[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 76 (Wednesday, June 14, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5828-S5837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE, THE GLOBAL WAR 
       ON TERROR, AND HURRICANE RECOVERY, 2006--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4939, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     4939) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other 
     purposes, having met, having agreed that the House recede 
     from its disagreement to the amendment of the Senate and 
     agree to the same with an amendment, and the Senate agree to 
     the same, signed by a majority of the conferees on the part 
     of both Houses.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the supplemental appropriations bill has had 
a long and arduous course getting here. I congratulate the chairman and 
ranking member for working so hard to get it here.
  This legislation will provide funds to support the brave men and 
women who risk their lives every day in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf 
of our country. The legislation will provide assistance to those in the 
gulf coast still struggling to recover from Hurricanes Katrina and 
Rita, and also will help bolster border security and prepare for the 
threat of bird flu. These matters are all vitally important, so I 
expect the conference report to win broad support in the Senate. It 
should.
  But while I strongly support the goals of this legislation, I also 
have real concerns about the many Senate-backed provisions that have 
been left out of this conference report.
  For example, the Senate included $648 million to bolster port 
security. One would think that protecting our ports would be a priority 
for this Congress, given the ongoing threat of terrorism and the 
grossly inadequate safeguards for our Nation's ports. But the House 
leadership completely rejected any additional funds for port security. 
That is a serious mistake.
  We learned during the Dubai Port debacle, the Dubai Port what I call 
scandal in our country, of the inadequacy of the security of our ports. 
We knew it before that, but it was certainly much worse than we ever 
expected.
  The House conferees almost completely eliminated the relief the 
Senate proposed for farmers who have been suffering from recent drought 
conditions. Many of these farmers, particularly in the Midwest, are 
struggling financially, just as farmers in regions directly affected by 
Katrina. Yet they will be shut out from any assistance under this 
legislation.
  This is very typical. Always the farmers, it seems, when there is an 
emergency, look to the Democrats for help, as they should, because if 
history is any example--and it usually is--Republicans simply don't pay 
attention to farmers' and ranchers' problems.
  I have talked about port security, I have talked about the ranchers 
and farmers, but there is something else that was dropped in 
conference, and that is the proposal to beef up VA medical care for our 
Nation's veterans. As Senator Murray said yesterday and Senator Akaka 
today, our Nation's veterans are in peril, but in this bill the move to 
help them was dropped.
  Another proposal to include compensation to health professionals, 
first responders, and others who may be harmed in the future by 
experimental flu vaccine has also been dropped.
  I wonder why the majority leadership is so opposed to improving port 
security and helping farmers and veterans. I don't understand. They say 
they are concerned about cost. It is hard to take such statements 
seriously when we consider what else has happened in the Senate this 
week. Costs? At the same time the majority was stripping a few hundred 
million dollars to bolster port security, to help our farmers, and to 
help veterans, they, the majority, proposed spending $1 trillion to 
provide a windfall to a handful of our Nation's wealthiest families. 
When I say ``handful,'' I mean that of a country of 285 million or 290 
million people, they want to help, at the most, 12,000 individual 
estates, less than two-tenths of 1 percent. At the same time they are 
asking for this trillion dollars that would have to be borrowed--of 
course, we have borrowed from China, Japan, Saudi Arabia; more than 
half the money we use to finance our country's operations is borrowed 
from foreign countries. At the same time they are dropping help for 
veterans, farmers, and port security, the majority has proposed a tax 
break worth--for example, they say Paris Hilton's tax break alone would 
be in the $14 million-$15 million bracket.
  At the same time they are eliminating these programs I have mentioned 
for farmers, ranchers, veterans, and security for our country, they are 
proposing a tax break for the family of the former Exxon CEO worth $164 
million, all paid for by more debt, largely from countries, as I have 
indicated, such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.
  So I think we should erase from the equation the majority's 
commitment to fiscal responsibility. The Republican majority in the 
Senate has proven, along with President Bush, that fiscal 
responsibility is not part of their mantra. When it comes to helping 
average Americans and the middle class, Washington leaders are all for 
spending cuts. When it comes to handing out tax breaks that explode the 
deficit, they insist no billionaire be left behind.
  I am disappointed by what has been left out of this conference report 
and by the values and priorities these decisions reflect. Still, at the 
end of the day, the items contained in this legislation are vitally 
important. We must support our troops. We must assist the gulf coast. 
We must tighten border security and prepare for a possible bird flu 
outbreak. But this legislation should never be here. Why? Because it 
should have been included in our regular budget. We are in the fourth 
year of the war in Iraq--the fourth year--but he didn't put it in his 
budget. Why? Because it would demonstrate clearly when that budget was 
given to us how much more red ink there was in the budget.
  I read in the papers that Senator John McCain of Arizona is going to 
offer legislation on the bill that we will have before us this 
afternoon, the Defense authorization bill, to no longer let the 
President do that, to no longer use the unusual procedure; that is, we 
are in the middle of the war, we have ongoing expenses, not to include 
these expenses in his budget.
  As I read the paper this morning, Senator McCain said he is going to

[[Page S5829]]

