almighty god holy powerful loving and good thank you for your love expressed in the beauty of the earth and in the glory of the skies use the members of this body today as and moments of your providence health where there is poverty let them bring relief and true well as they see to serve you give them the peaceful satisfaction of knowing that they please you strengthen them to press on with the work of the day alert to feel your hand upon their shoulders and lower to comfort those who mourn the losses from the bridge collapse in minnesota we pray read a communication to the senate washington d c august second two thousand and seven to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the standing rules of the senate i hereby a point beyond our bill dianne feinstein senator from the state of they aren't going to require a lot of time so that should take a lot a lot of much time so we can get back to work on the matter relating to children's health couple of matters a businessman a present the manager in our side this morning is going to most reconsider be laid on the table senate insist on its amendment request a conference with the house and the chair be authorized point conferees with conferees being the members of the health committee i would further say man a president there were some tax measures in this  matter that we dealt with here on the floor they've been stricken from the bill that senator kennedy's meant all amount so i would hope we could go to conference on this matter without a middle german reserving was german reserving the right to object before i would object i'd need to understand the rationale the majority leader did propound the request at this time i know that i sent a letter last week and i would ask unanimous consent that that letter be a be a part of the record asking for a conference to be be appointed but it's my understanding that the house never intended to appoint one this week and had i known that i would not have delivered the letter we were working in a very by camera bipartisan manner and getting this done i don't know what the what the log jam is at the moment understanding some concerns on the biologics but there isn't any reason that this can't be completed but i'm afraid that the motion if we're doing this would appear to put the blame on the house or republicans i'm not sure which and i don't think we can do that at this point why would they be later in the day or something like that i would say to my friends or n z if this is the way feels i'm happy to have him so he can he sees this can be worked out so i withdraw my consent i appreciate that president mr president mr president this president majority leader thank you very much i want to just say a brief comment i want to make a brief comment on the tragedy in minneapolis minnesota watching those pictures on television and listening to the counts on the radio and seeing the newspaper accounts and the pictures this is a real tragedy and my heart and i think the heart of all americans go out the people of minnesota for this tragedy to those that have died those have been injured and certainly families friends of all those and i am confident and confident that we'll find out why that disaster occurred right now we don't know and we have we have there's every reason to believe that it was not an act of terrorism and that i feel that that's the case based on hearing the governor of the state  making announcements warning i would say this just in passing with the after every storm there's the sun shines and i think we should look at this a tragedy that occurred as a wake up call for us we have all over the country a crumbling infrastructure highways bridges dams and we really need to take a hard look at this a look at it as the right thing to do and also not only for the fact that this infrastructure needs repair rebuilding but it's good for america and more ways than that for every billion dollars we spend in our crumbling infrastructure forty seven thousand high paying jobs are created and i would hope that we would take a look at our highways bridges dams water systems s systems and see if we can do something about this infrastructure the need such such attention we have some things coming up here in the senate in the near future that we need to focus on this tragedy in minneapolis  also work with the white house and have them right realize that there are things that need to be done in this country with our own infrastructure to their constituents who have been impacted by this but also to be as helpful as possible as we move forward with the rescue mission the i'm reminded of the situation of the state the ohio river goes along the northern border of kentucky almost for the entire state and then it when it empties into the mississippi to go southward  same river over which there are many minneapolis bridge collapsed and we have bridges all along both the ohio and the mississippi the whole issue of bridge construction and bridge safety has been a big issue in the commonwealth of kentucky in recent years i share the concerns of the majority leader about reports of the state of our infrastructure in america and we all pray for the for the victims of the minneapolis tragedy and it might well serve as majority leader indicators a reminder of our need to be ever aware of the dangers that confront our infrastructure this country in many ways now mr president the other thing i wanted to do this morning was to ask consent with regard to time allocation on my side during consideration of i should have mentioned i appreciate very much my distinguished counterpart mentioning centers clubbish r and coleman i listen to them being interviewed last night on television they did they really you could tell from their presentations how much this meant to them and the club which ours houses i think she said a mile from where the bridge collapsed and there they are today where they should be we have matters under the previous order the leadership time is reserved under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of the amendment of the house two s one zero which the clerk will report a message from the house of representatives to a company as one entitled an act provide greater transparency in the legislative process under the previous order there will now be two hours of debate prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur with a time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designate president senator from california mr president quickly before i begin i would also like to send my very deep condolences to those families who will have lost their loved ones in this very tragic bridge collapse i heard the mayor on the television this morning and it brought me back to my days as mayor and i know what this kind of a difficulty whether it's an earthquake or a bridge collapse brings for a city and i would just like to extend my thanks to the wonderful efforts made by the emergency forces and the medical team of the city of mit in minneapolis i think it was very special i saw many acts of heroism and i very much agree with what the majority leader sad about deteriorating infrastructure my thoughts went to the great golden gate bridge and i think we need to pay more attention to our home front and to those items but at this point i just like to send my very deep condolences to those who will have lost family members and loved ones mr president if i may i'd like to present a unanimous consent agreement of speakers on our side directly following my remarks senator leadership and open government act in the last election this to president the message was loud and clear it's time to change the way business is done in the nation's capital so in response what is before us this morning is the single single most sweeping congressional reform bill since watergate i support its passage and i support its passage despite the fact that i don't like everything that's in this bill it is a strong bill i'm sure it's too strong for some and it's too weak for others but like all conference bills all conference report it is in effect to some degree a compromise on tuesday by a four hundred unleavened to eight strongly bipartisan vote the house passed this legislation and now it's the senate's turn it would be a serious mistake if we don't step up to the plate and demonstrate to the american people that we have heard their message as i say the bill isn't perfect there have been some complaints by the minority party about the process used to bring this bill to the floor and i'd like to begin by addressing that issue last january the senate passed s won by a ninety six to two vote on may twenty before the house passed companion legislation by a three hundred and eighty six to twenty two margin those were both strong bipartisan votes but when the majority leader sought unanimous consent to name co one member of the minority party objected and he held fast to his objections preventing the establishment of a conference committee where members could have sat down in the light of day and negotiated members to member the differences between the two bills clearly that wasn't able to take place with few other options available the majority leader and the speaker of the house sought consensus on a that could be taken up by both houses and that consensus bill is what we have before us today now it may not be every person's wish and as chairman of the rules committee i'd like to commit right now to keep these items on the front board burner and should changes be necessitated i will be very happy to entertain them and though i can't speak for my counterpart the distinguished ranking member senator bennett i believe he would also but today let me say this i believe this is a good bill not a perfect bill but a good bill its passage today is the most direct action we can take to show the american people that yes we want to curb the influence of lobbyists and we want to restore the public trust how we operate as senators and members of the house of representatives in recent years there's been an explosive growth in the number of registered lobbyist in washington from sixteen thousand three hundred forty two in two thousand to thirty four thousand seven hundred and eighty five in two thousand and five so in five years the numbers of lobbyists have doubled and according to all reports the numbers keep growing now one of the most critical provisions of this bill will now shine new light on the role that lobbyists play in political campaigns by requiring the disclosure of funds they bundle on behalf of members pacs and party committees it will also require that lobbyists disclose all their campaign contributions as well as payments to presidential libraries committees or entities controlled by named or honoring members of the congress and it requires lobbyists to file electronic reports quarterly on their lobbying activities with these reports becoming available on a searchable public database the bill also increases civil penalties from fifty thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars and establishes a criminal penalty of up to five years for those lobbyist who knowingly and corruptly failed to comply with these new requirements now there's been increasing concern about former members of the administration former lawmaker and their staff gaining unto access as lobbyists because of the relationships they have made while working for the government this bill seeks to address those concerns by increasing the length of time the so called cooling off period for senators currently senators are barred from lobbying congress for one year with pass siege of this bill that would be extended to two years cabinet secretaries and other very senior executive personnel would be prohibited from lobbying the department or agency in which they worked for two years after they leave their position another words they can't lobby the department from which they last for two years that's an increase from one to two years senate staff and senate officers would be barred from lobbying the entire senate for one year and stead of just their former employing office that would be the whole senate not just their armpits now there's been a lot of talk also about the so called k street project in which lobbyist firms trade associations and other business groups were told by former house majority leader tom de lay and others that they would encounter a closed door in congress unless they hired members of th majority party this bill seeks to end that practice by prohibiting members of congress and their staff from influencing hiring decisions of any private organization on the sol basis of partisan political gain and it carries with it a fine and imprisonment for up to fifteen years for violations now that's a stiff penalty but hopefully it sends a stiff and strong signal that such practices will not be tolerated in the future another issue that recently came to light is that members of congress convicted of bribery perjury conspiracy and other related crimes can still receive their congressional pensions i didn't know this probably you didn't know this but fortunately this bill and that practice now s one also contains a number of major reforms to senate rules and let me highlight just a few of the most important for see jule reforms section five eleven amends rule twenty eight to subject dead of night additions to conference reports when the new matter was not approved by other house by either have to a sixty vote point of order you know this is a very important change in the rules and it's been a bang of many of ours existence for a long period of time you go through the process and then after the process is concluded in the dead of night something is stuck in to a conference bil this would end now currently when an out of scope provision is added to a conference report we can object but the objection brings down the whole bill the reform and this bill will allow a member to object to just the added provisions i first proposed this provision in the last congress and work closely with senator lott on its development i'm very happy that it is included in the final bill section five twelve and secret senate holds by requiring the senate or placing a hold on a legislative matter or nomination to publicly disclose that hold within six days now this too is an important reform we all know about anonymous holds we all know what it takes to discover who actually has the whole it's time that those members who seek to hold up legislation come forward and disclose who they are and why we don't prohibit their ability to exercise this senatorial prerogative but we do require that they be transparent and therefore public about it and section five thirteen requires that senate committees and subcommittees post video recordings audio recordings or transcripts of all public meetings on the internet now a great deal of attention has been given to the dramatic escalation in the number of earmarks awarded by congress and i want to spend a couple of minutes on the earmark provisions according to a survey of the congressional research service ers a number of earmarks the number of your largest has skyrocketed from six thousand one hundred and fourteen to thirteen thousand and twelve in two thousand and six so in six years the number of earmarks have more than double henceforth earmarks which are in effect congressional additions to spending cannot be made in the dark of night but always in the full light of transparent disclosure that's a big change this bill would require that the sponsor or the requester of each and every earmark be publicly identified and because there is often disagreement about what what does and does not constitute an earmark the bill provides for the first time in senate rules a definition does not that does not restrict the disclosure requirement to only appropriation bills you and i man of chairman serve on the appropriations committee but there are also these authorisations that in fact in effect our requests for added spending this new rule forty four requires that all congressionally directed spending items limited tax benefits and limited tariff benefits in bills resolutions conference reports and manager statements be identified and posted on the internet at least forty eight hours before senate action so forty eight hours before a bill comes to the floor all of these additions must be transparently available to the public and it requires for the first time that senators certify that they and their immediate family will not have a direct put cuny ery benefit from the earmark they request as defined by rule thirty seven separately rule forty four also subjects new directed spending added to a conference report when the new spending was not approved by either house to a sixty vote point of order so that you i senator grassley or anyone else can come to the floor and make a rule that make a challenge a point of order to that congressional add and then that would be subject to a sixty vote point of order if a senator objects to the earmark being dropped to the conference report it then will be most likely stripped out unless sixty senators vote to keep it in committees would also be required to the greatest  practicable to disclose in unclassified language the funding level and the name of the sponsor of congressionally directed spending included in classified portions of bills joint resolutions and conference reports and the chairman of each committee was responsible for certifying that the list of earmarks is correct and properly identified so there is also a burden placed on the chair of every committee and subcommittee and let me speak for a moment about gifts and travel reform the senate rules have also been reformed to curb the special access the special interest seeks to gain by providing members with gifts meals tickets to entertainment and sports events this bill prohibits staff and senators from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists or entities that employ them the bill prohibits senators from attending parties in their honor at national party conventions if they have been sponsored by lobbyists unless the senator is the party's presidential or vice presidential nominee the veil a man's rule thirty five by prohibiting senators and their staff from accepting private travels from registered lobbyists or entities that hire them and prohibiting lobbyist from organizing arranging requesting or participating in travel  senators or their staff however senators and their staff with pre approval from the ethics committee will still be allowed to accept travel by entities that employ lobbyists if i necessary to participate in a one day meeting a speaking engagement a fact finding trip or similar event and senators and their staff can still it still except travel divided by five zero one c three organizations if the trip has been pre approved by the ethics committee finally senators will be required to pay the fair market value that's the charter rate for flights on private jets not operating or paid for by an air carrier that is certified by the f a a and section six zero one separately establishes the same requirement for senate candidates and presidential and vice presidential candidates this in itself is a consequential reform and you know somewhat controversial finally before closing i'd like to thank the majority leader for his one hundred eleven determination to bring this bill forward without his dogged determination and that of the speaker of the house i don't believe that this bill would be before us today and both are to be commended now the two thousand and six election saw the largest congressional shift since one thousand nine hundred ninety four and even with the war in iraq on many voters minds americans remain seriously concerned about ethics in government it's really time that we listen to their concerns this bill attempts to do so it is not always easy it's not going to please everybody and as i said in the beginning members are either going to feel that this bill is too strong about this part or that part or two weeks about this part or that part but let me just reinforce that this is a conference report it is not subject to amendment and it has been put together in an unusual percy jersey because of the objection from the other side to us going to congress conference which would have been a far preferable method of handling this i once again repeat my commitment that as chairman of the rules committee i will be happy to consider any amendments that the operation of this bill might indicate are warranted in the future i thank the chair and i yield the floor at this time senator from iowa i could play my time well actually the senator under previous orders senator lieberman was scheduled to follow senator feinstein and we we don't but we are going to go back and forth ok the senator from iowa may proceed and also for senator stevens because he was waiting to claim his time and he had to go to mark got he asked if i would add his name taken off the list and reserve the time for our side but i'd  the record this is not a conference report it is a bill but it is still not subject to amendment because trees failed i just wanted to make that clear thank you is there objection to the senator senator from i was requesting madam president reserving the right to object and i will not object to just want to ask the my friend from iowa then how long he intends to speak would be can match i think the chair and i'd have no objection without objection the senator from iowa madam president i'm right using to speak against the compromise that deals with the issue of secret holds and i would agree with the senator from california the distinguished chairman of the committee that what we have in this report is probably better than what we have today because secret holds are secret and nobody knows who's holding a bail and the public's business ought to be public and it isn't today but i do take exception to what's before us in the way in regard to secret holds for the simple reason that there wasn't any necessity whatsoever to compromise before the senate and basically this makes it so liberal that it's practically meaningless what we're doing about secret holds article one section five of the constitution states reads in part quote a child may determine the rules of its proceedings that means that the house of representatives would have no say whatsoever in the senate rules but a conference was used as a negotiations between the house and senate use as a rationale for changing what senator wyden and i had previously passed in the united states senate so when the senate debates and and passes changes to its rules that ought to be the final word but that wasn't the final word as we're seeing today that's what happened with the house package of rules changes that the body passed in the congress and the we don't attempt to tell the house what they ought to do however since the ethics reform bill that the senate passed and generally also contain changes in the lobbying disclosure act and other laws the entire bill needs to pass both oz's of congress and be signed by the president nevertheless that does not change the fact that under the constitution only the senate determines its rules and procedures procedures and the senate in an overwhelming majority in pass that changes that we didn't widen grassley now that we have we have a situation where the majority leader of the senate and the speaker of the house rewrote major provisions in this package including rewriting senate rules that had already passed the full senate in conference one provision that was changed was a provision that i referred to senator wyden and i have been working for years to end the practice of secret homes because the public's business ought always be public and any senator that's got guts enough to put a hold on a bail ought to be willing to stand up and say who you are only in the senate can a single member prevent legislation or nominations from being considered under the so called procedure of holes holes do not exist in the house senator wyden and i were successful in passing an amendment in last year's ethics reform bill by a vote of eighty four to thirteen public disclosure now that same language was included in the bill without a vote in this congress but you know how things go on around the senate here we had prominent senators people that run this body that told senator wyden and i that they get the message after six or seven years finally we were going and this secrecy  that bill wasn't in enacted but we included of those identical provisions in this bill senator senator wyden and i pushed for that provision because we believe that the public's business ought to be done in public any senator has a right to a object to unanimous consent to a proceeding to a matter as senators have every right to object to an animist consent request publicly but i see no legitimate reason why senators should be able to be secret about what they're doing here in the united states senate it has been my policy for years to place a brief statement in the congressional record each time that i place a hold with a short explanation of why a place that holds it has never hurt me one bit and senator should have no fear following a requirement of the public's business being public in other words nothing secret if you want to hold up a bill just have gotten up to say sol and i and so i say the senate has spoken in passing are very well thought out provision i should add that this provision was written with the help and advice of senator lott and senator burr both former majority leaders with much valuable insight about how the senate works now even though the senate has already spoken as a body on this matter a single senator has single handedly rewritten part of this provision over writing what i consider overwhelming support in the united states senate and secret holes in the version that says senate passed we allowed three days for senators to submit a simple public disclosure form for the record just like adding your name as a co sponsor bill the intent is not that it is somehow legitimate to keep a whole secret for three years but we wanted to give senators ample time to get their disclosure to the floor to be entered in a wreck the rewritten pervasion as senator feinstein has said give senators six legislative days instead of those three days it is absurd to think the senators need over a week to send an intern down to the floor with this simple form of greater concern is that the rewritten language requires senators does disclose a hold only after a