Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004-Conference Report

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004-CONFERENCE REPORT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is a tough act to follow of the Senator from West Virginia. Is there any specified allocation of time for debate this afternoon?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. No special allocation of time, except that Senator McCain is to be recognized at 2 o'clock for an hour.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his eloquent words, which I followed on the floor and through the television before I arrived on the floor. It is always a pleasure to hear him speak to the issues that we are challenged with as a nation.

Last night, I joined many Senators and Congressmen to walk across the Rotunda to attend the 21st State of the Union Address, which has been my honor to witness as a Congressman and as a Senator, to be on the escort committee to bring in the President for this historic moment and to hear the President's words as he addressed America, as he does each year. It is a rare chance for him to speak unencumbered to the Nation directly and to really express the feelings in his heart.

Part of what the President said I thought was particularly timely and poignant. It drew bipartisan response and applause-particularly the part where he saluted the men and women in uniform. We have many debates on foreign policy here. Senator Byrd and I view it the same way, that perhaps our country is on the wrong track when it comes to this policy of preemption and going it alone in the world. Having said that, we both understand, as every Member of the Congress does, there are men and women in uniform who are literally risking their lives at this moment for this country. While politicians and elected officials debate the policy, we should never forget the courage, sacrifice, and dedication of those men and women in uniform, how much it means to their families that they know we stand behind them and we will not deny them the resources they need to perform their mission safely and to come home safely and as quickly as possible.

I point out one aspect that has come to my attention over the 2-month break when the Senate was in recess. I joined a couple Senators and I went out on my own to visit Walter Reed Hospital last November and meet with these wounded soldiers. It is a wonderful thing to see these brave young men and women. Also, it is sad to see some of the injuries they have sustained. Most of them wear ceramic vests that protect them in combat, but they don't protect their limbs. Many of those there are amputees who have lost a hand, an arm, legs, or, in the case of one soldier, both hands, or suffered a head injury.

Having spoken to them and asked them the circumstances of their injury, I usually said: Is there anything I can do for you? It was interesting to me how many had the same response. It wasn't personal. They didn't ask me for a favor. They said: Don't do me a favor, but do a favor for the men and women I served with. We need to have more protection in combat, particularly with Humvees, which are today's jeeps that are so prevalent in the war in Iraq. Humvees were built to be light and fast for a desert war, and now they perform a different function. They move troops through Baghdad and Fallujah, which are dangerous areas. Sadly, many of these Humvees have canvas sides. If one of these terrorists fires a rocket-propelled grenade at it, it whistles right through the vehicle causing great injuries and damage in the process. The same thing is true with the homemade bombs. So the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed said time and again that they need more armor-plating on the Humvee vehicles.

I thought this was something a Senator ought to look into. So I came back to my office and contacted the Department of the Army and said: How many Humvees in Iraq today don't have armor-plating? They said that 8,500 do not. So I said: Is it a priority to make armor-plated doors for these? They said it is the highest priority. They said: Senator, there is good news. Half of them will be built in your State at the Rock Island Arsenal, which has served America since the Civil War. I knew the men and women there were anxious to get involved and to prove themselves and to serve our Nation again, as they have time and time again in times of conflict.

During the break, I went to the Rock Island Arsenal and saw the first two armored doors for Humvees come off the assembly line. The employees were working around the clock and could not have been prouder. I said to the officer in charge at the Rock Island Arsenal: This is great. You are supposed to build about 8,000 or 9,000 of these armor-plated doors. How long will it take you to get these 9,000 armor-plated doors into Iraq on the Humvees? He said: Senator, if we work night and day, we can get this done in 2 years. Two years.

I thought to myself, what am I missing here? In World War II, we would build a bomber in 72 hours. We would build a ship in 30 days. Why is it going to take 2 years to build the armor-plated doors for the Humvees? He said: I am sorry to tell you that there is only one plant left in America that makes the steel that can protect these soldiers with armor plating in the Humvees-one plant left in America. I thought about that last night when the President said to us that jobs are growing in America-manufacturing and industrial jobs are growing in America. I have to say to the President, as I look at Illinois, that is not the case. We are losing jobs. We are losing manufacturing jobs. We have lost 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last 5 years and continue to do so.