offer legislation to stop that. If that is the case, and I understand 
it, I would certainly join with him. What was done to make this an 
emergency spending bill is wrong. We ought to have that part of the 
budget and debate it like we do everything else.
  I am sorry it took so long to get to the point where we are to get 
the money for the troops, but it is here. I accept that.
  I want to make one other point about what is so unusual about this 
legislation. The Senate voted that they would have an extra $7 billion 
to take care of education and labor issues. That is the Health-
Education-Labor Subcommittee that is operated by Senator Specter and 
Senator Harkin. We have an extra $7 billion. Even with that money, it 
wouldn't keep up with last year's numbers. But the House didn't want 
that. Therefore, the House and Senate couldn't agree in an open 
hearing, like we usually have with a conference report. So what 
happened--sometimes in the middle of the night--is that item was 
dropped, and they came up with something called a deeming resolution, 
which is a mechanism for setting the total level of discretionary 
spending for the upcoming fiscal year, totally apart from the normal 
budget. It is used only when the normal budget process breaks down. It 
obviously hasn't broken down.
  A deeming resolution is an admission of failure and used as a last 
resort. Yet here we are only a few weeks after the House completed its 
budget, and the majority is already throwing up hands in defeat. 
Apparently, they are not even going to produce a budget. That is a sad 
commentary on the state of affairs.
  Mr. President, I will use my leader time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, that is a sad state of affairs in 
Washington. It is very clear that a point of order lies against this 
supplemental. That means someone could raise a point of order, and it 
would take under rule XXVIII a simple majority to overrule because it 
is clear it would properly lie. It remains to be seen if anyone is 
going to raise that point of order, but clearly it is available to 
anyone in the Senate.
  I hope in the future we can have a regular process for budgeting and 
a regular process for conference committees to meet. We have talked 
about doing that before. Under the Republican majority, conferences are 
not really the way we used to do them--publicly. The Republicans run 
these committees privately. There are no public votes most of the time. 
It is a sad commentary how they have run things here, but as I said 
before, during the 4\1/2\ years the President has been in office--I 
guess it is 5\1/2\ years now, I am sorry--we have not had three 
branches of Government. We haven't had legislative, executive, and 
judicial branches of Government. We have had two. We have had the 
executive and judicial branches. There have been no Presidential 
vetoes. There has been no need for a Presidential veto because the 
President gets anything he wants, as indicated with this legislation 
going forward now.
  I hope my friends in the majority will once again recognize 
congressional oversight is important, to have some oversight hearings 
to find out what is going on in Iraq, to find out what is going on with 
domestic spying, to find out what is going on with global warming and 
other issues of that nature, and not have a deaf ear to our 
responsibilities as a legislative branch of Government, a separate but 
equal branch of Government, as so defined by our Founding Fathers.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, we are here today discussing the 
emergency supplemental conference report, which appropriates over $70 
billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Tomorrow we will return to the 
Defense authorization bill that will include more discussion of our 
efforts in those countries. The last week had events that this Senator 
considers very positive: the finalization of a new government in Iraq 
with the naming of Ministers of Defense and Interior, the U.S. 
military's success of killing Al-Zarqawi, and the safe return of the 
President just today from Iraq. While we have had these successes, I 
think it is important for Congress, as we discuss both the supplemental 
bill and the DOD authorization legislation, to keep in mind the 
challenge ahead of us.
  While Prime Minister Maliki has moved forward with his new 
government, we know that national security experts warn that Iraq is 
still in bad shape. I believe that Congress must do its job in holding 
the administration accountable as we consider these two pieces of 
legislation and make sure that 2006 is a year of significant transition 
in Iraq. That is, specifically, that while we have understood the 
challenges and mistakes that have been made, that we need to make sure 
we are moving forward, and we need to make sure we are turning the 
security efforts over to the new Iraqi Government.
  While we have seen some promising developments in Iraq in the last 
week, we need to remind ourselves that sectarian violence in the last 
several months has been on the increase, and that the challenge for 
Iraqi and U.S. forces remains high. The challenge before us as a 
Congress is to remain vigilant on the accountability of the 
administration as we consider this legislation I believe is paramount.
  U.S. ground forces have been stretched and placed under enormous 
stress. Sectarian militias are responsible for waves of increasing 
violence, and there are now over 1.2 million internally displaced 
persons throughout Iraq. And as I said, while we have had some 
successes, not everything has gone as planned. There has been 
mismanagement, contract abuses, fraud in various levels of our 
reconstruction, and some lack of accountability on exactly how U.S. 
taxpayer dollars have been spent. Electricity and oil production are 
below prewar levels. This all has to change.
  This year the United States has been spending about $8 billion per 
month in Iraq, and Congress has appropriated to date about $320 billion 
for Iraqi operations. We need to know where the President is going from 
here.
  Everyone should be thankful that Saddam Hussein is gone, but we 
should learn from the mistakes that have been made so far and rebolster 
our efforts to get more international support for what the Iraqi 
Government and the United States are trying to accomplish. No matter 
where the world community was prior to the U.S. involvement in Iraq, 
everyone should rise to help the new Iraqi Government meet our growing 
challenges. So this Senator wants to make sure that we are reaching out 
and being effective at a broader international effort.
  I call on President Bush to name a special envoy to Iraq to promote 
regional diplomacy and to make sure the United Nations and the World 
Bank are fully engaged. The President could name someone with the 
stature and leverage of former President Bill Clinton or former 
President George H.W. Bush, who was so instrumental in building an 
international coalition before the first gulf war. I believe that again 
today diplomatic collaboration is vital. A special envoy could help 
garner the international support for both Iraqi reconstruction and 
security. As I said, regardless of what foreign governments thought 
about the administration's decision to go to war, everyone should share 
the same desire to help Iraq succeed as a sovereign nation. The 
international donor community has pledged approximately $13.5 billion 
for Iraq and for reconstruction efforts but has only delivered about 
$3.5 billion of that total. That must change. If nothing else, a U.S. 
envoy could make its primary mission the financial contribution by 
these countries to help shoulder the burden of stabilizing this very 
important region of the world.
  Second, I believe the United States should not hesitate in calling a 
Dayton-like summit with our allies, with Iraqi neighbors, with the 
United Nations, to make sure we are moving forward on answering any 
political and security questions that will help in stabilizing the 
region. We should also support the Arab League's plan to hold its own 
international conference on reconciliation in Iraq. The international 
community should work together to help the Iraqis reach a comprehensive 
agreement to guarantee regional security, protect Iraq's borders, 
supplant the militias with Iraqi Security Forces, and revive the 
reconstruction efforts, especially in Baghdad. We cannot allow the 
political process to drift. The international community must demand 
that

[[Page S5830]]

Iraqis continue making compromises necessary to end the sectarian 
violence and to make sure that any amendments to the Iraqi 
constitution, if necessary, take place in short order.
  Third, I believe that the United Nations should become more involved. 
The United Nations should encourage the creation of a U.N. High 
Commissioner for Iraq similar to the U.N. High Representative for 
Bosnia, which was created to work with the international community to 
ensure a peaceful, viable state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Creating a 
U.N. High Commissioner of Iraq could open up the doors for countries 
that might have otherwise been hesitant to participate. The U.N. can 
call on its wide network of trained personnel and specialized 
resources, saving U.S. taxpayers money and providing a genuine boost 
for our efforts in Iraq.
  We must also make sure that we are serious about last year's 
amendment, the Warner-Frist amendment, which declared that ``2006 
should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty 
with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security creating 
the conditions for phased redeployment of the United States from 
Iraq.'' We pushed for greater oversight and required the administration 
to provide Congress with quarterly reports, and while we have received 
some information, the latest reports have not had sufficient 
information about sectarian divisions and the risk of civil war and our 
response to those risks.
  The Department of Defense aims to train and equip about 325,000 Iraqi 
troops and police by the end of the year. I want to make sure that 
Congress, in our budget process, holds them accountable for meeting 
these goals. For the sake of the U.S. troops that are on the ground, we 
must make sure that the Iraqi government knows that we want the 
security responsibilities transitioned to them. And we must make it 
clear that the United States is not going to stay in Iraq indefinitely.
  I take Prime Minister Maliki at his word. He basically has said that 
the Iraqi forces could take complete control of security within the 
next 18 months and that the new Iraqi Government could deal with the 
militias and that the Iraqi Security Forces would take control as 
quickly as possible. I think we need to continue to push that issue and 
to make sure that we are meeting the milestones that will help that to 
occur as soon as possible.
  We also need to make sure that the efforts on reconstruction move 
forward. The United States should help the Iraqis concentrate on 
security and development efforts in certain areas to ensure that we are 
demonstrating meaningful economic progress. I think again particularly 
in Baghdad.