unanimous consent request is made and objected to anonymously on the senator's behalf and then they have six days after that that's too late by that point particularly at the end of a safe and it's going to mean make this process meaningless by that point a hold could have existed for some time perhaps without the sponsor of the bill even realizing furthermore since the majority leader controls the senate schedule he would hardly object to his own request to bring up a bail or nominee he was simply not bring up a bail or nominee being held up by a member of his own party if a member of the minority party were to attempt to ask unanimous consent to proceed to a matter the majority leader would object on his own behalf to protect the majority leader's prerogative to set the agenda and any secret holds by members of a majority party would remain secret mr president mr president i'm deeply disappointed that this provision that senator wyden and i worked so hard on over a period of at least six years to finally get a vote of eighty four members of this body supporting it and then because it was  was almost a fait accompli as seen by leaders of this body powerful senators in this body just to put it in the in january in the bill that's before us because it would be done  so called getting the message well who forgotten that they got the message that they had to change this and that's what so ever kate i'm going to vote for this bail but this was something that didn't need to be in a bail it didn't need to be negotiated this was the cited by the vast majority of the senate but you know what it tells me there's still people around here that don't want the public's business to be public they want to do things in secret they don't have guts and optus to say that they want to hold up a bell and so we end up with this convoluted thing that we have a six days but it isn't even kicked in until after there's an attempt  somebody asked for unanimous unanimous consent to bring a bill up and only at that point and then that's six days after that so i i've stated my piece i'm not very happy i hope senator wyden isn't happy as i am and will try to do something in the future as i don't like to yield minutes to the distinguished senator from connecticut senator lieberman senator from connecticut mr president i thank the chair and thank my friend from california i think her for her leadership in this very important matter mr president we all know that if you read the public opinion polls congress is at an all time low in the estimation of the american people i'm not going to comment on the political  impact of the i want to comment more broadly on the fact that this is a in our self esteem nation the greatest democracy in the world and that means that that this is a this is  government which depends on the support of of those we govern the consent of the governed when the trust between and respect between the people of the unite it states in the members of this   i'm sure everybody has their own favorite explanations it seems to me that part of it is the pervasive partisanship here that gets in the way of us producing results solutions to the problems that the people who are good enough to honor us by sending us here have so they're frustrated because they think we too often put partisan interests ahead of public interest ahead of their interests but clearly another  reason for the low estimation an opinion that the american people have of congress today is the wave of scandals that have that has afflicted this congress and individual members because when one member is  d are convicted of an ethical or legal lapse it affects the attitude of the end of the people toward the entire institution and these seem to have come with increasing frequency ultimately no law can guarantee that an individual anywhere including in congress will do the right thing and will be ethical there are always private moments where people will where we w all have to count on our on our moral compass has and are our values center but but we had the law to try to create a clarity of rules and create incentives  for our society overall and and in this case for we ourselves to guide us to to encourage us hopefully to scare us into doing the right thing and it's in that context that i rise with real enthusiasm to support the honestly her ship and open government act that is before the congress before the senate today this is not only the right thing to do in every substantive way but it is the right thing to do in the larger sense that i described of trying to rebuild the the respect that the american people have for this institution and for all of us who are members of it the focus here is on disclosure as it ought to be the american people will naturally view darkly what is done in the shadows they want to know that what we do in their names here in congress is done with their best interests at heart rather than the narrow interests of a special few whose money may appear to the public to buy those special few access and those suspicions in the context of public cases of of ethical  what we do that the only special interest being represented here in congress is the interest of the american people who are good enough to honor us by sending us here to serve them this weeping legislation shines much needed light in corners and corridors of this capitol to long left in the dark it should help restore the public's trust now a trust that isn't much need of restoration i'm very proud to say that much of the lobbying part of this legislation came from the homeland security and governmental affairs committee last year and the leadership of senator collins this year under my chairmanship but always we've worked together on a bipartisan basis on this with regard to lobbying i want to cite a few of the key proposals that increase the disclosure this bill will bring the lobbyist disclosure act into the age of the internet by requiring electronic filings and by requiring quarterly rather than semi annual reports detailing the lobbying activities that lobbyists perform for specific clients so they can be right there for the public to see on the house and senate websites secondly the bill a man's the lobbyists disclosure act to require lobbyist to file reports detailing their activities beyond lobbying directly and that includes campaign contributions payments for events to honor members or to entities controlled by members and donations to charities including presidential libraries or none of these activities contributions are currently disclosed under law this legislation attempts to build up a broader wall between what we do here and serving the public  and and in the lobbying world and lobbying is a constitutionally protected activity we're not china stop it or curtail it we're trying to make sure that it's done in an honorable and honest way so this legislation increases from one to two years the cooling off period before members can come back and lobby their colleagues the bill also adds a provision to the lobbyist disclosure act prohibiting lobbyists from knowingly providing gifts or travel members in violation of house or senate ethics rules putting a lobbyist on the hook for civil or criminal penalties if they violate the rules amendments to the lobbyist disclosure act law so shine a spotlight on so called stealth coalitions by require greater disclosure of the identity of individual organizations that contribute to collective and focused lobbying efforts and mr president we backed all of these new provisions with teeth better in force meant we increased civil penalties under the lobbyist disclosure act and create a new criminal penalty for knowing in corrupt failure to comply with the act we will have annual arts we require annual audit it's by the government accountability office g a o lobbyist filings that's a second tier of review and regular reporting by the department of justice on actions they take against those who violate the rules those are the most significant parts of this legislation that came out of our committee with regard to lobbying i do want to compliment my friend colleague from california senator feinstein for her work in putting together an extremely tough ethics package i think it's a very significant going accomplishment for her in the first half year of her chairmanship of the senate rules committee in particular i'm pleased that the final package for the first time requires so called bundled campaign contributions made by a lobbyist to federal candidates to be disclosed by the to the public and published on the federal election commission website i know sen feinstein has mentioned and others will other reforms here i do want to say just a final word about earmarks this was involved in my campaign for reelection last year it was accused by one of my opponents of  support an earmark and it's in legislation you ought to not only the press out to be identified with that earmark in public but to if necessary come to the floor and defend earmarks and to make sure that it  it has the support of your colleagues so this legislation requires that all earmarks included in bills and conference reports and their sponsors be identified on the internet at least forty eight hours before the senate votes and senators will be required to certify that they and their immediate family members have no financial interest in the earmark dead of night additions the conference reports that is new era marks a business that has been too often done here with public scrutiny or even the scrutiny of most members of congress will now be subject to a sixty vote point of order i will say that if a senator from yesteryear not so far back yesterday or fifteen years maybe ten years back and saw that we were doing this here they would wonder where they were but there where they would be someplace where the american people justifiably want us to be  mr president once the elections are over the american people expect us to come here and do their business and that's exactly what this legislation will make much more likely in the end as i said at the beginning it all comes down to the moral compass of each member of congress has and the respect that we give to the office that is our privilege to serve and but government in the shadows with deals cut behind closed doors invites abuse breeds distrust and simply must stand and this bill goes a long way toward doing exactly that i thank the chair and i yield the floor mr president  if i may i'd like to thank the distinguished chairman of the homeland security and governmental affairs miti the lobbying portion of this build falls within senator lieberman's jurisdiction i also want to thank him for a job well done he has been steadfast in this pursuit for a number of years so thank you very much senator and now i will exchange places with you senator and senator obama is will be recognized for ten minutes  you president senator obama senator from illinois madam president i come to the floor to speak in strong support of the honest leadership and open government act of two thousand and se first of all let me commend the president for the outstanding work that she's done in helping to shepherd this process through it is wonderful work  and i think the american people very much appreciate the improvements that are being made to our political process as a consequence i also want to commend senator reid for his outstanding leadership on this bill and i especially wan thank my good friend senator feingold who i've worked closely with on this issue over the past year and a half the bill that's before us today could not be more urgently needed for too long the american people as the lobbyists create the legislative process like again using targeted contributions to maximize their leverage for too long people have felt their voice and their answer i have been drowning in a sea of lobbyist money and washington is not the first time we've faced a crisis of confidence in government around the turn of last century wealth was becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons railroad tycoons and oil magnets it was an era known as the gilded age it was made possible by a government that played along but when president theodore roosevelt took office he wouldn't play along he devoted his presidency to busting trusts breaking up monopolies and doing his best to give the american people a shot at the american dream once more america needs this kind of leadership more than ever we need leadership that sees government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends and high priced lobbyist but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every american we cannot saddle madam president for a second gilded age in america and yet we find ourselves once more in the midst of a new economy where more wealth is in danger of falling into fewer hands where c e o pay grows from year to year as the average worker's pay remained stagnant where americans are struggling like never before to pay their medical bills or their kids to asian or high gas prices all the while all while the profits of the oil industries have never been higher and once again we're faced with a politics that makes all of this possible in recent years the door of congress in the white house has been thrown wide open to an army of washington lobbyist who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play year after year after year they stand up in the way of our progress as a country they stop us from addressing the issues that matter most to our people  healthier just as one example the drug and insurance industry spent one billion dollars in lobbying over the last decade they got what they paid for when their friends in congress broke the rolls and twisted arms to push through a prescription drug bill that actually made it illegal for our own government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for cheaper drug prices and because reform has been blocked up until now there are parents and grandparents in this country for walking into the drug store and wondering how their social security check is going to cover a prescription that's more expensive than it was a month ago those who are being forced to choose between their medicine and groceries because they can no longer afford both let it be clear madam president i do not begrudge businesses for trying to make a profit i do not begrudge them for hiring a lobbyist to plead their case before congress it is protected political speech and we appreciate that there are many lobbyists who represent their clients well and fairly but it is time that we had a congress that tells drug companies or all companies insurance industry that while they may get a seat at the table in washington they don't get to buy every single chair we need to put an end to the prevailing culture in this town and that's what we've been trying to do for the past couple of years last year congress came up with a somewhat watered down version of reform i along with others like senator feingold and the center from arizona is about to speak senator mccain voted against it because we thought we could do better in january i came back with senator feingold and we set a high bar for reform and i'm pleased to report that the bill before us today comes very close to what we proposed by passing this bill we will ban gifts and meals and then subsidize travel on corporate jets we will close the revolving door between pennsylvania avenue and  street and we'll make sure that the american people can see all the pet projects that lawmakers are trying to pass before they're actually voted on we'll do something more over the objections of powerful voices in both parties will ensure that our laws shine a bright light on how lobbyists help fill the campaign coffers of members of congress by bundling contributions from others because in an era in which soft money is prohibited the real measure of a now much money he's contributed it's how much money he's raising from others for too long this practice has been hidden from public view but today we can change that i'm pleased that the amendment i've offered on bundling is part of this bill and i want to thank representative chris van hollen who fought so hard to get this provision included in the house bill as the washington post described the bundling provision earlier this year no single change would add more to public understanding  really operates in washington so there's a lot of good in this bill and i truly hope and believe that it will change the way we do business in washington let's not forget though that there's still some more work that we need to do on the things i've argued is a necessity of an independent entity to enforce ethics rules in congress because no matter how well we police our own conduct so long as we're our own prosecutors judge jury the public will never have complete trust in our decisions so far that's a fight i've lost but i'll continue to support independent foresman because i believe it's in our nation's best interests i also believe that if we're serious about change we need to have a real discussion about public financing for congressional elections because even if we can stop lobbyists from buying us lunch or taking us out on junkets they'll still be able to attend our fundraisers and that's x that's the average american does not have in our democracy madam president the price of access and influence should be nothing more than your voice and your vote that should be enough for health care reform that should be enough for real energy policy that should be enough to ensure that our government is still defender of fairness and opportunity for every american it's time show the american people that we have the courage to change the prevailing culture in the city it's time to give people confidence in their government again and we have a chance to start doing it with this bill i probably support this legislation i once again thank the chair for recognize the senator from arizona i thank you madam president but a president last twenty years i found myself in a lonely fight against earmarks and pork barrel spending year after year i've come to the floor and read list after list of the ridiculous items we're spending money on hoping enough embarrassment might spur some change and i was encouraged in january when this body passed by ninety six to an ethics and lobbying reform package which contain real meaningful earmark reform i thought at last we would finally enact some effect of reforms unfortunately the victory was short lived one of my happier days i'll admit was when dr coburn was elected to the united states senate in two thousand and four there's no better advocate of earmark reform no one more consistent in standing firm to fight the word the fight against wasteful spending and i'm proud to call him my friend i'd like to commend my friend senator de mint and senator gra senator cornin and others for joining our efforts sadly i say to my friends and given the very watered down earmark provisions contained in the measure brought to us by the majority our good five it clearly will have to continue not only as just bill do far too little to rein in wasteful spending it is completely gutted the earmark reform provisions we passed overwhelmingly in january it provides little more than lip service unless of course you happen to be a committee chairman of the majority leader under this majority rule written bill with no input from republicans this this bill will unless you hold one of the top positions you will now even more power even more power with your pork barrel pan there's a let me be clear the ethics and lobbying reform bill has some good provisions which i strongly support a ban on gifts and travel paid for by lobbyist or groups although if you want to get a free meal just counted and contribution but anyway increased disclosure is welcome reform but the bill before us picks is only the part of the at the heart of the problem that is bread the corruption is earmark process all flows from as my friend dr cook from time to time is the gate to corruption and i don't throw around the word corruption lightly mr president but there are four members of congress in jail there's investigations going on right now and you can trace it all back to the influence of money which will which is corrupted a process which then allows money our tax dollars to be given to special interests or even accrue to the benefit of the author of the earmar s when we come before a lot of talk about a lot of the earmarking some of them are fun to talk about but they make you said two hundred twenty five thousand dollars for an historic wagon museum and you one million dollar a study of bears in montana two hundred thousand dollars for the rock and roll hall of fame you notice that all of these earmarks are geographically designated so that there would be no mistake that that money place else  and where it intend been intended by the appropriate or one of my favorites is the thirty seven million dollars over four years to the alaska fisheries marketing board to promote and develop fishery products and research pertaining to american fisheries so how does this board spend the money so generously i have a picture that i won't show well he spent five hundred thousand of your tax dollars to paint a giant salmon on the side of alaska forty seven and nicknamed it the salmon forty salmon so the fact is the fact is we're going at the heart of the problem journal which says that even better than i can quote our favorite switch a roo under the previous senate reform the senate parliamentarian would have determined whether a bill complied with the earmarks disclosure rules under mr reid's new version the current majority leader is mr reid himself will declare will decide if a bill is in compliance when was the last time a majority party leader declared one of his own bills out of order i've only been here twenty years mr president but i've never seen it and now don't think you're going to see it in the future so while under this new version of the bill earmarks should be disclosed in theory the fact remains that only the committee chair the can majority leader or as designee can police it if they say all the earmarks are identified we take it as gospel our only option is to appeal the ruling in the chair that a certification was made and of course that's business as usual required sixty votes the new version does retain  requirement that bills in conference report be available forty eight hours before a vote but the searchable database is no longer a requirement when it comes to conference reports conference report where we have seen inserted some of the most of grevious pork barrel projects in this system as it exists today and of course conveniently the bill was modified between its release monday morning and another version monday afternoon it was a modification to the benefit of the business as usual crowd it would now require a sixty vote threshold to appeal the ruling in the chair compared to a mere majority vote under the version released a few hours earlier anger out there amongst the american people that their word that they're demanding reform they're not demanding that it increase from one year to two year for disclosure and they're not demanding about meals they're demanding we fix the year mark process process which has led to corruption and we have taken a pass and i'm i regret very much and i predict to you now that the earmarking and pork barrel spending will creep back into the process sooner rather than later and we will not regain the confidence of the american people are surprised i want to thank again my colleagues senators from both senators from south carolina senator from oklahoma and others who have fought sometimes a lonely fight to try to clean up this mess mr president i yield the balance of my time to the center from oklahoma in the senate from south carolina mr president from california senator from wisconsin is next on our list however he had a pressing distraction so we'd be happy to go to a republican speaker next thank you mr president from oklahoma i think senator mccain for highlighting some of the problems with  bill you know the real problem is is that we last year spent four hundred thirty four billion dollars of our grandkids money that we couldn't come up with when collect taxes we just lowered their standard of living in the future and how  get there we got there because we use earmarks to buy votes on appropriations bills so we never look at the procreation bill will only look to see if our little things in it not all earmar bad what is bad is the lack of transparency in our government i know that mr president that you've helped me in terms of the the transparency and accountability act but that's all after the fact what this bill does is create a lie what it is is nothing less than that we're lying to the american people that we're fixing earmarks when we're not and the reason is the vast majority of people in body don't want their marks disclose because it limits their ability to play the power game with the well connected to get something ahead of everybody else the other problem with earmarks is it takes our eye off of priorities for our country earmarks cause us not to do what's best for their home country as a whole in the long term it makes the short term thinkers and it makes us parochial enter interest and i challenge any member of this body to look at the oath that they took and see if it says anything about your state when you swore to uphold the constitution and serve as a u s senator your duty is to the country as a whole not to the well heeled special interests that are the benefits whether they're pro kill or not to your earmarks so there's no question this bill will pass but the question the senators have to ask is was i intellectually honest when every one of them out there saying this will have to fix this later because we really don't like this that we don't have the courage to vote against it because they know we haven't fix the problem but they're afraid of the public outrage in the pressures been created in the absence of creating the impression that we fix the problem now why do i say we have to fix the problem you go through this what the senate passed was dick durbin nancy pelosi bill on transparency in earmarks brought to the senate by the senator from south carolina the first provision prohibited senators from trading earmarks for votes in other words i'll give your mark if you'll vote for my bill it's gone not there anymore prohibited senators and staff from promoting earmarks from which they or their families