[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 41 (Friday, March 9, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2956-S2967]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMPROVING AMERICA'S SECURITY ACT OF 2007
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 4, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 4) to make the United States more secure by
implementing unfinished recommendations of the 9/11
Commission to fight the war on terror more effectively, to
improve homeland security, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Reid amendment No. 275, in the nature of a substitute.
Sununu amendment No. 291 (to amendment No. 275), to ensure
that the emergency communications and interoperability
communications grant program does not exclude Internet
protocol-based interoperable solutions.
Salazar/Lieberman modified amendment No. 290 (to amendment
No. 275), to require a quadrennial homeland security review.
Dorgan/Conrad amendment No. 313 (to amendment No. 275), to
require a report to Congress on the hunt for Osama bin Laden,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the leadership of al-Qaida.
Landrieu amendment No. 321 (to amendment No. 275), to
require the Secretary of Homeland Security to include levees
in the list of critical infrastructure sectors.
Landrieu amendment No. 296 (to amendment No. 275), to
permit the cancellation of certain loans under the Robert T.
Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.
Landrieu modified amendment No. 295 (to amendment No. 275),
to provide adequate funding for local governments harmed by
Hurricane Katrina of 2005 or Hurricane Rita of 2005.
Allard amendment No. 272 (to amendment No. 275), to prevent
the fraudulent use of social security account numbers by
allowing the sharing of Social Security data among agencies
of the United States for identity theft prevention and
immigration enforcement purposes.
McConnell (for Sessions) amendment No. 305 (to amendment
No. 275), to clarify the voluntary inherent authority of
States to assist in the enforcement of the immigration laws
of the United States and to require the Secretary of Homeland
Security to provide information related to aliens found to
have violated certain immigration laws to the National Crime
Information Center.
McConnell (for Cornyn) amendment No. 310 (to amendment No.
275), to strengthen the Federal Government's ability to
detain dangerous criminal aliens, including murderers,
rapists, and child molesters, until they can be removed from
the United States.
McConnell (for Cornyn) amendment No. 311 (to amendment No.
275), to provide for immigration injunction reform.
McConnell (for Cornyn) modified amendment No. 312 (to
amendment No. 275), to prohibit the recruitment of persons to
participate in terrorism, to clarify that the revocation of
an alien's visa or other documentation is not subject to
judicial review, to strengthen the Federal Government's
ability to detain dangerous criminal aliens, including
murderers, rapists, and child molesters, until they can be
removed from the United States, to prohibit the rewarding of
suicide bombings and allow adequate punishments for terrorist
murders, kidnappings, and sexual assaults.
McConnell (for Kyl) modified amendment No. 317
(to amendment No. 275), to prohibit the rewarding of
suicide bombings and allow adequate punishments for
terrorist murders, kidnappings, and sexual assaults.
McConnell (for Kyl) amendment No. 318 (to amendment No.
275), to protect classified information.
McConnell (for Kyl) amendment No. 319 (to amendment No.
275), to provide for relief from (a)(3)(B) immigration bars
from the Hmong and other groups who do not pose a threat to
the United States, to designate the Taliban as a terrorist
organization for immigration purposes.
McConnell (for Kyl) amendment No. 320 (to amendment No.
275), to improve the Classified Information Procedures Act.
McConnell (for Grassley) amendment No. 300 (to amendment
No. 275), to clarify the revocation of an alien's visa or
other documentation is not subject to judicial review.
McConnell (for Grassley) amendment No. 309 (to amendment
No. 275), to improve the prohibitions on money laundering.
Thune amendment No. 308 (to amendment No. 275), to expand
and improve the Proliferation Security Initiative while
protecting the national security interests of the United
States.
Cardin amendment No. 326 (to amendment No. 275), to provide
for a study of modification of area of jurisdiction of Office
of National Capital Region Coordination.
Cardin amendment No. 327 (to amendment No. 275), to reform
mutual aid agreements for the National Capital Region.
Cardin modified amendment No. 328 (to amendment No. 275),
to require Amtrak contracts and leases involving the State of
Maryland to be governed by the laws of the District of
Columbia.
Schumer/Clinton amendment No. 336 (to amendment No. 275),
to prohibit the use of the peer review process in determining
the allocation of funds among metropolitan areas applying for
grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative.
Schumer/Clinton amendment No. 337 (to amendment No. 275),
to provide for the use of funds in any grant under the
Homeland Security Grant Program for personnel costs.
Coburn amendment No. 325 (to amendment No. 275), to ensure
the fiscal integrity of grants awarded by the Department of
Homeland Security.
Sessions amendment No. 347 (to amendment No. 275), to
express the sense of the Congress regarding the funding of
Senate-approved construction of fencing and vehicle barriers
along the southwest border of the United States.
Coburn amendment No. 301 (to amendment No. 275), to
prohibit grant recipients under grant programs administered
by the Department from expending funds until the Secretary
has reported to Congress that risk assessments of all
programs and activities have been performed and completed,
improper payments have been estimated, and corrective action
plans have been developed and reported as required under the
Improper Payments Act of 2002 (31 U.S.C. 3321 note).
Coburn amendment No. 294 (to amendment No. 275), to provide
that the provisions of the act shall cease to have any force
or effect on and after December 31, 2012, to ensure
congressional review and oversight of the act.
Lieberman (for Menendez) amendment No. 354 (to amendment
No. 275), to improve the security of cargo containers
destined for the United States.
Specter amendment No. 286 (to amendment No. 275), to
restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United
States.
Kyl modified amendment No. 357 (to amendment No. 275), to
amend the data-mining technology reporting requirement to
avoid revealing existing patents, trade secrets, and
confidential business processes, and to adopt a narrower
definition of data-
[[Page S2957]]
mining in order to exclude routine computer searches.
Ensign amendment No. 363 (to amendment No. 275), to
establish a Law Enforcement Assistance Force in the
Department of Homeland Security to facilitate the
contributions of retired law enforcement officers during
major disasters.
Biden amendment No. 383 (to amendment No. 275), to require
the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop regulations
regarding the transportation of high hazard materials.
Biden amendment No. 384 (to amendment No. 275), to
establish a Homeland Security and Neighborhood Safety Trust
Fund and refocus Federal priorities toward securing the
Homeland.
Bunning amendment No. 334 (to amendment No. 275), to amend
title 49, United States Code, to modify the authorities
relating to Federal flight deck officers.
Schumer modified amendment No. 367 (to amendment No. 275),
to require the Administrator of the Transportation Security
Administration to establish and implement a program to
provide additional safety measures for vehicles that carry
high hazardous materials.
Schumer amendment No. 366 (to amendment No. 275), to
restrict the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
to issue a license authorizing the export to a recipient
country of highly enriched uranium for medical isotope
production.
Wyden amendment No. 348 (to amendment No. 275), to require
that a redacted version of the Executive Summary of the
Office of Inspector General Report on Central Intelligence
Agency Accountability Regarding Findings and Conclusions of
the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities
Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,
is made available to the public.
Bond/Rockefeller amendment No. 389 (to amendment No. 275),
to provide the sense of the Senate that the Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Select
Committee on Intelligence of the Senate should submit a
report on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission with
respect to intelligence reform and congressional intelligence
oversight reform.
Stevens amendment No. 299 (to amendment No. 275), to
authorize NTIA to borrow against anticipated receipts of the
Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Fund to
initiate migration to a national IP-enabled emergency network
capable of receiving and responding to all citizen-activated
emergency communications.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is
recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, how much time remains under the current
order?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Four and a half minutes is
remaining before the vote.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the majority leader and I agree about one
thing: Securing America ought to be about doing just that and not about
politics. But, unfortunately, the majority has demonstrated its
interest in rewarding unions by providing a provision for collective
bargaining for the Transportation Security Administration in this bill
which elevates the union rights of the Transportation Security
Administration over the national security and safety of the American
people.
So we should not be fooled by the rhetoric or the attempt of the
majority leader to stand behind the 9/11 families. Unfortunately, I
fear these 9/11 families are being manipulated for political purposes
in order to justify promoting the union rights of Transportation
Security Administration workers, which will hinder the safety and
security of the flying public. This 9/11 bill should be about
strengthening security, not about unions.
Mr. President, I have another letter from 9/11 Families for a Secure
America to Senator McConnell, which I ask unanimous consent be printed
in the Record after my comments.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this letter says:
On behalf of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, an
organization representing the families of 300 victims of the
9/11 attacks, we would like to thank you for your recent
efforts to ensure and enhance America's security.
This letter goes on and will be part of the Record.
But I simply do not understand why the majority leader objects to our
ability to have an up-or-down vote on whether dangerous criminal aliens
who are currently being released into the population--because under a
2001 Supreme Court decision, they cannot be held more than 6 months
pending deportation--why he would object to an up-or-down vote on that
amendment.
We started off this year with the majority leader and those in the
new majority saying they wanted to work with Republicans in a
bipartisan way to try to do what was important for the American people.
Nothing is more important than the safety and security of the American
people. But why, 6 years after this 2001 Supreme Court decision, the
majority insists on allowing this condition to exist, where dangerous
criminal aliens are released into the American population to commit
additional crimes, is beyond me. That is not about safety and security.
Frankly, the comments I heard this morning which say that somehow
this is being politicized are just not correct. If anything, the
majority has demonstrated that their desire to promote union rights as
a reward for political support in the last election dominates their
thinking on this bill. It is unfortunate.