Many jobs are going to China. China is a country where jobs are growing but, sadly, at the expense of American workers. China has an unfair trade policy related to the currency valuation of their local currency.

Now, the Secretary of the Treasury, who was there last night, protested this in China, but they have done nothing about it. So they have a 15- to 40-percent price advantage over American manufacturers. What it means is that manufacturers, large and small, are losing business to China. So when the time comes, when we need a steel mill to produce the armor for the Humvees so our sons and daughters come back with limbs intact and safe, we find ourselves at the mercy of these foreign producers.

Today, for every dollar of goods exported from the United States to China, we import $6 worth of goods from China, and one company in America-one company alone-imports 10 percent of all of the Chinese exports to the United States. One company sells 10 percent of all of the goods and products sent by China to the United States. That company is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, yes. It is in your neighborhood and in your hometown.

A few years ago, they proudly said "made in America" at Wal-Mart. But it doesn't say that anymore. Last week, if you watched the cable channels, you saw Lou Dobbs talking about exporting America. Frankly, that is a sad reality today.

So when the President talks about all the new jobs coming into America, I don't see it. For my money, a jobless recovery is no recovery at all. What good is it to talk about productivity? What good is it to talk about economic growth if we have lost 3 million jobs under the Bush administration? That is a fact of life.

I told you the story of the Humvees. I will tell you one other.

In my apartment in Chicago, at 4 o'clock on Saturday, I received a phone call. It is interesting that I received a similar call 3 weeks before. The voice on the other end of the phone said: Mr. Durbin, this is Nancy, and I am happy to inform you that your Discover Card is on the way to your apartment.

I said: Nancy, I didn't order a Discover Card.

She said: Yes, but you have qualified for one and we are going to send you a credit card.

I said: Nancy, may I ask you a question? Where are you calling from?

She said: Delaware.

I said: What city in Delaware?

She said: Just a minute.

I heard papers shuffling. I said: New Delhi?

She said: No, Bangalore.

As you know, that is a city in India. I tell you those stories because I think they demonstrate the anxiety and concern of Americans from one coast to the other.

The President may believe that we are deep into a recovery. The President may see new jobs coming, but America looks at the current evolution of our economy with concern. We are giving up our basic industries. We are giving up manufacturing to the Chinese, and now we are giving up service jobs to India and other countries.

IBM announced 4,000 jobs will be lost in the United States for computer programs that will be sent overseas to India. If you buy a Dell Computer and you need instructions on setting up your computer and you call the 800 number, you will generally speak to someone in India.

The question that raises is this: What will be the job for the next generation of Americans? What occupation or profession would you recommend to a young person for a future in America?

There are some that are obvious, but when you look at how we have built this country with a strong middle class, raising good strong families with strong values, you have to wonder, with the challenges we are going to face in the years ahead, whether this administration and this Congress are looking at the state of the American economy honestly.

What was President Bush's proposal last night to deal with the future of America's economy? He made it clear. He believes that if you make the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America permanent law, then, in fact, we will have a strong economy. In other words, if you will give more money to the wealthiest people in America, somehow the economy lifts and everyone will succeed.

History is not on his side. In fact, this anemic recovery in which we are presently involved is proof positive that his tax cuts did little or nothing to stimulate this economy and creating a deficit of historic proportions. This President took a surplus in the Treasury and turned it into the biggest deficit in the history of the United States. He took over from an administration that had created over 20 million new jobs, and this President, unless something dramatic happens in the next few months, will go down in history as having lost more jobs under his administration than any President since the Great Depression-3 million jobs lost in America. And his answer to get America back on its feet and working again: Give the wealthiest people in America a tax break.

The President, when he talks about the tax cuts, zeros in on the $300 for individuals, $600 for families, the marriage penalty, but he ignores the biggest tax breaks, which are not included in that group but go to the wealthiest people in this country. Those are the ones who have brought us into this deficit situation.

