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So at a time when drug prices are increasing at two to three times the rate of the overall rate of inflation, referred to as the Consumer Price Index, at a time when the same drugs prescribed by veterinarians, for use by pets--the identical medication--are priced lower than the same drug prescribed by prescriptions for doctors' use for people,

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   I think it is a no-brainer. I think we should set the market forces in action. We simply need to allow the public to have access to readily available market-based information. This is commonsense, easy-to-understand, easy-to-implement legislation. We should pass it this year. There is no new bureaucracy created. We can have the information at HHS. All this legislation would do is require it be made available. The potential benefits are enormous.

   It will be interesting to see how this debate unfolds on this legislation because my colleagues have not heard the last of me on this issue. This makes a lot of sense, whether we do or do not succeed this year in extending a prescription benefit as part of Medicare. We ought to do it. We can do it. We should do it. I hope my colleagues will join me in a bipartisan effort to do so.

   I yield the floor.

   By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Ms. LANDRIEU):

   S. 2964. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide new tax incentives to make health insurance more affordable for small businesses, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.

   ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT

   Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, the Access to Affordable Health Care Act, that is designed to make health insurance more affordable both for individuals and for small businesses that provide health care coverage for their employees.

   In the past few years, Congress has taken some major steps to expand access to affordable health coverage for all Americans. In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act--also known as Kassebaum-Kennedy--was signed into law which assures that American workers and their families will not lose their health care coverage if they change jobs, lose their jobs, or become ill.

   One of the first bills I sponsored on coming to the Senate was legislation to establish the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which was enacted as part of the Balanced Budget Act. States have enthusiastically responded to this program, which now provides affordable health insurance coverage to over two million children nationwide, including 9,365 in Maine's expanded Medicaid and CubCare programs.

   Despite these efforts, the number of uninsured Americans continues to rise. At a time when unemployment is low and our nation's economy is thriving, more than 44 million Americans--including 200,000 Mainers--do not have health insurance. Clearly, we must make health insurance more available and more affordable.

   Most Americans under the age of 65 get their health coverage through the workplace. It is therefore a common assumption that people without health insurance are unemployed. The fact is, however, that most uninsured Americans are members of families with at least one full-time worker. According to the Health Insurance Association of America, almost seven out of ten uninsured Americans live in a family whose head of household works full-time.

   In my state of Maine, small business is not just a segment of the economy--it is the economy. I am, therefore, particularly concerned that uninsured , working Americans are most often employees of small businesses. Nearly half of the uninsured workers nationwide are in businesses with fewer than 25 employees.

   According to a recent National Federation of Independent Businesses survey of over 4,000 of its members, the cost of health insurance is the number one problem facing small businesses. And it has been since 1986. It is time for us to listen and to lend a hand to these small businesses.

   Small employers generally face higher costs for health insurance than larger firms, which makes them less likely to offer coverage. Premiums are generally higher for small businesses because they do not have as much purchasing power as large companies, which limits their ability to bargain for lower rates. They also have higher administrative costs because they have fewer employees among whom to spread the fixed costs of a health benefits plan. Moreover, they are not as able to spread risks of medical claims over as many employees as can large firms.

   As a consequence, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), only 42 percent of small businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance to their employees. By way of contrast, more than 95 percent of businesses with 100 or more employees

   offer insurance.

   Moreover, the smaller the business, the less likely it is to offer health insurance to its employees. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), only 27 percent of workers in firms with fewer than 10 employees received health insurance from their employers in their own name, compared with 66 percent of workers in firms with 1,000 or more employees. Small businesses want to provide health insurance for their employees, but the cost is often prohibitive.

   Simply put, the biggest obstacle to health care coverage in the United States today is cost. While American employers everywhere--from giant multinational corporations to the small corner store--are facing huge hikes in their health insurance costs, these rising costs are particularly problematic for small businesses and their employees. Many small employers are facing premium increases of 20 percent or more, causing them either to drop their health benefits or pass the additional costs on to their employees through increased deductibles, higher copays or premium hikes. This, too, is troubling and will likely add to the ranks of the uninsured since it will cause some employees--particularly lower-wage workers who are disproportionately affected by increased costs--to drop or turn down coverage when it is offered to them.

   The legislation I am introducing today, the Access to Affordable Health Care Act, would help small employers cope with these rising costs. My bill would provide new tax credits for small businesses to help make health insurance more affordable. It would encourage those small businesses that do not currently offer health insurance to do so and would help businesses that do offer insurance to continue coverage even in the face of rising costs.

