[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 134 (Thursday, December 7, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11429-S11442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FAREWELL TO THE SENATE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, about 2 months ago, late Sunday afternoon, 
when no one was around, I came into this Chamber to carry out a time-
honored tradition, nearly as old as the institution itself. I came over 
to this desk and I opened the drawer and the tradition of carving your 
initials or your name into the bottom of that drawer was carried out. 
As you open these drawers, as many of us do when we are sitting here 
listening and debating, you tend to look at the names that are there. I 
see Robert Taft at the bottom of this drawer, Hugh Scott, Everett 
Dirksen, Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, and the list goes on. And 
with the quiet here, you begin to reflect a little bit. But then all of 
a sudden you start thinking, as you are carving your name into that 
drawer, that there aren't very many things that you leave that are 
permanent around here, but that is one.
  It confronted me, as it hits me with such force today, that our time 
here, indeed, is temporary, and that we are here to occupy these seats 
at these desks just for a period of time. We can never forget that we 
don't own these seats. We don't own our presence in this U.S. Senate. 
It is with that recognition that I address my colleagues today.
  I have reflected a lot over the last several weeks, and I think back 
to that nonpolitician who came to this city, this body, 12 years ago 
with a whole lot of hope for the people of Tennessee and a whole lot of 
hope for this country. I think back to the people who put their trust 
in that man's hands.
  Indeed, it was 12 years ago that Karyn and I came to Washington. I 
came as a citizen legislator with absolutely no, no political 
experience. I was a doctor. I spent 20 years in the profession of 
healing. In my acceptance speech back 12 years ago, I pledged at that 
time to my fellow Tennesseans that Karyn and I would go to Washington, 
that we would serve for 12 years, for a limited amount of time, and 
that we would go back to Tennessee and live under the laws that we 
helped enact. And that is exactly what we will do. We are going to go 
back to Tennessee in a few weeks, and I am going to live in the very 
same house that I was born in 54 years ago.
  I still remember coming to the Hill early on, and I know a number of 
new colleagues are coming to the Hill. I think back, and my former 
chief of staff, who was very green at the time--I just told you how 
green I was at the time--I remember standing right in front of the 
Capitol, and we had to stop somebody and ask: Where is this building 
called the Russell Building? And they told us. Luckily, I don't think 
they knew who I was at the time.
  But I did come believing deeply in the promise that I had made. I 
believed in my heart that with determination--and I had seen it in 
surgery and in the operating room--one can make a difference in this 
world. Today, I look back and I see that I was only half right. One 
person can make a difference, and each of us do in our own ways. But to 
make a difference, we can't do it alone.
  I certainly couldn't have done it without people who stood both 
behind me and with me over the last 12 years. I agree with all of my 
colleagues. I know they know Karyn. And, indeed, she has honored me by 
her unwavering love each step along the way. Her grace in carrying out 
her official responsibilities, her commitment to the development of 
character in our three boys, her moral support, her spiritual support 
for me and our family, she has been that guiding river that has kept us 
on course as we traveled two very different professions occupations: 
that of being a heart surgeon and that of serving as a U.S. Senator.
  Our three boys most of you know as well. You have watched them grow 
up over the last 12 years: Bryan, Jonathan, and Harrison. Obviously, we 
are so proud of each of them. I will speak directly to them because 
they, as with anybody growing up, faced the huge challenges of growing 
up in public life, taking in stride the various swipes that the media 
takes from time to time, but doing so with real dignity and strength. 
The boys know that Tennessee is home. They have been able to take in 
the rich texture that is afforded all of us as we raise children here 
in this town. And they have grown from three young boys when we came 
here to three young men.
  I want to thank staff members, and we never do that enough, those 
staff members who have been with me from the very beginning: Emily 
Reynolds, Ramona Lessen, Bart VerHulst, Cornell Wedge, Mark Winslow, 
and Carol Burroughs. I thank my series of chiefs of staff: Mark Tipps, 
Lee Rawls, Howard Liebengood, Eric Ueland, Andrea Becker, Bart, and 
Emily, and all those who have come in and out of these doors since that 
very first day 12 years ago when, yes, I, like somebody every cycle, 
was 100th in seniority. It is the staff that puts the needs of this 
country before their own needs. And with a lot of hard work and a lot 
of passion and a lot of hope, they have accomplished so much.
  A few moments always stand out in my mind, and I will not recite all 
of them, but a few do stand out in my mind, victories like the $15 
billion in funding for global HIV/AIDS, which I have seen firsthand the 
power in the hundreds of thousands and, indeed, I would say millions of 
lives that have been saved by American leadership there; the 
prescription drugs for seniors; confirming John Roberts and Sam Alito.

  And through all of this time, we have borne witness to days that have 
literally changed the face of this Nation and the face of this Capitol, 
things like the Capitol shootings,
  September 11, anthrax and ricin, and Katrina. But through all of 
that, we kept it the best way we could, with hard work and a lot of 
hope.
  I thank my colleagues who placed their faith in me to serve as their 
leader. As I said four Decembers ago, when you elected me, it was and 
has been ever since, every day, a very humbling experience. On that day 
4 years ago I quoted Proverbs: In his heart a man plans his course, but 
the Lord determines his steps.
  And what fulfilling steps have been afforded me as leader. I cannot 
let today pass without expressing gratitude for the close friendships 
of people who are here and some people who have passed through this 
Chamber: Howard Baker, the great Republican leader from Tennessee whose 
shoes as majority leader I have done my best to fill. He has counseled 
me over the years both as a Senator and as leader. His sage advice I 
have relied upon many times in those capacities.
  You have to be very careful going around a room, but behind me, 
people like Pete Domenici, who became a mentor to me on that very first 
day in 1995; and people like John Warner, whom we saw in action just a 
few minutes ago on the floor and, yes, on the Gates nomination; and 
former Senators, people like Don Nickles who so wisely set the stage 
for the Republican tax cuts of the last several years; my colleague and 
confidante, Mitch McConnell, whose wisdom and service

[[Page S11430]]

has been indispensable to leading the Republican majority, who ascends 
in party leadership, who will be sitting at this desk in a few weeks, a 
temperament and skill with which no one is better prepared; my 
Tennessee colleagues, Fred Thompson and now Lamar Alexander, two great 
statesmen with whom I have had the honor to work side by side as we 
have addressed the needs of our constituents.
  I thank the two Democratic leaders, Tom Daschle and now Harry Reid. 
As Harry and I have said publicly many times, everybody sees the public 
contrast between one leader to the other, between Harry and me. But 
what people don't see are the daily conversations, the private 
conversations off the floor where views are mutually respected, where 
burdens are shared, and where family is discussed. Karyn and I leave 
this body with tremendous respect for Harry and for Landra, for their 
contributions to this country.
  To all my colleagues who have reached across the aisle and across 
differences when you could, thank you.
  Twelve years ago, it was people in Tennessee who took a big chance, 
who took a great chance. They took a chance on a doctor who was little 
known, who had never served in public office, obviously had never run 
for public office. They began by opening their minds and then opening 
their homes and then opening their lives and then opening their hearts. 
And I am eternally grateful to them for giving me that trust and taking 
that chance.
  On this floor many times I have mentioned my parents and I mentioned 
my dad. Dad used to say: It is a powerful thing to know where you are 
going in life, but it is equally powerful to know where you have come 
from.
  To the good people of Tennessee, I thank you for never letting me 
forget where I have come from. You never let me forget those promises 
made on the trail over a decade ago, the promises that have been the 
heart of everything that we have done. Yours are the voices that have 
called out to me from Mountain City in east Tennessee to Memphis in the 
west, the people out there who are working hard every day to raise a 
family, to grow a business, to run a farm, to get ahead. As long as I 
live, I will never forget those voices. Those voices are clear, those 
voices of common sense that called out and counseled me time and time 
again.
  Two people who won't hear me thank them today are two who were at my 
swearing in but who have since passed on: my parents Dorothy and Tommy 
Frist. They have left a fascinating legacy that the five children--I am 
the last of those five--have been the beneficiaries of, a legacy of 
honesty, of civility, of fairness, of hard work, and of service. And we 
all--at least I try to--struggle to capture what they did in passing 
that legacy on to our children.
  My own brothers and sisters, Mary, Bobby, Dottie, and Tommy, all in 
their own way, with their children and grandchildren, have been 
successful in living lives of service to others. Many friends are here 
today, including Jean Ann and Barry Banker and Denise and Steve Smith. 
It is that friendship, that team, that gives people, I believe, the 
strength and foundation to carry out that mission of serving this great 
country.
  In the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time reflecting about 
the future of this institution. As I prepared to leave here and return 
to my home, many people have asked, don't you ever regret the promise 
that you made to serve just for 12 years, two terms? Did you regret it 
when you became chair of the RNC or majority leader? If you knew then 
what you know today, would you have made that promise 12 years ago? My 
answer is yes, because I believe today, as I believed then, in the 
ideal. It is, I guess, that ideal of a citizen legislator. It might 
seem bittersweet today, but it is right.
  I hope that in some way, as I leave here, that my service--people may 
say it was effective or ineffective, and that is all very important--is 
an example of someone who had never, ever run for public office, never 
served before, and who had spent his lifetime--in fact, twice as much 
time as I spent in the Senate--pursuing another profession, coming here 
like so many people today and starting at 100th in seniority over in 
the basement of the Dirksen and rising to majority leader over that 12-
year period; an example of a committed doctor who is able to find 
purpose and fulfillment in serving others, as all of us do as Senators, 
through elected office. I hope that will inspire others to seek office 
and to do public service. It is my hope that those who come to serve 
after me as a true citizen legislator will bring perspective and new 
ideas in a small way, a serendipitous way, or maybe a large way, and 
make this country a little better and contribute to this institution.
  You have heard me talk about, and champion at times, term limits. 
Most people don't like them. They were popular for a period of time. I 
am a great believer in self-imposed term limits. Every morning you get 
up, you say I have 3 more years, 2 more years, or 1 year, or a half 
year, or 10 days, and you know that as every day goes by. If you don't 
have an understanding that there can be an end, you tend to forget 
that. Self-imposed term limits are the extreme exception here today, 
not the practice of this city. I think as a consequence we are moving 
toward a body that has too much of a 2-year vision, governing for that 
next election, rather than a body with a 20-year vision governing for 
the future.
  As we consider the future of the institution, I urge that we ask 
ourselves what it is our forefathers envisioned. Is today's reality 
what they foresaw? I urge that we consider our work in this Chamber. 
What is it all about? Is it about keeping the majority? Is it about red 
States versus blue States? Is it about lobbing attacks across the aisle 
or is it about war rooms whose purpose is not to contrast ideas but to 
destroy or is it more? When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, 
delegates considered how best to structure this legislative branch of 
new Government. They were determined not to repeat the mistakes made in 
the Articles of Confederation, which had a single, unicameral 
legislature. Speaking to the convention, Virginia's James Madison set 
forth the reasons to have a Senate. His words:

       In order to judge the form to be given to this institution, 
     it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by 
     it.

  These were, first, to protect the people against their rulers and, 
secondly, to protect the people against transient impressions into 
which they themselves might be led.
  I think we need to remember this vision of the Senate that the 
Framers established--that the Senate is to protect people from their 
rulers and as a check on the House and on the passions of the 
electorate. Let us not allow these passions of the electorate to be 
reflected as destructive partisanship on this floor.
  Taking the oath of office, which many of our good colleagues will be 
doing shortly, commits each Senator to respect and revere the Framers' 
dream. To my successor, Bob Corker, and to all the Senators who will 
follow me in service to this great Nation, I urge you to be bold, make 
the most of your time here, and look at problems with fresh eyes and 
the steely determination to give the American people a reason to 
believe in you and to hope for a better tomorrow.
  To serve in this grand institution has been a labor of love. To lead 
here is a challenging responsibility that is set out before me and each 
of us. It has been a profound honor to serve.
  I will close with just one story. It happens in southern Sudan. As 
many of you have heard me say, because it is such an important part of 
my life, I go to Sudan just about every year--a thousand miles south of 
Khartoum and 500 miles west of the Nile River. I started going there in 
the mid to late nineties. I had been there operating back in the bush, 
and I was ready to come home. Actually, it was in January. The State of 
the Union was a few days off. We finished operating in a hut. I 
operated by flashlight late at night. Somebody in a little hut said, 
``I want to see the American doctor.'' Well, I didn't want to go. I 
wanted to get back home. I wanted to get on the plane and come back 
home, but I went to see him. I was tired. I walked over and pulled the 
curtain aside--the rug that was used as a curtain--and in the back 
there was somebody smiling. You could see the bandages on his hands and 
legs, and I went over; and through a translator I said, ``I am the 
American doctor.'' He said, ``Thank you to the American doctor.'' As a 
physician, I am accustomed to that because when you

[[Page S11431]]

operate on somebody, they say thank you. So I said, ``you're welcome,'' 
and I got ready to leave. He was frustrated and he said, ``Come back.'' 
He said. ``Thank you for being the American doctor.'' I still didn't 
quite get it. He picked up his arm and said, ``I lost my arm fighting 
in this civil war. I lost my leg 8 days ago. It was about 2 years ago 
that I lost my wife and my 2 children. Thank you for being the American 
doctor.''