To make matters worse, the conference report to accompany the Omnibus appropriations bill, which we have before us, includes a provision which says when it comes to those currently working in America, people who are struggling to keep their jobs and to keep their families together, this bill contains a provision which will eliminate overtime pay for 8 million Americans.

Mr. President, 8 million Americans today working overtime hours-away from their families, to make ends meet, to put some money away for college education, to deal with medical bills they can't handle otherwise-because of language insisted by the Republican leadership in the White House and in the Congress will lose their overtime pay.

That is the record of the Bush administration when it comes to jobs: 3 million jobs lost; 8 million working Americans denied overtime pay.

What does it mean? It means these men and women who are working these jobs will be told by their employers: You will show up and you will work instead of 40 hours this week, you will work 50 hours this week, and the extra 10 hours you work, you will be paid the same hourly wage, and if you don't like it, leave.

Perhaps that is the President's vision of America. From my point of view, that is not a vision that most families would appreciate. If we truly value work and we truly value families, wouldn't we take a different approach?

Didn't we hear the President last night talk about the family values of America and protecting those traditional values? While he spoke, we were considering a bill that says for 8 million Americans, the likelihood that your family will succeed is diminished, and it is reduced because we believe employers, at least those who support this bill, believe that employers should make more money at the expense of their employees.

We have had overtime pay since 1938. The Fair Labor Standards Act required employers to pay time and a half, and usually Presidents, Democrats and Republicans, would extend overtime protection and overtime benefits to more and more employees. This President will go down in history as the first to take overtime pay away from working Americans-8 million Americans.

The administration's proposal would strip 8 million workers of their overtime rights, including 375,000 workers in my State of Illinois. For workers who receive overtime pay, that overtime compensation usually accounts for 25 percent of their paycheck. The administration's proposal would slash the paychecks of 8 million hard-working Americans by 25 percent.

I haven't spoken about increasing the minimum wage in this country, which this administration has steadfastly opposed and Republicans in Congress have adamantly opposed. So at $5.15 an hour, more and more low-income workers find themselves falling behind and have to take a second job.

I went to a high school in Du Page County over the break. Du Page County is a great diverse, strong, and generally prosperous county in my State, just west of Chicago. When I sat down with the educators, we looked at No Child Left Behind test scores, and I said: Why is it that only 92 percent of the students took the test for No Child Left Behind at this high school?

The principal said to me: Senator, a lot of our kids are from poor families, single parent families, and they have brothers and sisters. If a little brother or a little sister gets sick and can't go to day care that day, mom is going to have to stay home from work and give up her paycheck or that older brother is going to have to stay home and watch the sick baby. That is what happens. He said that is reality.

Think about that kind of life where the sickness of the baby keeps an older brother out of school; where the mother, making $5.15 an hour, doesn't work an 8-hour day, but perhaps a 12- and 14-hour day or, if she is lucky, she has a job that used to pay overtime for those extra hours and now, because of the Bush administration's proposal, she is about to lose her overtime. She is struggling to keep her little family together under extraordinary circumstances, and we make it worse.

We do not increase the minimum wage. We do not protect her right to earn overtime pay, which has been on the books for over 65 years in America. Is that an administration with family values, sensitive to families and what they face?

What kind of employees will be hit hard by the President's determination to cut overtime pay? Let me give you a few categories: Police officers, firefighters, and safety coordinators. The International Union of Police Associations estimated this proposal will take overtime pay from 50 percent of those law enforcement officers currently guaranteed overtime. A minimum of 200,000 law enforcement officers will lose their overtime pay because of this appropriations proposal that came to us from the Bush administration.

I can go through the list: Prison guards from my State will no longer receive overtime pay; first responders, nurses, medical assistants, social workers, computer technicians, engineering technicians-the list goes on and on.

I think the list tells a story. It is one thing to talk about the goodness of America and the confidence we have in our future, and quite another for us to pass legislation, such as included in this appropriations bill, which destroys the confidence of working families in this Congress and this administration, unwilling to stand up and fight for them defending their rights to keep their families together.

