a sort of ``gentleman's agreement'' if you will--from all the signers of the Conference Agreement not to prepare the normal Statement of Managers that accompanies a Conference document. There is no Statement of Managers for S. 761, and no one should pretend there is. As one of the key managers for the Senate, I can attest that I did not participate in negotiating such a document, not did I acquiesce to one prepared by another party or parties or sign one. The conference agreement is the product of many, many long days and nights of negotiations. Commerce Committee Chairman McCain, Ranking Democrat Senator Hollings, Senators Leahy and Sarbanes, and Senator Abraham all contributed to this product. The efforts of our distinguished colleagues in the House, Commerce Committee Chairman Bliley and Ranking Democrat John Dingell, were critical in this process. I would also like to recognize some of the key staff and Administration officials who did yeoman work to produce this agreement. In particular, Senator Hollings' Counsel, Mosses Boyd, and his Commerce Committee Staff Director, Kevin Kayes, Senator Leahy's outstanding Judiciary counsel, Julie Katzman, Senator Sarbanes' Banking Staff, Marty Gruenberg and Jonathan Miller. Chairman McCain's very able and patient counsel, Maureen McLaughlin, and Senator Abraham's lead staffer on this bill, Kevin Kolevar. Sarah Rosen-Wartell of the White House staff and Commerce Department General Counsel Andy Pincus also deserve praise for their hard work on this bill. This conference agreement came perilously close on more than one occasion to running off the rails, but each time the will was found to resume negotiations and try to bring the conference to a close. This is also a tribute to the hard work of a handful of consumer and industry groups who did not want to give up on the process. I urge my colleagues to vote for this agreement, which lays another important cornerstone for electronic commerce. At the end of the day, this is not a perfect bill. I do not think any of the conferees would argue that it is. But it is a very good bill. It is a very good bill because, as a result of three Senate committees and thousands of hours, we took key principles of what was known as the old economy--consumer protection, informed consent, making sure that the vulnerable, the elderly, and people for whom the home and health care are lifeline concerns--we ensured that they will be protected, while at the same time allowing those in the financial services industry, who came to us with sensible suggestions for saving time and money--by taking records from paper to the electronic world--to have their concerns addressed, while at the same time being true to fundamental values of consumer protection and the fusing together of the new and the old economy. That is what I think makes this legislation so special. Chairman McCain is here. He and his staff did an extraordinary job, as did Senator Abraham. I cannot say enough good things about four senior Democrats--Senator Leahy, Senator Sarbanes, Senator Hollings, and Senator Kerry--because they helped us champion those consumer protection principles that were so important and helped us get this bill done right. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. I was contemplating speaking about 5 minutes. But, again, I do not want to inconvenience my colleagues.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today, the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life can be enriched by something new: access to the Internet. But according to a 1999 Forrester Research report, only 8 percent of seniors age 65 and above have Internet access compared to 40 percent of the population under age 65. According to an unpublished Department of Commerce study, the percentage of low-income seniors with Internet access is even less: only 1.5 percent. My bill, the Internet Access for Seniors Act of 2000, will help narrow this digital divide between seniors and the rest of the population. I am pleased to be joined by Senators DeWine and Rockefeller in introducing this bill. A recent study by Stanford's Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society shows the digital divide among different demographic groups. The variables are age, education, gender, race, ethnicity, and income. It shows that by far the most important factors facilitating or inhibiting Internet access are age and education--not income, not race, not ethnicity, and not gender. According to the study's authors, these variables account for less than 5 percent of the change in the rates of Internet access and are statistically insignificant. In contrast, and I quote, ``a college education boosts rates of Internet access by well over 40 percentage points compared to the less educated group, while people over 65 show a more than 40 percentage point drop in their rates of Internet access compared to those under 25.'' Ironically, seniors, who have more limited access to the Internet, can benefit more from Internet access than others because, in addition to a digital divide, they suffer from a transportation divide. The ability to travel from one place to another is vital to our daily lives. In fact, good transportation access is vital for many of the same reasons as good Internet access. But seniors are the least mobile demographic segment of our adult population. One way that people cope with poor access to telecommunications is to rely on transportation. But seniors lack this coping mechanism. In other words, if any demographic group in our society actually needs superior access to the Internet, it is seniors. Our society has long recognized that access to certain kinds of information is a public good. That is why we have schools and libraries, and it is why we have the E-rate, which provides Internet access to schools and libraries. Until now, however, senior centers have been left out