  And then I started to get it. He was saying thank you for being the 
American doctor. Then he said, basically, that: It is you who are a 
representative of America, and for democracy and liberty and freedom I 
sacrificed my wife and my children and my arm and my body. Thank you 
for what you represent.
  Then all of a sudden, it began to hit me. To me, that image cuts 
through just about everything that we do. It is about preserving as 
best we can the great hope that we represent here in America, which is 
embodied in this institution, the freedom, the responsibility, the 
opportunity, the compassion, and the basic decency that is at the heart 
of who we are as Americans. Beyond Democrat or Republican--which came 
out of the campaign--now is the time to again remind ourselves and 
state again and again that beyond being Democrats and Republicans, we 
are Americans. Together, we are one people. It is our responsibility to 
uphold the dream and protect that hope for every American and indeed 
the people around the world who seek that freedom.
  I opened by saying that our time here is temporary; we are just 
passing through. Now is the time to close. Your patience has been 
generous. As I have spent a lifetime learning, to everything there is a 
season. We say that and hear it and tend to repeat it when there are 
changes. But to everything there is a season, and my season here draws 
to a close. Tomorrow is the time for birth and rebirth. Tomorrow is a 
day and a time for new rhythms.
  My dad did a great thing that I shared with some of you. Each of us 
should do this for our children or for the people we care about. He 
knew he was going to die in the next couple of years. We asked him to 
write down his thoughts, advice, and counsel for the next generation--
not just his kids and theirs, but for the great-great-grandkids that he 
would never see, a simple 4 to 5 pages. He ended that letter to his 
great-grandchildren with the following words:

       The world is always changing, and that's a good thing. It's 
     how you carry yourself in the world that doesn't change--
     morality, integrity, warmth, and kindness are the same things 
     in 1910, when I was born, or in 2010, or later, when you will 
     be reading this. And that's a good thing, too. Love, 
     Granddaddy.

  So under the dome, it is time for fresh faces and fresh resolve. 
Change is good. Change is constructive. The Senate changes, the people 
who serve here change; but what doesn't change is that every one of us 
who serves believes deeply in the genius of the American democracy.
  It is with the deepest appreciation that Karyn and I thank you all 
for 12 wonderful years. There are no words to describe the honor it has 
been.
  I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, parting really is sweet sorrow. Mr. 
President, thank you very much for being here today honoring not only 
Senator Frist, our majority leader, but the entire Senate.
  On the surface, some may ask how the Senate and the operating room 
are the same. What do they have in common? Senator Frist has shown us 
that helping people is what he did as a doctor and what he has done as 
a Senator. Serving others is a trait as we have observed by knowing 
this good man is that he learned from his family. His father was also a 
doctor. As a young man he was obviously academically very talented. He 
wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He went to Princeton 
University, which shows that he is someone who is talented academically 
and socially. He graduated from that great American learning 
institution and decided he was going to go to Harvard, which speaks 
well, again, of his intellect and, of course, his ability to get along 
with people. His surgical training came at Massachusetts General 
Hospital and Southhampton General Hospital in England.
  Senator Frist was a pioneer, but he learned his transplant surgery 
from the pioneer. I have heard Bill Frist talk about Norman Shumway on 
many occasions--the first doctor to perform a successful heart 
transplant in the U.S. Senator Frist--then Dr. Frist--started 
Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Heart and Lung Transplant 
Center. I don't know if anybody knows--I am sure someone knows--how 
many heart and lung transplants Senator Frist has done, but most say it 
was nearly 200. Think about that. Some of these operations took many 
hours, and some of them took days.
  I heard Dr. Frist talk about those first transplants, where he 
actually went and got the organs and personally brought them back to 
the operating room.
  Things have changed since then. Pioneer, doctor, Senator Frist has 
and will write a lot about his success as a surgeon and as a Senator. 
And not only will he talk with his family and his friends about this, 
things will be written about his service as a doctor and as a Senator.
  When we talk about these nearly 200 transplants, we are talking about 
200 human beings whose lives have been saved by virtue of his talent. 
Senator Frist helped hundreds of people continue their lives. Here, as 
a public servant, a Senator, he has affected the lives of millions of 
people.
  I have had the good fortune of serving with Senator Frist during his 
12 years in the Senate. I knew him before I became the Democratic 
leader and, as all of you know, I spend a lot of time on the floor and 
I worked with him very closely.
  Over the years, we have had our ups and downs. It has been tough. 
These jobs, I can tell my colleagues up close, are not real easy. We 
have had problems over budgets, over committee structure, disagreements 
about schedules--oh, yes, about Senate rules. I have never once 
doubted--never once doubted--that what Senator Frist was doing he was 
doing because he believed in his heart it was the right thing. That is 
why I, Harry Reid, at his home on a very personal level, told Senator 
Frist he should run for reelection. I don't believe in term limits. I 
truly believed then, as I do now, that he should have run for 
reelection. I told his good wife Karyn the same thing in her home, in 
their home.
  I have come to learn a number of things about Bill Frist. He loves 
medicine. He has done his work in the Senate. But the thing that is 
first and paramount in his mind and his heart every minute of the day 
is Karyn and his three boys.
  All of you out here have seen our fights publicly, and we have had 
them, but they have been fair. I can remember only once has Senator 
Frist ever raised his voice at me, and it was right from here because, 
even though I didn't mean to, he thought I had said something that 
reflected upon his family, and I apologized to him. This man loves his 
family and is an example of how people should treat their family.
  Karyn is a wonderful woman. She has treated my wife--my wife is a 
very shy person. She has always been very shy. Karyn has taken good 
care of her, and I will always, Karyn, appreciate that.
  In the years that go on, I, frankly, will never think about or, if I 
try, not remember any of the differences we had on the Senate floor, 
but I will always remember the friendship I have developed with the 
good man from Tennessee, a citizen legislator.
  Senator Frist, Karyn, I wish you the very best. You are a good man. I 
love and appreciate everything you have done for the country and for 
me.
  (Applause.)
  The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority whip is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I, on behalf of all the Members on this 
side of the aisle--and Senator Reid acknowledged the same as well--am 
grateful for your presence here today. Being here today to help honor 
our outgoing majority leader, I know, means a lot to him. It means a 
lot to all the rest of us.
  Rare is the person who rises to the top of one profession, not to 
mention two. We are honoring today a man who has done that--he has 
risen to the very top of not one but two extraordinarily difficult 
professions. And I am absolutely certain, as all of his colleagues are, 
that he will excel in whatever challenge he takes on next.

[[Page S11432]]

   Bill Frist embodies what our Founding Fathers meant when they spoke 
of ``citizen legislators.'' By his early forties, he had already risen 
to prominence as a renowned heart and lung surgeon. But Bill felt a 
call to public service. After achieving enormous success in that field, 
he came to us in the Senate and rose to the top here as well. He had 
not sought the leader's office, but in some ways it could be argued 
that it sought him and, once again, he was top in his field.
  After 4 years, Bill has been an effective and courageous leader. I 
have been here for a pretty long time now, Mr. President, and I can 
honestly say that the last 4 years have been some of the most 
productive years in the Senate that I have seen.
  Under Bill Frist's leadership, we have made the lives of people 
across America better and safer. More opportunity lies ahead for 
today's children than ever before. Most of all, Bill has never relented 
in leading this Senate to fight the war on terror. America is more 
secure thanks to his tenacity and thanks to his talents.
  Bill is leaving us, as we all know, sticking to his promise to the 
voters of Tennessee to serve only two terms. Legend holds that 
Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer, became ruler of Rome at the behest of 
his fellow citizens. But after leading them to victory against 
invaders, he gave up the mantle of power and returned to his farm.
  Whether Bill returns to medicine or continues to serve the public in 
some other way, we can be sure of this: He will continue to be one of 
America's great leaders. And if he does return to public office, it 
will be because he was asked by his fellow citizens to serve and to 
lead.
  Words such as ``sacrifice,'' ``duty,'' and ``service'' mean something 
to Bill Frist. This Senate and this country are the better for it.
  It has been a joy to know Bill's lovely family--his wife, Karyn, and 
his three sons, Harrison, Jonathan, and Bryan. They are all proud of 
their father and husband.
  I am going to miss you, Bill. It has been a great honor working with 
you every day over the last 4 years, and it will be an honor to take 
the baton from Bill to lead Senate Republicans during the 110th 
Congress.
  Just as Kentucky and Tennessee share a border 320 miles long, Bill 
and I share a bond as Senators, party leaders, and, yes, as friends. I 
can see that all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle feel the 
same way I do. It is sad to see you leave. You have done a magnificent 
job. People come and go in the Senate over the years and, candidly, I 
guess some of them didn't make a whole lot of difference. But you did, 
and you will be remembered with great pride by all of us. Thank you for 
your service.

  (Applause.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I join in this chorus of salutations and 
praise for the retiring majority leader. I listened carefully to 
Senator Frist's recollection of his public service, and I noted the 
first item on his agenda was the $15 billion in the fight against 
global AIDS. It is an issue on which we joined together many times, an 
issue where President Bush showed extraordinary leadership, and there 
was extraordinary bipartisan support for what he was trying to achieve.
  As one reflects on his life and his background, it was no surprise 
that led the list. Senator Frist dedicated his time before the Senate 
to the healing arts, and I think he brought some of that same 
dedication to this role in the Senate, trying to use his post as the 
Senator from Tennessee and as a leader in the Senate to heal the world 
and our Nation. I thank you for all your efforts in that regard.
  I know when he came to this job, it was thrust upon him rather 
quickly. I know he had his critics, and there might even have been a 
few on this side of the aisle from time to time, but, by and large, I 
think his leadership has been symbolized by a lack of cunning, a lack 
of sharp elbows and an effort to try and patch up our differences and 
get things done. Once again, you were the healer when you had the 
chance to do it.
  I have traveled to Africa, as he has, probably not as often. I have 
seen some of those dusty villages where there is no one to be seen for 
miles around. But I cannot imagine your taking your surgical skills to 
those villages and those huts and operating under a flashlight, hour 
after hour, day after day, week after week. That defines Bill Frist, in 
my mind--a person who may not have been recognized by anyone on the 
road to that village, did some good, and left a legacy that will be 
remembered.
  To you, to Karyn, to your family, let me add my voice in saying you 
left a great legacy in the Senate, and I wish you all the very best.
  (Applause.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, former Senator Lyndon Johnson used to 
say about himself that having Lyndon Johnson as majority leader was 
good for the United States of America and it hasn't hurt Texas one bit.
  When I think of our country and Bill Frist, I think of lower tax 
rates, I think of two Supreme Court Justices, I think of a record 
number of judges who would interpret the law, rather than make it up as 
they go along. I think of the personal imprint of Senator Frist on the 
prescription drug Medicare benefit millions of Americans need and are 
enjoying, and I think of the $15 billion generous gesture of this 
country toward Africa to combat HIV/AIDS, which would not have happened 
were it not for Bill Frist.
  When I think of Bill Frist and Tennessee, I think of our new TVA 
board to keep our rates low and reliable. I think of our ability to 
deduct our sales tax from Federal income tax and dozens and dozens of 
other things that have been good for Tennessee.
  When I think of Bill Frist, I think of civility, of decency, a good 
smile, hard work, and an ego that is surprisingly under control for a 
Senator in the midst of all of this and an example of which his parents 
would be proud. So I think we can say today, and Lyndon Johnson 
wouldn't mind, that having Bill Frist as majority leader of the U.S. 
Senate has been good for our country and it hasn't hurt Tennessee one 
bit.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join my friends and colleagues in 
paying tribute to a friend and a distinguished colleague. When Bill 
Frist arrived here, there were at least some of us with some qualms on 
this side of the aisle because he ran successfully against one of our 
dear friends, Jim Sasser. So, initially, there was a natural reluctance 
among some of us about this doctor who had defeated a great friend and 
a great Senator.
  But early on, it was clear that Bill was special. As someone who had 
been trained in the medicine, in my own State of Massachusetts no less, 
he brought a new and fresh perspective to our national debates.
  He was obviously a person of impressive skill, and it is no surprise 
that he rose so quickly to become majority leader. The roles of 
Senators and physicians are profoundly different in many ways, but at 
their core their missions are identical to help others to the maximum 
extent of our ability. And that is what Bill Frist has done from the 
day he set foot in this chamber.
  He was one of the first to understand the very real threat of 
bioterrorism to our Nation, and that was well before 9/11 or the 
anthrax attacks. Senator Frist knew first-hand that our public health 
infrastructure was incapable of meeting the threat of a massive natural 
epidemic, let alone a deliberate biological attack. It was a privilege 
to work with him on the first bio-terrorism legislation, which because 
of his leadership we were able to pass before 9/11.
  He has also been a pioneer in the effort to bring modern information 
technology into all aspects of health care, and to end the enormous 
human and financial costs caused by medical errors and by the needless 
administration of health care with outdated paper records. He has also 
helped shine a bright line on the serious problem of health disparities 
in our country.
  He has inspired each of us with his commitment to addressing the 
horrific tragedy still unfolding in the world, especially in Africa, 
because of AIDS. He has dedicated himself to this issue for years, 
giving of himself personally, and urging Congress to act more 
expeditiously. He made time to continue this