  Protecting the Iraqi people and the civilian infrastructure should be 
our highest priority. Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds alike must have faith 
in their government's ability to provide access to reliable 
electricity, clean water, and proper sanitation.
  We must remember that we have to honor our commitment to our troops--
the U.S. military who have sacrificed so much. And no one on the Senate 
floor will ever forget the awful cost of war. In Iraq, the loss of 
nearly 2,500 members of our Armed Forces, and I am deeply concerned 
about the 18,000 that have been wounded.
  And just as our troops have been stretched to the limit, it is time 
for us to realize that our capacity for veterans' health care has also 
been challenged. Based on credible projections from the independent 
budget, composed by Veterans Service Organizations, the Federal 
Government is underfunding veterans' health care by at least $2 billion 
and the demands on the system are growing.
  In March, the VA told Congress they are seeing 38 percent more Iraq 
war veterans than they had budgeted for. So what is the impact? Some 
veterans are waiting more than 18 months just to get access to VA 
health care, and thousands of others across the country are waiting for 
access to care. As of the last month, more than 2,900 veterans in 
Washington State were waiting over 30 days to gain access to outpatient 
care that they deserve and have not been able to get because we have 
not adequately funded the veterans' health care system.
  Some experts suggest that one-third of the soldiers coming home from 
Iraq seek mental health services, and we need to make sure that we are 
adequately funding mental health. A lack of capacity in the veterans' 
mental health system has caused a VA official recently to remark that 
when it comes to mental health the waiting list renders care virtually 
inaccessible. I believe this is unacceptable and that we have to do our 
job and do not shortchange veterans' health care. We must give those 
who have stood up for us the access to care that they deserve.
  The United States must make sure that it does not ever condone 
indiscriminate or deliberate killings of civilians. The overwhelming 
majority of men and women in uniform are honorable and understand the 
rules of war and requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Any 
accusations of misconduct must be handled fairly by the military 
justice system. We should also play our oversight role here in Congress 
and make sure that Congress is not leaving the investigation of this 
issue simply up to the Department of Defense.
  We need to make sure that Congress is also investigating this issue 
and providing the accountability and oversight that everyone deserves. 
Whether it is detainee abuse or Haditha, we need to make sure that the 
U.S. image is not damaged and our efforts to win the hearts and minds 
both in Iraq and the war on terror are not hurt. We must make sure that 
we have aggressive oversight and accountability of all agencies of the 
Federal Government.
  The United States should be an example of leadership committed to 
treating people humanely and abiding by the rule of law and promoting 
opportunity and a common vision.
  I know that recently when British Prime Minister Tony Blair was here, 
he gave a speech that said: This should be a moment of reconciliation 
not only in Iraq, but the international community. The war split the 
world. The struggle of Iraqis for democracy should unite it.
  I believe that is what we must move forward on now too as we consider 
these two pieces of legislation. Congress must be aggressive in its 
oversight and accountability on these goals for 2006 and in turning 
over control to the Iraqi people. And we must make sure that we engage 
the international community to help us move forward in this effort. The 
United States should lead the way, but it should do so with sufficient 
international support.
  And then I believe we must get on to our larger goals, one that the 
9/11 commission recommended to us when it said: Just as we did in the 
Cold War, we need to defend our ideals abroad vigorously. If the United 
States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, 
the extremists will gladly do the job for us.
  So besides these objectives, we need to move forward in fighting 
terrorism by promoting American ideals.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to commend my colleague from 
the State of Washington for her statement. I believe that she has 
outlined several things that should be taken into serious consideration 
by this administration. A special envoy would be I think a dramatic and 
important step forward in changing the battlefield in Iraq to a more 
constructive environment. I also think the idea of the United Nations 
appointing a high commissioner for this purpose will also be extremely 
helpful. I associate myself with her remarks, and I thank her for her 
observations on this war in Iraq.
  The President visited Iraq yesterday. It was a surprise visit. I am 
sure it did a great deal to help the morale of our soldiers to know 
that our President would take this dangerous journey to be there with 
them, even if it was for a brief period of time. I am looking forward 
to the President's report to the American people today on what he found 
and what he proposes. We are all hopeful that this war will come to an 
end soon, that American troops will come home, and that at some point 
very, very soon, we truly will have our mission accomplished.
  This morning's newspaper informs us that we have lost 2,493 of our 
best and bravest young men and women serving this United States in 
Iraq. I asked a member of my staff to check when we lost 2,000 
soldiers, and the date was October 25 of last year. It appears that in

[[Page S5831]]

a very short period of time, we will pass the 2,500 mark. At the time 
that we recorded the 2,000th military death in Iraq, I asked, along 
with other Senators, for a moment of silence on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate to acknowledge their great contribution to our country and in 
respect for their memory. When the time comes that 2,500 have given 
their lives, I will make that same unanimous consent request. Since 
there are no Republican Senators on the floor at this moment, I won't 
make it at this time, but I want the majority to know that I think, on 
a bipartisan basis, Senators from both parties should come to the floor 
when we have recorded the 2,500th death in Iraq and observe a moment of 
silence in memory of our fallen warriors and in prayer for their 
families whose lives will never be the same because of their loss.
  At that time too we should reflect on those who have gone to serve 
and have returned broken in body and some in spirit. Over 2,000 have 
come back from Iraq with serious head injuries. Many of them are 
struggling now to regain the basic faculties and strengths which they 
need to lead a normal life. Another 15,000 or 16,000 soldiers have 
returned who have lost an arm or leg or other grievous injury. They, 
too, are struggling with their families and with the help of the 
Veterans Administration to get back to a position where their lives can 
return to normal.

  We know we are not spending enough money at the Veterans 
Administration. We promised these men and women, if you swear an oath 
to the United States, if you wear our uniform and our colors, if you 
will march behind the flag for America's security and interests, we 
will stand with you. When you come home, we will be there. If you need 
help in a hospital, we will provide it. If you need help paying for 
your education or your future, we will help you.
  We are not keeping our promise. In too many cases across America, the 
Veterans Administration is not adequately staffed, not adequately 
prepared to meet the returning veterans' needs.
  I have seen it in my State. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a 
serious problem. Men and women who are in combat are under extreme 
stress. They are involved in actions which can leave a lasting imprint 
on their minds. They are separated from their families, some for long 
and repeated periods of time, and some come back needing a helping 
hand. They need to sit down with a friendly counselor, a professional 
who can bring them back through some of the terrible experiences they 
have had.
  I have met with these soldiers, these Marines and others. They are 
brave enough to stand up and say, I need help, and we need to help them 
so that their lives will be restored to normal. Unfortunately, the bill 
we are now considering, the supplemental appropriations bill, doesn't 
include an adequate amount for our Veterans Administration. We tried to 
add it in the conference committee. There was a motion made by the 
Senator from Washington, Patty Murray, to put more funds into the 
Veterans Administration so we would not shortchange our soldiers. It 
was defeated.
  We have been through this before. It was only last year we went 
through the same debate, and finally, after several months, the Bush 
administration came in and said: I guess we just don't have enough 
money for the veterans. And we added some. Why do we go through that 
every year? We know these veterans are returning and they need our help 
and we need to have the professionals there to give them that helping 
hand.
  It is unfortunate that this supplemental appropriations bill is the 
way we fund this war. This is at least the fourth time we have had such 
a bill. These bills are supposed to be for unforeseen emergencies--
hurricanes, earthquakes, things that occur that God has wrought and we 
have to deal with but not for things that we can ordinarily anticipate; 
that is what our budget is for.
  The administration every single year takes the cost of the war and 
puts it in an emergency bill, saying: We were surprised; we still have 
a war going on.
  We should not be surprised. We know that we have been in Iraq now for 
over 3 years and that we are likely to be there for some time to come. 
Putting this in a supplemental appropriations bill allows the 
administration to say it is not part of the ordinary budget; therefore, 
it is not part of the budget, not part of the budget deficit. That is 
not true.
  This $90-billion-plus bill is added to the debt of this Nation, and 
we should be honest with the American people about it. This bill is not 
an honest portrayal of the true cost of this war.
  I am also really disappointed; when there are natural disasters 
across America, one of the first victims is usually an American farmer. 
These are people trying to make a living growing our food and fiber, 
and changes in the weather, whether it is a drought or a flood, can 
make all the difference in the world in their success. I cannot tell 
you how many times in my congressional career I have been asked to come 
to the rescue of farmers across the United States in virtually every 
State in the Union, and I have done it because I know my agricultural 
community is vulnerable as well and a time may come when they need 
help.
  This is such a time. Last year we had a drought in the State of 
Illinois, a terrible drought that cost us dramatically when it came to 
our corn crop and other production. I sat down with the Secretary of 
Agriculture and said, Why don't you help our farmers? We always help 
farmers in these situations.
  He said: I looked at the statistics and, on average, the farmers in 
Illinois are just fine.
  On average? Farmers don't farm on average. They farm their acreage. 
On average you may have one prosperous farmer near one who was wiped 
out in the drought. On average both of them did just fine, but we know 
the reality. The reality is that one farmer and his family are 
suffering.
  I urged this administration to do their best to help when it came to 
this disaster assistance. Over 6,000 producers nationwide wrote to my 
office and the offices of Senators Pryor, Lincoln, Dorgan, Salazar, 
Dayton, and Johnson urging this disaster assistance. Major farm 
organizations supported us. This drought we faced last year was the 
worst in over a century. At least 10 counties in Illinois sustained a 
20 percent loss in corn yield. The value of the Illinois corn crop was 
down $1.1 billion. The Illinois Department of Agriculture estimates 
that drought of 2005 lowered yields and resulted in a $443 million loss 
to producers.
  Now the farmers, coming back in the field, face extraordinarily high 
energy prices because America does not have an energy policy. There has 
been no leadership in Washington. The cost of fertilizer, the cost of 
diesel fuel, the cost of gasoline has gone up dramatically, up to $25 
an acre for farmers over the last several years right out of the bottom 
line.
  What we asked for in this bill was to give the farmers a helping hand 
as we have for the farmers in the Gulf Coast States. I see my colleague 
and friend, the Senator from Louisiana. The farmers in that State we 
have helped, as we should, and Mississippi and Alabama, as we should. 
But I think, when it comes to this national challenge, that we should 
have stepped forward to help farmers across the board. This bill does 
not do that, and I am disappointed.
  There is another element in this bill which I think needs to be 
addressed.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham). There are 5 minutes and 48 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, that element relates to what is known as 
the deeming resolution. That is Senate talk for the budget resolution, 
which is kind of the broad outline of how we will spend money this 
year. Instead of passing the budget resolution as we ordinarily do, at 
the last minute in this conference committee the Republican leadership 
in the House and Senate plugged this resolution into this spending 
bill. It has been done before but not very often. It is an unusual 
approach. What it means is the overall spending limitations for the 
whole budget are now plugged into this special appropriations bill.
  There is nothing sinister or wrong about that on its face, until you 
look at the resolution itself. What they put in as the resolution is 
President Bush's budget. Let me tell you that budget, sadly, is some 
$16 billion below the budget resolution that the Senate approved on a 
bipartisan basis.