I hope that if, indeed, that provision, which I do believe in all
sincerity will impair the safety and security of the American people,
is included in this bill once it is taken to conference, I hope the
President follows through on his promise to veto the bill because it
will not elevate but, rather, it will diminish the safety and security
of the American people.
So I regret, Mr. President, that the majority leader has obstructed
the ability of the U.S. Senate to have a full and fair debate on these
important national security amendments. Frankly, the reasons for not
allowing that just do not stand up to scrutiny.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
9/11 Families for a
Secure America,
March 8, 2007.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Senate Minority Leader,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator McConnell: On behalf of
9/11 Families for a Secure America, an organization
representing the families of 300 victims of the 9/11 attacks,
we would like to thank you for your recent efforts to ensure
and enhance America's security.
As the parents of two men who lost their lives in the World
Trade Center attacks, we take the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission more seriously than most. When President Bush
threatened to veto the 9/11 bill over a provision related to
airport security screeners, we were pleased by your efforts
to strip the provision to ensure a presidential signature.
We also appreciate your recent efforts to implement a
number of new policies aimed at closing dangerous loopholes
in existing security law. We represent an organization that
advocates strengthening our borders as a way of improving
national security, and your proposals would do just that. As
you know, current law prevents us from holding dangerous
illegal immigrants and from deporting anyone whose visa has
been revoked for terrorist-related reasons. These loopholes
must be closed.
Those who would use the 9/11 bill as a vehicle for
political patronage and stall its passage in the process do
not have America's security interests at heart. Nor do those
who would block a vote on measures aimed at securing our
borders by screening those who come here illegally. Thank you
for keeping faith with those of us who have made the security
of this country a real priority. Your efforts are greatly
appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
Joan Molinaro,
Treasurer, 9/11 Families for a Secure America, Mother of Carl
Molinaro, FDNY.
Peter Gadiel,
President, 9/11 FSA, Father of James Gadiel, WTC North Tower
103rd floor.
Cloture Motion
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order and
pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on pending
amendment No. 312, as modified, to amendment No. 275 to
Calendar No. 57, S. 4, a bill to make the United States more
secure by implementing unfinished recommendations of the 9/11
Commission to fight the war on terror more effectively, to
improve homeland security, and for other purposes.
John Cornyn, Jon Kyl, Mike Crapo, John Ensign, Saxby
Chambliss, Judd Gregg, Richard Burr, Jim Bunning, Sam
Brownback, Mitch McConnell, Craig Thomas, Tom Coburn,
Wayne Allard, Jim DeMint, John Thune, Pat Roberts,
Lindsey Graham.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory
quorum call has been waived.
[[Page S2958]]
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on
amendment No. 312, as modified, offered by Mr. McConnell of Kentucky,
to S. 4, a bill to make the United States more secure by implementing
unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 Commission more effectively, to
improve homeland security, and for other purposes, shall be brought to
a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd)
and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson) are necessarily absent.
Mr. LOTT. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Burr), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Are there any other Senators in the
Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 46, nays 49, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 68 Leg.]
YEAS--46
Alexander
Allard
Bayh
Bennett
Bond
Bunning
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Dole
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McConnell
Murkowski
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Thomas
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
NAYS--49
Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Clinton
Conrad
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Hagel
Harkin
Inouye
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Stabenow
Tester
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--5
Brownback
Burr
Dodd
Johnson
McCain
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 46, the
nays are 49. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
Mr. DURBIN. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on
the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Cloture Motion
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order and
pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the following
cloture motion which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the Reid
substitute amendment No. 275 to S. 4, the 9/11 Commission
legislation.
Joe Lieberman, Charles Schumer, Robert Menendez, Patty
Murray, Dianne Feinstein, B.A. Mikulski, Christopher
Dodd, Joe Biden, Debbie Stabenow, Harry Reid, Pat
Leahy, Dick Durbin, Jeff Bingaman, H.R. Clinton, Bill
Nelson, Tom Carper, Jack Reed.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory
quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on
amendment No. 275, offered by Mr. Reid of Nevada, to S. 4, a bill to
make the United States more secure by implementing unfinished
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to fight the war on terror more
effectively, to improve homeland security, and for other purposes,
shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd)
and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson) are necessarily absent.
Mr. LOTT. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Burr), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Are there any other Senators in the
Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 69, nays 26, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 69 Leg.]
YEAS--69
Akaka
Alexander
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brown
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Clinton
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Corker
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Hagel
Harkin
Inouye
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Smith
Snowe
Stabenow
Stevens
Tester
Thune
Voinovich
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--26
Allard
Bunning
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Kyl
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Specter
Sununu
Thomas
Vitter
NOT VOTING--5
Brownback
Burr
Dodd
Johnson
McCain
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 69, the
nays are 26. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having
voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the motion was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
cloture motion on the bill be vitiated; that the bill be read a third
time, and a vote occur on final passage on Tuesday, March 13,
immediately upon the disposition of the substitute amendment; that when
the Senate convenes on Tuesday, March 13, and resumes consideration of
the bill, all time under cloture be considered expired and the Senate
immediately begin voting on those pending germane amendments; further,
that during Monday's legislative session, the provisions of rule XXII
shall not bar a motion to proceed made by the majority leader.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I think this is a fair agreement that
will allow us to finish the bill on Tuesday, and I have no objection.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? The Chair hears
none, and it is so ordered.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this means that there will be no
further rollcall votes today, there will be no rollcall votes on
Monday, and we would resume voting on the germane amendments on Tuesday
morning next week.
Our staffs will continue to be available to negotiate with our
colleagues on a consent list of amendments that are agreed to by all
concerned. In fact, we have a list now approaching 20 amendments where
there is such agreement, but there are one or two individual Senators
concerned that their amendments are not on that list and they are
objecting to the overall consent. We hope very much that can be worked
out and we can, in any case, move to final passage next Tuesday.
Mr. President, I briefly wish to thank my ranking member, Senator
Collins, for her extraordinary contribution to this bill and her
cooperation. As you know, we have had many ups and downs about the many
amendments, agreements, objections, et cetera, but I am very pleased to
say that the bill, as it came out of our committee, was nonpartisan,
with a 16-to-0 vote, and one abstention, thus remaining essentially
intact. That is the good news.
I hope some of the amendments that have been agreed to by almost
everybody on both sides can be added to make the bill even stronger as
we go to conference.
I thank our colleagues for their contributions and for some good
debate.
[[Page S2959]]
This is a subject of urgent importance to the American people. It is
completing the unfinished work that the
9/11 Commission gave us, it is building on all we accomplished in the
9/11 legislation of 2004, and it will, in a very direct way, make the
American people safer both from potential terrorist attack and from the
inevitable natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina.
I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor to my ranking member at
this time.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this is a very important bill. Many of
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission were enacted as part of the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which the
distinguished Senator from Connecticut and I have worked so hard to
author. But there is some unfinished business, and this bill will help
make our country safer and it will strengthen our protections against
terrorist attacks.
As always, it has been a great pleasure to work with the Senator from
Connecticut, whose leadership I so admire. I am optimistic we have now
finally put this important bill on a path to completion, and I look
forward to working to accomplish that goal on Tuesday.
I thank the Chair.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, though I
am not sure if that motion has gone through, I wanted to ask the
leaders, who have managed this bill so well, if they are familiar with
amendment Nos. 295 and 296, relative to very urgent requests by the
Gulf Coast States, one for loan forgiveness and one for the 10-percent
waiver? Are the two leaders willing to say they are both supportive of
these amendments and will continue to try over the weekend to get both
these amendments up by unanimous consent?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Louisiana,
the amendment on loan forgiveness is on the consent list. As the
Senator knows, for reasons that are certainly perplexing to me, most
everybody here seems to agree on the 10-percent forgiveness for the
gulf coast based on Hurricane Katrina because of the extraordinary
economic impact the storm had on both governments and people and
businesses in the gulf coast. There is very broad support, but there
continue to be objections, as the Senator knows. I regret that, and I
hope we can find a way to overcome those between now and next Tuesday.
The Senator from Louisiana also knows there is an amendment on levees
that is germane, and that will be one of the amendments that is up
either for a vote or passage by consent on Tuesday because it remains
relevant and germane after cloture.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator for his support.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, if the Senator from Louisiana will yield
so I may respond to her question.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield.
Ms. COLLINS. The Senator from Louisiana has been tireless in her
advocacy for both of these amendments. The junior Senator from
Louisiana has also talked to me about these amendments, as has the
Senator from Florida, Mr. Martinez. I have been working hard with the
chairman to try to address the concerns of the Senators from Louisiana.
As the chairman has indicated, there is good news on one of the
Senator's amendments. The amendment that proposes the loan forgiveness
authority for the President is on the list of amendments we are
optimistic about clearing on Tuesday. The other amendment, with the 10-
percent match eliminated, is more problematic because there are some
outstanding objections to it.
I know the Senator from Louisiana has indicated a willingness to
amend her amendment and put a 2-year sunset on that provision. That
helps a great deal with one of the objections we have on our side of
the aisle. I don't know whether we are going to be able to clear the
other objections, but I certainly pledge to keep working with the
Senator from Louisiana and the committee's chairman to accomplish that
goal.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank all our colleagues, and I
suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Trade Policy
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, last November, voters in my State of Ohio
spoke out for change. Their call echoed across this country, as middle-
class, working, and low-income families claimed ownership of their
Government.