would receive a direct financial benefit it's gone we now say it has to be just for that person even though you may be connected so we've we've got today one of the greatest problems we have we've got it so no longer is there a prohibition that your family member can't benefit from an earmark from congress that's the greatest conflict of interest there is and yet it goes on every day the third allows the senate parliamentarian not the majority leader not the chairman of the committee to determine if the bill complies with earmark disclosure and transparency rules the american people are never going to be able to hold us accountable to they can see what we're doing we've now said that whoever's the leader republican or democrat this isn't about who's in charge it's about whether who's in charge will have the courage to go against the political power of their own party to certify the first appropriation that's what we passed ninety eight to nothing now if you want to fight that you've got to have sixty one votes to say it we've totally put it on the other side in other words we've totally made it so that you can in suspend not anymore so you can suspend it and don't have to notice anybody that you're suspending it requires all earmark certification from the senators to be posted on the internet with forty eight hours fourteen and twenty eight percent confidence in the congress is because we continue to do sleight of hand to tell him we're doing something when we're not and i would put forward to you all the other i don't have any problems with the other things in the bill basically but those are symptoms of the disease the disease is right here it's called earmarks and if we don't treat the disease rather than the symptoms of the disease we're never going to fix the problem  adamantly opposed to this bill and what it's done to get earmark disclosure i've been around here long enough to know what will happen under the time pressures in the constraints and what we operate is this all go away may not go away on the first bill a second bill it will go away and so we find ourselves with the u s senate get ready to vote on the ethics and disclosure rule and every senator out there saying well how do we fix the things we don't like it will do that later so nobody really loves this bill but we're going to vote for it not because we're fixing the problem but we're going to fix it looks like we're fixing the pro and so the confidence in congress is going to go up with this it's going to  you know we started this debate two and a half years ago on an amendment on a bridge to fifty people in alaska of which fifteen members of this body voted with me but the american people came to realize that the bridge to nowhere stood for something much more than the bridge to nowhere it stood for that lack of character and integrity in this body in terms of making long term decisions and putting the country first instead of political career first we haven't solved anything with this ethics bill in terms of solving that problem and rebuilding the confidence there is a crisis of confidence in this country there is a rumble in this country that we don't deserve the positions that we hold because we haven't earned it because we again are going to use sleight of hand we're going to lessen the confidence in this country we talk about bundling it's great except what's going to happen is we're going to bundle fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars every six months and it's not going to be reported and over a six year career that's one hundred eighty thousand dollars that one  reported so tell me how we fix the problem and the bundling is a symptom of earmarks it's a symptom of how do you secure and where's the connection between earmarks and campaign contributions it's there almost every time you just got to look forward so with the president's help we passed through the post transparency bill senator obama and i when we get a look at it after the fact but now we don't want to have transparency before the fact and so we've we've failed the american people with this bill we're also failing the senate and ultimately we fail ourselves as american people look at the pictures of their children their grandchildren and so i do you want them to have the same opportunities the same benefits the same freedoms and the same liberties this is the thing that's going to take away the lack of an honest and open debate about priorities the continued spending of money we don't have and most of it on the basis that we have a gateway drug to then in addiction called earmarks mr president  wisconsin thank you mr president this is a proud day for the united states senate and i certainly want to thank the chair of the committee's center from california for all her guidance and hard work to make sure this legislation to this point i certainly want to thank the presiding officer senator obama in illinois who has been a wonderful partner in this effort i enjoyed working with him and he was tough all the way through when it counted to make sure we didn't up with this kind of strong legislation so i think the presiding officer many months of work on legislation reform our nation's lobbying disclosure laws and the rules that govern our conduct as senators are about to come to a close the result is a bill that by any measure must be considered landmark legislation i am pleased to support this bill and i'm i urge my colleagues to vote for cloture and support the bill i'd like to this peak for a minute or two about what's in the bill in the forces that actually brought us to this moment i introduced the first comprehensive lobbying and ethics reform package in the senate in july two thousand and five about ten years after the enactment of the lobbying disclosure act of one nine hundred ninety five in the last significant changes to the senate rules on gifts and travel which the senior senator from arizona and i worked on very hard a decade of experience had exposed the weaknesses in those important pieces of legislation and light a growing concern about the relationships between certain members of congress and washington lobbyists i thought it was the right time to undertake further significant reform of course as we remember in the months that followed the jack aber maps a vermont scandal consume more and more space on the front pages of the newspaper and then when he was indicted in december lobbying ethics reform all of a sudden i got a big burst of momentum in congress in the first few months of two thousand and six radical reform strong reform seemed not only possible but likely hearings were held and it was almost a bidding war for who could sound the most sincere about fixing the problems that led to the avram a scandal unfortunately the congressional leadership at that time talked a good game but was not really committed to reform the bill that passed the senate last may fell well short not only of what was needed but also what had been promised only a few months earlier the house leadership waited even longer to act and tried to add controversy of campaign finance legislation to the package doing it to defeat the conventional wisdom well as was that the voters didn't care at least that's what the defenders of the status quo assure themselves as the engineer the stalemate that led to no reform at all being enacted as we found out last november they were wrong the voters sent a clear message in november two thousand and six that they were fed up with the way things were going in washington and the leaders of the new congress immediately responded to that message by making lobbying and ethics reform their very top priority speaker pelosi included major changes to the ethics rules in the house and a package of rules changes adopted on the very first day of the session and majority leader reid introduced an ethics and lobbying reform package as s one and brought it immediately to the senate floor and so i'm pleased only seven months later we are here today to finish the job the bill before us is a very strong piece of reform legislation we have a real ban on gifts from lobbyists strong new rules governing privately funded travel a requirement that senators pay the full charter rate to travel on corporate jets for personal official or campaign purposes strengthen revolving door restrictions and improve lobbying disclosure provisions and mr president for the first time the public will get a full accounting of the reports filed by lobbyists and reports filed by campaign party committees that all the ways that lobbyist provide financial support for the members of congress from their lobby i'm very pleased also that the bill includes provision to provide greater transparency in the process by which legislation is considered here in the senate finally after years of failed attempts secret holds on legislation will be a relic of the past in addition out of scope additions to conference reports can be stricken individually rather than bringing down the whole report all these items show the seriousness with which this congress and its new leadership address the anger that the american people expressed last november i just like to say a word about earmarks because obviously i heard my colleagues discussing and i think they know very well how strong i have been on this issue and how much i have opposed the earmark process both in my own practices and how many times i have supported a strong legislation in this regard i have long been a strong supporter of earmark reform i have co sponsored legislation on this topic with senator from arizona senator mccain back in january when the senate first debated this bill i broke with my leadership and supported the earmark reform amendment offered by the junior senator from south carolina centered meant it was here in the chamber at this time is my judgment that the earmark reforms including the proposal before the senate today are consistent with a demand amendment much stronger than the original bipartisan leadership proposal that was introduced in january and in a normal improvement over the way  been handled by both democrat and republican controlled congress is in the past it is simply not accurate to say that the final version of this provision guts the diminishment that the senate passed earlier this year the minor changes that were made certainly do not justify a vote against cloture or against the bill president the difference between the approach to lobbying ethics reform this year and last year is this last year there was a lot of tough talk when it came down to it the goal was to try to satisfy public outrage but actually do as little as possible this year the tough talk it was backed up by tough action this bill includes real reform on things like gifts and earmarks that get a lot of public attention and also on things like secret holds of corporate jets that occur mostly behind the scenes but actually have a big impact on how things work in washington i want to especially think majority leader reid for his steadfast insistence on passing strong legislation this is a great accomplishment for him to write accomplishment for the senate and i'm extremely pleased that it is getting done in a timely manner i want to thank my colleagues for recognizing that regardless of how reforms might inconvenience us or impact our personal lifestyle our priority must be to convince our constituents that we are here to advocate their best interests not those of well connected lobbyists ethical conduct in government should be more than an aspiration it should be a requirement this is what this bill is all about been an energetic and susie asked dick advocate for this for a very long time and you know he's not always hard to please so i want particularly to say thank you to him president senator from south carolina i see we have thirty minutes before the vote i was offered ten i'd like to ask unanimous consent that i have up to fifteen minutes to complete my remarks is included in this so called ethics bill and to urge my cause league's to vote no on cloture this morning so we can restore the earmark transparency rules that we all voted on in january if as the majority contends that the differences between that bill in the one we bring to the floor today are minor there should be no objection to making those rules the sa americans know how much congress loves earmarks these are the special interests spending items that fill most of our bills americans also know that these earmarks are at the center of  the waste and corruption here in washington d c they know that money in the form of earmarks are the easiest favor a lawmaker can deliver to a special interest they know that the explosion of earmarks in the last decade has turned congress into a giant favor factory that turns out favors for special interest not for the american people associated press ran a fascinating article this morning entitled earmarks prove popular and dangerous the article talks about how earmarks have been at the center of corruption in this town yet members of congress continue to representative duke cunningham on corruption charges that included earmark abuses has not dulled lawmakers appetite for pet projects one recent study found that earmarks in house legislation went from three thousand and nineteen ninety six to fifteen thousand in two thousand five the article highlights that earmark disclosure is at the center of the debate on the so called ethics bill before us today it concludes by predicting that there will not be enough senators voting today to restore a true earmark reform in this bill that may be true but i hope it's not the case this bill as it's currently written is a fraud is business as usual dressed up like ethics reform and it's a stunning disappointment and a huge missed opportunity it completely guts earmark rules we all agreed to back in january and allows us to continue to add secret earmarks to our bills even worse it allows members of this body to steer millions of tax dollars to themselves and their families yet the bill has the title of ethics reform so the money so that many are going to support it so they can have a sound bite during their election this is not really a big surprise even though the democrat leadership campaigned on cleaning up the culture of corruption in washington it has never been committed to cleaning up the culture of earmarks the first version of this bill which came to the floor in january was so inadequate in how it dealt with earmarks that it only covered five percent of all the the authors of this bill thought they could get away with saying that they were providing earmark transparency without actually doing it fortunately after a lot of public pressure was applied we were able to come together in a bipartisan way to fix this problem and bring every earmark out into the light of day the rule that we all agreed to not only disclose all earmarks but it also gave every senator the ability to hold the committees accountable if the american people to not get the transparency they deserve i thought the democrat leadership had realized the importance of these reforms so when the appropriation season began an earmark started to be added to our bills i sought consent from my colleagues to formally and act these rules so we could be true to our word and ensure honest full earmark disclosure but as my colleagues know the democrat leadership objected to real earmark reform in fact they objected on march twenty ninth april seventeenth june twenty eighth july ninth and july seventeenth five tabs and over what is now been a hundred and ninety six days since easier marks rules were passed in january when it comes to true earmark reform we have heard nothing but excuses and see nothing but obstruction mr president the majority leader wanted to take this bil conference with the house back in june so he could kill a remark reform behind closed doors and share the blame with republicans i asked him if he would pledge to preserve earmark rules that we all agreed to but he said that he could not give me that assurance he left me no choice but to object to conferencing this bill with the hat with the house now the rule is back before us it has been rewritten in secret by the majority leader in the speaker the house and they did exactly what i was afraid of they killed earmark reform only this time they cannot blame this on anyone but themselves for some reason the democrat leadership does not understand the importance of this issue they talk a lot about the culture of corruption but when it comes to reining in the most corrupting practice in washington which is earmarking they only offer lip service my colleague should remember that it was the practice of trading earmarks for bribes that has been at the heart of the corruption scandals here in washington let me say that again because it's very important we had and still have a process in place that allows members of this body to trade the public trust for personal gain former congressman duke cunningham was a master at this he knew that the oversight of his activities was so lax that he kept his own earmark bribe menu he knew the house in the senate were not going to police his colleagues and that the earmark process would give him the ability to steer millions of dollars to his friends who were bribing in the document that charge duke cunningham outlined very clearly what he was doing and i quote under the very seal of the united states congress cunningham place this nation's governance up for sale to a defense contractor detailing the amount of bribes necessary to obtain varying levels of defense appropriations or earmarks in this bribe menu the left column represented the millions in government contracts that could be ordered from cunningham the right column was the amount of the bribes that the congressman was demanding in exchange for these contracts and quote the bill we're considering does nothing to stop the earmark factory this so called ethics does not actually require the senate to disclose every earmark all it requires is the chairman of the relevant committee or the majority leader to tell us they've disclosed every earmark it does nothing to guarantee actually disks disclosed and it is therefore an enforceable mr president the rule we all agreed to in january that put the senate parliamentarian in charge of enforcing this r has been changed the parliamentarian is not excuse me is a nonpartisan that works for all senators but this bill puts him on the sidelines it allows the chairman of the committee and the majority leader two of the most ar t supporters of earmarks and the two people least likely to object to one of their own bills in charge of enforcing earmark disclosure this allows the fox to guard the hen house and it makes a joke of ethics reform this is clearly a sham and it's a total shame it has been confirmed by the senate parliamentarian and the congressional research service a memo prepared  a point of order is raised under the new rules it appears that the chair presumably would base his or her ruling only on whether or not the certification has been made and not on the content of the available lists or charts including the accuracy or completeness of this information is to present this is also been confirmed by the senate parliamentarian who says he would not be able to ensure full earmark disclosure i hope my colleagues understand what is going on here the list of earmarks may only include the ones the appropriation committee thinks we should know about if their certification is inadequate and leaves out ninety five percent of the year marks like they wanted to do earlier this year the new rule does not give senators the ability to raise a point of order to require full earmark disclosure but this is not some theory of what could happen we know without a doubt that secret earmarks will continue because this democrat leader an appropriations chairman or already hiding secret earmarks was claiming to be in full compliance with the rules the nonpartisan government watchdog group taxpayers for common sense has already discovered seven and a half billion and an disclose earmarks this year while we're supposedly operating under this rule mr president there are several other loopholes in this bill that allow secret earmarks it allows senators to trade earmarks for votes it allows senators to provide earmarks that financially benefit themselves or their families it still allows senators to drop earmarks into bills when they are in conference and cannot be fully debated or voted on it allows it allows senators to get around disclosing earmarks on the internet in a timely way and it allows senators to avoid having to put their no conflicts certification letter on the internet in a timely way this so called ethics bill is a fraud the majority leader and some of the supporters of this bill want to tell the american people they have fixed the secret earmark problem when they have actually codified the status quo this bill is actually worse than doing nothing because it preserves business as usual while trying to fool people into thinking that everything has been fixed i also want to read something that was sent out by a nationally syndicated columnist robert novak which explains why republicans are not innocent either he wrote in a quote yet needed the prospect of several republicans going to prison nor the disastrous loss of the two thousand and six election as weaken the party's embrace of the earmark model they ran from w holding the majority in which each congressman provides for his district or state according to the new deal model of tax tax band spin elect elect and cuomo mr president democrats wrote this shameful earmark rule and they will have to take responsibility for that but republicans have a rip responsibility to stop it republicans need to learn their lesson from the last election and at the very least shine some light on the earmarking process i don't know if we'll win the vote this morning but i want to urge my colleagues to oppose cloture so we can restore the end earmark transparency rules that we all agreed to in january this would be an easy fix it could be done in a matter of minutes this bill would be quickly sent back to the house for its approval and then on to the president for his signature earmarks are where most of the corruption has come from it is directing money in return for some favors and if we are not willing to honestly reform this process with this bill then it will not solve the problem that it claims to solve it will make it worse i thank the chair and reserve the balance of my time majority leader is recognized for under a previous order for ten minutes mr president let me first think the members of the rules committee particularly chairman dianne feinstein this is landmark legislation it had groups that have been watchdogs over congress in the first to complain when there are ethical lapses who have weighed in and said this bill can make a difference it wasn't easy trust me members of the senate members of the house many of them resisted the changes that were included in this bill but senator feinstein was given the authority and the responsibility to come up with a bill that is going to literally change the climate in the way we do business here on capitol hill and she did it i think are for leadership new transparency for lobbying activities limits on privately funded travel rig flights strong revolving door restrictions expanding public disclosure of lobbyist activities in the ng the infamous k street project which unfortunately for a long time was just acceptable conduct under the previous party's control of congress and congressional pension accountability all of these are dramatic changes senator from south carolina has focused on the issue of earmarks i've been fortunate in the house in the senate to serve on appropriations committees i chair one of those subcommittees now and i want to tell you that the senator from south carolina has unfortunately misrepresented what this bill does the senator from south carolina can undoubtedly remember when i offered an amendment on the floor which he supported which said that we could not even proceed to an appropriation spending bill until  posted on the internet for the world to see every single congressional earmarks in the bill forty eight hours in advance that is the type of disclosure that has never occurred on capitol hill and it means that not only will the members of the committee and those who bring the bill to the floor be held accountable but every person requesting an earmark every senator will have to put their name next to the earmark request i've just gone through this again i think it's the right thing to do full disclosure full transparency nothing to hide the situations that led to the imprisonment of members of the house and lobbyist were these secret earmarks that popped up in the dead of and people didn't know what they meant change a comma here put a semi colon there and all of a sudden millions of dollars were flowing to favored clients of some lobbyist well there's a congressman from california who's now in jail for that and there's a lobbyist in jail for it as well let me tell you that era of secrecy and earmarks is over it is over forty eight hours before the bill comes to the floor the whole world can take a look at it and if you fail to put the earmarks in that disclosure you're subject to a point of order now who rules on a point of order here the gentleman sitting in front of the presiding officer he's a parliamentarian we turn him and say all right was there full disclosure of the earmarks in the bill and he rules one where the other he doesn't have a dog in this fight he works for both political parties that's the way it should be this is going to be an independent judgment as to these earmarks and whether there's full disclosure what about conflicts of interest between senators and those who are requesting these disclosures we have to file each senator asking for an earmark for apartment on the record that we have no person that didn't occur before this congressman went to jail and this lobbyist went to jail a dramatic change and that disclosure that denial of any kind of conflict of interest or i should say acceptance that we won't have any conflict of interest is public record it's there to be seen and if someone violates it they have made th statement to the committee it has been disclosed to the public and the whole earmark is there for the world to see it is a level of transparency and disclosure which we've never had before what troubles me the most about the senator from south carolina's