Let me speak for a moment about education because at the heart of the issue of tomorrow's generation and their jobs is the question of education and training. The President made a very modest proposal last night to help community colleges. I thought it was good. When we assess the value for each community college, it is going to be symbolic, as most things are from this administration when it comes to helping America. It won't be the billions of dollars we are sending to Iraq. It will be $230 million, $240 million which is going to be allocated to community colleges. Mr. President, $230 million is hardly going to change education in America when we consider we are a nation of roughly 300 million people.

When we take a look at No Child Left Behind, we may note that this bill we are about to pass provides the smallest increase in education funding in 8 years, and it shortchanges No Child Left Behind, the President's premier policy on education, by $6 billion under the authorized funding level.

So we have said to schools, test your kids, and the President repeated it last night, continue to test, we want to know how you are doing. That is valuable. That is the diagnosis. But when it comes to the treatment, when it comes to tutoring, mentoring, after-school programs and summer school programs, this administration refuses to put the money on the table. They will identify the problem but they will not invest in solving the problem. In fact, what they have created is an unfunded mandate on schools at the absolute worst time possible. Where States are struggling to make ends meet, where local property payers are pushed to the limit on their property taxes, the President has imposed a mandate on the schools and refuses by $6 billion in this bill to provide the funding the schools need to succeed.

So what will happen? Tests will be taken and tests will be reported, both within the Department of Education and publicly. Schools which people respected will now be branded as failing schools. Schools which frankly are doing a good job will find that if one group of students, for example, the kids in the special education class, who have special physical and mental challenges, cannot meet the test scores we have mandated in No Child Left Behind, the school will be graded as a failing school.

Imagine, you and your husband, your family, have made a sacrifice to buy a home in a very expensive subdivision which you know to be safe and near a good school, so that there is going to be a great education for your kids. You are starting to make the mortgage payments, it is not an easy thing to do, and you pick up the paper and you say, did you realize the high school our kids are about to go to has been graded a failing school?

That is going to happen. It is going to happen across Illinois. It is going to happen across America. When it comes to the resources and money to help those schools and to help those students, this administration refuses to put the money on the table. I think that is unfortunate and tragic, and it hardly suggests that this President is looking forward to the next generation.

The same President who a week ago looked up to the heavens and said the vision for America is manned space flight to Mars is a President who is not looking around America at the neighborhoods and towns that need a helping hand, that need more jobs, that need better schools, and need affordable health insurance. Had that same President, instead of casting his eyes to the heavens and outer space, looked to our Nation and said, in the next 10 years we are going to bring America's schools up to the highest world quality standards, and if it takes the trillion dollars that is necessary, we will spend it, that President would have been applauded across America. Instead, he projects someone in a manned space flight to Mars that will cost us $1 trillion.

I am not against the space program. Many good things have come from the space program, and they continue to come from the space program, but to think that we are going to look beyond Mother Earth, look beyond our own home into the heavens to spend a trillion dollars just strikes me as a complete misstatement of priorities for America.

In the few minutes I have remaining, I will mention two or three other things I find troublesome in this bill. One of the major disappointments was the deletion of funding in the Commerce-Justice-State-Judiciary appropriations for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasting for Eastern Europe. The Senate bill included this funding, as did the Senate version of the authorization bill: $9 million for broadcasts to Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, and Moldova. Unfortunately, this bill will cut off those broadcasts, and that is not the right thing to do. These are new democracies. They are still subject to instability. There is still gang and Soviet influence. I refer to the old Soviet gangs that still are alive and well and reborn in the form of syndicate operations. These democracies need the help of Radio Free Europe. I think putting that voice, as well as Radio Liberty, in a broadcast is an important thing to strengthen those democracies. Unfortunately, it was cut.

Then, of course, there is the provision in this bill regarding one of the controversial rules of the Federal Communications Commission. Do my colleagues think it is a better country if one company owns more and more television and radio stations? I do not. I think the diversity of message, the opportunities for Americans to hear different points of view, is really kind of key to our democracy. Yet, despite our votes on the floor of the Senate, at the last minute Chairman Stevens and the White House put a provision in this appropriations bill which allows a greater concentration of ownership of television stations.