For too long, our Government betrayed their values. The drug
companies wrote the Medicare law, the oil companies dictated energy
policy, and large multinational corporations pushed job-killing trade
agreements through the House and the Senate.
In my home State of Ohio, trade in particular was the focus for
change in last year's election. Years of job-killing trade agreements
are taking their toll on workers and small businesses alike. Two years
ago, the largest ever bipartisan fair trade coalition was formed to
oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement--the dysfunctional
cousin of the fundamentally flawed North American Free Trade Agreement.
Forced through the House in the middle of the night by one vote,
CAFTA did not pass on its merits. So flawed is CAFTA that to this day,
nearly 2 years later, it has still not been fully implemented.
The question is not if we trade but how we trade and who benefits
from trade. Unfettered free trade has afforded multinational
corporations and morally bankrupt countries windfall profits on the
backs of often slave, sweatshop, or even child labor. Proponents of
unfettered free trade use words such as ``protectionism'' to hide their
shameful practices, to mask agreements that trade in human suffering
and economic destruction, and to simply try to push away their
opponents' arguments.
I am pleased to say this Congress is not only committed to build on
the efforts of the fair trade coalition, we are already at work
changing trade policy. Earlier this year, Senator Dorgan, Senator
Graham, and I introduced legislation that would ban sweatshop labor. We
shed light on the injustice of allowing China to enjoy permanent normal
trade relations in the WTO while allowing the degradation of
environmental and labor standards on massive scales.
In the coming months, Congress will debate fast-track negotiations
due to expire this summer. It is clear this administration has little
desire--has little desire--to change direction on trade, so it is up to
Congress to chart a new course for the future of U.S. trade policy.
Fair trade is not just about doing the right thing for small
business, doing the right thing for manufacturing, doing the right
thing for workers; it means investing in entire communities.
Our middle class is shrinking. Our policies in Washington have
betrayed the values of working families across this country--in Ohio
and Rhode Island, all over this country--which is why we must revamp
our economic trade policies and invest in our middle class. We must
shrink income inequality, grow our business community, and create good-
paying jobs. We must establish trade policy that builds on our economic
security.
Job loss does not just affect the worker who has lost her job or that
worker's family. Job loss, especially job loss in the thousands,
devastates communities. It hurts the local business owner--the
drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. When people
are out of work, they cannot support their local economy, which forces
owners to close their small businesses. That means lost revenues to the
community, which hurts schools, fire departments, and police
departments.
The trade policies we set here and negotiated across the globe have a
direct impact on places such as Toledo and
[[Page S2960]]
Steubenville and Cleveland and Middletown. We hear the word
``protectionist'' thrown around by those who insist on more of the same
failed trade models. It is considered ``protectionist'' by them when
they characterize those of us who are fighting for labor and
environmental standards, but they call it ``free trade'' to protect
drug company patents and Hollywood films.
If we can protect intellectual property rights, as we should, with
enforceable provisions in trade agreements, we absolutely can do the
same for labor, the environment, and food safety.
In my home State of Ohio, we have a talented and hard-working labor
force and an entrepreneurial spirit that needs only the investment
dollars and commitment from Government to realize their economic
potential.
Oberlin College, near Cleveland, has the largest building on any
university campus in the United States fully powered by solar energy.
However, Oberlin College had to buy the solar panels for their building
from Germany and Japan because we do not make enough solar panels in
the United States.
Through investment in alternative energy, and through biomedical
research and development, we cannot only create jobs, we can grow small
business, we can help our environment.
Now is the time for our Government to do its part and redirect our
priorities from favoring the wealthiest 1 percent in our Nation to,
instead, growing our Nation's middle class. It is not a matter of if we
revamp our trade policy but when we do it.
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. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S.
835 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota
for his courtesy. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Trade
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe this morning President Bush is
in Brazil. A week ago today, I and a number of Senators met with the
President at the White House. The issue of the Brazil trip came up. He
no doubt will talk to the Brazilians about trade this morning. As he
discusses the issue of trade, I wanted to make a couple of comments.
Today we had a new trade deficit figure released, about 3 hours ago.
It shows our merchandise trade deficit in the past month was $66
billion--in 1 month. I wanted to come to the floor to show what is
happening to this country's trade. The reason I want to show the
results of our trade policy is we now have proposals in front of us for
free trade agreements. We have Colombia, Peru, negotiations with South
Korea, Thailand, and others. We have been through a period when there
has been this mantra, this chant, as it is, about free trade.
This chart shows what is happening to trade. In 1995, 12 years ago,
we had a $174 billion trade deficit. Now it is $836 billion. Think of
that: Every single day we wake up in this country, we import over $2
billion more in goods from overseas than we are able to sell abroad. It
doesn't matter what the good is, much, and it doesn't matter what the
country is.
I have been here with charts that show, for example, to cite one,
last year we had automobiles put on ships in South Korea. Mr.
President, over 700,000 automobiles were put on ships in South Korea
and sent to America and sold in the United States--700,000 South Korean
automobiles. How many American automobiles do you think we sold in
Korea, Mr. President, 700,000? No, no--about 4,000. Fair trade? Hardly.
Ninety-nine percent of the cars on the streets of South Korea are South
Korean cars. Why? Because they don't want foreign cars sold in South
Korea. They want to produce cars with jobs in South Korea and ship them
to the United States.
Should we allow that kind of one-way trade--700,000 going one way,
4,000 plus going the other way--to continue? I don't think so.
Let me talk a little about the general area of trade. I want to put
up a picture of a young girl named Halima. This is a beautiful 11-year-
old girl. When I showed the chart of the $836 billion trade deficit
last year, over $2 billion a day--well over $2 billion a day--the
result of that statistic is American jobs being shipped overseas,
products being produced overseas, in many cases with dirt-cheap labor,
sent to a big box retailer in this country to be sold at a lower price.
That is true, a lower price, so the American consumer gets a better
price on a 12-pack of underwear or a gallon of mustard someplace. But
what is the consequence of that to our economy, to our jobs? What
ultimately is the consequence for our country? I frame all this in the
context of the President saying: Let's do more, let's do more of this.
It seems to me if we do much more of that, we won't have much of an
economy left. At what point do we think a trade deficit matters? This
isn't money we owe to ourselves. One can make that case in fiscal
policy with the budget deficit. This is money we owe to other
countries, over $1 trillion of which we now owe to the Japanese and the
Chinese. But what are the consequences?
I mentioned lost American jobs. Where do these jobs go? Who is
producing what is sent to our country?
This beautiful young lady is named Halima. She worked at a factory in
Bangladesh at age 11, and she made Hanes underwear. She worked long
hours, very low pay, in sweatshop conditions.
One would think if this is a world market in which we care about the
circumstances of people working in sweatshop conditions, we would take
a look at something such as this and say: Wait a second, we don't want
to buy Hanes underwear made with the hands of an 11-year-old working in
sweatshop conditions.
Let me show my colleagues a certification of this plant in which
Halima worked. ``Certificate of Compliance, February 21, 2007.'' It is
hereby awarded to Harvest Rich Ltd., worldwide responsible apparel
production. So they certified this company was doing just fine with
international standards. An 11-year-old producing in sweatshop
conditions, sending underwear to Americans? That is fine? I don't think
so. So is this just an aberration? This just happens on the very
unusual case, and I just happened to find the picture of Halima?
Let me tell you how this picture came about. This picture came from a
woman named Sheik Nazma. She was a former child laborer in Bangladesh.
She was forced to start working in the textile mills at age 12--a
sweatshop--and she described the conditions. She organized her
coworkers for better conditions, saying: Let us, as a group of workers,
organize to see if we can get better conditions. For that, she was
beaten and threatened to death for organizing workers.
Is that an aberration? No, not really. I can give you the names today
of people sitting in prisons in China. Their transgression? Their
crime? They tried to organize workers for better conditions, tried to
organize workers to insist on backpay they were owed. For that, they
are sitting in prison cells in China because you can't organize workers
in China.
What is happening with respect to these trade issues is we are
sinking deep into this abyss of worsening trade debt. I know what the
papers will say tomorrow--that $66 billion, the last monthly
merchandise trade deficit, is about a billion dollars or so less than
the previous month, and the newspapers will say: Nirvana. What a
wonderful thing--our trade deficit is shrinking. These, of course, are
the same newspapers that beat to death this chant of free trade. There
is not enough of this free trade for them; the more the merrier. My
only question about all of this is, When do you suggest that this
represents failure? Is
[[Page S2961]]
there never an opportunity to suggest that we need a change in trade
strategy, a change that stands up for what we have built in a century
in this country?
Let me describe what it is we have built in this century. A man name
James Fyler was shot in 1914. The previous accounts of his death say he
died of lead poisoning actually, but he was shot 54 times. Do you know
why he was shot and lost his life? Because he believed that people who
went underground to dig in the coal mines ought to be entitled to two
things: No. 1, a safe workplace, and No. 2, a fair wage. For that, he
was murdered.