   Under my proposal, employers with fewer than ten employees would receive a tax credit of 50 percent of the employer contribution to the cost of employee health insurance. Employers with ten to 25 employees would receive a 30 percent credit. Under my bill, the credit would be based on an employer's yearly qualified health insurance expenses of up to $2,000 for individual coverage and $4,000 for family coverage.

   The legislation I am introducing today would also make health insurance more affordable for individuals and families who must purchase health insurance on their own. The Access to Affordable Health Care Act would provide an above-the-line tax deduction for individuals who pay at least 50 percent of the cost of their health and long-term care insurance. Regardless of whether an individual takes the standard deduction or itemizes, he or she would be provided relief by the new above-the-line deduction.

   My bill also would allow self-employed Americans to deduct the full amount of their health care premiums. Some 25 million Americans are in families headed by a self-employed individual--of these, five million are uninsured . Establishing parity in the tax treatment of health insurance costs between the self-employed and those working for large businesses is not just a matter of equity. It will also help to reduce the number of uninsured , but working Americans. My bill will make health insurance more affordable for the 82,000 people in Maine who are self-employed. They include our lobstermen, our hairdressers, our electricians, our plumbers, and the many owners of mom-and-pop stores that dot communities throughout the state.

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   Mr. President, the Access to Affordable Health Care Act would help small businesses afford health insurance for their employees, and it would also make coverage more affordable for working Americans who must purchase it on their own. I urge my colleagues to join me as cosponsors of this important legislation.

   By Mr. HOLLINGS (for himself, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. BREAUX, and Mr. CLELAND):

   S. 2965. A bill to amend the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, to establish a program to ensure greater security for United States seaports, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

   THE PORT AND MARITIME SECURITY ACT OF 2000

   Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today, to introduce the Port and Maritime Security Act of 2000. This legislation is long overdue. It is needed to facilitate future technological and advances and increases in international trade, and ensure that we have the sort of security control necessary to ensure that our borders are protected from drug smuggling, illegal aliens, trade fraud, threats of terrorism as well as potential threats to our ability to mobilize U.S. military force.

   The Department of Transportation recently commenced an evaluation of our marine transportation needs for the 21st Century. In September 1999, Transportation Secretary Slater issued a preliminary report of the Marine Transportation System (MTS) Task Force--An Assessment of the U.S. Marine Transportation System. The report reflected a highly collaborative effort among public sector agencies, private sector organizations and other stakeholders in the MTS.

   The report indicates that the United States has more than 1,000 harbor channels and 25,000 miles of inland, intracoastal, and coastal waterways in the United States which serve over 300 ports, with more than 3,700 terminals that handle passenger and cargo movements. These waterways and ports link to 152,000 miles of railways, 460,000 miles of underground pipelines and 45,000 miles of interstate highways. Annually, the U.S. marine transportation system moves more than 2 billion tons of domestic and international freight, imports 3.3 billion tons of domestic oil, transports 134 million passengers by ferry, serves 78 million Americans engaged in recreational boating, and hosts more than 5 million cruise ship passengers.

   The MTS provides economic value, as waterborne cargo contributes more than $742 billion to U.S. gross domestic product and creates employment for more than 13 million citizens. While these figures reveal the magnitude of our waterborne commerce, they don't reveal the spectacular growth of waterborne commerce, or the potential problems in coping with this growth. It is estimated that the total volume of domestic and international trade is expected to double over the next twenty years. The doubling of trade also brings up the troubling issue of how the U.S. is going to protect our maritime borders from crime, threats of terrorism, or even our ability to mobilize U.S. armed forces.

   Security at our maritime borders is given substantially less federal consideration than airports or land borders. In the aviation industry, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is intimately involved in ensuring that security measures are developed, implemented, and funded. The FAA works with various Federal officials to assess threats directed toward commercial aviation and to target various types of security measures as potential threats change. For example, during the Gulf War, airports were directed to ensure that no vehicles were parked within a set distance of the entrance to a terminal.

   Currently, each air carrier, whether a U.S. carrier or foreign air carrier, is required to submit a proposal on how it plans to meet its security needs. Air carriers also are responsible for screening passengers and baggage in compliance with FAA regulations. The types of machines used in airports are all approved, and in many instances paid for by the FAA. The FAA uses its laboratories to check the machinery to determine if the equipment can detect explosives that are capable of destroying commercial aircrafts. Clearly, we learned from the Pan Am 103 disaster over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. Congress passed legislation in 1990 ``the Aviation Security Improvement Act,'' which was carefully considered by the Commerce Committee, to develop the types of measures I noted above. We also made sure that airports, the FAA, air carriers and law enforcement worked together to protect the flying public.