[[Page S5832]]

  Let me give an example of what the President's budget will cut. These 
are choices that have been made and will be made in the weeks ahead. 
One of the areas that troubles me most is President Bush's proposal to 
cut funding at the National Institutes of Health. That is the agency of 
our Government that does research on medical diseases and challenges: 
Lou Gehrig's disease, autism, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes--
the list goes on and on. President Bush's budget cut $1 billion from 
the National Institutes of Health since 2003 and continues to cut 
funding there.
  There was a bipartisan commitment in Congress that we would 
dramatically increase medical research, believing that most families in 
America would applaud that expenditure of their tax dollars, and I 
think they would. Now, if we are going to follow the President's 
budget, we will be cutting back on medical research. Any family that 
faces a serious medical illness understands that research is the one 
lifeline you cling to. You pray for the best outcome, you hope for the 
best doctor, but you are also counting on the National Institutes of 
Health and other medical research to be looking for that cure.

  Why would we cut back on it? And we do.
  This President's budget also low-balls the spending for the Veterans 
Administration. As I said before, last year they were proven wrong. It 
means that instead of acknowledging the obvious, when we promise our 
soldiers we will be with them when they come home we try to shortchange 
it and then catch up with them later. It is no way to run a government. 
It is no way to keep your promise to the men and women in uniform who 
served our country so well.
  There is one another particular issue as well that the President's 
budget threatens about which I am concerned. We passed the budget 
resolution and the Senate recognized that the global AIDS epidemic was 
a major priority. Our budget included a bipartisan amendment to 
increase funding for the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria by 
$566 million. On average, $100 million contributed to the global fund 
will mean 630,000 people around the world will have chemically treated 
nets around their beds to avoid malaria, one of the No. 1 killers of 
children in the developing world; 150,000 treatments for malaria for 
each $100 million to the global fund; 80,000 treatments for 
tuberculosis; 370,000 people with HIV tests; 11,000 people with AIDS 
treatment.
  This resolution strips $16 billion out of the budget that we just 
passed, and that means there will be less money to fight these global 
epidemics.
  Why should we care? We should care, not just because of basic values 
that many of us hold that they are our neighbors, they are our brothers 
and sisters, but also because if disease is rampant in the world it 
will visit the United States. If the avian flu becomes an epidemic 
moving from animals to humans in some part of the world, we will have 
21 days before it spreads around the world.
  A century ago many of these diseases didn't survive the voyage on the 
trip from the old world where now they survive the 8, 10, and 12-hour 
airplane trips and come into cities and towns and counties all around 
the world, including the United States, so our efforts on public health 
around the world are not only for the right reason, they are also to 
protect us.
  As this President's budget cuts back on spending, threatens the 
spending for the global fund, unfortunately, people will die as a 
result of it and, unfortunately, we will live in a more vulnerable 
world.
  Budgets are about choices and usually hard choices, but the Senate 
made those choices in March. Unfortunately, the bill before us from 
this conference committee reverses that decision and makes threatening 
cuts in the National Institutes of Health in the areas of veterans care 
and in global AIDS, to mention just a few.
  This President's budget had the deepest cuts in education of any 
President in the last several years at a time when we need schools to 
be the very best for the 21st century to create the opportunity that 
our people and our children certainly deserve.
  Members of the Senate are faced with a quandary. Here is a bill that 
funds the war. Even those of us who voted against the war believe we 
have to provide the resources so our soldiers have the equipment and 
training and supplies they need to come home safely with their mission 
accomplished, and I voted for every penny the President has asked for 
that purpose. But within this is a budget resolution with which I do 
not agree. If you could split your vote on this, I certainly would, 
voting for the money for the soldiers but voting against this budget 
resolution which will force us to make cuts in critical areas of 
importance for America's future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the 
supplemental.
  As I begin, I would like to underscore some of the points the Senator 
from Illinois just made about the disturbing deficiencies in this 
particular supplemental relative to the underfunding of many ongoing 
critical issues that he so eloquently outlined. But I would like to say 
that there are some extraordinarily helpful items in this supplemental, 
which is why I am going to support it, why I was pleased to be a part 
of crafting the supplemental through the appropriations process as a 
member of that committee, and why I would like to say a particular 
thank you to the senior Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, and--I 
see the chairman of the Appropriations Committee on the floor--to thank 
the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, for his work in fashioning 
through this Senate a bill that will bring so much help and urgently 
needed support to the gulf coast.
  It is not too soon for us to do this, considering hurricane season 
started last week and there is a tropical storm out in the gulf as we 
speak here on the floor. Throughout all the gulf coast, from Pascagoula 
all the way to Beaumont and in parts of Florida as well, of course, 
people are sitting on pins and needles, hoping and praying that this 
season that we are entering is not as catastrophic as the one we just 
left and looking to this Congress, looking to this Senate, looking to 
the House, looking to our Governors of our States, to give them support 
and encouragement. That is what this supplemental bill will do.
  Within this supplemental bill, despite the real shortcomings that 
Senator Durbin has outlined and the real dilemma for those who want to 
support the troops in Iraq and support real disaster funds, there is an 
unfortunate choice of having to cut some overall funding that is 
critical to the country. But, from our perspective, representing the 
State of Louisiana--and trying to speak as well as I can for the whole 
gulf coast--we have to get this supplemental passed today.
  The leadership of the Appropriations Committee has tried, on the 
Senate side, to push a robust, strong supplemental bill through to help 
the people of the gulf coast.
  I would like to spend just a moment talking about some of the things 
that we were successful with in this bill, starting with $3.7 billion 
to repair and armor hurricane-protected levees throughout Louisiana, in 
the southeastern part of our State as well as other parts of our State.
  The reason this is so critical is, as I have said many times, it 
wasn't the hurricanes which necessarily did us in in Louisiana, 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but what really put us at risk and what 
really caused substantial damage and loss of life--1,300 people died in 
the last hurricane season in the United States, a record we could not 
even believe we would hit or a number we would hit, not in the year 
2006, not with the warning we have, not with all the sophisticated 
technology we have today, but 1,300 people lost their lives in large 
measure because the Federal levee system collapsed. It broke in 
multiple places because of underfunding over the years and because of 
lack of integrity in the design. That report was released only 12 weeks 
ago. Repairing those levees, armoring them, and building them better, 
we are not able to do on a wish and a prayer. We need to do that with 
real money, and the real money is in this bill.
  I thank Senator Cochran and the administration for stepping up and 
realizing that their original request was