In a century, from James Fyler forward, we had people who gave their
lives and risked their lives to improve standards in this country, to
insist on the right to organize, to insist on safe workplaces, to
insist on a fair wage, and to insist on fair labor standards. It was
tough. There were people beaten in the streets for it. There were
people shot for insisting that we develop and lift those standards. But
we did. We did. We expanded and created a middle class almost
unparalleled in the world, which became the economic strength of this
country. Working people understood they could get a good job, get some
training, have a job that had a career ladder, an opportunity for a
decent wage, an opportunity for benefits, and an opportunity to take
care of their families. There is no social program in this Chamber that
is as important as a good job that pays well for able-bodied workers.
It is what allows everything else to work.
So we did that for a century, and we expanded opportunities. Now, all
of a sudden, we are told it is a new day because of the global economy.
In fact, Tom Friedman wrote a book saying that not only is it a new
day, but the world is flat. I have yet to see the globe that represents
that. When you go to most offices or libraries and you see a globe of
the Earth, it appears round to me. Of course, I only graduated from a
high school senior class of nine students, so maybe I missed a part of
the lesson. So now we have books that say the world is flat, which, of
course, is nonsense because it is not flat.
It is a global economy. What does that mean? What is the definition
of what a global economy means for us and for our future? It means,
according to some, that we ought to be able to understand that
comparative advantage means you produce products where you can produce
them at the least cost and then purchase them here and it is good for
the consumer. The result is corporate executives flying around the
world deciding where they can produce for the least cost.
How many of my colleagues remember Radio Flyer's little red wagon,
which was an American product for 110 years, a Chicago company--the
little red wagon we have all ridden in? It was named ``Radio Flyer''
because the inventor loved Marconi and he loved to fly, so he named his
product ``Radio Flyer,'' and his company built it in Chicago for 110
years. Not anymore. It is just gone. It is now built in China. Do you
think that is because the Chinese build better little red wagons? No,
not at all. It is because you can find somebody who will work for 30
cents an hour, and you can work them 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a
day, and you can build a cheaper little red wagon.
Similarly, you can do the same with Huffy bicycles and then eliminate
all their jobs. You can do the same with Pennsylvania House furniture.
In fact, with Pennsylvania House furniture, you can send the
Pennsylvania wood to China. You can get rid of all the workers in
Pennsylvania, send the Pennsylvania wood to China, and have them put it
together and ship it back here, and that is exactly what has happened.
About 3\1/2\ to 4 million jobs have now migrated to where you can pay
pennies an hour and then ship the product back to our country. That is
about enhancing corporate profits, but I think it is at the expense of
our economic future.
The former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Blinder,
a mainstream economist, said this: There are 42 to 56 million American
jobs that are tradeable, meaning outsourceable. Not all of them will
leave our country, but even those that stay are competing with others
in the world who will work for lower wages. Therefore, there will be
downward pressure on American wages for working Americans.
We see it every day. Open the newspaper and see how many people are
losing their health care benefits, their retirement benefits, and the
downward pressure on income. We see it every day. It is part of a
strategy that says free trade, a global economy, produce where it is
cheap, and sell to a marketplace like this.
My point is that it doesn't add up in the long run. I am for trade. I
am in favor of trade, and plenty of it, but I insist and demand that it
be fair trade for this country that attempts to lift, not depress
standards. I am very interested in engaging with the rest of the world.
I am not an isolationist, I am not a protectionist, as they define it,
although I want to plead guilty quickly to wanting to protect our
country's economic interests. If that is being a protectionist, then
just sign me up. I want to protect our country's economic interests. We
will only do that, and we will do it well, if we understand the need to
retain a broad middle class, a middle class that sees jobs here that
pay well, with benefits and opportunities in the future.
So how do we reconcile all of this? What will happen in the coming
several months is--and I believe Senator Sherrod Brown spoke about this
earlier today--what will happen in the coming months is we will be
requested to debate an extension of something called fast-track
authority. Fast-track authority. They are going to want to run through
fast-track authority trade agreements with, yes, South Korea and
Thailand and Peru and Colombia and many others. The same people who
have given us this want to give us more of it, a deep canyon of red
ink, downward pressure on American incomes, and substantial pressure on
the movement of American jobs.
Interestingly enough, we not only move American jobs overseas, we
actually decide, for those who do it, that we will give them a big fat
tax break. One of the most pernicious, ignorant pieces of public policy
I can conceive of is when we said: Fire your American workers, close
your American plants, move your jobs to China, sell your products back
in America, run your income through the Cayman Islands, and we will
give you a big fat tax break for it.
Four times we have voted on eliminating that tax break, four times I
have offered amendments to shut it down, and four times I have lost.
Mark my words--we will be voting again and again on that proposition.
The very last thing we ought to do as a country is decide we want to
subsidize the flight of American jobs.
We just introduced a piece of legislation that would deal with the
issue of sweatshop labor in other countries. What are the standards of
this so-called global trade in a flat world? Well, at least there is
one standard. The one standard is that you can't sell tube socks from a
prison in China at a big-box retailer in America. Why is that? Because
it is presumed that if you make tube socks or shorts or whatever you
make in a prison setting, then that truly is the ultimate sweatshop
labor, I guess. So you can't send prison labor products to our
marketplace.
Well, if we all agree with that, and we do, because we already have a
provision on that, what about the next step up? What about the product
of an 11-year-old girl? What about the product of a company that hires
an 11-year-old girl named Halima and works her in sweatshop conditions?
Should we decide as a country that you cannot produce products in
sweatshop conditions that abuse workers abroad and send the products
here--which, by the way, then asks American workers working in plants
in the United States to compete with that sweatshop labor. It not only
abuses foreign workers, it also abuses domestic workers because we are
saying: Compete with something that is completely unsavory. If this
happened in our country, we would march down the street with law
enforcement and say: Shut this down.
We have heard the stories. I think my colleague, Senator Harkin, had
hearings some several years ago about this with the international labor
organizations--young kids in carpet factories having their fingertips
burned with sulfur. They put sulfur on the fingertips, then light them
on fire. Do you know why? They create scars on the
[[Page S2962]]
fingertips so that as they use needles to sew the rugs, two things
occur: They don't hurt themselves because they have scars from having
had their fingertips burned and, second, they won't get blood on the
carpets. Is this something we should accept? No, I don't think so. Is
it something we should care about? You are darn right we should. But
almost nothing--almost nothing--is acceptable to discuss in this mantra
of free trade without being called a protectionist.
Here is what I think is going to happen. In the last election here in
this country, I think there were 6 or 8 or 10 Senate races in which the
winning candidate said: You know what, we are on the wrong track here.
It is not that we shouldn't trade. We should trade. The origin of this
great country was the shrewd Yankee trader. We were the traders, good
traders, and so we should trade. But we shouldn't decide that this kind
of a trade deficit can continue. It simply cannot.
Let me pull up the chart with China. The largest trade deficit we
have is with the country of China, with $232 billion last year alone.
That is unbelievable.
I have mentioned before that part of our problem is just incompetent
trade agreements, just fundamentally incompetent, and I will give an
example of one.
I have threatened from time to time that trade negotiators should
wear uniforms, like the jerseys they wear in the Olympics, so they can
look down from time to time and, in a sober moment, they can see for
whom they are working. It would say ``U.S.A.''
China. We did a bilateral agreement with China, a country with which
we have a very large trade deficit--a very large deficit and growing.
It is a country that is also developing a new automobile export
industry, and they want to export automobiles aggressively to the
United States. Here is what we said: If you export Chinese automobiles
to the United States, we will impose a 2.5-percent tariff on your cars,
but if we export American automobiles to be sold in China, China can
impose a 25-percent tariff. We negotiated with China a deal that said:
On a bilateral automobile trade, you ship a car to us and we will
impose a 2.5-percent tariff, and if we ship a car to you, you can
impose a tariff that is 10 times higher, and that is just fine. I am
saying that is ignorant. That is ignorant of our economic interest.
One little piece of information. Most people don't know it, but you
can rip open the intestines of these trade agreements and find case
after case where we have traded away our own economic interests.
We are going to be confronting now, in the next 4 or 5 months, some
very tough choices--not so tough for me but perhaps for some--choices
about what do we do about fast-track trade authority. That is a
mechanism by which the Senate decides in advance that when a trade
agreement comes here that has been negotiated in secret, behind closed
doors, with no participation of any of us, it comes here under an
expedited procedure with no opportunity for anyone to make any change
of any type. I don't support that.
What has happened with China and the world is the deepening abyss of
red ink, and what has resulted from the strategy that comes from fast
track is expedited procedures and a straightjacket for the Senate. It
has come from incompetent agreements. It has come from lack of
enforcement. In fact, our trade authorities cannot even find some of
the agreements they have previously negotiated. They can't even find
them, let alone enforce them.
I haven't talked here about the number of people who are working in
our Government to enforce our trade agreements with China. It is fewer
than 20. Enforcement is just the backwater of trade. Nobody wants to
enforce anything. It doesn't matter. Yet, in my judgment, it does
matter to this country's economic future.
What are we going to do about fast track and the extension for fast
track that President Bush is requesting? I did not support fast-track
trade authority for President Clinton, and I do not support it for
President Bush, although President Bush has had it now for some while.
But I think there is a new group of Senators who will have to sink
their teeth into this discussion. What does this mean? What does this
expedited procedure, fast-track straitjacket, mean? What does it mean
when we do bilateral negotiations, so-called free-trade negotiations,
with the countries I previously described, and how do we resolve them?
How do we deal with them?