criticism is that he is arguing that the writing of this bill was done quote behind closed doors in secret well there was an opportunity to take this bill to a conference committee that's one house and senate members sit in a room at a table work out their differences in public so that the press and the world can hear the deliberations and see the changes that were made and when we came to the floor and asked for that conference committee so the world could see the whole process one senator got up and objected i want to guess which one the senator who just gave a speech this morning from south carolina about the secrecy of this process he can't have it both ways he cannot object to a conference committee which is open in public and then when the conference committee doesn't occur object to what follows we had no choice but to work out this bill and bring it to be considered by the house and the senate when the sign of the oath or a bill go on the floor i'll be glad to yield one finished how did this bill fare on the floor of the house of representatives that was hit so hard by this culture of corruption and ethical scandals final vote was what four hundred eleven to eight four hundred eleven to eight bipartisan  on the house of representatives floor for this ethical reform and now we hear from the senator from south carolina that somehow we have stacked the deck on the democratic side here that wasn't reflected in the house vote many of his republican colleagues realize as we do as painful as this is it is necessary if we don't have the trust of the american people when it comes to the business that we do and frankly many of us who dedicated our lives to public service are going to be the lesser for it for all this hard work and all the time we put in people will always be suspicious you know as at senator voting for that project because his brother in law works there something well that is going to end with this reform the senator from south carolina may have wanted more he may have wanted to do it differently that is his right he is a senator from a state and has that right but he has to be honest and acknowledge that what we've done here is significant change in the five years that he was serving over in the house representatives he didn't suggest that the republican majority changed their earmark process ever we can't find one single instance when he went to the floor of the house and argued for earmark reform when his party was in the majority now that the democrats are in the majority he has become outspoken on this issue that again is his right to do i welcome it and i will say conceding to the senator from south carolina you have forced some valuable change in this process you should take credit for that but to stand here now and tell us that this work product is not real reform really flies in the face of comments made by people who have been working for reform in congress for decades they believe this is landmark legislation to put a forty eight hour disclosure forty eight hour disclosure before we can even take up a bill to put it on the internet for everyone to see is a level of transparency never before seen in the halls of congress in our entire history it just never took place that is a significant change it is a change with that i think moves us in the right direction let me say a word about earmarks because there's a lot of comment about members of congress earmarking money in special projects the bill i just completed the financial services bill we took a look at earmarks and you know what it turned out it turned out the earmarks by the president of the united states were two or three times larger than any requested earmarks by members of congress and there are no requirements under our rules that the administration say there's no peculiar a conflict of interest no disclosure forty eight hours in advance they put them in the bill but when it comes to members of congress we have changed those rules in my subcommittee and in other appropriations committees and this will also apply to tax bills as well give me the power to change the punctuation the tax code and i can make a lot of people happy in a hurry so we want to get down to the real business here and make sure that whether the earmark is an appropriation bill or a tax bill the american people see it from the start and then they decide when i run for reelection my opponent and i'm certain the press will just scar a through things that i've asked for to see if they can be justified if they something they question i mean i have to answer that question and we make that much easier for the public and for the press to get to the bottom of i would say to my colleagues in state of south carolina by ending the k street project by restricting lobbyist activities by adding dramatic transparency in the senate rules we are seeing more reform in this bill than ever at any time in the history of the senate or the house how do we reach the s point out of embarrassment embarrassment over a culture of corruption that overtook many of the activities of congress over the last few years people have gone to jail they paid a heavy price there have been embarrassments and i'm sure a lot of sadness in many families but the bottom line is we have kept our word that this bill with real reform that will make a difference in the way we do business is going to be passed i sincerely hope that an overwhelming bipartisan majority will support this reform this rules change when it comes before us today if one senator or any group of senators are successful in stopping this reform of the rules this reform of ethics then they'd better go home and answer to their constituencies pick up the morning paper off the majority leader has used his tenure to go america is counting on us to do the right thing and i encourage my colleagues to vote for this legislation isn't mr president senator from south carolina is recognized i thank you and i thank the senator from illinois but i do have to clarify the facts here because his representation in this bill has actually been an obvious misrepresentation he has said that if they certify that all the earmarks have been reported forty eight hours in advance and we have verified that family members do have have no interest in it then we can challenge that if we don't believe it's true but we can't challenge those facts and i would like to ask the parliamentarian at this point to confirm that because the way the sleight of hand has worked in this bill is and can no longer object to the accuracy of the certification i will just have to object whether or not it has been certified and i would ask the parliamentarian this specific question if a point of order is raised under the earmark disclosure rule in this bill would the chair through the parliamentarian be permitted to verify the completeness in accuracy of the disclosure or would the chair be required to only recognize with whether a certification has been made by the chairman or majority leader chair is required to only recognize whether a certification is been made by the chairman or the majority leader i just want to explain to my colleagues that that is the crux of this issue if the accuracy makes no difference as it hasn't this year when we have gotten certification of disclosure or verification there's been no conflict of interest if all that has to happen to comply with this rule is the majority leader or the chairman of the committee to say it's been complied with and if i contest it that i have no standing because it's been certified that the parliamentarian has been sidelined on this issue you can no longer verify whether or not it's true or accurate what we've done is created this sham of disclosure that can be covered up by one member of the senate that's why i call it a for all that's why i call it a shame we put all the language in here except we've allowed it all to be waived by one member of the senate this is not ethics reform at all what i would like to do mr president i would like to ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment side senator from south carolina as the floor this president or senator you for a question i would like to call up amendments number twenty six zero five and ask that it be adopted because their objection center from california is  center for california's objection is heard mr president i would just like to advise my colleagues that the majority has just objected to adopting the durbin demand amendment for earmark reform that has been gutted in this rule and this is all we've been asking for throughout the process is that we put in this at the expel the exact same language that we all voted on that was written by speaker pelosi rewritten by senator durbin and has been gutted in this process and it's still being called earmark reform when the parliamentarian has just confirmed for us in the world that the certification is a complete sham i think the president senator from texas is recognized mr president i applaud the good work of the senator from south carolina in pointing out the the defects in this bill i know he has been criticized or exercising his rights as a united states senator to object to a unanimous consent request that the bill go to conference committee where as we have we all know republicans and democrats would ordinarily sit down together and work out a compromise with the would then come back to the floor for a vote but as a result of the process employed by the majority leader the democrat leader and the speaker of the house speaker pelosi republicans have had no opportunity to have any impact whatsoever on the final language of this bill the only time we will have a chance to voice our views on this bill will be the vote that's coming up now so make no mistake about it the bill that we will be voting on is not the product of bipartisan negotiations it is explicitly the act of the democrat majeure and i think only time will tell  ether this bill is operates as advertised or whether as a senator from south carolina has pointed out it is a complete sham perhaps presenting a petunia or thin veneer of reform when in fact it remains rotten to the core because of the fact that business as usual will continue to be carried on here when it comes to the non disclosure of appropriation of federal tax dollars for special purposes you before our side have senator from california as three minutes in one thousand seconds well thank you very much mr president i'd like to say something in response basically the earmark language is formed on the demand language that was in the senate bill what happened was that staff sent down with all of the parliamentarians for several hours to determine the workability under senate rules and procedures of the language and amendments were made that would make the language workable now the senator from south carolina contends that the parliamentarian should review the entire bill and river river rule on whether each and every earmark is listed by the chair and and vet that earmark when our offices spoke with the parliamentarians office the we realized that this was not a workable situation and could lead to gridlock in the senate now maybe that's what the junior senator from south carolina wants but i for one believe that the american people want us to carry out their business there is full disclosure there is full transparency the committee chairs must certify that the earmark if it is complete it must be published on the internet forty eight hours before it comes before the board disclosure transparency is what the earmark reform is all about no more don't no more dark of night edition to bills even when the conference committee is often closed and once again if the juniors is senator from south carolina had allowed a conference members would have been able to sit down in the full light of day and member to member house to senate to discuss it but instead he alone he alone despite importation after importation to allow the conference to go ahead would not allow it to go ahead one member that effectively would have stopped the bill stopped the bill instead the majority leader the speaker of the house after the bill passed the house by a wide margin believe this was too important to let one member one member stop it and so they figured a way to bring a bill from the house which is what is now before to me this is all sour milk spoiled milk he would have stopped the bill dead if he could have his way but it didn't happen that way and now you know there's more than one member of the united states senate there's more than two or three or four or five there are one hundred members and members views have to be taken into consideration yes there was some change of language but there is nothing in a change of language that in any way shape or form stop full disclosure stops the certification of the committee chair stop putting it on the internet forty eight hours before it comes to the board it is real reform i thank the chair i hope there will be the votes here for cloture and i urge the senate of the united states to vote cloture is in what is the most significant ethics and lobbying reform bill since watergate side or stein has expired who y the junior senator from south carolina is recognized i want to thank all of my colleagues for this this good and open debate i would like to remind them that i supported this bill in the beginning and ask consent a number of times that it go to conference as many of us have pointed out the earmark provision is a senate rule that does not need to be conferenced with the house and the only reason to make it part of a conference bill is so that it can be changed i've offered all along that if there were changes that the majority wanted to make that we were very open to that but we just wanted to end up with some real earmark transparency that all of us had voted on  have pointed out this morning it is not disclosed it's not transparent if the majority can just simply say that it is without having to prove its accuracy of that has been the cause of so much corruption i think it is certainly worth stopping and looking at what we've done this language is hardly minor as far as the changes taking place if it were minor the majority would not insist that their version rule today i would just like to urge all of my colleagues to vote against cloture not to vote against ethics reform which we all support but the vote against this process that will not allow us to re insert something that we all voted on and we all said in public is the right way to handle earmark reform so i thank the president i thank the leader for all his work and i yield back the balance of my time his friend of more than six months six months after the senate passed its on lobby reform bill we're now being asked to vote on a democratic written alternative that promises to be less effective but in some ways stronger than current law i was a co sponsor of the original version and its passage by an overwhelming vote of ninety six to two back in january mark and early happily for bipartisanship in the session and it was an unmistakable sign of the strength of the original bill americans were right to be outraged by the scandals that surfaced last year their right to hold their lawmakers to the highest hundred of conduct and passing this bill send a strong and i think necessary signal that the senate has reka matter recommitted itself to that trust as i said in some key areas this bill is an improvement over the status quo but this isn't the bill that i would have written and it would have benefited from a lot of republican input the earmarks provision was passed unanimously in january and was supported by every single democrat in the senate and it was strong the earmarks provision in this bill is not and several new provisions make hardly any sense at all my largest concern here is what we're doing to our own staff it is unclear to me why in this bill we treat house staff more leniently than our most trusted advisers here in the senate or even those in the executive branch for that matter  in this provision particularly offensive the gift ban and the new travel restrictions are tricky and vague by extending the ban to not just lobbyist that employ or retain them does that mean i have to ruth is the key to a city cities have their own lobbyist and mayors belong to associations that employ and retain them about a twenty two year old staff assistant who has to wait tables to make ends meet what happens when they wait on a lobbyist or someone who works for an organization one do they have to refuse their tips you get the drift this provision is bound to create problems for well intentioned members and staff and i to the ethics committee to provide some clarity to what at the very least could be described as a rather murky and on workable provision the new rule own charter flights is seriously deficient members who are rich enough or have family members rich enough to own their own planes have nothing of course story about everyone else does for example presidents who are required by secret service to travel on air force one will have to reimburse the government at the full charter rate that's roughly four hundred thousand dollars per hour they use it for campaign travel four hundred thousand dollars an hour that not only means the end of presidential fundraisers outside of washington for democrats and republicans it means the ends of presidents doing fundraisers for members outside of the district of columbia you have to have a fab a a dollar fundraiser just to pay for the trip now i assume this is not the intent of the authors of the bill but it will be the effect of what they have written i know some members in particular who might be surprised to learn about this we have many of them in this body running for president on both sides every one of these witnesses would have been improved with republican input but we were unable to do so because there was not a conference sure you that will return to the earmarks provision it will be back to its bill it nearly as tough as it would have been on earmarks that republicans have been involved in writing it but weighing the good and the bad many the majority leader is recognized my understanding of all time has been used that line jordy leaders correct mispresent last november was call across this country culminated in november calling for changes change from coast to coast in the way that congress does its business we had nine new democratic senators during the campaign they called for change and change they will have in just a few minutes let's say here before shows congress heard the call for this change change we have in this legislation mr president in fact it's changed big time most significant change in lobbying ethics in the history of our country some of said since watergate i say in the history of our country this is s one the first bill introduced in this body this year our first and most important bill of this new congress why number one in american people democrats republicans and independents knew that our progress would depend on we knew in the people's faith in the integrity of congress what does this legislation do mr president mung other things must present among other things it requires senators to pay fair market prices for charter flights putting an end to abuses of corporate travel and we have heard all about those abuses time after time this legislation slows a revolving door by extending the ban on lobbying by former members of congress and senior staffers and prevents senators from even negotiating a job as a lobbyist until the successor has been elected puts an end to pay for pace games like the notorious k street project it shines the light of day on lobbying activities by vastly increasing disclosure requirements including bundling and campaign contributions and it requires the senate to disclose all earmarks all earmarks for the first time ever that originally passed by an overwhelming vote of ninety six to two and june i tried to send this bill to conference i tried and i tried but we were unable to go to conference because of objections by the minority some republican colleagues expressed concerns as a bill might lead to legislation that does not achieve the goals of that original bipartisan bill i assured them then and i show them now that this bill has to be i ask them to withhold judgment until the final bill is complete as president i have heard a number of statements today about this bill from my friends small in number i felt like i was in the twilight zone we've heard them talk about the bill gutting earmark disclosure that we've tried to hide earmarks keep them in the shadows this claim is so absurd that it's hard to believe that people actually could make this without being disingenuous for the first time ever senate democrats required all committees to disclose their earmarks earmarks answers didn't have to was the law we did it last year when republicans control this institution not one earmark was disclosed not one i don't recall a single speech about that fate or last year by any of the republicans who have spoken today for the first time ever we're already being transparent fully transparent about earmarks and we're here to talk about that we hear mr president these breathless claims made here today that earmarks are being hidden how how can you describe ridiculous that's what it is mr president thirty four pages of this legislation deals with earmarks and i might vote a little bit other staff have to work on this but i had two of the finest legal minds in this community working on this mention by name ron white a graduate of yale law school who worked on capitol hill and many years with senator kennedy went down town became a very successful lawyer decided he wanted public service came back to work with me he is what he's an experienced attorney he worked on so for anyone to castigate this legislation there castigating these two fine men who have worked with numerous people throughout this body my republican friends are either ignorant of what is already happening or living in a parallel universe this legislation puts into the senate rules a revolution in the air mark disclosure and accountability we began this year requires all earmarks and bills joint resolution conference reports be disclosed in the internet forty eight hours prior to the action on the floor we don't intend to have to wait until forty eight hours so the bill directs committees to issue the earmark list as soon as possible after the bills reported the bill requires that earmarks in amendments be posted on the internet as soon as possible after being introduced the language originally asked one didn't have any rules on amendments we put them in there if we were trying to hide amendments and higher earmarks why would we stick this in the bill this legislation for the first time ever allows a point of order to be raised against new earmarks added in conference one of main arguments used by the opponents of reform is that the certification required by the committee chair of the majority leader would be a sham mr president we're here all the time dealing with earmarks i'm sorry with points of order and budget but your points of order do you think the their referees someone has to tell him and i guess you would the only thing you could do is say the senator byrd's and cochran are lying that's not a very good argument to use i think is i don't know how everybody else feels about this but you know this is kind of an affront to what we do around here further deponents of ignored a simple and unavoidable fact the definition earmark requires the british to be added primarily at their request the senate or the parliamentarian doesn't add their mind the only people who can ever know for sure how a provision got added to a bill is the author of the legislation the committee chair just like our budget points of order the parliamentarian has no capacity to figure out whether provision was added primarily to request of a senator was added because the president wanted it or just because everyone agreed it was a good policy under any circumstances parliamentarian would have no choice but to defer to the committee chair so i ask mr president my friend the junior senator from south carolina as an example to understand the hard work put into this legislation hard work really hard work and if there's something that's wrong with it talk to us about it we'll try to change in subsequent legislation and his doesn't work if there's a problem i'm happy to work with him but don't denigrate this bill we worked hard on it i so appreciate the work of chairman feinstein i so appreciate the work of chairman lieberman they both have rep reputations that are impeccable you may not always agree with their policy but their ability for honesty and integrity is above reproach and mr president i must also talk about russ feingold when this session started i asked press feingold to drop a piece of legislation and he did that and we worked around that  anyone question the integrity of russ feingold you can't question his integrity dianne feinstein or joe lieberman's integrity that's what this legislation is all about and anyone talking about hiding and obscenity that's what they talk about in this legislation is legislation obscene is impugning the integrity of three of the finest public servants we have in this country also the face of this last year was bro this bill is not just a little bit of reform the outside groups i've talked about this legislation fred wertheimer a man who has been in this town since i've been here talking about how we can improve this body in many different ways fred wertheimer said this is landmark legislation those are his words not min what the opponents are doing to try to denigrate his legislation i think it's shameful i don't care if they disagree with this legislation but don't impugn the integrity of the people who are trying to do something that is positive and good this is good legislation thirty four pages alone on earmark we have succeeded the democratic majority has succeeded i appreciate the support of the minority but the democrats have succeeded in what republicans couldn't do last year the year before and they have seized on one issue earmark and blowing it way out of all proportionality irrationality and have ignored reality to create doubts in people's mind earmarking legislation in this bill is good it's excellent and it was hard to do it took us thirty four pages to get it done the fact is we have sweeping reform legislation and a whole area of who whole whole whole host of areas gifts travel lobbyist