[[Page S11433]]

missions of mercy, even after he became majority leader, and I was 
deeply touched by it every time.
  I have had the good opportunity to meet his family, and I know, as 
others have said, where his values come from and how committed he is to 
them. I hope he'll be able to enjoy more time with them now without the 
burden of running the Senate.
  We wish Bill Frist the best as he prepares to leave the Senate. We 
know he will have great success, and we thank him for his service to 
our country. We will miss the majority leader, but we know he will 
continue to use his immense talent to make a very real difference for 
all humanity in the years ahead, and continue to make us proud to call 
him our friend.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wanted to say a few words before the 
leader left. I even hate to call him leader or majority leader. He has 
become a great friend. I don't know how to explain it, but I didn't 
really think coming to the Senate that I would have a chance to meet 
somebody like our good departing leader. I have met all kinds of people 
here. Henry Bellman once said: If you sit down with all 100 of them, no 
matter what you have said about criticizing them, there are no better 
100 men put together in America than the 100 Senators who serve. I 
believe that is true. I am wondering now about whether the Senator 
wouldn't rival military leadership.
  But the point is, I didn't think Bill--I know we can't do that in the 
Senate, use first names--but I didn't think I would ever meet in the 
Budget Committee of the U.S. Senate--sitting in the very last seat 
available was this man whose name is so simple, but I had so much 
trouble with it. Do you remember? I didn't say ``Frist,'' I kept saying 
``First.'' I don't know why, but I did that for a long time, and then 
it became sort of a--people would come up and punch me so I would say 
it right. But whether it is ``Frist'' or ``First,'' I guess they mean 
about the same thing to me. You are truly first.
  What we have gone through personally will not be reflected in the 
Record. People know I have had a few years of illness. It is mostly 
gone now. But I found out he was a superb doctor, and eventually I 
found out there weren't too many better anywhere. That made it easy 
because I had a ready-made doctor and he was the best. And we would 
meet in his office, and people would think it was always business, but 
they had no idea that it was half business, a little bit family--we got 
to know each other's families, and what a terrific and exciting thing 
that was for me--and I got to know about his excellence as a doctor.
  It will be a different Senate, there is no question.
  You have been dealt some cards that are not right. The years you were 
here, the things that were accomplished were not quite presented to the 
people as accomplishments or as big accomplishments, as they are. But 
if there is anybody interested in searching the Record during his term 
and during his leadership period to see what he accomplished, I believe 
you will have to end up saying there was nobody during his time here 
who accomplished more for his State and for the country. I believe an 
in-depth search of what he has done may even rival the best, even 
though he does not know how to legislate, and there is no question 
about that, and he does not know how to appropriate, and there is no 
question about that. He might not even know how to bring an 
appropriations bill up, and there might be no doubt about that. He may 
doubt it, but this Senator doesn't, and I am his best friend, but I 
have great doubts whether he knows how to get an appropriations bill up 
and passed.
  But I still believe the business of the Senate is not done in those 
very overt ways that people think. It is done as you sit down for long 
hours on a conference report and come out with a health bill that all 
of a sudden is better than anything we have had before. When you find 
out who did it, it might not have been named for the Senator or for the 
chairman of this or that, but you will find out that for many hours, 
many trips were taken to his office, and many times, he said: Wait and 
we will do it in the morning, and I will tell you how to do it. And 
that happened.
  I could go on for much longer, but I really wanted him to know that I 
just waited for my time. Being the fifth or sixth eldest here in 
seniority, I waited for my time here, and I didn't want to wait until 
tomorrow or the next day in fear that I would not find time or that the 
Senate would not accommodate. So I thought I would, as usual, be late 
for a next appointment, but I have a good excuse for being late for 
this next one.
  I had to come here and say goodbye in a very interesting way, 
although it is not a goodbye. But I do think it is true that this will 
be a very major change in our friendship, in the way we react to each 
other, and the time we get to spend with each other. So it is an 
occasion, this leaving of the Senate, because you won't come back very 
often. Even though you say you will, you won't, and we won't get to see 
you. I really believe we will remember you, and probably we will call 
you more times than you will call us because I think we may just from 
time to time figure out more times than you will that we need some 
advice, and it will probably run in your direction, not in ours, in the 
ensuing years.
  Good luck in whatever you do. It is not going to be this little 
return to being a country doctor, if that is what you are saying. You 
can't sell me on that. You are not going to be a little country doctor; 
you are not even going to be a regular doctor. You are going to do 
something much bigger than that. It is just waiting. Somebody is going 
to place it in front of you, and then you will do it and it will be 
something big and exciting for America and for our people, probably 
more exciting than you did here, so that will be a third one--one, the 
heart transplants and all that, one here with us, and then you will 
have a third one. In the meantime, you can do a lot of duck hunting, no 
problem with that. You can probably go with me, if you want. But if you 
shoot too well, I won't bring you anymore because it is embarrassing. 
It has to be sort of a modest hunt, not so superb that I am 
embarrassed. So we will have to work that out some way. And your son--
he can't come anymore because he shoots too well. It is truly not the 
right thing to do. He should not be hunting with an old man like me. No 
way. But if it happens, we will accommodate it some way.
  Having said all that I should and much more, I will say goodbye and 
thank you.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                               Jim Talent

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise on the floor to pay tribute to my 
very good friend and colleague, Senator Jim Talent, who will be leaving 
the Senate next month.
  I have known Jim for over 20 years, since he was minority leader in 
the Missouri House of Representatives. Throughout all these years, when 
he was in the State legislature and in the House as chairman of the 
Small Business Committee when I was chairman of the Senate Small 
Business Committee, I found Jim to be unfailingly a man of honesty, 
integrity, and hard work. He has been a wonderful friend and colleague.
  I am going to miss him very much, and many people in Missouri are.
  We all know that Washington can change a person, but it hasn't 
changed Jim. Jim still has the same commonsense Missouri values he 
brought with him to Washington. He still has the same calm, polite 
demeanor. He still has strong convictions and a work ethic. As I said 
to our folks back home in Missouri, in an arena of show horses he has 
been a work horse.
  I was with him on the night he got the news that he lost the 
campaign. He was a man of unfailingly good humor and courage. And 
still, he thanked his Lord, his friends, and graciously accepted his 
fate.
  I have a feeling and hope that public service will see much more of 
Jim Talent somewhere, sometime. And whatever he decides to do in the 
public or in the private sector, the qualities he has

[[Page S11434]]

demonstrated to so many of us in the Senate will be one he will carry 
with him.
  He served in the Senate for only 4 years, but when you look at his 
record of legislative achievements, he has had so many positive impacts 
on people's lives. It is hard to believe he could cram all of that into 
4 years.
  He has been a leader on national security, energy, and criminal 
justice.
  As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jim worked to 
extend production of the C-17 line, allowing 30,000 workers across the 
country to keep their jobs, and more importantly to give our military 
strategic lift capability which they need to move troops and equipment 
to very difficult to reach places.
  Jim also cares about our troops in battle. He sponsored legislation 
to end predatory lending to active servicemembers and their families. 
The new law just took effect 6 weeks ago. Some of our soldiers were 
paying almost 400 percent interest on money loaned to them. Thanks to 
Jim Talent, the rates are now capped at 36 percent. I trust that 
applies to the Marines as well.
  Last year, Jim worked very hard to include a renewable fuel provision 
in the Energy bill. On a bipartisan basis, under his leadership, the 
United States will produce up to 7\1/2\ billion gallons of renewable 
fuels with ethanol and biodiesel. That will be implemented by 2012.
  Jim's work in this area will only become more important as we see in 
the future America continuing to face high energy costs and our attempt 
to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
  Another accomplishment Jim will be known for is something which is 
extremely important in our State of Missouri, and this work--again on a 
bipartisan basis with the Senator from California--was to fight meth. 
Meth is a drug that has been destroying lives and communities across 
our State for many years and now even across the country.
  The Combat Meth Act has helped stop the supply of meth ingredients to 
dealers through the ban on over-the-counter sales. You see a 
significant reduction in meth lab busts. It shows that we are finally 
beginning to make progress against this drug.
  Obviously, I have to mention his other bipartisan successes, such as 
the sickle cell disease bill and the Emmett Till bill.
  On a narrow focus, Jim and I have worked together on many 
transportation and economic development projects to serve our State of 
Missouri, including the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, the Page 
Avenue Extension in St. Charles, and countless others throughout the 
State.
  I should also mention that my friend Jim Talent has put forward some 
terrific proposals that he has been working on that have been enacted. 
His effort to allow small business employers to pool together to form 
association health plans comes to mind, and those of us who have been 
working to change the law so that small business employees and their 
families will have access to the same kind of insurance benefits that 
employees of major corporations have will not give up the fight. We are 
going to continue with his great leadership in mind.
  I am sure the next Congress will follow up. This idea should be 
central to any discussion of expanding health care coverage to the 
uninsured.
  Jim, as we prepare to say goodbye to you now from this floor, thank 
you for your years of devoted service to our State, to our Nation. With 
heartfelt gratitude, on behalf of my wife Linda and I, we wish you, 
Brenda, and your children the very best in future endeavors. And I know 
for a fact that there will be great successes ahead.

  I yield the floor.