Many of my colleagues, myself included, believe when we negotiate
trade agreements we should do so with an eye on what we have created
and built in this country, lifting up standards for almost a century
now. We should have labor provisions in the trade agreements. We should
have environmental provisions in the trade agreements. We should have a
shock absorber for currency fluctuation in the trade agreements. Some
say that is radical. It is not radical. I will show you what is
radical. It is the sheet that shows the combined trade deficit with the
world. When you talk about what is radical, this is radical: the trade
strategy that gives us this is radical. The trade strategy that gives
us this morning's merchandise trade deficit of $66 billion, that is
what is radical.
There is an old saying: If you don't care where you are, you are
never going to be lost. You know, we have gone on here for some long
while with people apparently not caring, but it is time for our country
to care. There is only one United States on this planet. If you spin
this globe and try to find another equivalent place, with democracy and
a market system that have come together to create opportunity for so
many--there is only one place. But we are quickly losing it with this
``the world is flat'' approach, with free-trade agreements that tend to
put downward pressure on wages in this country and strip away benefits
and decide in this new market system that comparative advantage is not
just who has the best natural resources to produce what product, but
who has decided to have rules in their country that prohibit workers
from organizing, that allow sweatshops to operate, that allows 11-year-
old kids in carpet factories.
That is not comparative advantage. Ricardo would roll over in his
grave. It has nothing to do with comparative advantage. We have to
confront these issues, the sooner the better, and there is no question
we will begin to confront them in this year, perhaps in the next 4 or 5
months. The way we confront them and the decisions we make will have a
profound impact on what kind of a country we have and what kind of
economy we have in the coming years. That is why it is so important.
I wanted to make a couple of comments today by pointing out that we
are now confronted with choices, and those choices, I assume, will be
imposed upon us in a very short period of time. I look forward to new
voices in the Senate weighing in on these important issues. Not in a
way that suggests we are not a part of the world economy, we are a
significant part of the world economy; not in a way that suggests the
world has not gotten smaller, it has. The world is not flat, but the
world certainly is smaller.
We are engaged in this information technology revolution. If
something happens almost anywhere in the world, I will know about it 5
minutes later, and we will see pictures of it in a half hour or less.
So things have changed. But what has not changed is our need and desire
as Americans to look after the well-being of our economy and the
opportunities that can exist for our citizens.
That is not being selfish. That is our responsibility. We are
stewards of this country's future, and that stewardship, in my
judgment, is vastly compromised by this chart and what has happened
with the shipping of American jobs overseas, with the decision that
cheaper prices at home for products produced elsewhere for pennies an
hour represent fair competition for American workers. It is not fair
competition, and we do desperately need, now, a new trade strategy, one
that reflects the economic interests of this country but one that still
insists on being a significant part of the world economy even as we try
to lift others up without pushing our standards down.
Amendment No. 286
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was pleased to join Senator Specter and
Senator Dodd in offering an amendment to restore the Great Writ of
habeas corpus, a cornerstone of American liberty since the founding of
this Nation. Senator Specter and I introduced
[[Page S2963]]
this legislation late last year and reintroduced it on the first day of
this new Congress. This amendment continues our efforts to amend last
year's Military Commissions Act, to right a wrong and to restore a
basic protection to American law. This is an issue on which we continue
to work together and urge Senators on both sides of the aisle to join
with us.
As Justice Scalia wrote in the Hamdi case: ``The very core of liberty
secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom
from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.'' The remedy
that secures that most basic of freedoms is habeas corpus. It provides
a check against arbitrary detentions and constitutional violations. It
guarantees an opportunity to go to court, with the aid of a lawyer, to
prove one's innocence. This fundamental protection was rolled back in
an unprecedented and unnecessary way in the run up to last fall's
election by passage of the Military Commissions Act.
The Military Commissions Act eliminated that right, permanently, for
any noncitizen determined to be an enemy combatant, or even
``awaiting'' such a determination. That includes the approximately 12
million lawful permanent residents in the United States today, people
who work and pay taxes in America and are lawful residents. This new
law means that any of these people can be detained, forever, without
any ability to challenge their detention in Federal court--or anywhere
else--simply on the Government's say-so that they are awaiting
determination whether they are enemy combatants.
I deeply regret that Senator Specter and I were unsuccessful in our
efforts to stop this injustice when the President and the Republican
leadership insisted on rushing the Military Commissions Act through
Congress in the weeks before the recent elections. We proposed an
amendment that would have removed the habeas-stripping provision from
the Military Commissions Act. We fell just three votes short in those
politically charged days. It is my hope that the new Senate and new
Congress will reconsider this matter, restore this fundamental
protection and revitalize our tradition of checks and balances.
This amendment to the 9/11 Commission bill provides the right time
and the place for the Senate to make this stand. The 9/11 Commission
bill seeks to make us stronger and to protect us from the threat of
terrorism. Protecting our values and the safeguards that make us a
strong democracy is key to that effort. Restoring our place as an
example to the world of liberty and the rule of law will only increase
our security and undermine those who would seek to recruit terrorists.
Giving the Government such raw, unfettered power as the Military
Commissions Act did should concern every American. Last fall, I spelled
out a nightmare scenario about a hard-working legal permanent resident
who makes an innocent donation to, among other charities, a Muslim
charity that the Government secretly suspects might be a source of
funding for critics of the United States Government. I suggested that,
on the basis of this donation and perhaps a report of ``suspicious
behavior'' from an overzealous neighbor, the permanent resident could
be brought in for questioning, denied a lawyer, confined, and even
tortured. Such a person would have no recourse in the courts for years,
for decades, forever.
Many people viewed this kind of nightmare scenario as fanciful, just
the rhetoric of a politician. It was not. It is all spelled out clearly
in the language of the law that this body passed. In November, the
scenario I spelled out was confirmed by the Department of Justice
itself in a legal brief submitted in a Federal court in Virginia. The
Justice Department, in a brief to dismiss a detainee's habeas case,
said that the Military Commissions Act allows the Government to detain
any non-citizen designated an enemy combatant without giving that
person any ability to challenge his detention in court. This is true,
the Justice Department said, even for someone arrested and imprisoned
in the United States. The Washington Post wrote that the brief ``raises
the possibility that any of the millions of immigrants living in the
United States could be subject to indefinite detention if they are
accused of ties to terrorist groups.''
In fact, the situation is even more stark than The Washington Post
story suggested. The Justice Department's brief says that the
Government can detain any noncitizen declared to be an enemy combatant.
But the law this Congress passed says the Government need not even make
that declaration: They can hold people indefinitely who are awaiting
determination whether or not they are enemy combatants.
It gets worse. Republican leaders in the Senate followed the White
House's lead and greatly expanded the definition of ``enemy
combatants'' in the dark of night in the final days before the bill's
passage, so that enemy combatants need not be soldiers on any
battlefield. They can be people who donate small amounts of money, or
people that any group of decision-makers selected by the President
decides to call enemy combatants. The possibilities are chilling.
We have eliminated basic legal and human rights for the 12 million
lawful permanent residents who live and work among us, to say nothing
of the millions of other legal immigrants and visitors who we welcome
to our shores each year. We have removed a vital check that our legal
system provides against the Government arbitrarily detaining people for
life without charge. We may well have also made many of our remaining
limits against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment obsolete because
they are unenforceable. We have removed the mechanism the Constitution
provides to check Government overreaching and lawlessness.
This is wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. It is
designed to ensure that the Bush-Cheney administration will never again
be embarrassed by a United States Supreme Court decision reviewing its
unlawful abuses of power. The conservative Supreme Court, with seven of
its nine members appointed by Republican Presidents, has been the only
check on this administration's lawlessness. Certainly the last Congress
did not do it. With passage of the Military Commissions Act, the
Republican Congress completed the job of eviscerating its role as a
check and balance on the administration.
Some Senators uneasy about the Military Commissions Act's disastrous
habeas provision took solace in the thought that it would be struck
down by the courts. Instead, the first court to consider that
provision, a Federal court in the District of Columbia, upheld the
provision. The DC Circuit, in a sharply divided 2-1 decision, upheld
that ruling, holding that at least the hundreds of detainees held in
Guantanamo Bay cannot go to court to challenge their detention. We
should not outsource our moral, legal and constitutional responsibility
to the courts. We cannot count on the courts to fix our mistakes.
Congress must be accountable for its actions, and we should act to
right this wrong.
Following the DC Circuit's decision, newspapers and experts from
across the country and across the political spectrum have called on
Congress to take action. Editorial boards from the Washington Post and
the New York Times to the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana, and
the Columbia Tribune in Missouri have called for reversing the MCA's
habeas provision. Prominent conservatives like Bob Barr and Bruce Fein,
along with Aberto Mora, former Navy General Counsel in the Bush
Administration, have echoed this call. I ask that a selection of these
editorials be placed in the record.
A group of four distinguished admirals and generals who have served
as senior military lawyers argued passionately for fixing this problem
in a letter they sent to me earlier this week. They wrote, ``In
discarding habeas corpus, we are jettisoning one of the core principles
of our Nation precisely when we should be showcasing to the world our
respect for the rule of law and basic rights. These are the
characteristics that make our nation great. These are the values our
men and women in uniform are fighting to preserve.''
Abolishing habeas corpus for anyone who the Government thinks might
have assisted enemies of the United States is unnecessary and morally
wrong. It is a betrayal of the most basic values of freedom for which
America stands. It makes a mockery of the administration's lofty
rhetoric about exporting freedom across the globe.
