[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 136 (Monday, October 24, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11750-S11753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AMERICA'S PRIORITIES

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think most Americans have been to Florida. 
It is such a pleasant place, and beautiful, with wonderful beaches and 
tremendous weather. But nature has been very unkind to Florida in the 
past few years. There have been numerous storms, devastating storms. 
Florida is now being buffeted by Wilma. Winds are over 125 miles an 
hour with torrential rains, flooding many parts of Florida. Over 20,000 
people have sought safety in shelters. Many have chosen to ride out the 
storm, and that is unfortunate. According to reports, less than 10 
percent of the residents of the Florida Keys have evacuated, and it 
appears this may turn out to be the most damaging hurricane to hit this 
region in more than a decade. This afternoon, Wilma's victims are 
certainly in our thoughts. The storm is still there.
  In recent weeks, we have seen how destructive nature can be. The 
people of Florida know we stand ready to help if, in fact, that is 
necessary.
  Victims of Hurricane Wilma join the growing list of the Americans who 
need our help. While Wilma is upon us--we had Rita before that--we 
cannot forget the people who have suffered such devastating losses from 
the storm that hit the gulf, Hurricane Katrina. But it is obvious that 
the majority has forgotten about them.
  We have had bills agreed upon by the Finance Committee and others--
bipartisan bills--that we cannot move to the Senate floor. We cannot 
move them. Now I am told a bill that started out at

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$8 billion to help the people who are in such need of medical care and 
attention, the Medicaid bill, has now shrunk to less than $2 billion. 
It will be, of course, a Band-Aid. It will give the majority something 
to say: we are trying to help. The fact is, they are not trying to 
help.
  Weeks have gone by, and now Wilma is upon us, and Wilma will likely 
create the need for more help for people in Florida, which will push 
Katrina's victims, in the minds of the majority, further off the radar 
screen.
  The American people, even before Wilma, were already looking to the 
Senate for help with rising energy prices, and preparedness for future 
disasters, such as the avian flu. We must add Wilma's victims to this 
list.
  It is my hope that the majority in the Senate will join Democrats in 
focusing on these priorities. These priorities are about doing 
something about these staggering energy costs--heating fuel, filling 
the gas tank--or doing something about being prepared for what we have 
been told is going to be a pandemic, the avian flu. We have seen it 
leave the Far East and travel to Europe. And what are we going to do 
about the Katrina victims?
  With few weeks remaining in this work period before Thanksgiving, we 
need to come together and make sure the agenda of the Senate reflects 
the agenda of the American people. Unfortunately, it does not at the 
present time.
  This week, the Senate Budget Committee will mark up the bills they 
get from the various committees and move forward with budget 
reconciliation. This is legislation that cuts health care for the 
neediest of the needy, the Medicaid recipients. It will cut housing. It 
will cut programs for farmers. It could put at risk the pensions of 
millions of working Americans. But the majority's mantra is: Rich 
people of America, we are coming to your rescue; we are going to cut 
your taxes some more.
  I am appealing to my colleagues in the majority: Don't do this. 
Postpone this effort. We have very real needs to address in this 
country. I repeat, rising energy prices, hurricane victims, and 
preparedness for the avian flu. These issues should be the focus of 
every Senator, not cutting programs to help those most in need and 
providing tax breaks for special interests.
  Democrats voted against this immoral Republican budget once before 
Katrina hit. Now, after all we have been through, I think it is even 
more of an embarrassment to this institution that we are moving forward 
to cut the poor even more and cut taxes for special interests even 
more.
  After a summer of rising energy prices and multiple hurricanes, 
hundreds of thousands of families are struggling to meet basic needs. 
The cuts in the Republican budget will only make these problems worse. 
Of course, even if Republicans move forward with their plans, Democrats 
will continue to insist the Senate address the priorities of the 
American people.
  As we did last week, we will continue to try to bring forward 
legislation that will help working families. On energy, we will fight 
to make sure the Senate takes a real look at price gouging and takes 
steps to help millions of families fill their tanks and heat their 
homes. On avian flu, we will continue to push the Senate to consider 
our comprehensive preparedness legislation so our country has the tools 
and resources it needs to confront this pandemic. If we do not do 
something, we are told 48 percent of the people who get this flu are 
going to die. And with Katrina, we are going to do everything we can to 
make sure hundreds of thousands of victims get the health care, housing 
and economic opportunities they need.
