Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007

FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - January 24, 2007)

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000)

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __X. EXTENSION OF SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY SELF-DETERMINATION ACT.

(a) In General.--The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 500 note; Public Law 106-393) is amended in sections 101(a), 102(b)(2), 103(b)(1), 203(a)(1), 207(a), 208, 303, and 401 by striking ``2006' each place it appears and inserting ``2007'.

(b) Termination of Authority.--

(1) SPECIAL PROJECTS ON FEDERAL LANDS.--Section 208 of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 500 note; Public Law 106-393) is amended in the second sentence by striking ``2007' and inserting ``2008'.

(2) COUNTY PROJECTS.--Section 303 of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 500 note; Public Law 106-393) is amended in the second sentence by striking ``2007' and inserting ``2008'.

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, in much of our country that is dependent on natural resources, there is a world of hurt today. There are tremendous concerns in many of our rural communities about how we are going to finance their schools and roads. In my State, more than 50 percent of the land is owned by the Federal Government. So we are not in a position to pay for schools and roads and essential services the way much of the rest of the country does because there, through transactions that occur on private property, they are able to generate the funds they need to pay for essential services.

When Senator Smith and I go home, we are faced with a very different situation. Because a law I wrote a number of years ago with Mr. Craig, the distinguished Senator from Idaho, expired at the end of the year, we are seeing a number of our local communities face Draconian cuts in essential services.

The layoff announcements are going on right now as local districts and local communities come together and wrestle with how they are going to make the difficult choices with respect to funding essential services. Cuts in excess of 70 percent of discretionary funding are going to cripple one of our counties in rural Oregon, southern Oregon, Douglas County, which currently receives about 43 percent of its annual budget from the law I authored with Senator Craig.

Another of our counties, Jackson County, again in southern Oregon, is prepared to shut down all of its libraries. That will be coming up very shortly.

In Curry County, they are looking at the prospect of laying off all nonessential workers, including patrol officers, some of whom would be left to perform only the mandated corrections duties. By June, 20 percent of the county workforce in Curry County will have been cut. So it is not clear with these cuts whether the county will even be able to continue to be a county, as it will not be able to provide a minimum level of services.

Road department levels are going to be reduced in areas such as Josephine County and Linn County.

I am going to be having community meetings this weekend on the Oregon coast.

Tillamook County is looking at layoffs in the sheriff's department and cuts to its road maintenance, jeopardizing roads that are critical to getting sawlogs to the mills and having family-wage jobs for workers in my State.

Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer join me in this. There are stories like this from across the country. Over 700 counties in 39 States have received critical funding from the county payments program. The fact is, in a State such as ours, where the Federal Government owns more than 50 percent of the land in many of these small communities with tiny populations, they are not going to be able to make it without these funds that are a lifeline in terms of law enforcement and schools and essential road and transportation services.

This is my top priority--my top priority--for my State in this session, to try to make sure these funds are reauthorized. In this particular amendment, Senator Smith and Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein and I want to reauthorize the program for 1 year. But I am also introducing legislation for a long-term reauthorization because I think we ought to get these counties off the roller coaster once and for all.

This is based on an approach that was adopted many years ago with States that had widespread Federal ownership getting funds that related to timber receipts. As a result of the environmental laws, those receipts went down, and we needed this law to ensure that those counties would survive.

So the county payments legislation is supported by a diverse coalition, including the National Association of Counties and a number of labor organizations.

If Senators, particularly in rural communities, look now--as I have been in townhall meetings and other kinds of gatherings--at how we are going to support schools and roads and basic local government, I would only say that without this program, this will hit local communities like a wrecking ball. It is something that should not be abided by this Senate.

I see my colleague from Oregon, my partner in this and many other issues, standing, and I would like to yield at this time. After Senator Smith has completed his remarks, I will wrap up very briefly. I would also note that Senator Reed was here earlier, and I was not aware that he was in the queue as well, and I want him to be able to speak soon in a way that is convenient for him.

So I yield the floor.

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Mr. WYDEN. To wrap up briefly, Senator Smith has stated it well. I am very honored to represent Oregon in the Senate. I have been able to get into a host of issues that I think are important, particularly as a member of the Finance Committee, to fix health care and fix the out-of-whack American tax system. I serve on the Intelligence Committee. But Senator Smith and I have said this is our most important issue for our State for this session because, without this funding, there is a real question about whether these local communities can hang on. They simply have no other options. You are not going to be able to go to a small resource-dependent community in eastern Oregon and set up a biotechnology company in the next few weeks. It is not going to happen. I support those kinds of industries and economic development, as does my colleague. It has been a big part of our bipartisan agenda. But we are talking about survival for these rural communities. This will be our top priority for this session.

This has also made a great contribution in terms of bringing together people of differing views on natural resources. As part of the legislation that I authored with Senator Craig a number of years ago--as Senator Smith has noted--we set up resource advisory committees so that you now have folks in the timber industry talking to environmentalists who in the past were, for the most part, spending their days in the courthouses suing each other. Now they are working together to cooperate through the legislation that we have put in place. This has been recognized as a wildly successful natural resources law, bringing about cooperation that, prior to this law going into effect, was seen virtually nowhere.

It is a stable, consistent source of funding for communities that have nowhere else to turn, affecting communities in 39 States, but it is also a program that has brought together a unique kind of cooperation between people in the natural resources area who in the past would spend an awful lot of time running what I call a lawyers full employment program, essentially suing each other in the Federal courthouse.

We are going to be back on the floor for whatever number of times it takes to get this program reauthorized and take these rural communities off this roller coaster. They ought to be able to know that they can survive, and they can survive as they have over many years through a program that was tied to the unique consideration that the Federal Government owns most of our land. That is what this is all about. This is different than how people may pay for schools and roads and essential services in parts of the eastern United States where there is little Federal ownership.

We ask that the Senate not ignore the plight of rural America, particularly the rural West, as we continue forward with the legislative calendar.

AMENDMENT NO. 104 WITHDRAWN

I ask unanimous consent that this bipartisan amendment be withdrawn. We will be back another day. But I ask unanimous consent that the amendment I have offered be withdrawn.

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