[[Page S2964]]
We should take steps to ensure that our enemies can be brought to
justice efficiently and quickly. I introduced a bill to do that back in
2002, as did Senator Specter, when we each proposed a set of laws to
establish military commissions. The Bush-Cheney administration rejected
our efforts and designed a regime the U.S. Supreme Court determined to
be unlawful. Establishing appropriate military commissions is not the
question. We all agree to do that. What we need to revisit is the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for millions of legal
immigrants and others, denying their right to challenge indefinite
detainment on the Government's say-so.
It is from strength that America should defend our values and our
Constitution. It takes commitment to those values to demand
accountability from the Government. We should not be legislating from
fear. In standing up for American values and security, I will keep
working on this issue until we restore the checks and balances that are
fundamental to preserving the liberties that define us as a nation. We
can ensure our security without giving up our liberty. That is what the
9/11 Commission bill aims to do, and that is what this amendment will
help to achieve.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following editorials
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 4, 2007]
Extend Legal Rights to Guantanamo
(By Alberto J. Mora and Thomas R. Pickering)
For more than 200 years, the courts have served as the
ultimate safeguard for our civil liberties. A critical part
of this role has been the judicial branch's ability to
consider writs of habeas corpus, through which people who
have been imprisoned can challenge the decision to hold them
in government custody. In this way, habeas corpus has
provided an important check on executive power. However,
because of a provision of the Military Commissions Act passed
last fall, this fundamental role of the courts has been
seriously reduced.
Habeas corpus--the Great Writ--has been the preeminent
safeguard of individual liberty for centuries by providing
meaningful judicial review of executive action and ensuring
that our government has complied with the Constitution and
the laws of the United States. Habeas review has always been
most critical in cases of executive detention without charge
because it provides prisoners a meaningful opportunity to
contest their detention before a neutral decision maker.
In 2004, the Supreme Court held that the protections of
habeas corpus extend to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, who may
rely on them to challenge the lawfulness of their indefinite
detentions. The court noted that at its historical core,
``the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of
reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in
that context that its protections have been strongest.''
But the Military Commissions Act eliminates the federal
courts' ability to hear habeas petitions filed by certain
noncitizens detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay
and elsewhere. Late last month the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit upheld this provision and dismissed the
lawsuits filed by many of the Guantanamo detainees.
We fully recognize that our government must have the power
to detain suspected foreign terrorists to protect national
security. But removing the federal courts' ability to hear
habeas corpus claims does not serve that goal. On the
contrary, habeas corpus is crucial to ensure that the
government's power to detain is exercised wisely, lawfully
and consistently with American values. That is why we have
joined with the Constitution Project's broad and bipartisan
group of judges, former members of Congress, executive branch
officials, scholars and others to urge Congress to restore
federal court jurisdiction to hear these habeas corpus
petitions.
The unconventional nature of the ``war on terrorism'' makes
habeas corpus more, not less, important. Unlike what is found
in traditional conflicts, there is no clearly defined enemy,
no identifiable battlefield and no foreseeable end to the
fighting. The government claims the power to imprison
individuals without charge indefinitely, potentially forever.
It is essential that there be a meaningful process to ensure
that the United States does not mistakenly deprive innocent
people of their liberty. Habeas corpus provides that process.
We recognize that the Military Commissions Act still
enables the Guantanamo detainees to have hearings before a
Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which is charged with
determining whether the detainee is in fact an ``enemy
combatant.'' But unlike court hearings, the tribunal hearings
rely on secret evidence, deny detainees the chance to obtain
and present their own evidence, and allow the government to
use evidence obtained by coercive interrogation methods.
While these tribunals have some utility, they cannot replace
the critical role of habeas corpus.
The government has detained some Guantanamo prisoners for
more than five years without giving them a meaningful
opportunity to be heard. The United States cannot expect
other nations to afford its citizens the basic guarantees
provided by habeas corpus unless it provides those guarantees
to others.
And in our constitutional system of checks and balances, it
is unwise for the legislative branch to limit an established
and traditional avenue of judicial review.
Americans should be proud of their commitment to the rule
of law and not diminish the protections it provides. Our
country's detention policy has undermined its reputation
around the world and has weakened support for the fight
against terrorism. Restoring habeas corpus rights would help
repair the damage and demonstrate U.S. commitment to a
counterterrorism policy that is tough but that also respects
individual rights. Congress should restore the habeas corpus
rights that were eliminated by the Military Commissions Act,
and President Bush should sign that bill into law.
____
[From the Washington Times, Feb. 27, 2007]
Rule of Law Crippled
(By Bruce Fein)
The Great Writ of habeas corpus is to the rule of law what
oxygen is to life.
The U.S. Court of Appeals imprudently crippled the writ
last week in Lakhdar Boumediene v. Bush (Feb. 20). A divided
three-judge panel declared suspected alien enemy combatants
held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay may not question their
detentions in federal courts though petitions for writs of
habeas corpus under the Military Commissions Act of 2006
(MCA). Writing for a 2-1 majority, Judge Raymond Randolph
mistakenly endorsed a cramped interpretation of habeas corpus
as though he were addressing a tax exemption in the Internal
Revenue Code.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Accordingly, the Great
Writ prevents the president from disappearing political
opponents or the unpopular into dungeons based on his say-so
alone, a frightening power that has earmarked despots from
time immemorial. The writ enables detainees to require the
president to establish the factual and legal foundations for
their detentions before an independent judiciary.
The goal is justice, the end of civil society as James
Madison explained in the Federalist Papers. The president may
be inclined to detain bogus enemy combatants in the war
against global terrorism to inflate public fear and to
justify executive aggrandizements, for example, spying
without judicial or legislative oversight in contravention of
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. A former
commandant and deputy commandant at Guantanamo Bay have
averred that most of its detainees do not belong there.
The Great Writ does not threaten to release a single
genuine enemy combatant. The burden to defeat the Great Writ
is modest: plausible evidence (far short of proof beyond a
reasonable doubt) that the detainee was implicated in active
hostilities against the United States. In Rasul v. Bush
(2004), the Supreme Court held the federal habeas corpus
statute extended to aliens at Guantanamo. Two years later,
Congress overruled Rasul in the MCA by suspending the Great
Writ for alien enemy combatants detained anywhere. Its
proponents were unable to cite a single habeas case either
before or after Rasul that precipitated the release of an
authentic terrorist. Such a case might be hypothesized with a
fevered enough imagination. But the law would become ``a ass,
a idiot,'' in the words of Charles Dickens' Mr. Bumble, if
required to answer jumbo speculations that never happen in
the real world.
Article I, section 9, clause 2 of the Constitution
(Suspension Clause) declares ``The Privilege of the Writ of
Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless in Cases of
Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.''
Judge Randolph tacitly acknowledged in Boumediene that
neither habeas exception justified the MCA, i.e., global
terrorists have not invaded America. He insisted, however,
that the Great Writ has no application to aliens detained
outside the sovereignty of the United States; and, that
Guantanamo Bay is under the sovereignty of Cuba, albeit
subject to a perpetual United States lease.
The latter observation is risible. Fidel Castro has no more
access or control over Guantanamo than he does over
Washington, D.C., or Des Moines. If Mr. Castro formally
abandoned sovereignty over Guantanamo tomorrow, nothing would
change. Judge Randolph maintained that a declaration by the
political branches in the MCA that Guantanamo is not part of
the United States is conclusive on the courts. But the
dimensions of the Great Writ which defines what we are as a
people should not be so easily contracted by semantic
jugglery.
Judge Randolph observed that historically the Great Writ in
Great Britain was withheld from remote islands, garrisons and
dominions. Compliance with a writ from overseas would have
been impractical because of time limitations for producing
the detainee. But as Chief Justice John Marshall taught in
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Constitution was designed
to endure for the ages and
[[Page S2965]]
to be construed accordingly to achieve its purposes. Congress
is empowered to create an Air Force, although the
Constitution speaks only of armies and navies. The Fourth
Amendment protects against indiscriminate government
interceptions of e-mails and conversations, although its
language speaks only of persons, houses, papers and effects.
Similarly, the Great Writ should apply to suspected alien
enemy combatants detained abroad unless compliance would be
impractical or unworkable.
No civilized Constitution risks injustice for the sake of
injustice, aside from the folly of creating poster children
to boost al Qaeda's recruitments. The Supreme Court should
grant review of Boumediene and reverse the appeals court.
____
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2007]
A Congressional Duty
ON THE FIRST day of the new Congress, two leading senators
announced they would join in an attempt to reverse the hasty
and ill-considered decision of the previous Congress to
deprive foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay of the ancient
right of habeas corpus, which allows the appeal of
imprisonment to a judge. One of the senators, Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.), predicted that the courts would rule that the
provision of the Military Commissions Act eliminating habeas
corpus was unconstitutional; he nevertheless joined the
incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick
J. Leahy (D-Vt.), in sponsoring a bill restoring the appeal
right.
Now Mr. Specter's prediction is looking less sure: The U.S.
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled this week that
Congress's act was constitutional, and it threw the cases of
dozens of Guantanamo detainees out of federal court. That
ruling will almost certainly be reviewed by the Supreme Court
on appeal, but Congress should not wait for its decision. It
should move quickly on the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act.