  This weekend brought a new round of stories about how gulf coast 
communities are struggling. The problems of Katrina have not gotten 
better. For many families they have gotten worse.
  With Katrina, we also have to ensure we get answers to how this 
happened so we can do everything possible to prevent it from happening 
again. The Senate has an obligation to act.
  I say to my friends who now, as we see from the morning papers, are 
concerned about how many Iraqis are killed and soon--it may have 
already happened--just a matter of hours from now, 2,000 Americans will 
have been killed in Iraq. No one was looking for offsets and have not 
been looking for offsets on the billions of dollars being spent in 
Iraq.

  Unfortunately, the Republicans blocked our attempts to help the 
American people last week. We could have made real progress. Instead, 
the Senate wasted much of its time. America can do better. We do not 
have time to lose. Every day that goes by, the problems faced by 
Katrina's victims grow worse. Every day that goes by, families are 
squeezed tighter by the energy crunch. Every day that goes by, we lose 
precious time in preparing for the avian flu pandemic.
  We can do better. America can do better.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The distinguished Senator from 
Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the President for recognizing me.
  I would like to follow on the remarks made by the Democratic leader 
of the Senate. The American people we represent expect us on the floor 
of the Senate to truly represent them and their real concerns--the 
needs of their families, the needs of their communities, the needs of 
businesses and farmers. We are elected to speak for them and to come 
together in common purpose on a bipartisan basis and deal with the real 
issues Americans face.
  I would certainly acknowledge that the pending appropriations bill 
for Labor, Health and Human Services, which includes education as well, 
is one of the most important appropriations bills that addresses those 
needs. In years gone by, there was a Congressman from Kentucky named 
Bill Natcher who was the chairman of the subcommittee that handles this 
bill. He always called this bill on the House floor the ``people's 
appropriations bill.'' I think it was aptly named because it meant so 
much.
  So as we visit this bill this week, it is time well spent, time to 
reflect on what we can do to help education in America, time to reflect 
on what we can do in the area of health care for America, medical 
research for America. It is time to look at some of the most basic 
programs we count on.
  Sadly, this bill is the exception, it is not the rule.
  Too many times we come to the floor of the Senate not to serve the 
needs of the people of this great Nation, but to serve the needs of 
special interest groups. They dominate this process because it has 
become such an expensive process. Unless you are independently wealthy 
and can finance your own campaigns from the millions of dollars you 
made before you came to the Senate, most Senators, mere mortals, spend 
their time raising money. From whom? Well, from their voters somewhat 
but, by and large, from special interest groups. So it is no surprise 
that the agenda of the Senate reflects those special interest groups.
  Just a week ago, the new bankruptcy law went into effect. Professor 
Warren of Harvard Law School this morning in the New York Times talks 
about what it is going to mean. This was a 9-year effort by the 
financial institutions and credit card companies of America to make it 
more difficult for families to file for bankruptcy. Nine years they put 
into it, and they finally scored their big victory this year. They got 
this new bankruptcy bill passed.
  What it means is fewer people who walk into bankruptcy court will be 
able to walk out with a clean slate. Many people walking in, crushed by 
debt, will find themselves walking out still carrying most of that 
debt.
  Who are these people? Who are these folks who have been accused of 
abusing the bankruptcy system? Take a look at them: Over half of them 
are people who were overwhelmed by one thing--medical bills. There was 
an article in the New York Times this Sunday on the front page--my 
colleagues might have read it--of a family with health insurance and a 
sick baby who ended up losing their home, despite the fact they had 
health insurance, because of the serious medical problems that little 
baby faced.
  This new bankruptcy law pushed on us by financial institutions and 
credit card companies will make it more difficult for families like 
that to ever erase the slate and start over. The special interests won 
again.
  Then we had this debate on the floor of the Senate about the 
Department of Defense authorization bill. Can you

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think of anything more important, certainly to the families of 150,000 
American soldiers serving in Iraq today? Is there anything more 
important than the Department of Defense authorization bill, a bill 
which addresses the needs of our soldiers, the needs of the Pentagon, 
the needs of our veterans? Could there be a higher priority for us to 
deal with on the floor of the Senate?
  Do you know what happened to that bill? The Republican leadership 
pulled that bill off the floor and said: We don't have time to consider 
it. And what did they replace it with? They replaced it with a bill 
pushed by the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, a bill which 
says that gun manufacturers cannot be held liable in court for their 
wrongdoing. That is right, we have created this class in America, a 
limited class of people who are not responsible for their wrongdoing. 