The obvious question is: What is that doing in an appropriations bill? The obvious answer is: The special interests won and they won big. Viacom was a big winner. Rupert Murdoch and Fox Broadcasting were all big winners by this provision being slipped in the bill. It is no surprise that some of these conglomerates have a conservative bent to them and agree with the President's party. Well, they were handsomely rewarded in this appropriations bill.

The last point I will make is that of all of the things in this bill which will make life tougher, more difficult and challenging in America, there is one that is very basic. When one turns on the television news tonight, what is likely to be the lead story? Well, in Chicago, sadly, it is likely to be a violent crime, maybe a murder. We are showing some improvement there. We are reducing violent crime, but it is still a national scourge. Unfortunately, it is the result of the fact that guns often end up in the hands of the wrong people.

Under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, firearm dealers are prohibited from transferring firearms to anybody until there has been a search in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and it is determined that selling this gun to this person would not violate the law. The kind of people who would be prohibited from buying guns are obvious: convicted felons, somebody convicted of a crime of domestic violence or under a domestic violence restraining order, or a fugitive. We do not want to sell guns to people who have demonstrated that they misuse them. That is a smart thing to do. So we submit the name of the person to the NICS system for a computer check to see if this person would be prohibited from having a firearm. If so, then we do not sell them the gun.

In addition, under the current regulations, the Department of Justice retains records of approved firearm sales for up to 90 days. If during the course of those 90 days, it obtains information that a gun has been sold to someone improperly, we are going to go get the gun.

So I asked the General Accounting Office what would happen if the Department of Justice was required to destroy these computer records of gun purchases within 24 hours. In other words, the Department of Justice is given only 24 hours to obtain additional information on a person's background, and they were not given the full 90 days that they have under the current law. What if it is limited to 24 hours? The General Accounting Office did a study for me. They came back and said the FBI would lose its ability to initiate firearm retrieval actions when new information reveals individuals who were approved to purchase firearms should not have been. Specifically, the GAO said during the first 6 months of the 90-day retention policy, the FBI used retained records to initiate 235 firearm retrieval actions, of which 228 could not have been initiated if there were a next-day destruction requirement.

Let me boil this down. If I want to buy a gun and I pass through the computer check, they have 90 days to obtain additional information regarding whether I should have been able to buy the gun. If they are told they have only 24 hours to gather this information, it means that 228 guns in a 6-month period would be given to convicted felons, people guilty of domestic violence, and fugitives, exactly the wrong people in America to have guns.

Now, who in the world would want to limit the ability of the Government to check on someone's background to make sure that criminals did not buy guns? One special interest group-the National Rifle Association. And they won, in this bill. They have a provision in this bill which will prohibit the FBI from obtaining information on a purchaser's background more than 24 hours after a sale is approved. What it means in this case is 228 felons and other prohibited persons in a 6-month period would end up with guns on the street.

Does that make you feel safer, America? It doesn't make me feel safer at all. It is the kind of mindless pressure by a special interest group that is being paid off for its political support with this provision in the appropriations bill, and that makes no sense at all. It is not going to make the streets of my State any safer. It isn't going to make it safer for the policemen who get up every morning, who put that badge on over their heart and risk their lives for us every single day. It isn't going to make it safer for our children who are walking home from the bus or from the CTA train. It is not going to make it safer for America.

But there are smiles on the faces of the special interest group, the National Rifle Association. They won in this appropriations bill. They were able to limit the opportunity for Government to do its work, to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. That is another unfortunate outcome of this legislation.

So we will face this Omnibus appropriations bill after having defeated a motion to close down debate yesterday. I hope in the process a lot of Americans will pay close attention. This is one of the latest times I can remember major appropriations bills being enacted since I served in Congress. The fact is, the longer the bill languishes, the more likely it is subject to mischief. That is what happened here. Time and time again we saw the overtime pay issue, the issue of media ownership concentration, the issue of the background checks on guns, as well as the issue of country-of-origin labeling-all of these became victim to this debate that went on and on, on the appropriations bills, and ultimately the special interests won, Americans lost, and American families lost as well. I yield the floor.