disclosure stealth coalitions reporting lobbyist contributions revolving door it's sweeping the bill will absolutely change the way we do business now mr president our work is done i'm confident that the judgment of democrats republicans alike will be favorable four hundred eleven eight in the house of representatives let us do the same let us send a message from coast to coast east west north south a message that this congress is serious and delivering to the american people a government as good and honest as the people it serves lose requests be printed in the records not objection so ordered under the previous order the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture cloture motion way the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule twenty two of the standing rules of the senate here by move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to concur in the house amendment on s one the ethics reform bill signed by seventeen senators by unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call has been waived the question is is it the sense of the senate the debate on the motion to concur in the house amendment to ask want an act to provide greater transparency the legislative process and for other purposes shall be brought to a close the a's and nays are mandatory under the rule the clerk will call the roll mr a mrs boxer mr brown  mr coleman ms collins mr conrad mr cork mr lieberman mrs lincoln mr lott mr lugar mr martinez mr mccain mrs mccaskill mr reed of rhode island mr reid of nevada mr roberts mr rockefeller mr salazar mr sanders schumer mr sessions mr shelby mr smith son kyl and a lot mr conrad mr conrad  said i will come to order take your conversations out of the chamber please said i will come to order we have the two senators who requested to speak on this matter senator byrd wishes twenty minutes senator mccaskill ten minutes following that we would return to this chair and the vote on this bill coach was just a vote would occur at one fifty this afternoon and i asked one fifty one fifty five of you that the time between one thirty center from west virginia at the beginning of this congress  i committed to adding transparency and accountability because a process of earmarking funds for specific projects and i say that again at the beginning of this congress i committed to adding transparency and accountability because of process of earmarking funds for speed for specific projects i see my friend from this is a very here ranking member on the floor now say that again at the beginning of this congress i committed to adding transparency and accountability to the process of earmarking funds for specific project while awaiting action by the congress on ethics reform legislation senator cochran the able and very highly respected senator from standards for increasing such transparency based on those  the appropriate committee has reported on a bipartisan basis eleven appropriations bills that have we have required and we have received certification letters from every senator meaning he or she you and or his or her spouse they have no financial interest in their senator that has any aramark that that senator and his or her spouse that they have no financial interest in their earmark is a clear i have always always always maintained the highest standards that again i have always maintained the highest standards for myself robert c byrd myself and for my staff on ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest for earmarks that i include in any legislation consistent with the standards that we are stablished for the appropriations process and establishing these rules the public the public should not conclude that the rubes are somehow a sanction on the concrete going to congress for wasteful spending in recent members members have asserted that all earmark funding is wasteful spending or an abuse of power all senators endeavor spending is flat out wrong i'm going to say that again hogwash all senators endeavor that we doubt wasteful spending but this notion that earmarks spending is inherently wasteful spending is flat out wrong this notion that earmarks earmark spending is in here and this notion that earmark spending is inherently wasteful spending is flat out wrong congress has the power of the purse and has had the power of the purse that's the only real rio power we can we senators and members of the other body and the president really has congress has the power of the purse since the beginning of the republic congress has since the beginning of the republic congress has allocated money to the specific projects and purposes as from the beginning of the republic in seventy nine eight thirty five hundred dollars was appropriated for firewood and candles for the treasury department and four hundred fifty four dollars and forty one says was appropriated for rent at a house near grazes ferry on the scoop  understood of congressional practices there is nothing there is nothing inherently wrong with the near mar from the congress about how the federal government has been the people's money i show quote legislative powers here in granted shall not may but shall be vested in a congress of the united states which shall consist of a senate and house of represent framers of the constitution quoted again all legislative powers hearing granted shall be vested in a congress of the united states which senate and house of representatives in using this power congress has an obligation to be good  public treasury and to prevent imprudent expenditure congress has an obligation to guard against the corruption of any state any any any public officials who would sell their or so and the trust of their constituency in order to profit from an official act but congress does not urge in using an earmark to designate how the people's money should be spent this is a power i say this is a power that does not belongs where and to whom it belongs to the people the people out there own the heroes and in the valleys across this gray  belongs to the people through their elected representatives in congress that hear their elected representatives and i'm one  to appropriations bill embarked can be found in revenue videos as tax benefits for narrower narrowly defined constituency earmark they may come out of the committee on ways and means in the body or out of the senate finance committee they can be found in an author's zation video earmarks can be found in the president budget request you heard that now listen hey are you listening found in the president's budget request well intentioned though they may be the civil servants making budget decisions in the executive agencies and offices of the federal government do not understand the communities that senators represent they do not meet with the constituencies of senators they do not know members states and their people day can be a poor judge of what is necessary and what is frivolous from the perspective of the state and the people that these gura kratz are not elected therefore they are not accountable to the people al funds are to be spent then the decision fall to the executive bra in such cases the american people may never know who is responsible for a spending decision the american people may never know how a spending decision is made the american people may never hear an in the executive director see there is far less accountability because of people critics of congressional earmarks h me critical of congressional earmark critics of congressional earmarks all fun overlook the success stories from their marked spending directed by congress now  congressional earmarks all fun overlook the success stories aramark been directed by congress let me give an example of earmarks spending hea in the nineteen sixty nine agriculture appropriations bill congress earmarked fun for a new program to provide critical nutrition to low income women infants and children this program  this program with the president which is now known as the wic duggie assy the wic program has sense provided nutritional assistance to over one hundred and fifty million women infants and children a critical contribution to the health a children's hospital even overcoming a presidential veto resulted in the construction of what is now known as the children's national medical center i've started out with an earmark the children national medical center the hospital has become a national and international leader in neonatal and pediatric trick care says the hospital over and over five million children have received health care last year children's hospital treated over three hundred forty thousand young patients and performed over ten thousand surgeries saving and improving thousand nine hundred eighty three congress aramark funds for a new emergency food and shelter program in two thousand five alone the program served homes have you ever been homeless have you ever been homeless of the human genome project became known as the human genome project mapping of the human  this research has led to completed a new strategy is for disease prevention and treatment the human genome project has led to discoveries of dramatic new methods of identifying and treating breast cancer ovarian cancer and colon an say that once more the human genome project has led to discoveries a dramatic new plan methods of identifying and treating breast of varian and colon cancer saving many many lives now senator here me this is not not an o t unmanned aerial vehicles these efforts produced if predator and the global hawk two of the most effective assets been used in the global war on terror this is not in o t not wasteful spending i've been talking about earmar for me not for you but for all of the american people in the rush i get this in the rush constitutional authority the president has not submitted a single rescission proposal under the budget a assumptions the war in iraq has required the congress that's required to congress to appropriate four hundred  million meant jesus christ was born so the war in iraq has required the congress to appropriate four hundred fifty going into iraq the war in iraq has required the congress to appropriate four hundred fifty billion dollars of the people's money only two to three percent of discretionary of rather than dealing with these fiscal failures too many would rather propagate this thesis argu enlarging the present role in the budget process and doing away with congressional are earmarked well magically somehow magically magically if you've got imagine magically reduce passed twenty how were you very old it contained a total of seven hundred thirty nine earmarks in two thousand and five republican congress passed and the appropriations committee took the lead to add transparency and accountability to the process in the joint funding resolution for have wide two thousand and seven one appropriations committee took the lead by establishing guidelines for approving earmarks in f y two thousand and eight bill the appropriations committee as reported for each earmark contained in the f y two thousand and eight bill jan report a member is required to certify in writing that he or he all committee bills and report including all of the above information are available to the people the people available to the public on  twenty three billion dollars or over eighty percent of the earmarks was requested by the president the president and the united states the level of none project based earmarks is a substantial reduction below the level of food for two thousand and six we're not hiding  we are not hiding hiding hiding these earmarks we are highlighting them for the scrutiny of the american people accountable for the decisions in these bills and report the status quo is not satisfactory and the appropriations committee has taken the lead  adding transparency and accountability to the process in nominating waste and abuse in the federal budget process is important protecting the character and design to lose our head and keep our heads on our shoulders does not lose our heads and subsequent ready safeguards of our rights and liberties as american citizens as one strikes the right balance conference report and section five twenty one establishes a new rule and the number is forty four a new forty four contains rules concerning new congressionally directed spending that might be included in a  that point of order concerning new directed spending will be considered pursue it as a new route forty four am i correct l the new forty four the term quote measure close quote refers to the bill or requires the chairman this is the new spending limited tax benefit and limited caris benefit is available on a publicly accessible congressional website at least forty eight hours before a vote senator is correct and i thank the chair we would be going back on the bell at twelve forty five saying the senator from west virginia has extended his time but i've been waiting here for now for more than an hour with him i hope that i can proceed suggest to my colleagues is a long overdue they alternative minimum tax was created in nine hundred sixty nine in response to a small high number of small number of high income individuals who had paid little or no federal income taxes today because of a lack of indexing for inflation and the higher a m t taxes tax rates relative to the regular income tax system we have a tax system which has grown far beyond its intended result if there is no legislative action they number of taxpayer subject to the alternative minimum tax liability will rise sharply from approximately three and a half million filers in two thousand and six to seven point three million in two thousand and seven  this issue has been before me the senate four times this year already it will hit taxpayers in the moderate range excessively hard dollars and from twenty four to twenty eight percent for taxable income in excess of one hundred seventy five thousand dollars very has been some question as to what is an offset and there is no offset and then should be looked for where you have a tax which essentially was not expected to be imposed there was no anticipation and intention that this alternative minimum tax was going to produce additional revenue so that when the law is corrected when the tax law is intent that is exactly what the tax fairness requires it's pretty simple open and shut matter and it doesn't take a whole lot of time to explain and i know we managers  on the floor but i did want to have the amendment considered to set aside the other amendments so that we could engage in argument and be prepared to debate it further unless the senator from in the case with hand gesture time out no argument at this time i will be available madam president to return to the floor when the managers consider it appropriate but i want to get this on record sometimes when you're not here nine four and all that follows three page one sixty five line two and insert the following section four zero one premium assistance for higher income without objection objection the president will report the amendment center from vermont mr sanders proposes and then the number twenty six hundred two and then the number twenty five thirty madam president i also asked that the pending amendment be set includes eighty billion dollars incentive pool and the purpose of this pool is to provide states with the funding they need to do outreach efforts in order to attract children into the program  reality is however that a number of states today have already enrolled ninety percent of their kids into the s chip program and with the passage of this bill more states will soon be at that level further we want to provide strong incentives for states billows and ninety percent romit to reach that level this amendment in order to incentivize states to reach that level of ninety percent would allow states to apply for multiple grants of up to two million dollars each when they achieve an enrollment rate of greater than ninety percent of children below two hundred percent of poverty these grants would help  the children we enroll in ash trip have a place to go to receive medical care and to find the personnel they need to provide that cap these grants would come from a new pool  pool of money the state health access innovations pool of two hundred fifty million dollars about eight percent of the three billion dollars incentive pool this money amount of president would be used to find innovative approaches to increasing the availability of help and provide and services and result in the direct provision of health services and the reason for  is pretty clear in vermont and in many other parts of this country one can in fact have health insurance and yet find it quite difficult to vie to find providers of that service so what we're saying here is let us make sure that when our kids do have health insurance there will be doctors there will be that those that we are the health care providers of this is a good amendment and i certainly hope that it will be supported  madam president the other amendments that i've offered no but twenty six hundred is a simple men meant to section one eleven of the children's health insurance program reauthorization section one hundred and eleven as you know applies to certain qualifying states that expanded their medicaid program to cover kids prior to the accident of chip in one nine hundred ninety seven i want to commend the finance committee for working language into the current bill that will no longer penalize these quote unquote early expansion states and will allow states to cover children between one hundred thirty three percent and three hundred percent of the federal poverty level to be covered under the chip program of my amendment simply states that payments to states to cover these children who were previously covered under medicaid they used slowly to fund health care related activities specifically the language states the payments may only be used to provide coverage or to expand access while health care infrastructure including but not limited to the provision of school based health services dental cam mental health services federally qualified health centers and educational debt forgiveness for health care practitioners in fields experiencing local shortages this amendment is a simple provision will specify that states benefiting from an increased match must use these funds for health care and will allow states to address coverage issues as well as the crucial area of expanding access to services something that particularly affects after president like to take a few minutes today to discuss an important issue that affects all americans who take rescript drugs specifically i'm going to speak about the need for greater transparency in the payment that doctors will bill medicare and medicaid receive from drug companies recently i wrote that recently i learned that some of our leading physicians doctors who have significant influence in your medical field receive tens of thousands of dollars every year from drug companies for some of these payments can make up a considerable amount of their annual income that payments can take the form of honoraria her speaking engagements payments to sit on advisory panels and funding for research firms or drug companies spend about eight billion dollars a year to fund education courses that doctors are required to take every year called continuing medical education in april the finance committee staff prepared a report on pharmaceutical companies support of continuing medical education this report found that some educational courses supported by drug companies have become veiled forms of advertising that encourage off label use of drugs let's review how this works right now it's possible for a doctor to attend a c m e continue met the medical education course sponsored by a drug company that same company can make payments to doctors who teach the corps and the doctor who teaches a course can discuss the bindings of research paid for by the company now that may sound like a conflict and on ethical but that's how it happens the whole field is connected by a tangled web of drug company money to try and understand this a little better i've been exploring the money doctors get from big pharma especially the doctors who work as an academic researchers most universities require their academic researchers to report i was citing come and i've sent letters to a handful of universities to understand how well of such reporting system actually works i haven't received all the information yet but i can comment on some of the things that i've already found most universities require professors to report outside income that may create a conflict of interest with their research this means that if a doctor at a university is receiving money from a company either for research speaking fees or dissent on an advisory panel then they have to report that income but there appears to be a couple of problems  and and let's say a couple of problems with the whole system as i've found out the only person who really knows if the reported income is accurate and complete is the doctor who is receiving the money the university please its own people to make sure that their reporting ever the thing that they're supposed to report is seems that some of these academics are getting so much money coming in from so many different kinds of companies that they need an account to be sure that everything is reported accurately second these disclosures are usually kept secret so if there's a doctor getting thousands of dollars from a drug company payments that might be affecting his or her objectivity the only people outside the pharmaceutical industry who will probably ever know about this are the people at that very university if they're even keeping track of it and we don't know that they are keeping track of it but most americans never get a fair chance to see this information to give you one example i sent a letter to the university of cincinnati asking about how much money the drug companies have been paying one of their psychiatry's dr melissa bell back in may the new york times reported on the research done by dr dale ballo to see if adolescents could was a good choice for treating by part bipolar disorder in children dr dale bellows study was later cited by a prominent panel of experts which concluded that drugs like sarah quail should be a first talks another doctor told the new york times that he was persuaded to start prescribing drugs like eric well after listening to dr debelle all but one the reporter from the new york times as dr  much money she got from astra zeneca she told the paper trust me i don't make much well i decided to find out how much and i went directly to the university of cincinnati who by the way has been extremely cooperative helpful and responsible soon i figured out just how much not so much money really is dr develop a study which helped put sarah quayle on the map was published in two thousand  that next year she got more money than she has ever received from the pharmaceutical companies at least that is what the document said i have to say that in two thousand and three astra zeneca alone paid her a little over one hundred thousand dollars for lectures consulting fees travel expenses and service on advisory boards in two thousand and four astra zeneca paid her over eighty thousand dollars for the same services now i'm not saying that this money was a payoff or suggesting that there's something inherently bad with accepting drug company money but let me tell you what doctors even i am provost harvard university and former director of the national institute of mental health said he said that these payments could encourage psychiatry is to use drugs in ways that endangered patients physical health specifically said of doctors and i we don't connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk and the whole i think that this is a rather interesting assessment by dr hyman and so for the sake of transparency and for the sake of accountability should the american public know who the her doctor is taking money from after all anyone can go on the internet and see who is funding the campaigns for federally elected officials because doctors are expected to look out for what the health and well being of their great barrier patients should we hold doctors to similar standards in fact some of this is already occurring minnesota requires drug companies to report any payments that they give to doctors in that state i think that's a good thing and apparently so do the citizens of minnesota i think that what we really need is a national program that will require all drug companies to report when they make payments to doctors i don't think that that would be all that very hard for those companies that do after all companies have to make sure that they know where every penny is going so it shouldn't be that hard to report some of it to the federal government and to the american people and besides they're already doing it in the state of minnesota in closing i plan to continue my inquiry into drug companies payment to doctors and patients i look forward to working with my colleagues in the senate as well as members of the pharmaceutical industry to establish a national reporting system i yield the floor madam president i rise i take this opportunity to speak in favor of the children's health insurance program and its reauthorization the legislation that's before us that we hear the numbers that six million children benefit from the program today over six million and that this will provide for an additional three million children i just really want my colleagues know that each one of these people are people and their families and they're affected by what we do here today i take this time time to acquaint my colleagues to the monte driver the monte driver was a twelve year old didn't live far from here six miles from here in prince george's county maryland he had a tooth problem and his mother tried to get him help no insurance through the cracks and he had a brother to sean driver who had six decaying teeth and they tried to get help for him the mo thought the older brother was in worse shape than the monte the man she started having headaches he was rushed to the emergency room they found out that his tooth problem and he couldn't get to a dentist was actually an abscessed too i must tell you before there's a social worker made twenty phone calls in an effort to try to get dental care to the driver family without success couldn't find dennis willing to treat someone without insurance or in the medicaid system well the monte ended up needing