It doesn't apply to you, not as an individual. If you are guilty of 
wrongdoing you can be held accountable. It does not apply to 99.9 
percent of the businesses in America. Guilty of wrongdoing? You are 
held accountable.
  But the gun industry, this big special interest group, so powerful 
that Republican leadership pulled the Department of Defense bill off 
the floor and has never returned to it.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. REID. I apologize for interrupting.
  In the New York Times today on the front page there is a column that 
says: ``GOP Testing Ways to Blunt Leak Charges.'' Is the Senator aware 
that the senior Senator from Texas said she hoped ``that if there is 
going to be an indictment that says something happened''--referring to 
the Rove-Libby scandal in the White House--``that it is an indictment 
on a crime and not some perjury technicality. . . .'' Will my friend 
comment on this statement?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I did read the article on the plane coming 
out here. I think everyone knows, without saying this is a critical 
week, that something could happen this week. There are investigations 
under way of the Republican leadership, the House and the Senate, and 
now there is a question as to whether there will be indictments handed 
down for others in the executive department.
  It is clear from the statement by some Senators, including the one 
quoted, that they are trying to prepare America for the shock that even 
higher level indictments could be handed down.
  I say to the Senator from Nevada, and I think he would agree with me, 
the vast majority of the men and women serving in the House and Senate 
today are the most honest, hard-working people America could ever hope 
for. They come to work every day trying to serve the public good and 
yet in every institution, whether it is Government, business, families, 
even churches, there is wrongdoing. People do the wrong thing.
  I hope what we hear being said by some Members of the Senate 
minimizing the possibility of indictments at the highest level of our 
Government does not reflect the true feeling of this body. I honestly 
believe there has been a rampant culture of corruption and cronyism 
that can take over our lives if we are not careful in public life. I 
hope we are mindful of the public's need to know that we are committed 
to continuing honest, ethical conduct in public service. Otherwise, we 
lose the confidence. Nothing else we do means much.
  To minimize the possibility of someone being indicted for perjury 
overlooks the obvious. What is at stake, what is at issue in this 
investigation involving Valerie Plame, is the fact that this woman was 
a career employee of the Central Intelligence Agency in a covert 
status, which meant people did not know what she was doing. That gave 
her entre and opportunity others did not have. So protecting her 
identity was an important part of her service to this Nation.
  There are many like her who risk their lives every day for America to 
make it safer to uncover potential acts of terrorism before they occur. 
So when her husband, a former ambassador, put an article in the 
newspaper critical of the Bush administration for overstating the 
reasons we were going to invade Iraq, someone--according to columnist 
Robert Novak, two people in the White House--came forward to out her 
identity. They did that for the most vain national political reasons, 
to punish her and her husband for speaking out against the 
administration.
  That is a crime, to out the identity of a CIA agent. Who created this 
crime? It was a crime created by President Bush's father, former head 
of the CIA, who was so enraged that someone had written a book 
disclosing the identity of a CIA agent which he believed resulted in 
their death that he called on Congress to pass a law to say if anybody 
disclosed that identity, they should be held responsible for it. That 
is what is at the heart of this.
  This is not a political game. It involves the lives and good fortunes 
of many men and women who serve this country selflessly. So to minimize 
this Valerie Plame investigation and to say it is over some 
technicality--for goodness sakes, the security of America and the 
security of the men and women in our intelligence agency, that is not a 
technicality. That is part of the defense of this country. I certainly 
hope what we have seen in the paper this morning, reflected in 
yesterday's talk shows, is not part of some strategy to try to minimize 
what is an extremely serious investigation.
  I also say this before I yield the floor--I see the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is here as chairman of the committee. The three points 
made by the Senator from Nevada are critical points. Five weeks from 
now, how can we go home and say Thanksgiving has come, we are ready for 
the holidays, we are headed off, and not do something about energy in 
America? How can we face the people we represent who cannot afford to 
pay their heating bills, people who cannot afford the cost of gas in my 
part of the world, in the Midwest, or the cost of heating oil in the 
Northeast? Can we say we have done the best we can do? I do not think 
so.
  When it comes to energy, the bill we passed was a sop to the special 
interests. It was $9 billion in subsidies to oil companies which are 
experiencing the highest profits they have seen in decades. Some parts 
of the bill were good, and I voted for it because it included ethanol 
and biodiesel and a few other things, but by and large this bill did 
not force us into an energy policy. What we need to do is very obvious.