[[Page S5833]]

billions of dollars short. Without this extra money, the people of 
south Louisiana and in large measure the gulf coast of Mississippi--
which, by the way, is protected by the levee systems and the coastal 
system of Louisiana--would be very vulnerable. We have added almost $2 
billion through the process from the original $1.9 billion. Without the 
strong support of Senator Byrd and Democratic Members as well as the 
leadership of Senator Cochran, this would not have been possible.
  I also wish to say that a very strong part of this bill we will find 
in the $5.2 billion for community development block grants. The 
original request by the administration was only about $4 billion. While 
we were extremely happy for that because it was directed to Louisiana, 
we were able to put an additional $1 billion for community development 
block grants to make sure that Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, to some 
degree Florida, and, of course, Louisiana get the help they need, not 
through FEMA, which even on its best day is not working very well, not 
through other agencies that have not been designed or are not 
functioning well, but directly to our Governors and to our legislators 
and local officials who can put this community development block grant 
to good use--rebuilding 200,000 homes in Louisiana that were destroyed, 
10 times more than Hurricane Andrew, which was the most expensive storm 
to hit Florida or the United States prior to Hurricanes Katrina and 
Rita. We are very grateful and very hopeful that this community 
development block grant funding can go to rebuilding, to setting up a 
new approach to rebuilding houses.
  The saddest thing was that many people didn't have insurance because 
they weren't in the flood plain. They didn't have insurance because 
they had already paid for their homes. Their homes were paid in full, 
on high ground, not in a flood plain. Then the levees broke, and 
middle-income families, wealthy families, and poor families lost their 
largest asset--their security for their retirement, their emotional 
security, having worked a whole lifetime to build assets of a home, 
washed away. For some parents and for some grandparents, this was the 
way they were going to send their children or grandchildren to college. 
Gone. Without this community development block grant, they have no hope 
of restoring their asset or rebuilding their equity--no hope.
  Mississippi has developed a plan that is slightly different from 
Louisiana's plan. I am not sure either one of them is perfect, but it 
is the plan they came up with. Our job is to get them the money and 
urge them to do the very best they can with giving people a start.
  This is just a picture of one house. I am sure Senator Cochran and 
Senator Lott have others. I will literally show you pictures of homes 
of all different shapes and sizes. Over 275,000 of them look like this. 
Again, it wasn't just a regular hurricane, which we are used to in the 
gulf. When the levees broke and a tsunami, a wave of 20 feet of water, 
poured into the city of New Orleans out of Lake Pontchartrain, this is 
what was left. That is what people came back to.
  People ask: Senator, why isn't everybody scurrying around rebuilding? 
Well, if this were my house--and my brothers' and sisters' houses look 
like this; four of them lost their houses; this is what they look like. 
When they showed up, I, frankly, know how they felt. They do not know 
where to begin. Even if they can clean up their house, every house to 
the left and every house to the right and every house as far as the eye 
can see looks like this, and they are not sure they want to be the only 
one back in the neighborhood, with no water, no lights, et cetera.
  This is a problem of huge magnitude for the gulf coast. As I said, 
this is not a place which is inconsequential to the Nation; this place 
is the heart of America's energy coast. One of the reasons the price of 
oil is so high is because these hurricanes shut down the oil and gas 
industry for the most part in the gulf when they hit. Anytime a 
hurricane comes to the gulf, we have to relocate within 24 hours about 
6,000 to 7,000 oil workers who make their living on these platforms out 
in the gulf. These are cities out in the gulf. Every time those waves 
kick up, to great credit to the industry, I am not sure we had one loss 
of life. I could be wrong, but I am not sure. I am almost sure there 
was no loss of life to the workers here because we got them off of 
those rigs, tied those rigs down, and buckled down for those storms. 
When the storms pass, we all go back out and we set this up again.
  Not only were these storms category 4 and 5 and we are still only 75 
percent up, but the communities that serve them--like the community of 
St. Bernard where a lot of people live who work in these oilfields lost 
59 percent of their houses, and 90 percent of all their businesses were 
destroyed because the levees broke. We are asking these people who live 
in those houses which you just saw to go out to these rigs every day to 
work to turn the lights on in this Chamber. They do a real good job of 
that. I am proud of the work they do. But this supplemental will help 
them rebuild their homes, rebuild their schools, and rebuild their 
businesses. The least we can do is pass it without any more time lapse 
to give them a chance to get back.
  I hope members of the Appropriations Committee and the authorizing 
committees will really grab this opportunity; that is, we fought to get 
some additional money in this bill, and we ended up with $400 million 
for some alternative housing.

  Let me say as a Senator from Louisiana that I have been through these 
storms. Can we please move past the plan to put people in trailers? It 
is costing the Federal Government $70,000 to put people in a trailer. 
We could practically build a house for $70,000 and let people live 
there temporarily until they can get back into their real houses. It is 
an extraordinary waste of money. We are wasting it at rates that 
stagger people. We have to think about a new way of not putting 
everybody in trailers.
  Another problem with putting people in trailers is when the next 
hurricane season comes along, their trailers could literally blow away 
if they are not tacked down the way they should be, or secured. And 
FEMA has just let all the people living in trailers know that they are 
not to take the trailers with them. Even though they are travel 
trailers, they cannot take them with them if they have to evacuate 
because they might steal them.
  Here we are going to have thousands of people who are living in 
trailers which cost $70,000 each to hook up--and contractors made a lot 
of money off of this system--and the people who have to live in them 
only get a little bit of space to live. Some are living in them with 
three or four children, which makes for an exciting opportunity for 
families. These trailers cannot be moved when the hurricane comes. I 
hope the winds don't get up to 150 miles an hour because we will have a 
lot of trailers flying around. I don't know what is going to happen 
there.
  I am so happy that we could fight for this $400 million. That sounds 
like a lot of money, but considering we are spending billions of 
dollars on trailers, to think maybe we could do this a better way next 
time--that is in this bill.
  Another part in this bill which we fought hard to keep--and we got 
knocked down quite a bit, but we managed to save a piece of it--was for 
the colleges and universities. Mississippi has two colleges that were 
very severely damaged. I believe that is correct. I could be wrong. If 
I am, I will correct the record. But Louisiana has 12 major 
universities--Tulane, Loyola, the University of New Orleans, Xavier, 
Dillard, McNeese on the western side--and 45,000 people are employed by 
these universities, and there are 40,000 students at these 
universities. Dillard University, one of the historic Black colleges in 
our country, a private college with an excellent reputation, small--the 
kids are still at the Hilton Hotel taking classes and eating their 
meals in the dining room of the Hilton Hotel because their whole campus 
was destroyed. Their insurance is slow. They are having a hard time 
getting back. But it is a beautiful, historic campus.
  We have $50 million in this bill to try to give out grants. They have 
borrowed as much as they can. Their boards of directors are fighting to 
keep these universities up and running. Besides the great history of 
these universities, they are the economic engine that is going to pull 
the gulf coast up from its knees and pull it back. If not our 
universities, who is going to do the job?