                 Appropriate Level of Military Funding

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, my great friend and colleague from 
Missouri has an Intelligence Committee meeting to go to. So he went 
ahead and did his kind tribute before I give my speech, and those who 
are not aware of that may have thought that maybe they would be able to 
get in short tributes and avoid the long farewell speech. That is not 
true.
  I will devote my time to a substantive and very important subject--
the appropriate level of funding for America's military. It is an issue 
that I have worked on and fought for since I went to the House of 
Representatives in 1993.
  I am grateful for my friend's remarks, and I want to say that I have 
always enjoyed serving in legislatures, in part because of the 
collegial nature of the service. When you are done, yes--it is the 
legislation that you worked on that you want people to remember, but 
what you remember are the friendships and the associations and the 
bonds that you have made. And, fortunately, those do not end with your 
service. I look forward to continuing to visit with my friends in the 
Senate for years to come. I hope to be able to work with them in other 
venues on issues of importance to America. Nothing is more important 
for America than her security.
  Mr. President, America has the most capable military in the world by 
a large margin; in fact we have the best military that has ever served 
any nation at any time in human history. We should be proud of that; we 
should especially be proud of the men and women who make America's 
military what it is. But it would be wrong for us to believe that 
because our military is the best in the world or even the best ever, 
that it is as capable as it needs to be. True, America is many times 
stronger than other nations, but its responsibilities are many times 
greater as well. If Denmark's military is inadequate, it doesn't matter 
that much, even to Denmark; if America's military is inadequate, it 
matters tremendously, first to America, but also to the hopes and 
aspirations of people throughout the world.
  We must understand the importance of this issue very clearly, without 
the distortions of ideology, politics, expediency, or wishful thinking. 
Like it or not, the progress of the international order towards peace 
and democracy depends on the reality and perception of American power. 
Like it or not, America is the first defender of freedom in the world 
and therefore always a prime target for those who hate freedom. And 
like it or not, while there are many tools in the basket of western 
diplomacy, the underpinning of them all is an American military 
establishment which the world knows is capable of swiftly, effectively 
and at minimal cost defeating every substantial threat to our security 
and to our freedom.
  Judged by this standard--the only appropriate standard--the situation 
is very grave. I have substantial doubt--as good as the men and women 
are--whether our current military establishment is strong enough. 
Because of decisions over the last 15 years driven more by budgetary 
than military considerations, our Army and Navy may well be too small, 
and much of the equipment in all the services is too old and 
increasingly unreliable.
  Whatever the current status of the military may be, there can be no 
doubt that without a substantial increase in procurement spending 
beginning now and sustained over the next 5 to 10 years--an increase, I 
suggest to the Senate today, that must be measured not in billions but 
in tens of billions of dollars above current estimates every year--our 
military will be set back for a generation. We will not be able to 
modernize our forces to the degree necessary to preserve our security 
with the necessary margin of safety.
  I said that our current military is too small and inadequately 
equipped to execute the national military strategy. I will not go into 
detail on this point because my main focus is on the future, but a 
brief explanation is warranted. The world is, on balance, at least as 
dangerous today as it was at the end of the Cold War. And we may thank 
God we are no longer in danger of a massive nuclear attack from the 
former Soviet Union, nor is a major land war in Europe likely.
  Against this, however, we are engaged in a global war on terror that 
will continue for years to come. The end of the Cold War led to the 
emergence of dangerous regional conflicts, such as the conflicts in the 
Balkans. We are in greater danger today of a rogue missile attack than 
ever been before, and China is emerging as a peer competitor much 
faster than anyone believed.
  These conditions either did not exist, or like the conflicts in the 
former Yugoslavia, were suppressed, during the Cold War. As a result, 
the operational tempo of our conventional forces--and that means the 
rate, intensity and duration of their deployment--was far higher 
beginning in the

[[Page S11435]]

mid-1990s, even before September 11, than it had ever been during the 
Cold War. Yet at the beginning of the 1990s, our forces were 30 to 40 
percent bigger than today. For example, the active-duty Army was cut 
from 18 divisions at the time of Desert Storm to only 10 divisions by 
1994. Don't we wish that we had those additional divisions today to 
relieve the pressure in Iraq. The Navy has gone from 576 ships in the 
late 1980s to 278 ships today.
  At the same time, procurement budgets have been cut substantially, 
far greater than the cuts in force structure warranted. The contrast in 
the average annual procurement of major equipment from two periods--
1975 to 1990 and from 1991 to 2000--is startling. For example, we 
purchased an average of 78 scout and attack helicopters each year from 
1975 to 1990, and only 7 each year from 1991 to 2000. We purchased an 
average of 238 Air Force fighters each year from 1975 to 1990, and an 
average of only 28 each year from 1991 to 2000. We purchased five 
tanker aircraft each year from 1975 to 1990, an average of only one per 
year from 1991 to 2000.
  The implications for these dramatic reductions are profound. Older 
platforms--that is what the military calls ships, planes, and 
vehicles--are rather tired and not replaced, which means that force 
structure is reduced. Military capabilities are reduced. If platforms 
are not replaced, the average age of the fleet increases, readiness 
levels drop, and the cost of maintaining the smaller, older inventory 
climbs rapidly because maintenance costs increase.
  For these reasons, I suggest that the current force today is too 
small and its equipment too old, relative to the requirements of our 
national military strategy. That strategy calls for a military capable 
of defending the homeland, sustaining four peacekeeping engagements, 
and fighting two large-scale regional conflicts, at least, at 
approximately the same time. We are supposed to be able to do all that 
at once. I believe the requirements of our military are actually 
greater than this, but in any event, we cannot execute even these 
commitments, and we certainly will not be able to do so in the future, 
within an acceptable level of risk, unless at least the Army is made 
bigger and unless all three services have the money to robustly 
recapitalize their major platforms with the most modern equipment.
  For years, the various services, in response to pressure from 
political authorities to reduce the budget below what they needed, have 
delayed or cancelled new programs. They have been reducing the number 
of new ships or planes they say they need, kicking crucial decisions 
down the budgetary road, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and otherwise 
trying to avoid confronting the approaching funding crisis.
  That crisis is upon us now. We are entering the crucial phase of 
recapitalization. Beginning with the next budget and intensifying over 
the next 5 to 10 years, the services are scheduled to bring online the 
new platforms that will anchor American security for the next 
generation. No one can say these programs are unneeded. The Navy must 
buy new destroyers, must ramp up procurement of Virginia-class 
submarines, must finalize the design and buy large numbers of Littoral 
Combat Ships and design and build a new CG-X cruiser.
  The Air Force must buy large numbers of the F-22. That is our new 
air-superiority fighter. We must maintain the ability to have complete 
air superiority over any combat theater. The Air Force must buy large 
numbers of Joint Strike Fighters or equivalent aircraft. In addition, 
the Air Force must buy out its airlift requirement. That is how we 
transport personnel, equipment and supplies from one place to another 
in the world. It must build a new generation of tankers, must design 
and build a long-range strike bomber to replace the B-52. Our B-52 
inventory is 45 years old.
  The Army must rebuild, modernize or replace almost its entire capital 
stock of ground combat and support vehicles including many of its 
tanks.
  The current procurement budget for all three services is $80.9 
billion. Simple budgetary mathematics tells us that the services cannot 
possibly meet their crucial requirements without an average budget over 
the next 5 to 10 years that I estimate is at least 30 billion dollars 
higher than what we are now spending.

  Perhaps I have gone into more detail than the Senate is willing to 
indulge me in already, but I want to look in some depth at the 
situation of the Navy. Here I speak from what I know because I have 
been the chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower for the last 4 years. 
Currently, there are 278 ships in the U.S. Navy. The Navy shipbuilding 
plan calls for 326 ships by the year 2020, eventually settling down to 
an average of 313 ships. The plan actually calls for fewer aircraft 
carriers, a substantial drop in attack submarines, and fewer major 
surface combatants, but it attempts to make up for these reductions 
with modern destroyers, more capable submarines and what it calls pre-
positioning ships that allow us to establish sea bases, from which to 
project forces ashore, as well as a whole new class of smaller multi-
mission modular vessels called Littoral Combat Ships. There is no 
margin whatever for error in this plan. It is, at best, the minimum 
necessary for our security.
  The Chief of Naval Operations--that is the admiral who leads the 
Navy--has estimated the plan will require a shipbuilding budget of 
$13.3 billion for fiscal year 2008, the upcoming budget year. That is 
$5 billion more than what was spent this year on ship building. His 
plan calls for that figure to escalate to $17.5 billion by 2012. I 
believe these figures are too conservative. It is a good-faith effort 
to calculate what we need but too conservative. I think the plan will 
require billions more each year to execute. Both the Congressional 
Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service agree. In any 
event, I say on my oath as a Senator, that it will be utterly 
impossible, at current levels of defense spending, for the Navy to 
reach and sustain the $13.3 billion figure, to say nothing of the even 
higher sums required in the outyears of the 5-year defense plan and 
beyond.
  Beginning no later than 2009, there will be a growing shortfall in 
the ship-building accounts, in addition to an annual shortfall of $1 
billion to $2 billion in Navy aviation procurement. I expect the total 
deficiency to be no less than $45 billion over the fiscal year 2008 to 
fiscal year 2016 period; and remember, this assumes that the 313-ship 
Navy is sufficient to protect American security, an optimistic 
assumption.
  Lest the Senate get lost in all the figures, let me sum it up this 
way. The Navy, responding to budgetary pressure, has formulated a plan 
for a 313-ship Navy in the future which, frankly, may be inadequate; 
the Navy estimates a figure for funding the plan which independent 
authorities, using long-term historical cost data, believe is far too 
low. And yet without substantial increases in the Navy's procurement 
budget, it is a dead certainty that even that figure cannot be 
sustained.
  As a practical matter, the expected shortfall means the sacrifice of 
two to three attack subs and two to three surface combatants, a 
reduction in purchases of the Littoral Combat Ships, and delays to the 
Sea Basing Program and the new CG-X Cruiser Program, which is necessary 
for missile defense.
  The short of it is that the Navy needs at least an $8 billion 
increase per year in procurement above current estimates. The Marines 
need about $3 billion more. It is not necessary to go into the same 
level of detail with regard to the budgetary picture for the other 
services. The pain has been spread fairly evenly across the service, so 
they are in roughly in the same situation. That means a procurement 
shortfall over the next 10 years of at least $30 billion per year 
adjusted for inflation. Most independent experts believe the number is 
far higher.
  For example, the CBO estimates that the overall defense budget 
shortfall will be no less than $52 billion per year. We should add to 
this the fact that the active-duty Army is clearly too small, as we 
have learned in Iraq. Even in an age of transformation and nonlinear 
battlefields, there are still times when America needs to put large 
numbers of boots on the ground, particularly in the post-September 11 
period. The United States needs the ability to carry on sustained, 
large-scale peacekeeping or low-intensity combat operations, without 
having to send the same units three or four times to a combat theater 
over the duration of a mission. A nation of our size and strength 
should not have to use essentially its whole active-duty Army,

[[Page S11436]]

much of its Marine Corps, and many of its Reserves to sustain 130,000 
troops over time in a combat view.
  In 1992--which was right after Desert Storm--the Defense Department 
stated a requirement of 12 Active-Duty Army divisions. That was before 
the increases in operational tempo of the 1990s and before the global 
war on terror. The Army should surely be at least 12 divisions today. 
It costs approximately $2 billion to stand up and sustain an addition 
to the Army or Marine Corps of division strength so we need to invest 
$4 billion per year in increased force structure for the Army, in 
addition to the $30 billion more in new procurement funding.
  So to sustain our military over the next generation at the 
appropriate level, we need to increase procurement spending and 
spending on the size of the Army by about $34 billion per year. And 
that is above current baseline estimates. It would have to be sustained 
over the life of the current defense plan and beyond.
  I want to emphasize that this is, of necessity, a ballpark figure. It 
is always difficult to predict precisely the cost of new programs--some 
of which are in the design phase, particularly given the uncertainties 
associated with developing technologies. We will be acquiring this 
equipment over the next 10 to 20 years and needs in technology are 
going to change. We must confront the fact that whatever the necessary 
amount turns out precisely to be, the procurement budgets we are 
projecting today are fundamentally inadequate. We have to ramp up 
spending. We must begin now. And we have to accept the fact that it 
will not be cheap.
  I, also, want to make clear that this additional $34 billion must 
come from an increased overall defense budget. There may be some who 
say that it is possible to cannibalize the rest of the defense budget 
to produce all or most of this additional procurement funding. That is 
a dangerous fantasy. The money cannot come from the supplemental 
appropriations bills. Those are necessary to pay the day-to-day costs 
of the war and may not have been adequate to do that. The money cannot 
come from reducing the readiness budget because that budget is 
overstressed already. It cannot come from reducing the number of 
service personnel because the military is already too small. It can't 
come from reducing salary and benefits. We have to retain the best 
people. Besides, Congress is far more likely, and properly in my view, 
to increase personnel benefits rather than reduce them. Take a look at 
the last 7 years. Total spending on defense health care, for example, 
increased from $17.5 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $37 billion in 
fiscal year 2006--an increase of more than 100 percent over the last 7 
years, appropriately so.