The Supreme Court has already twice overruled decisions by
the D.C. Circuit denying Guantanamo detainees habeas rights,
but it is hard to predict whether it will do so again. The
court's composition has changed since those rulings, with the
addition of justices more likely to be sympathetic to the
arguments of the Bush administration. Congress has reversed
part of the basis for the court's previous rulings by
enacting a statute saying that persons found to be ``enemy
combatants'' by military review panels, including detainees
held at Guantanamo, have only a limited right of appeal.
The principal remaining question is whether Congress's
action is permitted under Article I, Section 9 of the
Constitution, which says, ``The Privilege of the Writ of
Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended'' except in cases of
``Rebellion or Invasion.'' Two judges of the three-member
appeals court panel ruled that the provision does not apply
at Guantanamo because it is not on U.S. territory and the
detainees are foreigners. A dissent written by Judge Judith
Rogers pointed out that one of the earlier Supreme Court
rulings stated that giving appeal rights to Guantanamo
inmates ``is consistent with the historical reach of the writ
of habeas corpus.'' But the court has not ruled squarely on
the constitutional issue.
Rather than wait for the court's decision, Congress should
correct its own mistake. The 51 to 48 vote rejecting Mr.
Specter's previous attempt to restore habeas condemned
hundreds of foreign prisoners to indefinite detention without
trial at Guantanamo; only a few score are expected to be
prosecuted by the military commissions. Since 2002 it has
become clear that a number of prisoners at the facility were
arrested in error, are not terrorists and pose no threat to
the United States. Moreover, improvements in the prisoners'
treatment have come about largely because of their court
appeals. Congress has both a practical and a moral interest
in ensuring that this basic human right is restored.
____
[From the New York Times, Feb. 22, 2007]
American Liberty at the Precipice
In another low moment for American justice, a federal
appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the
prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to
be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that
President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that
gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution.
The right of prisoners to challenge their confinement--
habeas corpus--is enshrined in the Constitution and is
central to American liberty. Congress and the Supreme Court
should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage
that last fall's law--and this week's ruling--have done to
this basic freedom.
The Supreme Court ruled last year on the jerry-built system
of military tribunals that the Bush Administration
established to try the Guantanamo detainees, finding it
illegal. Mr. Bush responded by driving through Congress the
Military Commissions Act, which presumed to deny the right of
habeas corpus to any noncitizen designated as an ``enemy
combatant.'' This frightening law raises insurmountable
obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. And it
gives the government the power to take away habeas rights
from any noncitizen living in the United States who is
unfortunate enough to be labeled an enemy combatant.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit, which rejected the detainees' claims by a
vote of 2 to 1, should have permitted the detainees to be
heard in court--and it should have ruled that the law is
unconstitutional.
As Judge Judith Rogers argued in a strong dissent, the
Supreme Court has already rejected the argument that
detainees do not have habeas rights because Guantanamo is
located outside the United States. Judge Rogers also rightly
noted that the Constitution limits the circumstances under
which Congress can suspend habeas to ``cases of Rebellion or
invasion,'' which is hardly the situation today. Moreover,
she said, the act's alternative provisions for review of
cases are constitutionally inadequate. The Supreme Court
should add this case to its docket right away and reverse it
before this term ends.
Congress should not wait for the Supreme Court to act. With
the Democrats now in charge, it is in a good position to pass
a new law that fixes the dangerous mess it has made. Senators
Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Arlen Specter,
Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced a bill that would
repeal the provision in the Military Commissions Act that
purports to obliterate the habeas corpus rights of detainees.
The Bush administration's assault on civil liberties does
not end with habeas corpus. Congress should also move quickly
to pass another crucial bill, introduced by Senator
Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, that, among other
steps, would once and for all outlaw the use of evidence
obtained through torture.
When the Founding Fathers put habeas corpus in Article I of
the Constitution, they were underscoring the vital importance
to a democracy of allowing prisoners to challenge their
confinement in a court of law. Much has changed since Sept.
11, but the bedrock principles of American freedom must
remain.
____
[From the Columbia Tribune, Feb. 22, 2007]
Enemy Combatants: A Fast Track to Justice
Under the president's shortcut plan for wartime justice,
anyone he labels an ``enemy combatant'' loses normal
constitutional rights. The government denies hundreds of
detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to a hearing in
court.
Last year the U.S. Supreme Court declared this denial
unconstitutional. In response, the Bush administration pushed
through Congress the Military Commissions Act authorizing the
use of such commissions instead of courts for hearing these
cases.
This week the District of Columbia appeals court upheld the
new law, a decision certain to be appealed, sending the issue
back to the highest court, where I hope this latest gambit
will be denied.
I suppose President George W. Bush and his crew refuse to
let these prisoners have habeas corpus hearings in the U.S.
court system because they fear the outcome. Why else? And if
so, what does that say about their expectations for the
military commissions? That these extra-judicial bodies will
affirm the government's extralegal detention policies? What
else?
This dogged insistence is but one example of Bush's
eagerness to ignore essential constitutional guarantees,
ranking right up there with his programs of warrantless
wiretapping and other surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Bush simply refuses to go to court for oversight of his
administration's actions in denial of civil rights. Before he
took office, it was simple. When a person is arrested, he has
a right to a real court hearing to determine the legitimacy
of the arrest and his ultimate guilt or innocence. When
citizens' privacy is invaded by government, it is to be done
only with court permission.
We see signs that the American public is getting fed up
with these constitutional shortcuts. These practices alone
are enough to unwarrant this administration. Let us pray the
Supreme Court again slaps them down.
____
[From the Evansville Courier & Press, Feb. 21, 2007]
A Matter of Right: Federal Court Upholds Denial of Habeas Corpus to
Detainees Outside the U.S
Congress should tear itself away from the pointless
business of passing nonbinding resolutions on Iraq and begin
cleaning up the damage we've done to ourselves in the war on
terror.
That task became more urgent this week when the federal
court of appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the
constitutionality of a provision denying the right of habeas
corpus to detainees held outside the United States.
The Military Commissions Act (MCA) was passed last year,
hastily and without much thought like so much anti-terrorism
legislation, after the Supreme Court told the Bush
administration that it had to get congressional permission
for its plan to try the detainees before military tribunals.
Part of that law banned the detainees at U.S. prisons in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan from challenging in
civilian courts the legality of their detention. That right
of habeas corpus is a bedrock principle of Anglo-Saxon law
going back eight centuries. It is a fundamental right
enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Carving out an exception to that right based on a sketchy
designation as an ``enemy combatant'' was a terrible
precedent, essentially justifying arbitrary imprisonment.
The senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., and
[[Page S2966]]
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., tried to rectify this departure from
U.S. respect for the rule of law last year and failed by
three votes.
They have reintroduced their bill in the new Congress.
Another bill, by Leahy and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., would
restore the right of habeas corpus and clean up some other
unfortunate provisions in the MCA by sharpening the
definition of ``illegal combatant,'' excluding evidence
obtained by coercion and allowing military judges to exclude
hearsay evidence.
If the circuit-court ruling stands, the practical effect
would be to force the federal courts to dismiss more than 400
habeas-corpus appeals. The ruling will certainly be appealed
to the Supreme Court, and one hopes that the high court would
stand up for this ancient and fundamental right.
But it would be better if Congress acted first to
demonstrate our faith and confidence in our own system.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today in support of amendment No. 366,
offered by my colleague, Senator Schumer. This important amendment
would restore the export restrictions on highly enriched, HEU, bomb-
grade uranium for use as a reactor fuel or as targets to produce
medical isotopes, except on an interim basis to facilities that are
actively pursuing conversion to low-enriched uranium LEU.
Let's look at the history behind this amendment. From 1992 until
2005, we had a law that worked. Under that law, we allowed the
exportation of HEU for the production of medical isotopes as long as
the recipient of that highly enriched uranium cooperated with the
United States to get to the point where the production of these medical
isotopes could be done with low-enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium
is not of sufficient grade to make bombs. This law provided the
incentive to work with the United States to attain conversion to LEU.
Most important, it furthered our antiproliferation goal of reducing the
circulation of HEU outside the United States. It is important to note
that from 1992 until 2005, licenses for the shipments of HEU were never
denied and the medical isotopes needed for radiopharmaceuticals were
never in short supply.
Then in 2005 this effective, 13-year-old law was gutted through an
amendment to the Energy Policy Act and the export restrictions on HEU
were eliminated. These restrictions were lifted over the objection of a
majority of this body, which voted in favor of retaining existing law,
52 to 46, after a thorough debate. You may ask why an amendment to
allow weapons-grade uranium to leave the United States without
restriction would resurface in conference and end up enacted into law.
I ask that same question. There are no good explanations. One thing is
certain, though; we need to fix it.
The major producers of medical isotopes are all foreign companies
operating outside the United States. Under the previous law, these
companies were moving toward conversion to LEU, and many have developed
the capability to produce medical isotopes from LEU. Australia and the
Netherlands are two good examples. The other major producer of medical
isotopes is in Canada. That Canadian company has resisted conversion to
LEU and in 2005 that company had enough HEU-material stockpiled to
build at least four bombs. Today, who knows how much it may have
stockpiled. One thing we do know is, if this material is lost or
stolen, the United States would be faced with a serious nuclear threat.
We must rectify this mistake. I urge my colleagues to adopt this
amendment.