[[Page S5834]]

Instead of having our universities lay off people, our universities 
should be hiring people. These are people getting good jobs that pay 
$50,000 and $100,000. We need our researchers, teachers, and our 
professors leading the way, and we need our students leading the way to 
rebuild this great part of America. We have some money in this bill for 
that. I am proud that we got bipartisan support for that effort on the 
Senate side.
  Finally, I wish to mention two other things. In the city of New 
Orleans, where the water flooded 80 percent of the east bank of the 
city, one of the facilities we lost was the veterans hospital. We have 
over 400,000 veterans in Louisiana. I think we probably have about 
300,000 in Mississippi. Between the gulf coast of Mississippi and New 
Orleans, we had a very good system of health care for our veterans, who 
really deserve our very best. All Americans deserve good health care, 
but for men and women who spent their early years, their teenage years, 
in their early twenties in foxholes, the least we can do for them for 
defending this country and holding up the flag--today is Flag Day--is 
make sure when their hospitals and clinics are destroyed that we not 
only build them back but we build them back better and stronger. If 
they were too close to the coast, we will move it back.

  This hospital was safely in downtown New Orleans, not anywhere near a 
coast, not anywhere near a lake, not anywhere near the ocean. Because 
the levees broke, that building was flooded, and now we have veterans 
without a hospital.
  The money for that hospital is in this bill. My colleagues have 
committed to pass the prerequisite authorization we need to get that 
done. We will build up in the next couple of months a better health 
care system for veterans in the gulf coast, and do it smartly with 
taxpayer money because we are partnering with LSU and perhaps even with 
Tulane to do a very interesting build of this new hospital that serves 
veterans and the public alike as we rise up with a better health care 
system for the gulf coast.
  Finally, small businesses. I don't know what makes me sadder. I can't 
even decide what is the saddest thing about this because it is all so 
sad. We lost 20,000 businesses. Just as people lost their home, their 
greatest asset, people struggle their whole life to build a business. 
It might not have been a huge business, but it was their business. It 
might not have been a $50 million business, but it employed three or 
four people. It made a living for the business owner, and it 
contributed to the society and to the strength of the community. Many 
of those businesses are gone.
  We have been very slow to recognize the extraordinary magnitude of 
this disaster, saying to our businesses: Just go to the Small Business 
Administration and get a loan.
  I will spend 1 minute on this. Senator Kerry and I sat through 3 
hours of testimony, 7 hours on the ground at a small business tour in 
New Orleans. I want to tell you what people said: Senator, this makes 
no sense to me. I got my loan. I asked for a $400,000 loan. I applied 
for it. After 4 or 5 months, I finally got approved. But I don't really 
need $400,000. My husband and I decided we really only want to borrow 
about $200,000 because we do not want to take on that much debt. We are 
afraid we can't really pay it back. But the Small Business 
Administration told us we have to borrow the $400,000 because if we 
don't, we cannot get a loan.
  That is what is going on whether people want to believe it or not. 
And it gets worse. Not only are they forced to borrow more money than 
they need and more money than they really want, the Small Business 
Administration only sends them, say, $20,000 of the $400,000. Guess 
what their monthly amortization payment is on. It is not on the $20,000 
that they have in hand, they have to pay based on the total amount. 
Every month, they are paying principal and interest on the $400,000, 
not the $20,000 they have in hand. That is the system under which our 
small businesses are operating.
  I am begging the Senate to send more money, not through the regular 
channels, but this money will go through a different channel to give 
different grants and loans to these businesses in hopes we can save 
many of them. Some of them have been lost and can never be rebuilt. The 
business owners have moved and gone to other places. But there are many 
extraordinarily brave business owners who not only want to build their 
businesses back but build their communities back. The least we can do 
is give them programs that actually meet them halfway, that really 
work, and stop burying them in paperwork and redtape, rules that make 
no sense. It is enough to make someone want to quit. I would not blame 
them. But people are not going to quit in the gulf coast.
  As we pass the supplemental, it adds to some additional funding we 
already passed. We will keep working until we get it right, building a 
better school system, a better health care system, building levees and 
support to protect this area because the people of the gulf coast 
contribute much more than they take to the strength of this national 
economy.
  Off of this coast, wealth is created not just for the people who live 
there but for this Nation. We are going to prepare ourselves for this 
next hurricane season, pass the supplemental, and look with confidence 
to the future as we continue to make progress.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Has the time allocated under the order for the 
Democratic side been used?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Harkin has 15 minutes.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am happy to proceed at this point to 
point out some of the changes made in the conference committee which 
enabled us to get a conference report agreed to between the House and 
Senate conferees and to be consistent with the requirements of the 
administration.
  The administration had sent a pretty clear message that a veto of 
this conference report could be expected if the total amount exceeded 
the amount requested by the President for emergency appropriations for 
the war on terror and other needed expenses to help with the recovery 
from the hurricanes that damaged the gulf coast area of our State.
  The Senate Committee on Appropriations had numerous amendments 
offered during the markup of this legislation, many of which were 
related to other issues and other needs, all of which our committee 
thought were legitimate and requests which should be met.
  In the conference with the House, it became apparent we were going to 
have to yield on some provisions we agreed to and put in our bill. The 
House, likewise, recognized their bill was not perfect either, it could 
be improved, and some of the Senate suggestions for additional funding 
in some areas were agreed to by the House.
  We wound up with a conference report which recommends $94.43 billion 
for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, principally in connection with 
the war on terror; hurricane recovery benefits are made available, 
principally to the gulf coast region of our country; preparations for a 
possible pandemic flu problem, which has been a cause for concern in 
which funds were requested by the administration specifically for that 
purpose; and other activities related to these principal subjects.
  The level of funding is $14.47 billion below the Senate-passed bill 
but is $2.48 billion above the House-passed bill.
  There are some specific areas of interest that were debated in the 
Senate which I am pleased to report were recognized by the conference 
committee as worthwhile expenditures and investments of Federal funds. 
Principally, in our State of Mississippi, the Navy retirement home 
located in Gulfport, MS, which was virtually destroyed by the 
hurricane, there was no specific request made by the administration for 
funding of that. The House hadn't put money in the bill to deal with 
that specific issue. The Senate did include substantial funding, over 
$100 million, to deal with that problem. The conferees agreed, yielded 
to the Senate on that issue. The administration has indicated it will 
not veto the bill over that provision.
  There are other similar provisions along the line where the Senate 
had insisted that funds be included. Agriculture disaster assistance, 
for example, had not been requested by the administration.
  While keeping with the challenge to restrict the funding for benefits 
related to damages caused by hurricanes, we did provide, for example, 
$37.5 million