emergency surgery cost two hundred fifty thousand dollars and ended up losing his life because the system did not provide care for a twelve year old we can certainly do better than that dr koop the former surgeon general of the united states said there is no health care without world will medical research has shown the linkage between plaque and heart disease we now know that gum disease can be a signal diabetes or liver ailment or hormone imbalance so we've got to do better we've got do better than we're doing today dental disease is the most common childhood ailment in the united states today one  more likely to sustain untreated tooth decay forty percent of african american children have untreated i want to thank my colleague senator bingaman for his leadership on these issues a introducing legislation and moving forward on trying to provide better oral health care for our children i want to thank senator snowe for her leadership and i want to thank senator baucus and senator grassley for including initiatives in the legislation that's before us that will help the states meet this challenge two hundred million glued in the bill and i thank you for that because that's going to have a major impact to try to help american families we have an important opportunity for us in the legislation that we're considering to help our children not only continue the benefits for six point six million children but so that we can add another three million of the nine million who currently have no health insurance mr president to tell you i think we've got to do more than this this is our opportunity today we've got to take advantage of it  care system is in crisis earlier this week i introduced a universal health coverage act that would require everyone in this country to have health insurance i think is absolutely essential that we address the major problems in our country of so many people being without health insurance plan to start with our children we can do that with the legislation that's before us why is that important well we know that children who are rolled in the children's health care program or have insurance are much more likely to get primary health care they won't use the emergency rooms as much if you don't have insurance you have no choice but to go to the emergency room we have improved outcomes health care outcomes of the child has health insurance and we know there are more likely to be him in his asian and primary health care i want to just comment that again these are talk about families talk about individuals of senate finance committee held a hearing on the children's health care program the bedford family from my own state baltimore city baltimore came down here  testify mrs bedford said we no longer have to decide whether a child is really sick enough to warrant a doctor's visit the bedfords family choose or rolled in the children's health care program in the state of maryland the program is working the program is working without this legislation will have to re impose freezes on romans and people will lose coverage that happened in my own state this is  and i really do compliment my colleagues for bringing forward a bipartisan bill that we can get an active into law in maryland we started a program on july first nine hundred ninety eight so we're between our ninth and tenth year we started with thirty eight thousand children enrolled we're now up to one hundred and one thousand children in roles in this program with this bill maryland will get not an increase of funds from sixty seven million dollars to one hundred eighty nine million dollars will be able to enroll forty two thousand more children in the state of maryland this is important this important program i also want to compliment the committee for including outreach so we can we can reach families that don't know how to enroll or whether they're qualified to enroll so we can get more families in rolled more children enrolled in the children's health care program mr president i just urge my colleagues to take advantage of the opportunity that we currently have before us this is an opportunity and which we can make a major progress in dealing with those children in our community who will either lose their coverage because we take no action and those who we who currently have no insurance who we can get  enrolled in this program it's a valuable program we have an opportunity to move forward i urge my colleagues to support the fine effort of the senate finance committee in bringing forward this legislation with that mr president  of the way business was done here and i'll be honest i had some moments of doubt over the last six months there were times i wondered around the floor and even among my own party and the other party and i heard kind of a murmuring of discontent over the ethics reform that we passed back in january and i got nervous i got nervous we weren't serious about it that we really weren't going to push the kinds of claims in things that we have done in the legislation before us that we're about to vote on this isn't hard what we're doing what we're just trying to do is live like everybody else in america most americans don't have a corporation they can call for a ride on a jet plane most americans don't have somebody who wants to pay for a fancy trip most americans really don't have the ability to decide that one group in their state gets money when others don't but we did here and that was wrong and that's why i'm so proud of this legislation isn't perfect you know i will wait probably in vain for that piece of legislation that we passed here that's perfect but because of our practice because of the glorious nature of a democracy it's always a matter of give and take it's always a matter of finding compromise to find that piece of legislation that can get enough votes that we can send it to the president's desk and that's what this process was now i have i'm friends and frankly some people i agree with on the other side of the aisle that are on happy with some of the provisions in this bill they're willing to overlook the bundling provisions the ban on travel and give the ban on corporate jets they're willing to overlook the revolving door reforms the reforms in terms of sneaking provisions into conference bills without them ever being an either piece of legislation from the house of the senate and focus in just on the adequate of the inadequacies of the earmark reform well what i have liked it to be a sixty seven point of order rather than a sixty vote point of order yes i would of would i have wished for a system maybe that was even more transparent than this yes but this is major reform and i will tell you there is a few senators that do not participate in earmarking process and i'm not here to to pat them on the back or me on the back for the fact that we do not do that but i will say i it's interesting that the phrase the fox in the hen house was used as the provisions in this bill you know there's a saying all hat and no cattle well i think that maybe this is the time to use the phrase all foxes and no hands because if you really step back from this issue of iraq earmark reform it's not complicated it's pretty easy as one of the cartoons said we have met the enemy and it is us all we have to do to achieve the transparency that we need is for every senator to put every earmark requests that they are making on their web site i'll say it again all we have to do is have every senator put every earmark requests they're making on their own website and then it won't be hard to make sure that the chairman of the committee or the majority floor leader have in fact sort of fight all the earmarks and i'm a little offended that there is some parliamentarian's job they're not the sleuth they don't have a staff to do this i'll tell you whose job it is to vet him it's the people of the united states of america because guess what it's their money this is a strong ethics bill and even though i was a co sponsor along with a senator that has spoken against this on the earmark reform i want to say this goes a long way in the right direction and it's a great effort i'm proud of senator reid senator feinstein senator feingold senator obama and all the other senators that have worked on this and many of the republican side have as well i think that we're going to pass this by a big number today and it's a moment that we should all be proud of it's an accomplishment that we should herald and we should remember that if we're worried about foxes we ought to check out our own closet for that box outfit before we start to point the finger at anybody thank you mr chairman mr president i mr president the senator from iowa there was some other members wanted to offer amendments but since they aren't here i want to speak on this issue that is more pertinent was what went on in the house on ask to have yesterday and what's in the senate bill but i want people to be aware of ass chip in the house in the house of representatives we in the senate are discuss and coverage for children but in the house and in the press there's been a lot of discussion about medicare advantage people are saying that medicare advantage plans are overpaid they're talking about cutting payments but they don't talk about why congress set up the payment structure we have now in place in order to create choice in plans in medicare and to expand private plan choices in rural america and the these remarks are about equity for rural america in this discussion there's not talk about why congress set up a choice a choice that city people had but people didn't have in rural america it worries me that those arguing about playing payments being too high are losing sight of the people who are supposed to be working for the medicare beneficiaries these beneficiaries are the ones who benefit from having advantage plans available to choose from congress in two thousand and three and enacted the medicare my that is a shanab that's a priest scription drugs for seniors bill a major goal of medicare modernization was to expand beneficiaries choice of medicare plans in addition to free scription drugs before that bell rural beneficiaries rarely had a private medicare plan to choose from they didn't have the same choices as people have in urban america now because that veil rural and urban medicare beneficiaries can decide whether a private plan option or traditional medicare works best i want to tell you why medicare advantage can be an option for beneficiaries i want to explain why congress  series urban and rural should have a choice the original medicare benefit is set up based on how medicine was practice and one hundred sixty four you went to a doctor if you're really sick you went to hospital medicine was much less specialized patients were treated by one doctor at a time not a team of people who treat patients now under traditional medicare hospital payments are in part a of medicare position benefits are financed and delivered and part b of medicare each set of benefits has its own the doc of the hospital the doctor of all alone is a lot higher than most working people have in their health insurance it's nine hundred ninety two dollars number of hospitals days each year it is not great protection if you are severely injured or if you're an illness requires a long hospital stay say you happen to end up in a hospital for months at a stretch you might end up exhausting your medicare coverage a lot of people don't realize how limited medicare benefits can be medicare also does not actually have catastrophic coverage traditional fee for service medicare by itself does not protect provide protection against cost of catastrophic illnesses some better very serious buy medigap insurance to cover catastrophic costs that can be very expensive in contrast medicare advantage plans have catastrophic coverage is for a much lower premium than medicaid medicare this is one of many reasons medicare advantage should be an option an option not just in metropolitan america but in rural areas as well as at the end one minute ok i'm going to stop because we are having a bold i would ask unanimous consent that my speech has far be not put in the record until i finish it later on in the day without objection sword under the previous order the question now occurs on the motion offered by the majority leader to concur mr brown mr brownback mr casey mr coburn mr kyl mr martinez mr mccain sir nelson of florida mr sanders mr sessions mr stevens sanders mr sanders i are there any senators in the chamber who have not voted or who wish to change their vote if not on the motion to concur in the amendment of the house to s one the i's or eighty three the nays are fourteen president asked for regular order with respect to my minute number twenty six eighteen which is a pending a memo to the children's health insurance program bill the amendment is pending i asked you know  modification of my member simply makes clear that the amendment strikes section seven zero one of the bill which is the tobacco tax revenue raising section and replaces section seven a one with a section eliminating the current law and tax deferral of foreign corporate income i thank the president you'll the floor mr president the senator from north dakota as president early in the consideration of the children's health insurance bill that we are now considering i offered an amendment number twenty nine thirty four the amendment was to authorize the indian health care improvement act a piece of legislation that we have moved through the indian affairs committee an authorization for indian health care matters that has been proposed eleven times before in the last eight years and has not passed the congress we have a full scale emergency and crisis with respect in health care i won't go on at great length except to say this this government has a responsibility for health care for federal prisoners we also have a trust responsibility for health care for american indians we spend twice as much per person on health care on federal prisoners as we do to meet our trust responsibility to provide health care for american indians and i feel that i can say without reservation there are people who will die today and tomorrow in this country because we don't have adequate health care and have not met our promise with respect to the trust responsibility for health care on indian reservations to the american indians and so i have determined we are going to pass this legislation this year with the cooperation of my colleague from montana senator baucus who indicated yesterday that  finance committee will mark up this bill on september twelfth that's a very important committee commitment from someone who shares my passion about this and who is a very strong supporter of american indians and indian health care and with a commitment from senator reid who similarly is a very strong supporter of these issues that he will bring that bill to the floor the united states senate in this session of the congress with those commitments we will now finally in the united states senate i believe pass the indian health care improvement act at long long last with those commitments i am confident that we are on the road to getting done what we need to get done to meet our responsibility and because of that i will withdraw my amendment to authorize the indian health care improvement act on this children's health insurance bill now covered by health insurance stay covered and aren't in fact perhaps unintentionally but nonetheless kicked off or encouraged to leave their current health insurance for the s chip program it's an issue called crowding out again the goal of the amendment is very clear children who are eligible for as chip but currently have access to employer coverage we want to encourage to use that employer coverage and if they have difficulty maintaining that because of cost we want to give states the flexibility so that they can maintain that coverage what we don't want to do certainly what i don't want to do what senator de mint doesn't want to do i would hope what the huge majority of members of this body do not want to do is create a mechanism to push people off good private insurance or to encourage them to leave good private insurance or to encourage employers to drop that tunbridge simply because we're reauthorizing and perhaps expanding outstrip no child no family should be forced onto any government health insurance program if they're currently insured otherwise through the private sector through the employer it cetera c b s own numbers show that forty to fifty percent of the kids covered under ass chip and forty to fifty percent of those that would become eligible under this as schip expansion are in fact kids that are shifted out of private coverage in the ass to the c b a analysis on this issue is very clear on this point so in my mind there is no reason the taxpayer should be paying for that insurance for folks already on good private sector insurance and we shouldn't be encouraging this very significant shift this very significant crowding out now as i suggested mr president opponents of this amendment might say well we're not for that because it may be too costly for some of these families to pay premiums in private plans even if they're currently on them but we recognize that argument and that reality and our amendment is very significant amendment allows for premium subsidies for these individuals who need that to keep them on their current private profit per coverage and to ensure that that coverage is affordable and we maintain state flexibility in implementing those subsidies so we get this dates enough leeway and the flexibility to create and maintain those subsidies to keep folks on good private insurance again the vitter demesne amendment requires individuals who are eligible for as chip but currently have employer coverage to continue to use that coverage and if they cruelly need how truly need premium subsidy states have the flexibility to do that i believe that the clear majority of the public and the majority of those in congress clearly support government help to those who need it but just as true where majority of the public clearly a clear majority of us don't want to create an incentive to kick people out of insurance they have we don't want to create an incentive for employers to and or limit insurance they have that would be a very negative consequence of these good intentions and so are men and prevents that to a great extent and in doing so i have to say i think it draws a clear philosophical divide do we give people the resources the ability to continue with their current quality care in the private sector or are we in fact all for pushing people in one size fits all a government run program rather than allowing that and that choice and that quality care in the private sector mind them and says absolutely if they're covered in the private sector we want to encourage that to continue we want to make sure that can work we don't want to kick them out we don't want to encourage employers to kick them out but part of that is assisting families who really do need help to maintain that and that is a very important part of the vitter dement amendment also i think this is an idea that should have we're all in consensus and bipartisan support and i look forward to that on the floor of the senate and invite my colleagues to look at this and then supports the vitter dement amendment number twenty five ninety six with that mr president i yield back my time the senator from wisconsin i thank you mr president and i rise today to talk a bit about putting our children about putting our country i'm sorry on the path to ensuring all of its children for the past decade the children's health insurance program has given children working families the doctors visits and the medicines that they need when they're sick and the checkups they need as well skyrocketing health care costs combined with the decline in employer sponsored health insurance means that thousands of children and families would go without basic medical care if chip did not fill the need there are now more than forty six million uninsured americans of which died million are children and this is simply unacceptable every child in our country needs health insurance without help without health insurance many families must for go routine checkups crossing their fingers that their children will stay healthy and if their son or daughter becomes ill they wait to see if the thousands of symptoms go away but if the lake can be tragic those symptoms linger or get worse parents are forced to take their children to the emergency room for help and when a common cold turns into pneumonia what would have been a simple cheap fix of caught early march rooms into a complicated lengthy and expensive treatment wisconsin's schip program called badger care serves sixty seven thousand working families and makes all the difference in a child's future children are healthier and more likely to succeed in school including increase school attendance and a greater ability to pay attention in class however there are over a hundred thousand children in wisconsin who are eligible for badger care but are left out in danger of having a small health problem becoming a light threatening illness in order to reach these children wisconsin received a waiver from this is ministration to cover their parents secretary leavitt recognize that when the family is insured children have better access to health care and get the preventive health services they need saving expensive trips to the emergency room badger care provide seamless coverage for families and works to reduce the number of uninsured children strengthening badger care will ensure that this successful program can continue to cover working families in wisconsin it is a good investment of our scarce federal dollars the bipartisan senate finance committee agreement to renew chip is the right approach it provides an investment of thirty five billion dollars over five years to thwart the strengthen chip and it is completely paid for no one loses health coverage as a result of this it keeps coverage for the six point six million low income children currently enrolled in chip and give states the resources necessary to reach an additional three point two million uninsured children eligible but not enrolled  the initial price tag may seem steep but in the long run it will save money by catching and treating childhood illnesses early we will save money that would be spent on emergency care i want to thank grassley for their tireless work on this compromise and it is my hope that the senate will act to put children first and to support this bill i thank you and i need to yield the floor mr president senator from colorado mr president as an animist consent to modify member number two five three five the amendment has not yet been called up got called up amendment number two without objection mr president i come to the floor today to discuss my mema to codified the unborn child rule in the pending s chip legislation this needs to be done and needs to be done in this reauthorization the unborn child rule is a regulation that since two thousand and two has allowed states to provide prenatal care to unborn children and their mothers it recognizes the basic fact that the child is in the womb is that the child in the womb is a child when a pregnancy is involved there are least two patients there is a mother and there is the baby it only makes sense to cover the unborn child under a children's health program the bill before us modifies the s chip statute to allow states to cover pregnant women of any age it also contains language that asserts that child quote includes at the option of state an unborn child and quote the amendment further defines unborn child with a definition draw on verbatim from the public eight to one to the unborn victims of violence act so it's not new language in our statutes my memo it would also clarify that the coverage for the unborn child may include services to benefit either the mother or unborn child consistent with the health of both in addition the memmott clarifies that states may provide mothers with postpartum services for sixty days after they give birth that many states definition of coverage for a pregnant woman lays to the strange legal fiction that the adult pregnant woman is a child surely it was not the intent of anyone who developed the state children's health insurance program to allow a loophole for states to define a woman as a child surely we can agree that the child who receives health care in the womb is a child receiving care along with his or her mother my memo will also allow for coverage of the mother whereas the pending legislation only allows for pregnancies related services there are many conditions that can affect the mother's health during pregnancy that are not related to her pregnancy under the pending legislation of pregnant mother could not get coverage for any condition that isn't related to her pregnancy we should be allowing mothers to stay healthy so that they will have healthy babies this also leads to reduce costs associated with premature or low weight birth low birth weight babies eleven states are already using this option to provide such care through the state children's health insurance program if the intent of sponsors is to provide coverage for the pregnant woman and her unborn child then they should have no problem supporting my m m we should ensure that pregnant women and their unborn child are both treated as patients this is a matter of common sense every obstetrician knows that and treating a pregnant woman is training to patient the mother and the unborn child keep in this coverage in the name of the gulp that woman alone is bad for the integrity of the children's health program bad for the child and even bad for some of the neediest pregnant women mr president i'm urging my colleagues to support my good for my home state of montana montana ranks fifth highest and they should be for the percentage of children without health insurance in two thousand and six thirty seven thousand montana children did not have health insurance that's one in every six children more than half of these uninsured children that is nineteen thousand were either eligible for medicaid or for chip the children's health insurance program but not  the reaches for our higher rate of uninsured kids is because the percentage of employers offering health coverage to montana's working families is quite low last me half of all employers the state of montana offered health coverage in two thousand  this means