I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I make a point of order, en bloc, that the
pending amendments are not germane under the provisions of rule XXII,
with the exception of the following: Reid No. 275, Landrieu No. 321,
Schumer No. 336, Coburn No. 325, Coburn No. 294, Kyl No. 357, Biden No.
383, Schumer No. 367, Stevens No. 299, Schumer No. 337, Bond No. 389.
Mr. President, I make that point of order on behalf of Senator
Lieberman. I believe it has been cleared on both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is well taken and the
amendments fall.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it has been a productive week for the
Senate. We have moved closer to completing the long overdue work of the
9/11 Commission--work that will make our country more safe, more
secure.
It has been over 2\1/2\ years since the 9/11 Commission gave Congress
a roadmap to follow to secure our country. This bipartisan Commission
met for over a year, had hearings all over the country, did excellent
work. It is important we do not delay their recommendations any longer.
The safety and security of our country is too important.
Before we adjourn today, I wish to say a few words in praise of my
friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu.
In the face of many objections from the minority, Senator Landrieu has
been tireless in working to eliminate rules that are nothing more than
miles of redtape and mountains of paperwork that are delaying the
rebuilding and recovery of the gulf coast, which was devastated by a
natural disaster we now know as Katrina.
Her amendment No. 295 is very simple. It would waive the requirement
that local communities put up a 10-percent match for every Federal
dollar we spend to rebuild public facilities such as schools and fire
stations destroyed by Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. These were all
devastating hurricanes.
The President has the authority to do this with a single stroke of
the pen. In fact, I joined with Senators Landrieu and Lieberman urging
him a month ago to do just that, to use his office to lift these
significant burdens to recovery. To this day, he simply has not done
that. He waived these rules for New York after 9/11. The first
President Bush waived these rules after Hurricane Andrew, which was
devastating but does not compare to what Katrina did. In fact, these
rules have been waived every time disaster recovery costs have grown to
even a fraction of those we are now seeing. But not with Katrina and
its pals, Rita and Wilma.
So that brings us to why we are here today. What the President would
not do we must do legislatively. I would say to all those who are from
the administration who are listening to us talk today, when the
President gets back from Latin America, let's have him do this. It
would save our having to do it in the supplemental. He could call down
here. Even maybe he could get some of the people to back off on the
other side so we could do it before this bill passes. The President
does not need legislation. He has the authority to do that right now. I
would hope he would do that. The Senator from Louisiana has been
patient and very aggressive. That is what is necessary. I would hope
her patience would be rewarded with the President signing his name
waiving this 10 percent. It is something that needs to be done. If not,
I have committed to her and the people of Louisiana, through her
Governor and others who have come to see me, that we are going to do
what is right.
This is important. It has happened for every other major disaster,
and it should happen for this one. If we cannot do it on this bill, and
the President will not do it, then we will have to do it on the
supplemental that will be here in a little over 2 weeks. The House has
already said they intend to do this. We also intend to do this.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. President.
I thank the majority leader for those words and for him restating
publicly and unequivocally his commitment to getting this job done, not
just for the people of Louisiana but for the people of the gulf coast.
We have spent a lot of time on the floor, as the majority leader knows,
talking about rebuilding other places in the world. The leader is
correct, and the Democratic caucus is
[[Page S2967]]
leading to try to redirect some of that attention to right here at
home.
We have over 30 million people who live on the gulf coast right now,
today, this Friday. The work of rebuilding is being thwarted, is being
hampered, is being delayed by outmoded, unrealistic Federal regulations
and bureaucratic redtape that is choking this recovery.
Now, normally this redtape is a nuisance. We work through it. It is
inconvenient. It is a nuisance. But we just sort of move through the
redtape of Government. But in this case, it is literally a noose that
is around the necks of people, of business owners, large and small,
family members--strangling their efforts to recover their communities
that were devastated.
Just to put some pieces in the picture I am trying to paint, I would
like to just share some details about Cameron Parish. You do not hear
much about Cameron Parish because there are only 9,658 people who live
there. We hear a lot about New Orleans. We hear a lot about Jefferson
Parish. We hear a lot about even St. Bernard Parish. But little Cameron
Parish, down on the southwest border, that was directly hit by Rita,
the ``forgotten storm.'' We have not. The legislative delegation from
Louisiana has not forgotten it, but many others fail to remember it.
Cameron Parish lost five fire stations, four community recreation
centers, four public libraries, three maintenance barns, two parish
multipurpose buildings, Courthouse Circle; Cameron Parish Police Jury
Annex Building--destroyed; Cameron Parish Sheriff's Department
Investigative Office--destroyed. The health unit was destroyed. The
school board office was destroyed. The mosquito control barn was
destroyed. And the waterworks district No. 10 office was destroyed.
Virtually every public building was destroyed, except the courthouse,
which was built in the early part of the century. It is several stories
high, and it sort of shines white on the coast. If you flew over it,
you could actually see it. It is quite large, and many people's lives
have actually been saved by going to the courthouse during storms,
where they have been kept from the high water. But everything else in
the parish is gone. This little parish can no more put up a 10-percent
match to rebuild four libraries, all their schools, than the man in the
moon.
Now, normally, if the hurricane was not so bad, the State of
Louisiana, which is a big State--not huge, but we are not small, we are
medium-sized--would be strong enough to step up, give Cameron Parish
the 10 percent of each of these very important public works for the
10,000 people or so who live there. But the problem is, Katrina and
Rita were so devastating to the whole State that our State is not
strong enough.
That is why we have a Federal Government. When the State is not
strong enough, because of the storms, the Nation steps up. I am asking
the President of the United States to step up and use his authority to
waive this 10-percent match so the people of Cameron and the people
right next door to them on the Texas line who were equally hard hit and
the people to the right of them on the map--the good people of
Mississippi--there are towns in Mississippi that lost every school,
every library. The State of Mississippi will have a difficult time as
well. But the State of Louisiana is having an unusually difficult time
because of the devastation.
I want to say again--because I think numbers can paint a picture or
tell a story better than even words can--the per capita damage to
Florida from Hurricane Andrew was $139. The per capita damage to the
State of New York was $390 from the attacks on the World Trade Center.
These two events were unprecedented and unheard of. Most storms are
like $20 per capita, $50 per capita. They hardly ever go over $50 per
capita.
When Hurricane Andrew came through, it really woke us up to the poor
people of Florida. It wrecked Homestead, FL, and was a great weight for
the State of Florida. But we all pitched in and helped, and this match
was waived.
When 9/11 hit, it shook the foundations of this Nation. It also shook
the great city of New York. But it was waived, and we all pitched in
and helped.
Here we have Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and we sit here wondering:
Where is the Government? Where is the President? Where is the
minority's thinking on this subject? Our per capita damage is $6,700.
It defies anything we have ever seen.
Our State has been asking for this 10 percent reduction for 18
months. Do we have to keep asking for it? Do we have to keep supplying
data like this? What is it going to take to get them to understand if
there was ever a situation where the 10 percent should be waived, if
there was ever an example like Cameron Parish, this is it.
So this amendment is pending. It is being opposed by an undisclosed
person. But the minority is opposing it. I will meet the minority more
than halfway. I am asking the administration, please, over the weekend,
to reconsider. Let us get this done on this bill. Every day, every week
counts. If we cannot, the majority leader has said--and I, of course,
will support the effort, and many of the members of this caucus are
supporting it--we will do it on the supplemental. The problem is, it
will take us weeks. Perhaps the supplemental will run into a veto
threat. Who knows? Because there are lots of issues that are going to
come up on that supplemental. But this issue is clear. It could be
easily fixed on this bill. I am going to work through the weekend to
see if we can find any kind of compromise that could give a green light
to the people of Cameron Parish. Let me say that even without that
light, we visited Cameron Parish several times. Their little girls'
softball team that was in contention when the storm hit went on to win
the championship. Without a cafeteria, without a school, without a gym
to practice, with most of their teachers' homes underwater and their
own homes underwater, and most of them living in trailers or in tents,
this team went on to win the championship. So when people say that
people in Louisiana don't have resilience, we are being as resilient as
we possibly can be under these circumstances. All we are asking is to
please look at the data, please consider our case and allow us to get
this 10 percent waiver so that the public works can move forward on
fire stations, police stations, libraries, and infrastructure, most
certainly essential to communities rebuilding. As we rebuild, we are
rebuilding on higher ground. We are rebuilding with better building
materials. We are mitigating against future storms. We are not building
in the old-fashioned ways. But if this 10 percent doesn't get waived,
we are not going to be building new or old or otherwise. We won't be
building.
As I said, we may not be a fancy coast, but we are America's energy
coast. We are proud of the fish that we bring in right off of Cameron
Parish. We are proud of the shipping industry. We are proud of the ship
channel that brings liquefied natural gas to keep the lights on in this
Chamber and sends gas to New York and Philadelphia and California every
day.
This is Cameron Parish. They are not sunbathing down in Cameron
Parish. Yet we can't find it out of the goodwill of our hearts--we are
spending all of this money to rebuild Iraq, and I have 10,000 people
down on the coast. Does anybody remember they are Americans, taxpaying
Americans with no libraries, no schools, and no possible way to put up
their 10 percent match because they lost everything? I would think that
somewhere in this trillion-dollar budget and maybe in the heart of the
minority they could find some room for the people of Cameron Parish.
Please consider our request over this weekend to get this 10 percent
waived.
I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor, and 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. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Lincoln). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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