  The men and women of America's military deserve good salaries and 
benefits, and so do those who are retired. The savings from base 
closing is not going to supply the additional funds. Those are highly 
speculative. They will not occur, if at all, for many years, and they 
are unlikely to be more than a billion dollars per year.
  Some say we can save money by reducing congressional earmarks or 
additions to the defense budget, and within limits that is true. But 
the total of such earmarks is no more than $3 billion to $4 billion per 
year. Realistically, Congress is not going to give up all of them, and 
at least some number of them are clearly justified because they simply 
restore to the budget items that our service chiefs desperately wanted 
and omitted only because of budgetary pressure.
  Still others will say we can get the necessary additional funding by 
lowering the cost of new programs through procurement reform. I am all 
for procurement reform. I have been for it ever since Secretary Bill 
Perry, who was a great Secretary of Defense, proposed it over 10 years 
ago. We have had several waves of procurement reform since then. 
Several Defense Secretaries have all championed its virtues. We 
continue to hold oversight hearings to pressure the defense industry to 
lower costs. We keep trying to catch people in the Department who might 
be violating procurement regulations. I have chaired some of those 
hearings.
  Meanwhile, the cost of new programs keeps going up. I suggest the 
reasons have less to do with deficiencies in the procurement system, 
bad as it is, than with the stress on the industrial base and on the 
military caused by the budgets that are consistently too low and 
unstable.
  One of the arguments supporting reductions in force in the past has 
been that transformational technology and tactics can empower the 
military to do more with less. The idea is to make each servicemember, 
each plane, ship, and vehicle less vulnerable so we lose fewer of them, 
and more lethal so we need fewer of them. Within limits, that is 
sometimes true. But the best technology costs money, and changing 
technology, tactics, and doctrine makes it more difficult to fix stable 
requirements. Program instability costs money, too.
  Here is an example. The Navy originally planned to procure 32 DD(X) 
next-generation destroyers. The ship has a truly advanced design. It is 
a marvel of transformational technology. But its unique capabilities 
have driven the per ship cost to about $3 billion. As a result, the 
Navy plans to procure only seven new destroyers. The problem is that 
the complexity of the ship's design, the unprecedented capabilities of 
the vessel, and the high price of the best technologies, have all 
driven up cost to the point where the ship is impossible to procure in 
sufficient numbers at current budget levels.
  Another example, the Air Force desperately needs more air lift, and 
it also needs a new tanker aircraft. The Air Force shoulders much of 
the mobility mission, and it also performs the mid-air refueling 
mission. Normally, the Air Force would simply buy more C-17 aircraft. 
It is a perfectly good, modern cargo aircraft. Then the Air Force would 
design and procure a new tanker. But because the service is under 
tremendous pressure to save money, it has decided to develop a cargo-
tanker, combining the two missions into one aircraft. The service 
assures us that it is not going to have any bells and whistles on the 
new plane, and the aircraft will be low in cost.
  Surely, the concept of a cargo-tanker allows the Air Force to claim 
that it will be able to perform both of these missions while relieving 
some of the pressure on its budget. But, again, reality must and will 
eventually bite. As requirements build and changing technologies force 
changes in design, the odds are very high that the cost of the new 
aircraft--if it is to do the combined mission it is supposed to do--
will go up substantially.
  The problem of cost is exacerbated by the stress on the defense 
industrial base. Procurement budgets have been too low for 15 years and 
because of budgetary pressured they constantly change. The Department 
regularly projects what it intends to procure in the outyears of its 
defense plan but then often makes last-minute cuts and changes.
  Under those circumstances, it is no surprise that contractors are not 
investing sufficiently in the defense industrial base. It is shrinking, 
and it is undercapitalized. That means fewer competitors, more sole-
source contracts, less research, and, therefore, higher costs. No 
amount of oversight, reform, or pressure on procurement officials can 
change that.
  The good news is that a robust and consistent commitment to adequate 
funding would soon begin to reverse these trends. Again, I am all for 
improvements in the way we design and build new systems, and those 
improvements can save money. But they cannot work miracles. Sufficient 
and stable funding is not only consistent with transformation and 
efficient use of the taxpayers' dollars, it is necessary to both. If 
Congress were to commit to my proposal, for example, the service chiefs 
and the defense industry would know that substantial new money was 
coming--enough to make it at least plausible they could produce and 
acquire the systems they need. They could budget for the long range, 
knowing that funding would be stable. They could work together in a way 
that would reduce costs instead of trying to pull money away from other 
services or maneuver year to year just to keep vital programs alive, 
and often, in a way, that ends up costing the taxpayers more in the 
long run.
  We must stop thinking that facing reality and funding our military 
adequately is beyond the reach of this great Nation. Yes, the Federal 
Government has fiscal problems. Yes, the two

[[Page S11437]]

major parties have very different views on what to do about those 
problems, but nobody can or does claim that the defense budget is the 
cause.
  Right now, we are spending 3.8 percent of our gross domestic product 
on the regular defense budget. That is a very low percentage 
historically, far less than we spent at any time during the Cold War. 
Under President Carter, we spent 4.6 percent of the GDP on national 
defense.
  If we spent only 4.2 percent now, we could easily fund what I have 
proposed. We would have a fighting chance to support our service men 
and women with the equipment they need and deserve. We could sustain 
the military power that the last two Presidents have used to protect 
our freedom and stabilize the post-Cold-War world. We would send the 
clearest possible message to both our friends and enemies, and to those 
nations who are deciding now whether they are going to be a friend or 
enemy, that whatever happens, whatever the direction our foreign policy 
takes, the United States has the ability to sustain our freedom and the 
hope of freedom for the world.

  To those who worry about the price of strength, I say there is a 
greater price to be paid for weakness. How many conflicts will we 
invite, how much instability will we engender, if we allow this 
restless and troubled world to doubt America's ability to defend 
herself?
  Let's look at the risks of alternative courses of action. If we adopt 
the course I suggest, and it turns out that I was wrong, all we will 
have lost is a fraction of our wealth wealth that would be spent in 
this country on products produced by our workers, for a margin of 
safety that, in the end, we did not need. But if we stay on our current 
course, and it turns out that I was right, how much will we pay then in 
lost lives and treasure, fighting in conflicts that a policy of 
strength would have deterred?
  How big will the deficit become then, in a world made less stable by 
American weakness? What effect will that have on the economy, and not 
just the economy, but on the hopes and opportunities of the next 
generation--our children and our grandchildren--who have the right to 
expect that we are looking out for them?
  Twenty-five years ago, our country was also in a difficult situation. 
Our enemies doubted American resolve. They were challenging us on a 
number of fronts. We had just gone through a period of chronic 
underfunding of the military, probably worse than what has happened 
recently. As a result, the force was hollow, unable to reliably perform 
the missions necessary to protect America. That is why the tragic 
Desert One mission went so wrong in the desert during the Iranian 
hostage crisis.
  When President Reagan assumed office, he faced the situation squarely 
and honestly, and with the support of a Democratic House and Republican 
Senate, he secured two double-digit increases in the overall defense 
budget, and reasonable increases for several years thereafter. On the 
strength of that bipartisan commitment, America's service men and women 
and America's defense industrial base transformed our military into the 
truly dominant force that fought and won Operation Desert Storm.
  A united government sent the message to friend and foe alike that 
whatever our differences about foreign policy, America was still 
willing to pay the price of freedom. It is not too much to say that the 
decisions made in 1981 and 1982 laid the basis for the collapse of the 
Soviet Union, the success of Operation Desert Storm, and the benefits 
of peace and security that we enjoyed throughout the 1990s.
  With this speech, I bring my career in the Senate to a close. I 
believe I can do no greater service to my country than to urge Senators 
not to be dissuaded by the counsels of those who say that what I have 
proposed cannot be done.
  At the beginning of my remarks I stated that America's service men 
and women are the finest who have ever served in any military on behalf 
of any nation at any time. I should have included their families as 
well. I realized that when today, just a few hours ago, I had the 
privilege of meeting with Dana Lamberson and her two children, Kelsi 
and Evan.
  Mrs. Lamberson's husband, SFC Randall Lamberson, was killed in Iraq 
only 8 months ago. Mrs. Lamberson told me that before her husband 
deployed, their family openly discussed the sacrifice which he, and 
they, might be called on to make. I asked her how she was able to bear 
her grief with such grace and fortitude. She told me that when she was 
tempted to be discouraged, she remembered what her husband had always 
said when times were tough: that ``life is only as difficult as you 
make it.''
  Mr. President, I have met thousands of Americans over the last 4 
years like the Lamberson family, not just soldiers and their families, 
but people from every walk of life, who live each day with courage, 
resilience, and optimism. Because of them, I believe with all my heart 
that America's time of leadership is not done.
  I ask the Senate to honestly face the true cost of defending this 
Nation. If we do, if we carry that burden with confidence, we will find 
the weight of it to have been a small thing compared to the blessings 
of peace and liberty we will secure for ourselves, and the hope we will 
give to freedom-loving people all over the world.
  Mr. President, I cannot close without thanking my dedicated staff who 
served the people of Missouri so well over the last 4 years, who have 
kept me going, kept me on time, who are largely responsible for the 
many pieces of legislation which Senator Bond was kind enough to 
mention. I just ask the Senate to indulge me for another moment or two 
because I am going to read their names. I think they deserve it: Mark 
Strand, my chief of staff; Cortney Brown, my scheduler; Les Sealy, our 
great office manager who always got us what we needed; Brian Anderson, 
our IT manager. I am glad he understood it because I never do.
  I thank our legislative staff: Brett Thompson, legislative director; 
Faith Cristol, our great legislative counsel; and my legislative 
assistants: Lindsey Neas, Katie Smith, Heath Hall, Jesse Appleton, 
Katie Duckworth, Christopher Papagianis, Shamed Dogan, and John Cox, 
who works so hard and so well on veterans issues, a man who has served 
this country in many different venues; Andy Karellas, Martha Petkovich, 
and Sarah Cudworth, who did legislative correspondence, grants and case 
work; Peter Henry, who managed the mail; Sarah Barfield, my staff 
assistant; two great Navy Fellows: CDR Dan Brintzinghoffer and LCDR 
Lori Aguayo, two patriots and both outstanding officers; and Mark 
Hegerle, my Energy Fellow who came over from the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission just in time to help me make a real difference on 
the Energy bill.
  I want to thank our press shop: Rich Chrismer, my great 
communications director; Erin Hamm, and Andrew Brandt.
  Casework--we handled over 10,000 cases. I am a big believer in 
casework. This is a big government, and navigating it is hard, and if 
we could help, we wanted to help. I thank Nora Breidenbach, Jenny 
Bickel, Abby Pitlick, Debbie Dornfeld, and Jessica Van Beek.
  And the State staff, we always tried to integrate the work of the 
State staff and the Washington staff, and I think we did it. I thank 
Gregg Keller, our State director; in St. Louis: Kacky Garner, my 
district director; Peggy Barnhart; Rachel McCombs; and Angel McCormick 
Franks; in Kansas City: Joe Keatley, my great district director; Danny 
Pfeifer; Emily Seifers; Greg Porter; and Erick Harris; in Jefferson 
City: Donna Spickert, who was the State capitol director; and Becky 
Almond, my instate scheduler, as well as a great staff assistant; in 
Springfield: Terry Campbell, the district director; Christopher Stone; 
and Coriann Gastol; and in Cape Girardeau: Jeff Glenn, who directed 
that office; and Liz Mainord.
  I also want to thank, as other Senators have done, my family, my 
wife, obviously, in particular, who has shared the highs and lows of 
this job, and my wonder kids.
  Mr. President, it remains only for me to thank my colleagues in the 
Senate for the many kindnesses, personal and professional, which they 
have shown me and my family over the last 4 years.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

[[Page S11438]]

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss a 
number of matters briefly.