that many working families just don't have access to health coverage of families who don't have access to coverage through work could buy it on their own health coverage is often priced out of reach for lower income fan the average cost of family health plan on the open market in montana is about eight thousand dollars a year that's nearly one fifth of the family's income for a family of four earning forty one thousand three hundred dollars which is twice the popular again the average cost is by eight thousand dollars which is about one fifth a family's income for a family of four hundred forty thousand dollars and most families simply obviously cannot afford that cost chip legislation for us authors affordable comprehensive health chip she writes quote i don't know what our family of six would do without chip in one year my two and a half year old had nine stitches because he's later head open and my six year old broke his arm two times is just one of the more than thirty eight thousand children that helped by chip over the past decade today more than fourteen thousand montana children are covered by it and the numbers are growing this year in montana legislature for example take a positive step forward changing the chip eligibility level from one hundred fifty percent to one hundred seventy five percent of the federal poverty line that's just over thirty six thousand dollars for a family of four montana just started implementing this expansion in july more than its allotment for last year new chip program allotments can combine with new funds in the state expands coverage to low income children could allow the state to cover as many as twelve thousand children were uninsured today the legislation before us also includes new funding to help montana improve access to health care including two hundred million dollars in new federal grant money for states to approve the availability and comprehensiveness of dental care for children and one hundred million in federal grants to improve outreach funds for outreach in the roman medicaid and it chip it also allows indians to use travel documents to prove citizenship for medicaid and give states a higher federal match for translation and interpretation services in the program and requires  secretary to monitor racial and ethnic disparities in care all blue eyes to a healthier future for indian children in montana as we debate schip today let's remember uninsured children are homestays express my gratitude to my colleague from new york as well as to others who have joined with is this effort to as soon as possible meet the suggestions that we've been recommended  shalala and i will this is the report is rather extensive here on their recommendations and how we might better serve our returning soldiers from the theaters of conflict in iraq and afghanistan the president commission madam president on care for the returning wounded recommended i quote them here it said congress should amend the family medical leave act to allow up to six months leave for a family member of a service member who has a combat related injury and meets the other eligibility requirements in the law and of quote that are present i'm very proud of many things that i've done here over the last twenty five years in the united states senate none that my sense of pride over the passage of the family medical leave act which along with senator bond senator dan coats at the time senator specter and of course senator kennedy on this side and many others after seven years three american presidents and two vetoes we were able to adopt the family medical leave act which in its sense its passage has assisted more than fifty million americans to take time away from their jobs to be with a family member during the joyous occasion of a birth or adoption or the illness of a child or another family member about losing that job of the twelve weeks of unpaid leave it is veneral markable asset and boon to many people as we all know the difficulties i suspect there's not a single american family that would not relate to the importance of being able to be with a family member during a time of significant crisis and obviously here as we talk about our wounded warriors coming back from afghanistan and iraq recovering from their injuries the importance of having the opportunity as they get back on their feet to be with their families and others who can be of immeasurable help to them in that regard senator dole and donna shalala and other members of the commission rightly made the recommendation that we should amend the family medical leave act to provide for up to six months leave for a family member to be with these individuals without losing their jobs and that is what we have done with this amendment that we are offering to this bill that clearly this bill has nothing to do with family medical leave and my colleague from montana colleague from our iowa who have a tremendous responsibility in just adopting the legislation before us of which i am a very strong supporter but knowing that we only have a few days left if that before we adjourn for more than a month the sense of urgency about this in providing for these families is something that i would hope all of us here regardless of whatever their views may have would be supportive of this effort to a change of modify this law has been recommended now by the president of the united it is well this is a bipartisan  suggestion here that will make a difference in his family's lives so i commend former senator dole former secretary of health and human services donna shalala and the distinguished members of the commission for their thoughtfulness and thorough work on this critically important matter as the author of the underlying law worked over twenty years on this law the long road to pass it was sign of work to maintain its protections and withstand is protections to assist more employees around the country and i agree with the commission the family medical leave act is the best method for providing critical support for our returning heroes who are recovering from their war wounds i'm very pleased to be joined as a principal co sponsor in it senator clinton of new york after more than seven years of work in the congress and to presidential vetoes this this proposal i made more than twenty years ago became law became law in the within days after january twentieth one thousand nine hundred three when president william jefferson clinton as the very first act that he signed into law was the family medical leave act and i remember with great clarity that bright day on the out overlooking the rose garden at the white house president clinton signing that bill into law patricia schroeder madam president of the other body was the principal author in the house of representatives and too often gets neglected in talking about the history of family medical leave but i will be eternally grateful to patch road for the tremendous job that she did and the other body and that this proposal became the law of the land that commission's findings indicate the critical role that family members play in the recovery of our wounded i wanted service members in our survey madam president thirty three percent of active duty twenty two percent of reserve component and thirty seven percent of retired separated service members report that a family member a close friend relocated for extended periods of time to be with them while they're in the hospital twenty one percent of active duty fifteen percent of reserve component and twenty four percent of retired separated service members say friends or family gave up a job to be with them to act as their caregiver more than three thousand service members have been seriously injured during operations in iraq and afghanistan in virtually every case a white husband parent brother or sister or next of kin has received the heart stopping telephone call telling them that their loved one i sick injured halfway around the world family or close friends stayed to assist recovery of almost sixty six percent of active duty and fifty four percent of reserve component service members to support for injured service members act or vides up to six months than a president family medical leave for a family members of service members or their next of kin and the zilla service member who suffer from a combat related injury or illness a family covers currently provide for three months of unpaid leave to a spouse parent or child acting providing care for a person within it with a serious illness our service members need more obviously these are extraordinary circumstances the point of the commission and the distinguish dignified treatment of wounded warriors act that the senate recently passed is to take care of our wounded soldiers sailors airmen and marines returning from iraq and afghanistan with combat related injuries we should support their families i think all of us would agree in caring for these these heroes that are present is essential that we do everything possible to support our troops to allow their loved ones to be with them as they recover from combat related injuries or illnesses and that is why we should expand and improve  spouse a child or next of kin to provide for that caregiving role here allow them to be the with them for up to six months here without losing their job it's without pay here what is the universe we're talking about  maybe as many as three thousand people here it's not the entire nation obviously or anyone who happens to have been injured who's wearing a uniform you have to been injured or acquired that illness as a result of being in that combat theater so again it's very specific as to location it's very specific as to could be the caregiver is very specific about the amount of time that you'd be covered it we've tried to narrow this down in a way i'm deeply grateful to bob dole i want my colleagues to know this he called me last thursday early on and remembered that i had spent such an inordinate amount of time with the help of senator kennedy and so many others to adopt the family medical leave act so many years ago and again senator bond and senator dan coats of indiana were tremendously helpful with a doctor that legislation and it was controversial believe me we spent a lot of time as i mentioned seven years trying to adopt that legislation but i most would agree today it's made a difference in the lives of people here i can't think of any better constituency to serve with an expanded family and medical leave than our servicemen and women i see my colleague from georgia and i'm going to graduate and thank him as well the co sponsor of this proposal those preparing for  t obviously would be covered if they end up being affected as a result of their of their injuries or illnesses suffered while in the theater of combat so a man a president again i as someone who's been a floor manager unanimity i hope around this idea given the fact that the president's commission is calling for this former colleagues who did the work of calling for it we have a strong bipartisan group of senators feel this is worthwhile to do of which is limited a group of our our fellow citizens who have suffered immeasurably as a result of their contribution here that i hope before we leave here in these next twenty four forty eight hours the very least we could do would be provide this kind of a benefit of them and their families and their way that  emotional about this issue as you should be and we all should be i commend the senator from connecticut for for really spending a good bit of time on talking about this issue and i commend the senator from new york for bringing this issue to the forefront we're in a war unlike any war we've ever and then before we're in different times today with respect to military conflicts and the inclusion of our wounded warriors in the family medical leave act is certainly well deserved and something that  i hope too that we get passed here before we leave that a president arrives today to command the president's commission on care for america's returning wounded warriors for their hard hack quality work and land analyzing and recommending improvements for our nation's treatment of our wounded warriors the dole shalala commission sent to from connecticut referred to earlier as boli addressed one of the most important issues facing our military today and has created a simple roadmap that will help make monumental improvements to the military health care system and please the commission's recommendations span agencies cross services and takes into consideration the needs of both veterans as well as their families during their review they visited twenty three health care facilities including military and v a hospitals and treatment centers nationwide ad l seven public meetings heard testimony from military health care experts and communicated directly with servicemembers their families and health care professionals this dialogue is greatly needed and it must continue apparatus my own input directly to the commission regarding one of george's own success stories in providing care to wounded warriors thro partnership between the as and how our army medical center at fort gordon georgia and the augusta v a hospital this commission untangled a web of complex issues and provided six recommendations based on their findings former senator dol shalala did what others have been trying to do since world war two their joint statement specifically describes the culmination of these efforts the face of our military has changed as have their needs some returning service members injured in the land of due they have complex and often multiple injuries placing greater challenges on the d o d and the as well as family members well meaning attempts over the years to reform health care in the military and v a have produced many positive results that have also made the system more complex and confusing in some areas in these cases it's difficult for service members their families and caregivers to understand how to navigate the system the events that brought us to this point were inexcusable and could have been prevented however i would be remiss if i didn't mention our letter i just received from a constituent whose son was a patient at walter reed medical center after being evacuated from iraq due to injuries he sustained in an i e d attack the letter said to the commander and staff at walter reed and i quote you and your staff are a remarkable team that has the welfare of our soldiers and families foremost in man as you execute your critically important duties my family and i owe you and your team our heartfelt thanks and debt of gratitude we can never repay close quote this candid feedback tells me the army's improvements are taking hold and through the commission and recent legislation these improvements will continue while the commission's work and it may quickly please that much of it parallels the initiative set forth by the senate dignified treatment of wounded warriors act the president's commission recommended that seriously wounded service members receive a patient centered recovery plan developed by qadri of highly skilled recovery coordinators such a plan can only increase the level of support given to our wounded warriors along the same lines the wounded warrior bill requires development of the unified and comprehensive policy between the v a and the department of defense that addresses personnel strength training access standard family canceling and creation of a d o d was on the bus and of central importance the commission recommends a complete restructure of the disability and compensation systems we have all heard case after case of lost paperwork analyst waits bureaucratic delays and confusing redundant processes both the commission and the wounded warrior bill provide guidance to consolidate systems and streamline this process one of the most important recommendations made by the commission also addressed in the wounded warrior bill concerns increased support to the families of our wounded warriors although the commission did not visit georgia i've spent time at fort stewart and fort benning with family members of deployed troops and i have spent as much time with the troops themselves in my five visits to iraq and i can tell you that when it comes to taking care of our servicemembers the well being of their families is of paramount if not greater importance to them than their own well being these troops can can on their families and the more we support the families the better we are taking care of our troops among other things the dull shalala report recommends extending privileges under the family medical leave act from twelve weeks to six months which will allow family members to take up to six months of leave to care for  wounded service member and i'm proud to be a co sponsor of this bill that in that introduces legislation that n x this recommendation the bill senator pryor and i are close ponsford on this subject the wounded warrior assistance act s twelve eighty three also contains provisions along these lines such as advocating counseling and job placement services for family members as well as the creation of an ombudsman sophos which will provide support to the members and their families so once again i commend senator clinton for her and as she did in adding this bill on the family medical leave act introduced in concur again with senator from connecticut that i hope that gets done before we leave here in the next couple of global war on terrorism is brought to the forefront recognition of the enormous impact of two previously silent and little notice conditions post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury accordingly both the commission and the wounded warrior bill addresses these issues the dull shalala report advocates the most aggressive of treatment for both conditions by the and the v a and also recommends private sector involvement to capitalize on the most recent and valuable findings and treatments similarly the wounded warrior bill requires comprehensive and coordinated policies between d o d and the v a on p t s and directs collaboration between d o t and other federal agencies in t v ad related research in clinical trials the approach taken by the commission and in the wounded warrior act capitalizes on cooperation among federal agencies as well as between the federal and private sector as part of the f y o eight national defense authorization act app proposed a sense of the senate amendment that d o t continue to encourage collaboration between the army and the v a in the treatment of wounded warriors a prime example of this type of collaboration is in a gusta ga between the only active duty rehabilitation unit located at the augusta department of veterans affairs medical center and the behavioral hale health care services program at the ass and her army medical center at fort gordon georgia the unique unprecedented collaboration between the augusta the a and the as and how our medical center has been growing since its inception in two thousand and four assisted by general eric school maker now the head of walter reed and former commander of the ass and her army medical center our wounded warriors deserve the best possible care the recommendation of the president's commissions and the requirements set forth in the dignity for treatment of wounded warriors act pay they clear path for the type of medical treatment and support the people defending our nation deserve i'm proud to be a co sponsor  about their experiences to this body as well as to the commission their stories made the need for this reform real to all of us and their experiences can help us transform the quality of military health care doing so w be one small way of saying thank you to the men and women in the united states military for their service and their sacrifice mr president also like well i have little time remaining to address the current the state children's health care health insurance program the bill that currently is before the committee and i've and a strong advocate of this particular program we enjoy jeff i think have one of the models in the country of the s chip program we call it peach care it provides health insurance to two hundred and ninety thousand uninsured poor children in mass state we cover no adults in georgia every single dime spent on this program in georgia spent on adults and that's the way it should be and that's one of the problems i have with the reauthorization of this bill as it came out of committee it does three things that really bother me first of all bill is authorized as came out of committee does not take all parents all full coverage under the s chip program on a national basis it does remove over a two year period all adults who are not parents of some of the children who are eligible for this particular subsidy and that's good the problem is it still covers any number of adults and this is a children's program and that's where the want to be spent every single dollar we spend on an adult takes money away from children secondly this bill authorizes that the states are are authorized to go up to three hundred percent of poverty level for coverage the previous bill authorized up to two hundred fifty percent of poverty level in georgia we are at two hundred thirty five percent of poverty level which means that a family of four making forty eight thousand dollars  is eligible for coverage under our peach care program unfortunately once you reach the level of three hundred percent of poverty you're at almost sixty two thousand dollars for a family of four  income and you are still eligible under this program lastly i would simply say that the bill this came the finance committee has financed the creation of new and additional taxes the american taxpayer and i don't care in what form the taxes are already overburdened group of citizens and from the standpoint of trying to find funding for this program the lot amendment did exactly what we needed to do in georgia to cover all two hundred ninety thousand of our existing children that are covered plus all that will be coming on within the next five years which is a term of this bill sent a lot found of sets in his amendment that would not require the raising of any taxes to cover those children that's the type of sensible approach that should have been taken i regret that it did not pass and unfortunately i'm not going to be able to support this bill in its vigorous explanation and advocacy of the bill which we have introduced that we are proposing to have as an amendment to the current legislation pending before the senate because we think that the duty to honor our veterans our service members and families is urgent this is a duty that we take very seriously and clearly based on the recently released commission on care for america's returning wounded warriors chaired by former senator bob dole and former secretary of health and human services donna shalala it is a matter of grave urgency for our nation to do everything we can to improve support for our service members and veterans the commission found that one of the most important ways to improve that care is to improve support for families and that is why senator dodd and i have introduced an amendment to the chip legislation they support for injured service members act mr president we are proud to have the bipartisan support certainly way beyond partisanship during the course of the dole shalala commission work they showed what many families across the country already knew that the family medical leave act which senator d so hard on for so many years and which was the first piece of legislation signed by my husband has been a godsend to sixty million americans over the course of the last years of people taking care of newborn babies of a family member with an accident or illness with an aging relative and it has made it possible for so many americans to balance the difficult to responsibilities of family and work but what has been abundantly clear with all of our wounded warriors returning from iraq and afghanistan is that it was not sufficient for family members to care for those young service members who have to stay in a combat related injury currently spouses parents and children can receive only twelve weeks of leave under the family medical leave ac all too often as we have now learned that is insufficient as injured service members grapple with traumatic brain injuries severe physical wounds learning how to use a prosthetic trying to understand what post traumatic stress disorder means to them and to their futures and indeed family members have dropped everything they have tried to be at the bedside stay in the the area to help their loved one give up jobs even that seems to be more than the sacrifice that their loved one has already made demands imagine if your husband or wife or your son or your daughter had been injured you'd want to be with them you want to take care of them but you wouldn't want to lose your job in the process it's not a choice that military families should take this therefore that is why we are asking for our colleagues to join with us to pass the support for injured service members act and to allow us to really fulfill this duty that we all feel to our military families and i appreciate very much senator dodd's leadership on this for many years on this particular piece of legislation and we invite even more co sponsors from both sides of the aisle to join us and we hope that we will have a vote on this before we leave the congress before we finish the chip legislation so that we can go home and tell military families that help is on the way thank you very much mr president wheels time address what some view as a serious problem in the underlying legislation and what others might view as a matter of fairness in the underlying legislation the purpose of the s chip program is to provide health insurance benefits to children in families who make too much to qualify for medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance we define that criteria as families up to two hundred percent above the federal poverty line the current federal poverty line for a family of four is twenty thousand six hundred fifty the federal poverty line for hawaii and alaska is a little higher two hundred percent then would be forty one thousand three hundred dollars my state of texas maintains its s chip program consistent with the original purpose and therefore allows a family of four making forty one thousand three hundred to qualify for  coverage when my constituents see the bill before allowing families of four making up to three