   Following the crash of TWA flight 800 in 1996, we also leaped to spend money, when it was first thought to have been caused by a terrorist act. The FAA spent about $150 million on additional screening equipment, and we continue today to fund research and development for better, and more effective equipment. Finally, the FAA is responsible for ensuring that background checks (employment records/criminal records) of security screeners and those with access to secured airports are carried out in an effective and thorough manner. The FAA, at the direction of Congress, is responsible for certifying screening companies, and has developed ways to better test screeners. This is all done in the name of protecting the public. Seaports deserve no less consideration.

   At land borders, there is a similar investment in security by the federal government. In TEA-21, approved $140 million a year for five years for the National Corridor Planning and Development and Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program. Eligible activities under this program include improvements to existing transportation and supporting infrastructure that facilitate cross-border vehicles and cargo movements; construction of highways and related safety enforcement facilities that facilitate movements related to international trade; operational improvements, including improvements relating to electronic data interchange and use of telecommunications, to expedite cross border vehicle and cargo movements; and planning, coordination, design and location studies.

   By way of contrast, at U.S. seaports, the federal government invests nothing in infrastructure, other than the human presence of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and whatever equipment those agencies have to accomplish their mandates. Physical infrastructure is provided by state-controlled port authorities, or by private sector marine terminal operators. There are no controls, or requirements in place, except for certain standards promulgated by the Coast Guard for the protection of cruise ship passenger terminals. Essentially, where sea ports are concerned we have abrogated the federal responsibility of border control to the state and private sector.

   I think that the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Agency are doing an outstanding job, but they are outgunned. There is simply too much money in the illegal activities they are seeking to curtail or eradicate, and there is too much traffic coming into, and out of the United States. For instance, in the latest data available, 1999, we had more than 10 million TEU's imported into the United States. For the uninitiated, a TEU refers to a twenty-foot equivalent unit shipping container. By way of comparison, a regular truck measures 48-feet in length. So in translation, we imported close to 5 million truckloads of cargo. According to the Customs Service, seaports are able to inspect between 1 percent and 2 percent of the containers, so in other words, a drug smuggler has a 98 percent chance of gaining illegal entry.

   It is amazing to think, that when you or I walk through an international airport we will walk through a metal detector, and our bags will be x-rayed, and Customs will interview us, and may check our bags. However, at a U.S. seaport you could import a 48 foot truck load of cargo, and have at least a 98 percent chance of not even being inspected. It just doesn't seem right.

   For instance, in my own state, the Port of Charleston which is the fourth largest container port in the United States, Customs officials have no equipment even capable of x-raying intermodal shipping containers. Customs, which is understaffed to start with, must physically open containers, and request the use of a canine unit from local law enforcement to help with drug or illegal contraband detection. This is simply not sufficient.

   The need for the evaluation of higher scrutiny of our system of seaport security came at the request of Senator

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   The Commission visited twelve major U.S. seaports, as well as two foreign ports. It compiled a record of countless hours of testimony and heard from, and reviewed the security practices of the shipping industry. It also met with local law enforcement officials to discuss the issues and their experiences as a result of seaport related crime. Unfortunately, the report will not be publicly available until sometime in the fall; however, Senator GRAHAM's staff and my staff have worked closely with the Commission, to develop legislation--the bill that we are introducing--to address the Commission's concerns.

   For instance, the Commission found that twelve U.S. seaports accounted for 56 percent of the number of cocaine seizures, 32 percent of the marijuana seizures, and 65 percent of heroin seizures in commercial cargo shipments and vessels at all ports of entry nationwide. Yet, we have done relatively little, other than send in an undermanned contingency of Coast Guards and Customs officials to do whatever they can.

   Drugs are not the only criminal problem confronting U.S. seaports. For example, alien smuggling has become increasingly lucrative enterprise. To illustrate, in August of 1999, I.N.S. officials found 132 Chinese men hiding aboard a container ship docked in Savannah, Georgia. The INS district director was quoted as saying; ``This was a very sophisticated ring, and never in my 23 years with the INS have I seen anything as large or sophisticated''. According to a recent GAO report on INS efforts on alien smuggling (RPT-Number: B-283952), smugglers collectively may earn as much as several billion dollars per year bringing in illegal aliens.

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