[[Page S5835]]

for the Foreign Service Agency to respond to damages caused by the 
hurricanes of 2005. Neither the President's request nor the House-
passed bill included similar funding.
  Of this spending, $5 million is for additional salaries and expenses 
incurred by the Foreign Service Agency to respond to damages, and $32.5 
million is for the Emergency Conservation Program. Real benefits are 
going to flow from this conference report because of action the Senate 
had taken and defended successfully in conference with the House. We 
are assured the administration will use these funds to try to help 
those landowners and those involved in production agriculture recover 
from the devastation of these hurricanes.
  There are other individual accounts, including one for $25 million 
for the working capital fund of the Department of Agriculture. This was 
requested by the President, I point out.
  This conference report reflects a fair compromise between what we 
were trying to do in the Senate bill, point out some areas we thought 
had been underfunded or left out of other requests by the 
administration for disaster relief, and still deal with the reality 
that we have to be responsive and we have to stay within the restraints 
dictated by good conscience, good government.
  This conference report meets that challenge. I am pleased to be able 
to present it on behalf of the Committee on Appropriations for the 
Senate and urge it be agreed to.
  I don't know if any Senators have requests for time for debate of 
this bill, but inasmuch as there is time remaining on the Democratic 
side, I will reserve the remainder of the time allocated to our side of 
the aisle.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are we under an 
order right now with a time limit? I have the floor, but I would like 
to know how much time I am allotted.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 15 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Fifteen minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. President, first of all, I want to say I have a great friendship 
with, a liking of, and respect for the chairman of our committee, the 
distinguished Senator from Mississippi. It is always a tough job when 
you are bringing an appropriations bill out on the floor, especially a 
supplemental. And I respect the effort that has gone into this. 
However, I must say that there are a lot of things that I find very, 
very problematic about this appropriations bill.
  Again, there are some critical provisions included in this bill. 
There is funding for our Nation to prepare for a possible avian flu 
pandemic. Obviously, there is funding for our men and women in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, and we want to support them in every way, with the 
equipment they need to maximize their safety. There is also funding for 
the U.S. Institute of Peace democracy-building activities in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. So there are things in here that are very necessary that 
we must provide.
  On the other hand, however, there are some very disturbing and I 
think sort of ominous precedent-setting things that are in this bill 
that could lead to some real problems down the road.
  I am extremely disappointed this bill includes a deeming resolution 
for the budget. First of all, it should not be in here. Now, I tried to 
explain a deeming resolution to one of my constituents the other day. 
Try to explain it to someone. Try to explain it to someone who is not 
sort of in this body--a ``deeming'' resolution. You see, we pass a 
budget, but then the budget cannot get passed by the House, so, 
therefore, we then are going to pass a deeming resolution to deem 
something that we cannot pass as passed because we deem it passed.
  Now, just try explaining that to the average citizen of this country. 
They would think we have lost all our marbles in trying to do something 
like this. I am hopeful we will reach some point in the Senate and the 
House where this is absolutely forbidden in the future: putting 
something like a deeming resolution on an emergency supplemental.
  Now, we want to pass an emergency supplemental for the reasons I just 
mentioned, but then to have to swallow something which makes no sense 
whatsoever and which, quite frankly, is harmful and which the Senate 
rejected before flies in the face of what I think is legitimate 
legislative activity.
  So the Senate voted 2 months ago overwhelmingly in favor of an 
amendment that Senator Specter and I offered--bipartisan--to add $7 
billion to the President's budget. The Senate voted 73 to 27. That is a 
pretty overwhelming vote around here: 73 to 27. The aim was clear: to 
allow Congress to fund our education, health, human services, and labor 
bill. And it was not an increase but just to fund it at the same level 
as in fiscal year 2005, 2 years ago. It was not radical. We were not 
asking for a lot, not asking for the keys to the Treasury.
  We said: Let's just spend the same amount of money we did 2 years 
ago, not even accounting for inflation.
  The Senate said: Let's stop cutting the programs that support working 
families, people with disabilities, and students who cannot afford 
college. Let's end the cuts to research on cancer and other diseases.
  Seventy-three Senators agreed. They voted that way. Then the Senate 
reconfirmed its position in conference. When this deeming resolution 
was proposed, Senator Byrd offered an amendment that proposed the same 
thing as what we passed in the Senate--the Specter-Harkin amendment. 
Again, a majority of the Senate conferees voted to add the $7 billion. 
Two times the Senate demanded this additional funding for health, 
education, and labor programs, and human services.
  Now, where is the $7 billion? Where did it go? It just vanished--
vanished. It is gone. The deeming resolution--again, try explaining 
that to someone, to the average person. The deeming resolution that is 
in this bill is at exactly the same level as the President's budget, 
which we rejected in the Senate 2 months ago.
  So what happened? The conferees from the majority party went behind 
closed doors and stripped out the $7 billion. It is as if the 73-to-27 
vote in the Senate never even happened.
  So what does this mean? What is the impact? Well, let's look at what 
happens. Under this now, the President's budget will cut funding for 
cancer research by $40 million. Eighteen of the 19 National Institutes 
of Health will face reductions.
  This deeming resolution will now cut Social Services Block Grants by 
$500 million. It completely eliminates the Community Services Block 
Grant program. These are the two biggest discretionary programs for the 
poor. They are kind of the glue that holds the human services delivery 
system together.

  The number of children served by Head Start will be reduced. The 
Meals on Wheels Program will be cut.
  In education, this deeming resolution, now following the President's 
budget, will have the largest cut to Federal education in 26 years. The 
No Child Left Behind Act will be underfunded by $15.4 billion. Title I, 
serving our most needy children in school, will be frozen at last 
year's level.
  I could go on and on, but this is what we mean by passing a deeming 
resolution on the supplemental.
  At a time when Congress has just passed an additional $70 billion in 
tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest in our country--and we had an 
effort a week ago to eliminate estate taxes, but, fortunately, we 
stopped it. But I hear it may come back, another tax cut that will 
benefit only 3 families out of every 1,000 families in America. We are 
going to have another attempt, and that will cost us, I understand, a 
half trillion dollars over 10 years. And it will go only to the 
wealthiest in our society. Yet we are going to cut Meals on Wheels, 
Head Start, cut education, title I, eliminate Community Services Block 
Grants, cut funding for the National Institutes of Health.
  What is going on here? Have we taken leave of our senses? This 
deeming resolution, as I said, was not in the House bill, and it was 
not in the Senate bill. There is a rule. We are supposed to

[[Page S5836]]