hundred percent of the federal poverty line which is sixty one thousand nine hundred fifty dollars to qualify for government supported health care many believe this is going too far they certainly take issue with families making up to four hundred percent of the poverty line which would be eighty two thousand six hundred dollars receiving government funded health insurance i have heard the supporters say that allowing coverage above two hundred percent of the federal poverty line argues that the cost of living in certain areas necessitates higher federal poverty level coverage one only has to utilize the various cost of living calculators on the internet like those found on bankrate dot com or c n n money to see that a dowry in one area of the country can be worth a very different amount then in another the cost of living calculators adjust income by comparing the cost of housing utilities and transportation all of which have a significant impact on the actual need of a family for example in this chart you see that the cost of living in austin texas would be forty thousand dollars whereas after you add housing utilities and transportation if you compare that to the costs in washington d c it would be fifty eight thousand six hundred ninety seven or rather the salaries would be commensurate after you add the cost of living indicators into the bill before us does not make a direct connection between the cost of living standards and approvals of s chip plans beyond the two hundred percent federal poverty line restriction it just doesn't seem right to arbitrarily allow coverage of families beyond two hundred percent of the federal line if there is no relationship to the cost of living i forty one thousand three hundred dollars a family income in one state is equal to a higher amount in another due to a cost of living that exceeds the national average my proposal would accommodate that why don't we say in this legislation that similarly situated families will be treated similarly that's what my men men would do under my amendment the secretary of health and human services will be required to factor in the cost of living in states that are seeking to cover families above the two hundred percent of the poverty line utilizing the most recent index data from the council for community and economic research the bureau of labor statistics and the bureau of economic analysis the secretary shall adjust the federal poverty line  carryover in those states to reflect the actual cost of living in those specific areas their secretary could then approve families up to twice the new adjusted federal poverty line accounting for a higher cost of living in that area the secretary would break down the analysis by county or metropolitan statistical area to ensure that states with high cost areas in some parts of the state and low cost areas in other parts of the state would not receive the same amount this just what i think everybody has said we need to do and that is a just if there really is a cost of living increase but not lump it state by state in my state of texas there will be metropolitan areas with a higher cost of living so if my state wanted to go above the two hundred percent the secretary could factor in where they're needed to be an adjustment so if it were over the two hundred percent in a metropolitan area such as dallas it might be a different calculation than if it is in a rural area say love this seems to me to equalize the unfairness of a whole state getting the higher rate through a waiver which the bill before us is trying to mitigate by putting a limitation on the percent above the poverty line that is state may go but why not do it by estimate say the statistical metropolitan area or by county where you really can get the adjustment that is right and fair by my men but it is very simple the two hundred percent of the poverty line when adjusted for the cost of living in a specific area could equal forty five thousand it could equal fifty thousand or it could be right at the poverty line if you needed to go above it the secretary would be able to say in new york city for instance there should be an adjustment but in upstate new york perhaps not so this is the amendment mr president i think this brings reasonable n'est rationality and equity to approvals beyond the non adjusted federal poverty limit if you do not go above the two hundred percent which is in the law you would never have to make these adjustments but there are certainly metropolitan areas that have a legitimate claim to a higher cost of living but it does not necessarily mean the whole state should be given that kind of adjustment and it would be more reasonable for the taxpayers throughout america to know that the people were getting the adjustment if they needed it but not if they did mr president i asked for they ga the moment there's not a sufficient second support this amendment which i think is what really should end up in the final bill it's simple it's clear and it's fair thank you mr president i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum clerk will call the r amendment that says that in this children's health insurance program that is designed to cover low income children that we should first cover low income children many of the states today are covering adults i believe at the expense of low income children this program is called the state's children's health insurance program it's called that for a reason it's supposed to be for low income kids it was not intended for adults my m m it says that you cannot cover non pregnant adults and tell you cover ninety five percent of the targeted low income children's population some states have extended their s chip coverage to adult to adults according to the government accountability office estep covered six million individuals including over six hundred thousand adults in the year two thousand and five this means that one out of every ten people covered by s chip was an adult g a o indicated that in wisconsin two thirds of the total s chip enrollees in two thousand and five were adults almost half of the  island where adults it also found that shortfall states are likely to cover a high proportion of adults the g a o wrote adults accounted for an average of fifty five percent of rolly in shortfall states compared with twenty four percent in non shortfalls states mr president covering the dolts is not the primary purpose of s chip i am seriously concerned that adults may be benefiting from s chip funds at the expense of low income children we need to refocus the s chip program to its original intent to make children the priority my memet today will ensure that as ons are used to provide health insurance coverage to children in my opinion this is the intent of the original law and the way and with which s chip dollars should be allocated this proposal does not deprive states of federal dollars what it does say is that a state can't use its chip money to provide health benefits to non pregnant adults and tell it is enrolled ninety five percent of its targeted low income children mr president we've heard a lot about the need to cover low income kids about giving them a chance in life if the states aren't forced to cover ninety five percent of the long come kids first they'll continue the current policies and many low income kids won't be reached out to to bring on to the s chip program if we require them to cover ninety five percent of low income kids we will be amazed at how many of these kids that the states will find so mr president i believe that it's important for us to adopt this amendment if we're going to expand s chip let's do it and make sure that the children are the priority that is all the rhetoric that we have heard this week let's make sure that our actions match states can have to provide for parents waivers but also it's written a way to discourage the use of money for for parents alas states going the extra mile  say if you covered parents are going to cover more kids or poor differently if you don't cover parents are going to cover case because of the very strong correlation between health insurance coverage for parents and their parents getting good health care for their children and reversed a strong correlation parents who did not have health insurance we're talking about low income families here but not by good health care in the end on average in many cases for their have health insurance themselves well ten better health insurance and health care for the kids so i was appropriate time comes to vote on this man but his presence i i think the right thing to do is just not to do support for so many because it's for do have every reason to believe that there are many that fully intend for this program to chip program to be the program that covers not only low income children middle income children all in all income children and adults that's the goal here voted with this programs ten years ago because i thought that there was a need to make sure that truly low income children had access to health care that a lot of them were not covered obviously by  private insurance or medicaid and i thought there was a need to address this particular area but it's like so many washington programs once they get started they never end once you get started they grow and grow and grow who is going to really get a grip on this program who is going to pay for this program that this this is a sixty billion dollars five year program that this bill would provide for the underlying bill the house just passed a bill i think is close to eighty  how much or at least eighty billion over the next five years in the house they pay for it in the house partially about taxes but also by cutting medicare we're taking elderly all of the medicare program so we can put more money into s chip program not just for low income children but for middle income children and for adults so i think that senator is absolutely  right let's make sure that the states provide at least ninety five percent of what they're supposed to the low income children before any adults can get in it yet would they have to take adults off exactly  low income people or elderly people and so i'm glad we've got this amendment if if we could at least get the adults off this even if it does cover some increased level of children below the two hundred percent of poverty the ak act could see that it would be more acceptable but that's not what this does and i fear what's going happen in conference i don't know maybe the senator from montana and senator grass we're not going to have sixty billion houses eighty billion what's going to be seventy billion that's the way it works around here so that's what used to work although we don't have conferences anymore now we're just dished up products like  more children and more and more adults if we want to go to washington bureaucratic controlled and managed health care we just want to go ahead and go to government run socialistic medicine this is it this is a lot of these days to discourage them from proceeding further addition of legislation not too long ago was repealed or prevented repeal waivers so that states can no longer apply for waivers  they get a child's adult coverage so the question number one is what's the right thing to do but some states and adults let's not forget ninety one percent beneficiaries of the child's health program today an this is this is not a huge massive expansion this has nothing to do with national health insurance there's nothing in any of that this is just saying here's a program passed in one nine hundred ninety seven it's bipartisan insurance at a later date next year for a couple years feel that we as congress has to address the the rising cost of health insurance in this country but the bottom line this is just a really good thing to do is to help  low income kids low income kids get some health insurance such remember that states barack about forty seven million forty eight million people without health insurance with only and thus wise country that many people without health insurance it's that it's an outrage so the very least we can do is help our kids get some health insurance and particularly kids who are low income kids get health insurance and that's what we're trying to do here in a very fair reasonable way that one of the senator from coverage for about three million more children and it's fully paid for is that correct mr president you know i don't know what's in second place with respect to what's important people's lives but if your children aren't in the first place or something wrong i mean everybody i think as a parent ought understand the priority is your child the children of this country now if i might ask the senator from montana the circumstances are that with a lot of people in this country don't have health insurance coverage we have substantial problems with respect to dramatically increasing cost of health care and we have the fact is we have sick kids in this country that don't get health care they ought to get health care but they don't because their parents don't happen to have enough money in their pocketbook or their checkbook and they're worried about what it's going to cost to take their kids a doctor mr president one of my colleagues and i held a hearing one day a couple of years ago and a mother held up a colored picture on a poster of her son it was dead need died because he didn't get the health care the health care you need is what he needed that fact is that's happening in our country and this i would say to my colleague from montana this is not a giant leap forward but it is a significant step to say we can do this we can help children we can provide health insurance for children who don't have it we can fully pay for that bill as a senator from montana has done and his colleagues in the finance committee and i would ask my colleagues this is not a health insurance bill that's going to cover all americans it's going to dramatically expand government isn't it isn't this just a piece of legislation that takes a step forward in saying t three million kids three million kids that the days that you are sick no longer will your parents have to make a decision about whether they can afford to take you to a doctor isn't that what this is about to not only is it three million it's really  income kids and the if i might further in why or that answer means that these are kids that come from families that don't have the resources and don't often and usually don't have health insurance and they can't afford it if their employer provides it is to present further inquiry in circumstances where they might feel they don't have any choice they don't have any money but they've got a desperately sick child they're going to show up at an emergency room which and if that emergency room doesn't turn in the way and some will if that emergency doesn't turn them away that child will get the most expensive or the costliest health insurance because that's where it costs the most to provide health insurance is in the hospital emergency room and that's why this approach is so important and you know i hear people say what a radical thing to do what an awful thing to do this ought to be considered a baby step forward but an important baby step nonetheless in doing what we are required to do in this country and again that is putting our children first especially putting sick children first sick children who come from families that don't have the money to find a way to get them to the doctor that's what this is about this this ought to be a no brainer one final question if i might we've been on this for some while and it's been a pretty wide open discussion and a lot of amendments i understand we have i believe four or five additional votes scheduled for five votes scheduled at four thirty today i'd like to inquire what next what is what do we anticipate how many important to proceed to to finish the bill tonight and it's a bipartisan bill it said very strong support it's just a matter of giving everybody the opportunity to offer their mehmet switch which we have done and at that point i think it's going to be a significant achievement all americans to understand what we've done support children for sick children in this country so let me thank my colleagues from montana for the leadership he and senator grassley and so many others have sewn on this bill this is a very important step for this congress  is this children's health insurance is this a new program i said i have very good friend this is not a new program or just reauthorized the current program that new how many children are covered under this program well currently there are about six point six million children covered and this would as i understand it add some several million of children three roughly three million so there are already six million i'm just wondering if they're suggesting that this program should be eliminated which would mean six million children that are currently covered would no longer be covered i and actually if there is make it another point which is that the bought six million kids are eligible today under the current law but just don't are not covered so we're saying we don't we're not greasing eligibility we just want to help give a little stimulus for that so those who are currently eligible but not covered a few more of them would covered get health insurance is it my understanding that the american medical association has endorsed this legislation that is correct and there are many medical organizations support this do you know of any time in the history of this country where the american medical association  the argument that is being made out here is one of the most farfetched arguments i've seen on this floor number one this is somehow socialized medicine isn't this isn't this care provided by private doctors very good point i might say to actually but fifty this legislation received endorsements of over fifty different organizations major organizations a r p even pharmaceutical companies medical american medical states and most states say ok we're going to utilize health insurance companies health insurance companies private health insurance companies are going to minister this with co pays and deductibles and so forth the fact is that this is then is provided by private physicians using private insurance companies indorsed by the american medical association and many many other national organizations including many business just one of the previous sort of there are now two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to a name and number two five five seven offered by the senator from pennsylvania mr specter who y kyl would like to defer to senator specter who should be here momentarily they were all of the judiciary committee and he would he would like to let senator specter go first if he could do you want speak for yourself if i could mr president i really appreciate the courtesy mr chairman thank you because we have been killed in the judiciary committee until just now i was not able to debate my amendment given the fact that there aren't very many people on the floor i would prefer to be able to describe it in two minutes when there are people on the floor and for that reason if we could set it at one of the later votes i would deeply appreciate that i appreciate that it's the center of month to move us along here and we're of the alternative minimum tax was put into effect in nineteen sixty nine in order to catch people who paid little or no taxes people in high brackets who had sufficient loopholes to avoid taxation regrettably it has grown by bracket creep to be very expansive this year it covers three and a half million people and it has not changed in two thousand and six cover three and a half million people and if it is not changed it will cover twenty three million people this year the tax was increased in one thousand nine hundred three from twenty four to twenty six percent for people making under one hundred seventy five thousand to warner to web to white house to greg to greg i just even mr stevens i news this is a new news i mr craig i mr smith mr smith i mr conrad mr conrad now mrs murray this is marie no it's kennedy mr kennedy no two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to lead to a member to five five eight offered by the senator from south carolina senator graham may we have order that we have order please take your conversations out of the can we have order please above the twenty five billion in the baseline budget the money for this comes from cigarette tax increase by sixty one cents to a dollar per pack it will be a tax increase on cigars about fifty three percent sales price up ten dollars per cigar despite being a five year reauthorization the tax part of it goes in perpetuity so it's a very simple amendment when the program itself is sunset to be reviewed less sunset a tax part of it to be reviewed and that's all it sir lieberman mrs lincoln mr lot mr smith ms snow under the previous order there are now two minutes of the previous order there are now two minutes of debate equally divided prior to the vote in relation to amendment number twenty five forty offered by the senator from n to get the senate to come to order please take the conversations out of the chamber please well the senate come to order will the senate come to order the center from the vat of mr president this amendment is very simple it says that we should focus on low income kids  adults the original intent of the program it's the children's health insurance program this says ninety five percent of all of those targeted whether they're through two hundred three hundred percent of poverty whatever your state is they have to be covered before you can cover non pregnant adults now chairman the finance committee is going to say no state can meet this well if we don't set the goal for we don't make them eat it they won't meet it of course so if we're going to have a children's health insurance program the money should be focused on the children this says you cannot spend money on the adults unless they're pregnant adults and tell ninety five percent of those targeted kids are enrolled in the program and that's where the money is of it is to kill this legislation if there is crack no state to be twenty five percent no state currently beast ninety five percent driver's license participation which is mandatory not voluntary is eighty five adults but essentially kills a bill that urge that is not to kill the chip program vote against the damage it's president's time i also ask it's sad that certain mr coleman ms collins mr conrad mr martinez mr mccain mr roberts mr rockefeller mr sala mr sanders mr schumer mr sessions mr shelby mr smith ms snow mr specter ms st busy as senator risch to vote does any senator wish to change his or her vote with forty three voting a and fifty five voting no the amendment was not agreed to but of the previous order there are now two minutes of debate equally divided set of come to order take your conversations outside the chamber please senator south dakota mr president let me start by saying that this amendment is not is not a poison pill by voting for this amendment this doesn't any impact any other part of the legislation except to limit the expansion of s chip in the following ways to show you how expansive the nature of this bill is this bill would not prevent a state from like new york from going to the four hundred percent of federal poverty level which in new york is about eighty two thousand dollars which interestingly enough w subject over twelve thousand people in new york taxpayers to the alternative minimum tax so essentially what we're saying is you are poor enough to qualify for s chip but wealthy enough to be subject to limit says it for children or adults from families with incomes so high that they are going to be subject the alternative minimum tax that they cannot also be eligible for as chip family should not be considered low income for the purpose of receiving taxpayer health insurance and at the same time wealthy enough to have to pay the alternative minimum tax congressional budget office scores a mammoth achieving savings because there will be fewer people qualifying for s chip than otherwise under this bill this helps our get back mr president the original intent of the bill which is to cover low income children which i strongly support and i hope the members will support the amendment senator montana which president  mr martinez mr mccain this is my cat still mr mcconnell know this no no two five three seven offered by the center from arizona mr kyl at the senate's come to order please the senate come to order please take your conversations out of the chamber listen and come to order we get started beneficiaries are crowded out of private insurance and other words no more than twenty percent of the beneficiaries already have private insurance here's the problem the congressional budget office says that between twenty five and fifty percent of the people who are going to be covered under this program already have private insurance lucetta come to order please there's several doors take the conversations out of the chamber thank you mispresent what's worse every one of the newly eligible are replacing or are someone who is already insured in other words c b o says one hundred percent of the newly eligible the people we're adding to this program already have insurance not why should the american taxpayer have to pay for people that already have insurance surely in response to the argument of the other side that it's is efficient as we can get we can be more efficient than one hundred percent any fish and mr president i meant it says that when we get it down to we only have a twenty percent in efficiency then the program takes effect in other words when only twenty percent of the people buy it we're paying for already have insurance senator clinton as president as plainly simply clearly is a killer amendment there's no way in the world that c b l could certify twenty percent crowd up can't do it there are many organizations trying to figure out what is this so called crowd outrage they're all over the lot is almost it possible to tell what it is that's the reason for this uart basically saying no state can have joe's health insurance program as is clearly a killer man but we should not kill to children's health insurance program we should help some kids get little more help turns kids are not now get amendment twenty six twenty one so lincoln for five minutes or so nelson's rascal three minutes and is no three minutes the question is on the amendment