  First, we need to protect consumers in America from these price 
spikes. They are defenseless when the cost of gasoline reaches the 
point they cannot afford to go to work or run their small businesses or 
bring the harvest in from the farm.
  Secondly, we need to punish profiteers. The four major oil companies 
in America in the first 6 months of this year had over $40 billion in 
profits.
  When you stuck that nozzle in the tank of your car and watched those 
numbers racing by on the pump, you were sending it directly to the 
boardrooms of these oil companies, $40 billion in profits that they 
took right out of that experience.
  One of the Senators from the other side last week asked, what is 
wrong with profits? Well, I guess nothing is wrong with profits unless 
you have to pay for them out of your hard-earned money every single 
day, and unless you cannot heat your home in the dead of winter because 
the cost of heating oil has gone up to make sure those profits keep 
coming to the boardrooms.
  Some of us believe it is time to say, end of the road to these major 
oil companies that are profiteering, and to punish the profiteers with 
a windfall profits tax which tells them there is no incentive in 
raising the price for more profiteering. Some say that is harsh, it 
goes too far. I do not think so. Imposing that tax and bringing the 
money back to consumers directly in rebates or to help pay for LIHEAP 
so low-income families can heat their homes, in my mind, is simple 
justice.
  Finally, we need an energy policy that looks ahead to making America 
less energy dependent. There was one critical issue on the floor when 
it came to the Energy bill. It was an amendment offered by Senator 
Maria Cantwell of Washington, cosponsored by many of us, and here is 
what it said: Much like President Kennedy's goal of reaching the Moon, 
we will set as a national goal reducing our dependence on foreign oil 
in America by 40 percent over the next 20 years. Is there a person

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following this debate who does not think that is a good idea, a 
positive thing, that we would take the impact of the OPEC cartel and 
oil sheiks out of the American economy, minimize their impact?
  We called that amendment up for a vote. One would think it would have 
been a unanimous vote, but it turned out to be a partisan vote. Not a 
single Republican Senator would support it. To reduce the dependence on 
foreign oil? That makes no sense.
  We need to push for creativity when it comes to energy. We need to 
find renewable, sustainable sources of energy. What is the 
administration's answer to the energy crisis? Drill in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. An argument can be made there is not enough 
oil there to sustain us for any period of time. Over 20 years, the oil 
coming out of there is worth 6 months of America's energy supply. Over 
20 years, it would produce 6 months' worth.
  What happened last week in the Energy Committee? Up came a vote which 
said, incidentally, if there is going to be drilling in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge, the oil better come down to America to help 
reduce our prices. That amendment was defeated. It was defeated on a 
largely partisan rollcall. There were many who said, no, the oil 
companies cannot be told what to do with the oil they take out of a 
wildlife refuge that has been protected for 50 years.
  One wonders about the reach and impact of special interest groups. 
President Eisenhower's Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which we have valued and 
protected for 50 years, is going to be invaded and desecrated to drill 
for oil for America's energy, but this Congress would not say that oil 
would come back for heat and to fuel the cars of Americans. Where will 
it go? Probably to China.
  Think about that for a second. One of our largest competitors in the 
world, energy hungry themselves, may end up with the very oil we are 
taking out of this wildlife refuge we have debated for years.
  The point made about Hurricane Katrina is a good one. How can we 
leave without creating an independent, nonpartisan commission to figure 
out what went wrong? For 24/7, we saw those ghastly images of our 
fellow Americans struggling so that their children could survive this 
flood. We watched corpses bobbing in the flooded waters, seeing people 
desperate for shelter, water, and food. Much like 9/11, we think we 
ought to look into that to make sure we never repeat those mistakes 
again. There is resistance from the White House and from the majority.
  Basically, the avian influenza is another call to arms. If this avian 
influenza, which has been described as inevitable by Dr. Gerberding of 
the Centers for Disease Control, strikes America, the people of this 
country have a right to turn to every single elected official and ask, 
what did you do, knowing this was coming? What did you do to stockpile 
the antiviral agents that might save the lives of the children in my 
family? What did you do to start the vaccine production that might save 
the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans? What did you do back 
in October of the year 2005 when you had that chance?
  So the question is whether we will go home having addressed any of 
those issues: energy, Katrina or avian influenza. This bill before us 
is critically important, but after this bill is finished I hope we will 
move to those three items. I think they are of great national 
significance.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The distinguished Senator from 
Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the 
pending business?

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