                      Honoring Senatorial Service

                               Bill Frist

  First, I want to join my colleagues in paying tribute to our majority 
leader, Senator Bill Frist, who has done such an outstanding job in the 
past 12 years.
  Senator Frist came to this Senate as a real all-American. He has 
displayed extraordinary talents, academically, professionally, public 
service, as a family man, as a friend, at Princeton and Harvard Medical 
School, a renowned heart and lung transplant surgeon, then selected to 
be the majority leader and has taken this body through a very difficult 
4 years and a very productive 4 years.
  A great deal has been said about Senator Frist earlier today. I just 
wanted to add my personal congratulations to him on his service and to 
wish him well.


                             Rick Santorum

  Mr. President, I regret the departure of my distinguished colleague, 
Senator Rick Santorum. He has been really a ball of fire in the U.S. 
Congress. He was elected in 1990 to the House of Representatives, 
defeating a long-term incumbent by literally going door to door in his 
district in the Pittsburgh area.
  He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, reelected in the year 
2000, and has displayed admirable qualities--energy, determination, 
confidence, and the pursuit of his own personal values. There is no 
doubt that Senator Santorum has espoused, articulated, and pushed 
causes he deeply believed in which may not have been popular in many 
quarters, but he was determined to undertake the pursuit of those 
values because he believed in them so deeply. I counseled him from time 
to time to save some of his philosophy for December of the year 2006.
  A famous quotation about President Lincoln; he was asked by a little 
boy, in effect: How do you serve, Mr. President?
  He said: I represent my true beliefs and values 90 percent of the 
time.
  The little boy said: Well, what about the other 10 percent?
  The famous statement by President Lincoln: So that I can represent my 
true values 90 percent of the time.
  It is not unknown in our body to occasionally defer some of the more 
controversial positions. But Senator Santorum didn't do that. He spoke 
his mind and he spoke his heart. Those are rare qualities in public 
life and public service and in politics. For that, I salute him.
  On a personal level, Rick and I have had a superb relationship, not 
only professionally, not only politically, but also personally. A more 
devoted family man could not be found. He has taken this turn of 
electoral results philosophically and in a good spirit. I have had some 
experience on the losing end of elections and, having been there, I say 
that he has responded with great class, with great style. His comment 
earlier this week was: Tough on the family, tough on Karen, tough on 
the children, but now they have their husband back, and they have their 
father back. And he had a big smile and a sense of satisfaction. He 
spoke to the caucus yesterday, and he exuded confidence. He exuded 
personal pride in what he had done. I join him in that. As a colleague, 
I personally will miss him very much. I know that will be the sentiment 
of this body, even those with whom he has tangled in a rigorous way.


                         Confirmation of Judges

  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to move ahead with the 
confirmation of judges.
  We have U.S. District Judge Kent Jordan, of the District of Delaware, 
who has been nominated to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the Third Circuit. He has been approved by the Judiciary Committee and 
is ready for floor action. Nobody has anything adverse to say about 
Judge Jordan. He is endorsed by both of the Delaware Senators, both of 
whom are Democrats. They have a judicial emergency in the Third 
Circuit, and he ought to be confirmed.
  We also have a list of some 13 district court nominations pending on 
the executive calendar. I ask unanimous consent that the list be 
printed at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SPECTER. A good number of these nominees are also in districts 
where there are judicial emergencies. I think that from time to time we 
in the Senate, where we have the responsibility for confirmation, don't 
really take seriously enough the impact of judicial vacancies. The 
courts are busy. The Third Circuit, my circuit, is overwhelmed. 
District Court Judge Jordan ought to be confirmed. My colleagues have 
told me about the problems posed by vacancies in their states. If these 
other 13 districts nominees are not confirmed today, they will languish 
until who knows--January turns into February and February in March. We 
always find a reason around here not to do something. That applies most 
emphatically to the judges.
  It is my hope that in the 110th Congress, we will approach judicial 
confirmations a little differently. I have already consulted with 
Senator Leahy, who will become chairman of the committee. Senator Leahy 
and I have had an excellent working relationship on a bipartisan basis, 
and the record shows it. I don't have to go into detail about that. I 
have recommended to the White House that the it consult with Senator 
Leahy and the Democrats, as well as with Arlen Specter, as ranking 
member, and the Republicans. There is a limited amount of time. We know 
what happens in a Presidential election year.
  Let us make a determination about which judges can be confirmed--
judges who meet the standards and criteria of President Bush but who 
also pass muster in the U.S. Senate on both sides of the aisle. We have 
had vacancies for interminable periods of time. I have discussed this 
with Senator Leahy and with the White House.
  I hope we approach the 110th Congress differently. And before this 
Congress adjourns, the 109th, I hope we will confirm these judges who 
are on the calendar awaiting floor action.

                               Exhibit 1

             Judicial Nominees Pending on the Senate Floor

  The following nominees were all reported out of the Judiciary 
Committee prior to the October recess. Eight of the 14 nominees on the 
floor are in districts where judicial emergencies have been declared.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Nominee                        Position                Date Nominated         Total Days Pending
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Circuit:
    *Kent A. Jordan...............  Third Circuit.............                6/29/2006                      161
District:
    Valerie Baker.................  Central District of                        5/4/2006                      217
                                     California.
    Nora Barry Fischer............  Western District of                       7/14/2006                      146
                                     Pennsylvania.
    Gregory Frizzell..............  Northern District of                       6/7/2006                      183
                                     Oklahoma.
    *Philip Gutierrez.............  Central District of                       4/24/2006                      227
                                     California.
    Marcia M. Howard..............  Middle District of Florida                 6/6/2006                      184
    John A. Jarvey................  Southern District of Iowa.                6/29/2006                      161
    *Robert J. Jonker.............  Western District of                       6/29/2006                      161
                                     Michigan.
    Sara E. Lioi..................  Northern District of Ohio.                7/14/2006                      146
    *Paul L. Maloney..............  Western District of                       6/29/2006                      161
                                     Michigan.
    *Janet T. Neff................  Western District of                       6/29/2006                      161
                                     Michigan.
    *Lawrence J. O'Neill..........  Eastern District of                        8/2/2006                      127
                                     California.
    *Leslie Southwick.............  Southern District of                       6/6/2006                      184
                                     Mississippi.
    *Lisa Godbey Wood.............  Southern District of                      6/12/2006                     178
                                     Georgia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Indicates a Judicial Emergency.

                attorney-client privilege protection act

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I introduced legislation which will 
modify practices of the Department of Justice on the attorney-client 
privilege where the Department of Justice, acting under a memorandum 
called the

[[Page S11439]]

Thompson Memorandum by Deputy Attorney General Thompson, has initiated 
a policy where requests are made to waive the attorney-client 
privilege, and if the attorney-client privilege is not waived, then 
that is considered in the charges brought by the Federal Government, 
and also a commitment that corporations will not pay counsel fees for 
their employees whom they are customarily expected to defend. This is 
an encroachment and a violation of the sixth amendment right to jury 
trial.
  Because of the limited time and other Senators waiting, I will not 
elaborate upon the provisions of this legislation.
  I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill and the text of 
the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                 S. __

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Attorney-Client Privilege 
     Protection Act of 2006''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
       (1) Justice is served when all parties to litigation are 
     represented by experienced diligent counsel.
       (2) Protecting attorney-client privileged communications 
     from compelled disclosure fosters voluntary compliance with 
     the law.
       (3) To serve the purpose of the attorney-client privilege, 
     attorneys and clients must have a degree of confidence that 
     they will not be required to disclose privileged 
     communications.
       (4) The ability of an organization to have effective 
     compliance programs and to conduct comprehensive internal 
     investigations is enhanced when there is clarity and 
     consistency regarding the attorney-client privilege.
       (5) Prosecutors, investigators, enforcement officials, and 
     other officers or employees of Government agencies have been 
     able to, and can continue to, conduct their work while 
     respecting attorney-client and work product protections and 
     the rights of individuals, including seeking and discovering 
     facts crucial to the investigation and prosecution of 
     organizations.
       (6) Despite the existence of these legitimate tools, the 
     Department of Justice and other agencies have increasingly 
     employed tactics that undermine the adversarial system of 
     justice, such as encouraging organizations to waive attorney-
     client privilege and work product protections to avoid 
     indictment or other sanctions.
       (7) An indictment can have devastating consequences on an 
     organization, potentially eliminating the ability of the 
     organization to survive post-indictment or to dispute the 
     charges against it at trial.
       (8) Waiver demands and other tactics of Government agencies 
     are encroaching on the constitutional rights and other legal 
     protections of employees.
       (9) The attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine, 
     and payment of counsel fees shall not be used as devices to 
     conceal wrongdoing or to cloak advice on evading the law.
       (b) Purpose.--It is the purpose of this Act to place on 
     each agency clear and practical limits designed to preserve 
     the attorney-client privilege and work product protections 
     available to an organization and preserve the constitutional 
     rights and other legal protections available to employees of 
     such an organization.

     SEC. 3. DISCLOSURE OF ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE OR 
                   ADVANCEMENT OF COUNSEL FEES AS ELEMENTS OF 
                   COOPERATION.

       (a) In General.--Chapter 201 of title 18, United States 
     Code, is amended by inserting after section 3013 the 
     following:

     ``Sec. 3014. Preservation of fundamental legal protections 
       and rights in the context of investigations and enforcement 
       matters regarding organizations

       ``(a) Definitions.--In this section:
       ``(1) Attorney-client privilege.--The term `attorney-client 
     privilege' means the attorney-client privilege as governed by 
     the principles of the common law, as they may be interpreted 
     by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and 
     experience, and the principles of article V of the Federal 
     Rules of Evidence.
       ``(2) Attorney work product.--The term `attorney work 
     product' means materials prepared by or at the direction of 
     an attorney in anticipation of litigation, particularly any 
     such materials that contain a mental impression, conclusion, 
     opinion, or legal theory of that attorney.
       ``(b) In General.--In any Federal investigation or criminal 
     or civil enforcement matter, an agent or attorney of the 
     United States shall not--
       ``(1) demand, request, or condition treatment on the 
     disclosure by an organization, or person affiliated with that 
     organization, of any communication protected by the attorney-
     client privilege or any attorney work product;
       ``(2) condition a civil or criminal charging decision 
     relating to a organization, or person affiliated with that 
     organization, on, or use as a factor in determining whether 
     an organization, or person affiliated with that organization, 
     is cooperating with the Government--
       ``(A) any valid assertion of the attorney-client privilege 
     or privilege for attorney work product;
       ``(B) the provision of counsel to, or contribution to the 
     legal defense fees or expenses of, an employee of that 
     organization;
       ``(C) the entry into a joint defense, information sharing, 
     or common interest agreement with an employee of that 
     organization if the organization determines it has a common 
     interest in defending against the investigation or 
     enforcement matter;
       ``(D) the sharing of information relevant to the 
     investigation or enforcement matter with an employee of that 
     organization; or
       ``(E) a failure to terminate the employment of or otherwise 
     sanction any employee of that organization because of the 
     decision by that employee to exercise the constitutional 
     rights or other legal protections of that employee in 
     response to a Government request; or
       ``(3) demand or request that an organization, or person 
     affiliated with that organization, not take any action 
     described in paragraph (2).
       ``(c) Inapplicability.--Nothing in this Act shall prohibit 
     an agent or attorney of the United States from requesting or 
     seeking any communication or material that such agent or 
     attorney reasonably believes is not entitled to protection 
     under the attorney-client privilege or attorney work product 
     doctrine.
       ``(d) Voluntary Disclosures.--Nothing in this Act is 
     intended to prohibit an organization from making, or an agent 
     or attorney of the United States from accepting, a voluntary 
     and unsolicited offer to share the internal investigation 
     materials of such organization.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendment.--The table of sections for 
     chapter 201 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:

``3014. Preservation of fundamental legal protections and rights in the 
              context of investigations and enforcement matters 
              regarding organizations.''.
                                  ____


            Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act of 2006

       The bill protects the attorney-client relationship by 
     prohibiting federal lawyers and investigators from: (1) 
     requesting that an organization waive its attorney-client 
     privilege or work product doctrine; and (2) conditioning any 
     charging decision or cooperation credit on waiver or non-
     waiver of privilege, the payment of an employee's legal fees, 
     the continued employment of a person under investigation, or 
     the signing of a joint defense agreement.
       All of the acts and considerations prohibited by the bill 
     are acts and considerations that federal prosecutors must 
     factor into any corporate or organizational charging decision 
     under DOJ's Thompson Memorandum, which is described in more 
     detail below.
       The bill is appropriately narrow. It allows organizations 
     to continue offering internal investigation materials to 
     prosecutors, but only if such an offer is entirely voluntary 
     and unsolicited by the prosecutors. The bill also allows 
     prosecutors to seek materials that they reasonably believe 
     are not privileged.