of the mix. Some may say, ``Why don't seniors go to the library to get Internet access?'' Many seniors prefer to go to senior centers because they are specifically designed to serve their needs. For example, senior centers routinely provide some type of special transportation for seniors to get to and from the senior centers. Asking libraries to take on the added cost of providing such transportation is clearly less desirable from a cost--not to mention logistical--standpoint. When a senior makes the effort to get to a senior center, he can take advantage of a half dozen services specifically designed to serve his needs, and it seems wasteful to ask libraries to take on those additional services. There are many ways seniors can benefit from Internet access: taking courses, finding a job, becoming better-informed citizens, and shopping for essential goods and services. One application, access to health information, is obviously essential to seniors and is also an area of great interest to me. Mr. President, there is an explosion of useful health information being made available over the Internet. According to a recent front page New York Times story, there are now more than 100,000 healthcare websites available on the Internet. Health information is being made available on the Internet because consumers demand it. There are many reasons seniors may prefer to get health information over the Internet rather than in person. Some seniors may not want to wait until their next doctor appointment before finding out more about their ailment. For example, if a senior gets a diagnosis of cancer, she may not want to wait to find out more about the seriousness of her condition and the options available. Some seniors may find a trip to the clinician's office an onerous and often all-day activity. Clearly the ability to communicate with a clinician without making a special trip--and at odd hours--would be of great benefit. Recognizing these needs, some HMOs already allow seniors to communicate with their caregiver via the Internet to request relatively routine services such as a dosage change. This also saves on Medicare costs. Some seniors may want to talk to other people who share their condition. For example, most medical websites now have chat rooms where fellow sufferers can get together to share information about new treatment options and day-to-day tips for coping with specific conditions. These sites also provide advice and support to the spouses and other caregivers who must care for victims of Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, and other afflictions of the elderly. My legislation is designed to bring senior centers, particularly those in low-income or rural areas, into the digital age. I chose senior centers as a vehicle to alleviate the digital divide for seniors because these centers serve large numbers of seniors, especially the disadvantaged seniors targeted by this bill. Unfortunately, there are no national statistics regarding how many senior centers have computers with Internet access accessible to seniors. However, my office did a survey of Oregon senior centers. We found that 52 percent lacked access to computers and that 71 percent lacked access to the Internet. In many cases, the quality of computers and Internet access was low. Many computers were at least five years old. Some were ten or more years old. Internet connections were often made with older versions of browsers that could not access contemporary web sites. My bill has two major components. The first provides a tax credit for individuals and organizations that contribute computer equipment to senior centers. The second creates a pilot program, called the S-rate, to provide subsidies for qualified low-income or rural senior centers to access the Internet. The tax credit, essentially identical to the tax credit for computer equipment donated to schools passed March 1 of this year in the New Millennium Classrooms Act, is equal to 30 percent of the fair market value of the donated computer equipment. To receive the tax deduction, the computer equipment must be three years old or less. For donations to senior centers located within empowerment zones, enterprise communities, and Indian reservations, the tax credit is increased to 50 percent. The tax deduction is terminated for taxable years beginning three years after the date of enactment of this act, and we impose a limit of 10 computers per senior center. The S-rate covers up to 90 percent of the costs associated with Internet access to senior centers. Covered costs include computers, software, training, and maintenance. Our bill seeks to narrow the increasingly important divide between information haves and have-nots in our society. Our bill is only a pilot program that will invest $10 million a year in getting our seniors online. The program sunsets after 3 years. The Secretary of the Department of Commerce will administer the S- rate. In selecting among eligible senior centers, the Secretary will consider the senior center's need and proposed applications. Need includes the number of seniors served by the senior center, the extent to which the senior center already provides Internet access, and the extent to which the senior center serves an area with a high percentage of low-income or rural individuals. Applications include health information, job training, lifelong education, and any other applications that fulfill an important social need. One of the Secretary's tasks is to develop enabling tools for the senior centers. For example, the Secretary could offer an array of fill-in-the-blank web templates to make it easy for senior centers to post information on the web and create their own home pages. The Secretary could provide information to senior centers about privacy concerns, especially regarding sensitive matters such as health information. The Secretary could suggest minimum