live by rules in our society. We have laws. People obey laws. We have 
rules to live by so we know what the game is, so we know what we are 
expected to do.
  We have a rule that says anything that is added in conference that 
was not in either bill is subject to a point of order. A point of order 
now lies on this floor against this bill.
  Now, why isn't anyone raising the point of order? Well, I am told 
that the point of order will not be raised because the Chair, you see, 
will have to agree with the point of order that this violates rule 
XXVIII; therefore, the whole bill then falls.
  What does that mean? Why, it means they would have to go back to 
conference and strip out the deeming resolution. That might take a 
couple of hours. Then it would come back, and then we would have a 
supplemental appropriations without this ``deeming resolution.''
  So why isn't rule XXVIII being invoked? Why aren't we raising the 
point of order? I understand that what would happen is the Chair would 
uphold the point of order, the majority party would move to override 
the ruling of the Chair--and that takes 51 votes--and I am told the 
majority party would have the 51 votes to override the ruling of the 
Chair, and that would do away, basically, with rule XXVIII.
  Well, what is so wrong with that? What is the good of having a rule 
if you do not abide by the rules? I am reminded of one of my favorite 
lines from ``Finnegan's Rainbow.'' It is a play. It goes like this: For 
life is like cricket. We play by the rules. But the secret which few 
people know that keeps men of class far apart from the fools is to make 
up the rules as you go.
  That is what we are doing around here. We are making up the rules as 
we go. You never know from one year to the next what the rules are 
going to be. The rules are only what the majority party deems the rules 
ought to be at any given point in time. That is no way to run a 
democracy. It is no way to run a legislative chamber. It is no way to 
run the Congress.
  So we have this threat: If you raise a point of order--which should 
be raised--that whole rule falls. I question whether the rule is even 
worth having any longer.
  A couple of other notes.
  How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three minutes 50 seconds.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, let me just note that upon the passage of 
this supplemental appropriations bill, Congress will have provided over 
$318 billion for the war in Iraq--almost all of it through emergency 
supplemental appropriations.
  Now, again, we must support our troops. They have no control over how 
their operations and equipment are funded. So we want to support them. 
But I have grave concerns about the way the Bush administration has 
gone about funding the war--only through emergency supplemental 
appropriations.
  The war in Iraq has gone on for 3 years now. There have been eight 
separate emergency supplemental appropriations measures to fund our 
operations in Iraq.
  This is how an emergency is defined by our own budget rules: 
``Suddenly, quickly coming into being . . . not building over time . . 
. an urgent, pressing and compelling need requiring immediate action . 
. . unforeseen, unpredictable and unanticipated and not permanent.''
  That is how our budget rules define ``emergency appropriations.'' 
Three years? War in Iraq? It is unforeseen, unpredictable, 
unanticipated, sudden? Wait a minute, this does not meet the definition 
of ``emergency.'' It is not unforeseen.
  Why isn't the President sending us, then, a regular budget at the 
beginning of the year to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Because 
they do not want to admit how much money they are spending there. They 
want to mask it.
  I am going to support this bill. I will vote for it because it has 
some things in it and because I want to make sure our troops have the 
equipment. But I want to go on record as saying I also have a 
resolution that I introduced in the Senate that says three things. It 
says: No. 1, we will not establish permanent bases in Iraq; No. 2, we 
will not seek to control the oil in Iraq; and, No. 3, that we ought to 
begin redeploying our troops out of Iraq by the end of this year.
  So this may be the last time I will vote for any appropriations for 
the Iraq war, because I believe we should start withdrawing and 
redeploying our troops by the end of this year. I want to give them 
everything they need for their safety and their well-being, but enough 
is enough. And I also want to make it clear that this may be the last 
time I will ever vote for an emergency supplemental appropriation for 
the war in Iraq.
  If it comes to the regular appropriations process, we will have our 
hearings. We will see what is happening. But under an emergency, we 
don't do that. The war in Iraq, we were told by Mr. Wolfowitz before it 
started, would be paid for by oil; the cost to the American people 
would be minimal. That is what Secretary Rumsfeld told us. We are up to 
$318 billion and counting. It is time that Secretary Rumsfeld and this 
administration start making some tough decisions about what they can 
cut out of the Pentagon's bloated annual budget in order to fund the 
war in Iraq.
  Quite frankly, we know there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse 
going on in Iraq. It has to end. As long as we keep having emergency 
supplemental appropriations, we will never eliminate the waste, fraud, 
and abuse.
  We all strongly support our troops. I will vote for this bill because 
it contains funding for the troops, for avian flu, and other items, but 
it is time that the war in Iraq only comes through the regular 
appropriations process. It is time for us to start getting our troops 
out of there by the end of this year.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. COCHRAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator allow me to propound a unanimous consent 
request for the purpose of getting time? I ask unanimous consent that 
upon all time being yielded back or all time being used relative to the 
supplemental, that I be recognized for 15 minutes under morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, may I ask what the unanimous consent 
request was? I couldn't hear.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator requested 15 minutes as in morning 
business at the conclusion of the debate on the supplemental.
  Mr. HARKIN. I reserve the right, only if I could ask that the same 15 
minutes be allotted to the ranking member of our Budget Committee, the 
Senator from North Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. GREGG. I withdraw my request, then. I find that to be a request 
that has very little relevance.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The request is withdrawn.
  The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, it is not my intention to use all of the 
time available to this side. I have had no requests for speaking time 
for any Senator on our side on the conference report. So the 
disagreement can be obviated very quickly with my assurance that I am 
going to speak for no more than 3 or 4 minutes, and then I was going to 
yield back all the time remaining under this conference report under my 
control. I advised the Senator from New Hampshire of that. That is why 
he made the request, because it was not going to infringe on anybody's 
time, considering the order under which we are operating.
  I will proceed to conclude the debate on the conference report and 
let everybody work out their differences on who speaks next and for how 
long.
  I am pleased we were able to get a bipartisan agreement on this 
conference report. Senate conferees worked together, Republicans and 
Democrats, to identify the priorities, to have suggestions fully 
considered and fairly considered. I am proud of the work product of our 
Committee on Appropriations in the Senate. I am particularly grateful 
for the support of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who is 
the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. He cooperated in 
every respect in terms of scheduling hearings, working to make sure 
that our

[[Page S5837]]

committee had all the facts we needed to proceed to making a decision 
on the President's request.
  Our staff members are the very best. We are very fortunate in the 
Senate to have the benefit of the services of Keith Kennedy, who is 
staff director of the Appropriations Committee, and his counterpart on 
the other side, Terry Sauvain, is equally dutiful and dependable in his 
efforts on behalf of our committee. Chuck Keiffer managed much of the 
floor activity and was at the markup session that we had that ran way 
past midnight the night we were completing action on this conference 
report. He was very supportive of the efforts and the needs of our 
committee. Senator Ted Stevens, former chairman of the full committee, 
is chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He and his 
counterpart, Dan Inouye, are two of the finest Senators who have ever 
served in the Senate. Their responsibility was to deal with the request 
relating to defense issues. This was mainly a Defense appropriations 
request the President submitted for the war on terror. But there were 
other provisions as well related to that conflict and our effort to 
defend our security interests. There were State Department accounts 
involved. We had the benefit at the hearings of the Secretary of 
Defense, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, all talking about the needs for funding of our activities to 
protect our country's security.
  The chairman of the subcommittee that has responsibility for those 
accounts in the State Department and foreign operations is Mitch 
McConnell, who is a distinguished Senator from Kentucky and our 
assistant leader. He turned in yeoman work, along with his counterpart 
on the other side, Pat Leahy of Vermont. These are examples of how the 
committee came together, Republicans and Democrats, and made the 
decisions that had to be made, negotiated hard and diligently with the 
House to work out differences between our two bills and considered 
every request the administration made of the Congress for these 
appropriations.
  I want to single out two other subcommittee staff members. All of the 
clerks worked hard because almost every subcommittee had a role to play 
in shaping the final outcome. But on the Defense Subcommittee, Sid 
Ashworth, who is the clerk, Charlie Houy, who is the Democratic 
counterpart on that committee, are so dependable and so experienced and 
dedicated to their jobs, it reflects great credit on the Senate for 
people such as those I have mentioned today who worked so hard on this 
conference report. I am delighted to be associated with them and 
honored to chair the committee. They make my job so much more easy than 
could possibly be imagined because of their skill and their 
professionalism and the hard work they turned in to achieve the result 
we did, not just to pass this bill but to serve the interests of our 
country.
  I am happy to recommend this conference report to the Senate. I yield 
back the remainder of the time available under the order.

                          ____________________