  Mr. SPECTER. I well understand that there will be no action on this 
matter during this Congress, but I want to put it into the public 
milieu so there can be comment about it and it will be pursued in the 
next Congress. The Department of Justice has advised that they are 
going to revise the Thompson Memorandum to a memorandum called the 
McNulty Memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General. I had hoped we 
would have had it before the Senate went out of session so that we 
could have reviewed it and perhaps accepted their work, but it is not 
ready. I have advised Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and also 
Attorney General Gonzales that this legislation would be introduced and 
we can work on it in the next Congress.

                              Hedge Funds

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I will include for the Record proposed 
legislation to deal with hedge funds. The Judiciary Committee has had a 
series of hearings on this important subject, now $1.3 trillion in the 
economy, 30 percent of the stock transactions. After reflecting on the 
matter, I have decided not to introduce the legislation but simply to 
put the draft bill in the record so that there can be further comment. 
I talked about this proposed legislation earlier this week and had said 
that I was going to introduce the legislation, but I want to give 
interested parties more time to comment on it.

[[Page S11440]]

  I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the bill and the bill 
itself be printed in the Record. I am not introducing the bill. I do 
not look for a Senate bill number on it. But it will be in the public 
record, and there will be more time for people in the profession to 
evaluate and comment upon it.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                 S. __

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Criminal Misuse of Material 
     Nonpublic Information and Investor Protection Act of 2006''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSE.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
       (1) Unlawful insider trading causes a loss of confidence in 
     the integrity of the securities markets, increases the cost 
     of equity capital, and places small investors at a 
     disadvantage.
       (2) Unlawful insider trading and other misuse of material 
     nonpublic information is insidious and has become pervasive. 
     The number of insider trading referrals to the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission from the New York Stock Exchange has 
     doubled in the past 2 years.
       (3) There is a need to increase the probability that 
     wrongdoers will be detected and successfully prosecuted and 
     to decrease the opportunity for misuse of material nonpublic 
     information.
       (4) Criminal prosecutions and effective compliance programs 
     are the most effective deterrent to unlawful insider trading 
     and other misuse of material nonpublic information.
       (5) Effective criminal enforcement has depended on close 
     cooperation and sharing of expertise and duties of 
     investigation among civil regulatory agencies, such as the 
     Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures 
     Trading Commission, the Department of Justice, and self-
     regulatory organizations. Certain recent court decisions have 
     chilled this cooperation.
       (6) Misuse of material nonpublic information by 
     manipulating the grant dates of stock options or timing of 
     publication of material nonpublic information for purposes of 
     more profitable trading is a form of unlawful insider trading 
     that harms investors. Public companies that adhere to a 
     regular and objectively identifiable program for selecting 
     option grant dates presumptively are not engaging in 
     fraudulent behavior regarding the grant of those options.
       (7) The hedge fund industry currently accounts for 
     approximately 30 percent of all United States equity trading 
     volume, and this percentage has been growing rapidly. A 
     substantial percentage of the open investigations of insider 
     trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006 
     involve hedge funds.
       (8) Hedge funds increasingly are making loans, 
     participating in private placements, and sitting on 
     bankruptcy committees and corporate boards. These changes 
     increase hedge funds' access to material nonpublic 
     information. Pressure on hedge funds to deliver high returns 
     may increase the risk of insider trading or other misuse of 
     such information.
       (9) Light regulation, secrecy, unregulated recordkeeping, 
     and limited compliance programs of hedge funds increase the 
     difficulty of detecting and proving unlawful insider trading 
     by hedge funds.
       (10) Hedge funds enhance market liquidity and contribute to 
     pricing efficiency and market stabilization, but these 
     sophisticated instruments should be restricted to wealthy 
     investors. Recent hedge fund collapses and fraudulent trading 
     activities have harmed retirees and smaller investors who 
     increasingly are exposed to the risk of hedge funds through 
     intermediaries such as pension funds and long term growth and 
     saving vehicles. Requiring registration with the Securities 
     and Exchange Commission by hedge funds or hedge fund advisers 
     that sell securities to or manage investments of pension 
     funds and smaller investors strikes the appropriate balance 
     between investor protection and capital formation needs.
       (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to ensure 
     effective criminal enforcement of prohibitions against 
     unlawful insider trading and effective protection of the 
     integrity of the securities markets and investors who use 
     them by authorizing coordination of investigation by civil 
     regulatory agencies and the Department of Justice, providing 
     effective incentives for private citizens to report and 
     provide evidence of misuse of material nonpublic information, 
     requiring hedge funds to create and enforce effective 
     compliance programs and ensure maintenance of records, and 
     removing exemptions from coverage under the Securities Act of 
     1933, and the Investment Company Act of 1940, for hedge funds 
     that choose to sell to and manage investments of pension 
     funds and retail investors, unless the adviser or manager is 
     registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

     SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act--
       (1) the term ``hedge fund''--
       (A) means a privately offered, pooled investment vehicle--
       (i) that is not widely available to the public; and
       (ii) the assets of which are managed by a professional 
     investment management firm or other fund manager or adviser; 
     and
       (B) does not include a private equity, venture capital, or 
     real estate fund; and
       (2) the term ``qualified purchaser'' has the meaning given 
     that term in section 2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 
     (15 U.S.C. 80a-2).

     SEC. 4. MISUSE OF MATERIAL NONPUBLIC INFORMATION.

       Section 1348 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``(a) In General.--'' before ``Whoever''; 
     and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(b) Misuse of Material Nonpublic Information.--
       ``(1) In general.--It shall be unlawful for any person to--
       ``(A) knowingly use material nonpublic information of a 
     specific nature gained by means other than research and skill 
     as a significant factor in a trading decision (including a 
     decision affecting the timing or volume of trading) in 
     connection with any security of an issuer with a class of 
     securities registered under section 12 of the Securities 
     Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78l) or that is required to 
     file reports under section 15(d) of the Securities Exchange 
     Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o) (including trading in options 
     contracts), regardless of whether such person owes a duty to, 
     has an agreement with, or makes a disclosure of intent to 
     trade to the source of the information; or
       ``(B) knowingly use material nonpublic information of a 
     specific nature to establish, or to otherwise manipulate, the 
     grant date or strike price of stock options or the timing of 
     the publication of material nonpublic information for the 
     purpose of creating the potential for increased profitability 
     of the exercise of stock options or other trading in 
     securities.
       ``(2) Penalty.--Whoever violates paragraph (1) shall be 
     fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 25 years, or 
     both.
       ``(c) Investigations of Offenses.--
       ``(1) In general.--The Attorney General may, in the 
     discretion of the Attorney General, and in no way in 
     limitation of any other authority of the Attorney General--
       ``(A) make such investigations as the Attorney General 
     determines necessary to ascertain whether any person has 
     violated, is violating, or is about to violate any provision 
     of this section;
       ``(B) request or receive, at any stage of an investigation, 
     evidence concerning such acts or practices as may constitute 
     a violation of this section from the Securities and Exchange 
     Commission, Commodities Futures Trading Commission, or 
     another Federal agency; and
       ``(C) coordinate the investigation and prosecution of acts 
     or practices as may constitute a violation of this section 
     with the attorney general of any State or States.
       ``(2) No requirement to disclose.--The Attorney General and 
     agents of any other Federal agency have no duty, and shall 
     not be required, to disclose any contact or investigation 
     described in paragraph (1) to any person, except under a 
     court order issued on good cause shown that the sole basis 
     for the civil investigation is to assist in a criminal 
     investigation by the Attorney General.''.

     SEC. 5. INCENTIVES FOR PRIVATE CITIZENS TO REPORT AND ASSIST 
                   IN THE INVESTIGATION OF UNLAWFUL INSIDER 
                   TRADING; PROTECTION FROM RETALIATION.

       (a) Awards.--
       (1) In general.--The Attorney General of the United States 
     may award an amount equal to not more than 30 percent of any 
     fine, penalty, or settlement recovered by the Attorney 
     General to a person who provides information leading to the 
     prosecution of unlawful insider trading, or other violation 
     of section 1348 of title 18, United States Code, (as amended 
     by this Act), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 
     78a et seq.), or a related wire or mail fraud.
       (2) Considerations.--In making an award under this 
     subsection, the Attorney General shall take into account--
       (A) the importance of the information provided by the 
     person;
       (B) whether the Federal Government had some or all of the 
     information provided by the person before that person 
     provided that information;
       (C) whether the information was provided voluntarily;
       (D) whether the person was complicit;
       (E) the assistance of other persons; and
       (F) the amount of the fine, penalty, or settlement from 
     which the award will be paid.
       (3) Identity.--The identity of a person providing 
     confidential information regarding unlawful insider trading 
     or related fraud may remain anonymous, and that person may 
     still be eligible to receive an award under this subsection, 
     if that person provides sufficient evidence to allow the 
     identification of that person as the source of that 
     information.
       (4) Exclusions.--A Federal employee or an employee of a 
     self-regulatory organization (as that term is defined in 
     section 3 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 
     78c)) may not receive an award under this subsection if the 
     information provided to the Federal Government was gained in 
     the course of the employment of that person.
       (b) Retaliation.--A person who suffers retaliation because 
     that person, in good faith

[[Page S11441]]

     and with reasonable basis, has provided specific information 
     about unlawful insider trading to the Federal Government, or 
     has assisted in a Federal investigation of unlawful insider 
     trading, may file a private action in a United States 
     district court against the person or entity that has engaged 
     in the retaliation, and may recover damages based on economic 
     losses resulting from such retaliation, and attorneys' fees.

     SEC. 6. COMPLIANCE AND RECORDKEEPING BY HEDGE FUNDS AND FUNDS 
                   OF HEDGE FUNDS.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, each hedge fund, fund of hedge funds, 
     and manager of a hedge fund or fund of hedge funds that 
     offers securities to, or manages investments of, residents of 
     the United States shall--
       (1) establish a written code of ethics that contains 
     provisions reasonably necessary to prevent misuse of material 
     nonpublic information;
       (2) design a formal compliance program and written policies 
     and procedures that address--
       (A) safeguarding of material nonpublic information;
       (B) misuse of material nonpublic information;
       (C) the personal securities transactions and ownership of 
     employees;
       (D) employee education and acknowledgment of education;
       (E) the role of trained compliance personnel in the 
     monitoring and control of material nonpublic information; and
       (F) detection and prevention of misuse of material 
     nonpublic information; and
       (3) implement procedures, internal controls, and 
     recordkeeping systems adequate to ensure compliance with the 
     code, program, policies, and procedures described in 
     paragraphs (1) and (2).
       (b) Penalty.--Any hedge fund, fund of hedge funds, or 
     manager or adviser of a hedge fund that fails to comply with 
     subsection (a) and offers securities to, or manages 
     investments of, residents of the United States shall each be 
     fined not more than $5,000 per day of material violation of 
     this section.
       (c) Enforcement.--
       (1) In general.--Compliance with this section shall be 
     enforced by the Department of Justice and the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission.
       (2) Records.--The records of a hedge fund, fund of hedge 
     funds, or manager or adviser of a hedge fund relating to a 
     requirement of this section or compliance with this section 
     are subject to reasonable periodic, special, and other 
     examination by a representative of the Department of Justice 
     or the Securities and Exchange Commission for purposes of 
     determining compliance with this section.
       (d) Disclosures.--Each hedge fund and fund of hedge funds 
     shall provide any investor or prospective investor in that 
     hedge fund with information to enhance the ability of that 
     investor or prospective investor to evaluate investment 
     decisions regarding that hedge fund, including information 
     regarding--
       (1) the investment objectives, strategies to be employed, 
     and range of permissible investments of that hedge fund;
       (2) the risks of making an investment in that hedge fund, 
     including the use of debt to leverage returns;
       (3) base-line performance information regarding that hedge 
     fund;
       (4) any agreement between the hedge fund and investors that 
     varies the material terms of the arrangements with certain 
     investors; and
       (5) whether that hedge fund has engaged qualified external 
     auditors to audit annual financial statements.