standards for web hosting services seeking to serve senior centers. One of the wonderful things about the Internet is the ability of one site to learn from another. The Secretary could create a web-based clearinghouse of all the senior centers funded under the pilot program. Innovative and outstanding web-based services could be specially marked so that other senior centers could quickly learn from the best practices of others. The Secretary could set up a technical chat room so that senior center administrators, in their role as webmasters, could share concerns and ideas. The Secretary could set up an Internet hotline for oversight; that is, to be alerted if an administrator doesn't use the S-rate for its stated purpose. And because the Internet can be used for distance education and online help, the Secretary could fund some senior centers to train other senior citizens. Let me close with one further thought. Closing the digital divide for seniors is not just about social justice; it's also about basic dollars and cents. Consider this: according to the National Institute of Aging, more than two-thirds of every healthcare dollar--much of it government funded--goes to seniors. If we can empower seniors to be wise health consumers, we can use market mechanisms, rather than government red tape, to make sure that seniors get the healthcare they need. The Internet now offers that opportunity. Let's not squander it. I ask unanimous consent that my statement and a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Little Sandy Watershed Protection Act. I promised Oregonians that my first legislative business when Congress reconvened after the Memorial Day Recess would be the introduction of this bill. Therefore, joined by my friends Senator Gordon Smith and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, I introduce this legislation to make sure that Portland families can go to their kitchen faucets and get a glass of safe and pure drinking water today, tomorrow, and on, into the 21st century. The Bull Run has been the primary source of water for Portland since 1895. The Bull Run Watershed Management Unit, Mount Hood National Forest, was protected by Congressional action in 1904, 1977 and then again, most recently, in 1996 (P.L. 95-200, 16, U.S.C. 482b note) because it was recognized as Portland's primary municipal water supply. It still is. Today I propose to finish the job of the Oregon Resources and Conservation Act of 1996. That law, which I worked on with Senator Mark Hatfield, finally provided full protection to the Bull Run watershed, but only provided temporary protection for the adjacent Little Sandy watershed. I promised in 1996 that I would return to finish the job of protecting Portland's drinking water supply and intend to continue to push this legislation until the job is complete. The bill I introduce today expands the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit boundary from approximately 95,382 acres to approximately 98,272 acres by adding the southern portion of the Little Sandy River watershed, an increase of approximately 2,890 acres. The protection this bill offers will not only assure clean drinking water, but also increase the potential for fish recovery. Reclaiming suitable habitat for our region's threatened fish populations must be an all-out effort. Through the cooperation of Portland General Electric and the City of Portland, the Little Sandy can be an important part of that effort. My belief is that the children of the 21st century deserve water that is as safe and pure as any that the Oregon pioneers found in the 19th century. This legislation will go a long way toward bringing about that vision.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Little Sandy Watershed Protection Act. I promised Oregonians that my first legislative business when Congress reconvened after the Memorial Day Recess would be the introduction of this bill. Therefore, joined by my friends Senator Gordon Smith and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, I introduce this legislation to make sure that Portland families can go to their kitchen faucets and get a glass of safe and pure drinking water today, tomorrow, and on, into the 21st century. The Bull Run has been the primary source of water for Portland since 1895. The Bull Run Watershed Management Unit, Mount Hood National Forest, was protected by Congressional action in 1904, 1977 and then again, most recently, in 1996 (P.L. 95-200, 16, U.S.C. 482b note) because it was recognized as Portland's primary municipal water supply. It still is. Today I propose to finish the job of the Oregon Resources and Conservation Act of 1996. That law, which I worked on with Senator Mark Hatfield, finally provided full protection to the Bull Run watershed, but only provided temporary protection for the adjacent Little Sandy watershed. I promised in 1996 that I would return to finish the job of protecting Portland's drinking water supply and intend to continue to push this legislation until the job is complete. The bill I introduce today expands the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit boundary from approximately 95,382 acres to approximately 98,272 acres by adding the southern portion of the Little Sandy River watershed, an increase of approximately 2,890 acres. The protection this bill offers will not only assure clean drinking water, but also increase the potential for fish recovery. Reclaiming suitable habitat for our region's threatened fish populations must be an all-out effort. Through the cooperation of Portland General Electric and the City of Portland, the Little Sandy can be an important part of that effort. My belief is that the children of the 21st century deserve water that is as safe and pure as any that the Oregon pioneers found in the 19th century. This legislation will go a long way toward bringing about that vision.