     SEC. 7. REGISTRATION OF HEDGE FUNDS THAT CHOOSE TO OFFER 
                   SECURITIES TO PENSION FUNDS AND SMALLER 
                   INVESTORS.

       (a) Securities Act of 1933.--On and after the date that is 
     300 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the sale of 
     securities, directly or indirectly, by a hedge fund, fund of 
     hedge funds, or manager or adviser of a hedge fund to a 
     pension fund or investor who is not a qualified purchaser 
     shall be a public offering for purposes of section 4(2) of 
     the Securities Act of 1933 (15 U.S.C. 77d(2)).
       (b) Investment Company Act of 1940.--On and after the date 
     that is 300 days after the date of enactment of this Act, a 
     hedge fund manager or adviser that manages, directly or 
     indirectly, the investments of a public or private pension 
     fund or of any person who is not a qualified purchaser may 
     not be determined to be excluded from the definition of an 
     investment company for purposes of the Investment Company Act 
     of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-1 et seq.) based on paragraph (1) or 
     (7) of section 3(c) of that Act (15 U.S.C. 80a-3(c)).
       (c) Applicability.--This section shall not apply--
       (1) to any hedge fund or fund of hedge funds if less than 5 
     percent of the capital of that fund is attributable, directly 
     or indirectly, to investments by pension funds or investors 
     who are not qualified purchasers; or
       (2) to a hedge fund adviser, if that advisor is registered 
     with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the 
     Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

     SEC. 8. REVISING DEFINITION OF ACCREDITED INVESTOR AS APPLIED 
                   RETAIL INVESTMENT IN HEDGE FUNDS.

       A hedge fund may not charge a performance fee, if more than 
     5 percent of the assets under management of the hedge fund 
     are owned by persons whose net worth, or joint net worth with 
     the person's spouse, is less than $3,000,000, excluding the 
     value of the primary residence of the person.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I urge the confirmation of Dr. Andrew von 
Eschenbach to be Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. 
Von Eschenbach is a native Philadelphian. He has had a very 
distinguished professional record. He has served as the director of the 
National Cancer Institute. He has made a commitment publicly to lead 
the way to conquer cancer by the year 2015. Frankly, that is not good 
enough for me. I think we ought to do it sooner.
  In 1970, President Nixon declared war on cancer. Had we pursued that 
war with the same diligence we have pursued other wars, many people 
would not have died and many people would not have contracted cancer. 
Dr. Von Eschenbach has done an outstanding job in his professional 
career, and he would make an excellent Commissioner of the FDA.
  I ask unanimous consent that my statement of his qualifications and 
background be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Statement of Senator Arlen Specter--Nomination of Dr. Andrew von 
      Eschenbach Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration

       Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to 
     speak in support of the nomination of Dr. Andrew von 
     Eschenbach to be Commissioner of the Food and Drug 
     Administration. Dr. von Eschenbach brings an extraordinary 
     record to the FDA as he has accomplished a great deal.
       I am pleased that the Senate invoked cloture on Dr. von 
     Eschenbach's nomination, and that the Health, Education, 
     Labor and Pensions committee unanimously supported the 
     nomination of such an accomplished Pennsylvanian. A native of 
     Philadelphia, Dr. von Eschenbach earned a B.S. from St. 
     Joseph's University in Philadelphia in 1963, and his medical 
     degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1967. 
     He completed residencies at Pennsylvania Hospital in general 
     surgery and urology and taught urology at the University of 
     Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He also served in the U.S. 
     Navy Medical Corps with the rank of lieutenant commander from 
     1968 to 1971. Dr. von Eschenbach is a nationally recognized 
     urologic surgeon and oncologist, and his distinguished career 
     as a leader in the fight against cancer spans over three 
     decades.
       As Chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
     Education Appropriations subcommittee, I have worked with Dr. 
     von Eschenbach in his capacity as director of the National 
     Cancer Institute (NCI). When Dr. von Eschenbach was 
     president-elect of the American Cancer Society, he was 
     selected by President George W. Bush to head the NCI in 
     December 2001. As director of the NCI, he announced in 2003 
     that his organization's goal was to ``eliminate suffering and 
     death'' caused by cancer by the year 2015.
       In 1970, the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, 
     declared war on cancer and had that war been pursued with the 
     same diligence and resources that we pursue other wars, I 
     would not have gotten cancer, my former chief of staff, Carey 
     Lackman would not have died of cancer, a good friend of mine, 
     Paula Kline, wife of Tom Kline, my former law partner, and my 
     good friend Federal Judge Edward Becker would not have died. 
     It is something that we hear about every day. Dr. von 
     Eschenbach, a cancer survivor himself, understands the need 
     for better cancer treatments. During Dr. von Eschenbach's 
     tenure as Director of the NCI, funding for the NCI for FY03 
     was $4.67 billion. Today, recommended Senate funding for the 
     NCI is $4.8 billion, an increase of $13 million. However, it 
     is concerning that the funding for the NCI in fiscal year 
     2006 was $50 million less than fiscal year 2005.
       If Dr. von Eschenbach is confirmed, I look forward to 
     working with him as Commissioner of the FDA. His expertise, 
     experience, and commitment to public service will be of great 
     services to our nation.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.


                             Rick Santorum

  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I am going to take a couple minutes to 
talk about my great friend Rick Santorum. Election night; a lot of 
emotions going on; no question my heart was torn because my best friend 
in the Senate lost the election that night. I was saddened simply from 
a personal level, but I was also saddened for our country because I 
believe Rick Santorum has served this country so well. His integrity, 
his vision--so many things about this man have really been 
extraordinary.
  I have gotten to know a lot of the people around him, his staff. It 
says a lot about him because of how many of them are sitting in this 
room today. The quality of the people he has around him says a 
tremendous amount about

[[Page S11442]]

him, as does the passion with which they served him and the passion 
with which he serves the country.
  I also came to know Karen and his six kids. They are extraordinary 
people. Rick is a great leader of his home. Just seeing the love and 
respect that Karen has for Rick and that his children have for him as a 
father says a lot about him as an individual as well.
  I am going to keep this short. This is completely from the heart. I 
can say with confidence that as a human being, there have been maybe as 
good human beings who have served in this Senate, but there have been 
no better. He is that quality of a human being. His faith leads him to 
that. I consider it a great privilege to have served with him and to 
call him a friend over these last 6 years. I know the friendship he and 
I share will be a lifetime friendship.
  Rick, this body will miss you greatly, but no one in this body will 
miss you more than I.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Pennsylvania is 
recognized.


                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, let me thank my great friend and 
colleague from Nevada for his very kind words. I thank him for coming 
to hear my last speech on the floor of the Senate. I know there are 
many listening who are applauding at this moment for that. But I come 
here with a wonderful spirit. I have written on the top of the page the 
same words that I wrote the night of the election, and that is the word 
``gratitude'' because that is all I feel--an incredible sense of 
gratitude.
  Mark Rodgers is my long-time friend and chief of staff, now head of 
the conference. We were talking again this morning about coming to work 
every day and walking up to the Capitol Building every day for 16 years 
now and still feeling that, wow, I work here--every day for 16 years. 
It was such a gift, such an incredible gift to be blessed to serve the 
people of the 18th District in the Congress, southwestern Pennsylvania, 
in Allegheny County, and for 12 incredible years to be able to serve 
the people of Pennsylvania here.
  So first and foremost, I want to thank who is most responsible--and 
that is God--for this great gift he has bestowed upon me and my 
family--to be able the serve the greatest country in the history of the 
world and to serve in a body that is, and hopefully will be, the 
greatest deliberative body in the world. I think back to my dad, when 
he came to this country, and my mom, who is a second generation, and I 
think of how I grew up. It is amazing what a great country this is and 
how God has bestowed upon me and my family tremendous blessings. So I 
thank Him for the opportunity he has given me to serve. We are all 
called to serve. Some are frustrated because they don't think they are 
in a job or a position in life where they are doing what God has called 
them to do. God has blessed me with the opportunity to do this and to 
serve in a way that I hope he has called me to serve.
  Second, I thank my family. Karen and the kids are watching. They have 
suffered a lot and have sacrificed a lot in 16 years. I was telling 
John the other day that it is amazing how you think you are doing 
certain things well, and then you have the opportunity to spend a 
little more time doing those things and you realize how insufficiently 
you did them in the past. A phrase from the Bible is ringing in my 
ears, ``the scales falling off of the eyes.'' In the last month or so, 
I have had a lot of scales fall from my eyes--to see not just what the 
2 years have been to my family, which have been a tough 2 or 3 years, 
but the accumulation of 16 years in what is a very difficult life. I 
know everybody here recognizes that because you live it. They know how 
difficult this life is, how public everything we do and say is or what 
we are accused of. We think we understand how difficult that is for our 
family, but I don't think we really do. I want to say thank you to 
Karen, who I picture in my mind with this T-shirt dress she wore and 
had stenciled on it ``Santorum for Congress.'' She went knocking on 
doors in 1990, when no one gave us a chance. We did the impossible. We 
were able to defeat a 14-year incumbent who no one thought could be 
beat. I would not have even come close to winning that election but for 
her.
  In 1994, it was the same thing. She went out with the two children at 
home and she spent day after day--not traveling with, no; she was 
giving speeches in her own right and traveling all over the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sacrificing. They continued to do that 
day after day, year after year. I was a Senator, and I had important 
things to do.
  I tell stories all the time about debates that were held on the floor 
of the Senate, when I would call Karen and say I had to come back to 
this very place and say more. There was never a hesitation. She served 
more than I did. My children--none of them have known their father 
without being in politics. I got married in 1990 to Karen, and 
Elizabeth came along 11 months later. Their life has been with their 
father in politics, in the public arena. They have had to deal with 
that in both pleasurable ways and some very painful ways. So I thank 
them for being without their dad far too often. Even when they are with 
their dad, I am not as attentive as I should have been. But I think 
they knew and they shared in the endeavor because they knew it was 
important for them and for our country.
  So, hopefully, out of this experience they have been given a sense of 
purpose, and they know more about what life should be all about and 
that is to serve--serve God, serve your family, serve your community, 
and to serve your country. It is a great blessing. I thank them for the 
opportunity they have given me, through their sacrifice, to do that for 
the last 16 years.
  I thank my mom and dad and Karen's mom and dad and all in our family 
who have been supportive every step of the way--sometimes wondering why 
I was doing this, sometimes unable to walk to the end of the driveway 
and pick up the paper for fear of what next was going to be said about 
their son-in-law or son. But they stood with us and fought with us and 
they comforted us. I thank them.
  John mentioned the people who are here in this room, my staff.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed a list of all of the folks 
who worked for us over the last 12 years in the Senate at the end of my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I wish I could read all these names, but 
there are a lot of names. These are people who worked for me in my 
personal office in Washington and in my offices across the State and 
the people who worked here in Washington in my leadership office at the 
Senate Republican Conference. John said it so well. These are 
incredible people. I have had the opportunity now in the last few days 
to sit and talk with each one of my staff members to find out what they 
are doing and to get any final thoughts they would have. One after 
another, I have been amazed at the dedication, intelligence, caring, 
and the commitment of service they had to the people of Pennsylvania, 
or to the causes I have attempted to do my best to fight for in the 
Senate. These are incredibly talented people whom I have been so 
blessed to be associated with and to work with.
  I looked at the list of our legislative accomplishments and I can 
say, yes, I worked on that, but on the autism legislation, Jennifer 
Vesey wrote it, not me. She spent 16 months working with 15 offices. In 
fact, let me do something at this point.

                          ____________________