Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 177 (Thursday, November 15, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 177 (Thursday, November 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14445-S14474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

MAKING EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS MOTION TO PROCEED

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I understand that the majority may
move to proceed to the supplemental bill passed by the House last
night. That bill imposes at least two policy restrictions that will
compel a veto: directing the readiness standard the Defense Department
must follow before a unit may be deployed, and expanding the
interrogation procedures established in the Army Field Manual over to
the intelligence community.
The House bill will also compel the immediate withdrawal of forces,
regardless of what General Petraeus's orders may be. Petraeus has
established a reasonable timeline for the transition of mission and
drawdown, and, frankly, we ought to support him. The Marine
expeditionary unit identified by General Petraeus in September for
withdrawal has left Iraq, and an Army brigade is headed home over the
next month.

cloture motion

Madam President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 484, S. 2340, the
troop funding bill. I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
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 the motion to
proceed to S. 2340, a bill making emergency supplemental
appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2008.
Mitch McConnell, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker, Wayne
Allard, Thad Cochran, John Cornyn, Kay Bailey
Hutchison, Lisa Murkowski, Orrin Hatch, Richard Burr,
Trent Lott, Mike Crapo, Pat Roberts, Chuck Grassley,
Jon Kyl, Norm Coleman, Mel Martinez.

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Secretary Gates stated clearly
yesterday that the Army and Marine Corps will run out of operating
funds early next year. This funding shortfall will harm units preparing
for deployment and those training for their basic missions. We should
not cut off funding for our troops in the field, particularly at a
moment when the tactical success of the Petraeus plan is crystal clear.
Attacks and casualties are down. Political cooperation is occurring at
the local level. We should not leave our forces in the field without
the funding they need to accomplish the mission for which they have
been deployed.
The Pelosi bill, if it was to get to the President's desk, of course,
would be vetoed, as was the supplemental bill sent to the President
earlier this year that contained a withdrawal date. Because we have a
responsibility to provide this funding to our men and women in uniform
as they attempt to protect the American people, we need to get a clean
troop funding bill to the President.
There is no particular reason to have all the votes that are likely
to be coming our way tomorrow. I have indicated repeatedly to the
majority leader--and we have at the staff level--that we would be more
than happy on this side of the aisle to move both the farm bill cloture
vote and whatever cloture vote or votes we end up having on the troop
funding issue up to today. I hope there is still the possibility of
doing that. I know Members on both sides of the aisle, in anticipation
of the 2-week break, have travel plans. I am all for staying here
longer if it makes sense, but under this particular set of
circumstances, it doesn't make sense.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Farm Bill

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I rise to speak about the importance
of the farm bill. I also wish to express the same deep concern about
what is happening on process in the Senate, as so many of my colleagues
and the majority leader have. This is the second week we have been
trying to pass a food and energy security bill that is important for
every community. The process that has gone on, frankly, since the
beginning of the year, is one of delay, slow walking, and filibusters
over and over again.
Yesterday, I showed a chart that read ``52 filibusters so far this
year.'' Tomorrow we have potentially three more votes to close off
filibusters. One relates to funding on the war that is tied to a policy
change the majority of Americans want to have happen to move our men
and women out of the middle of a civil war, to refocus us instead on
the critical areas of counterterrorism, training, support for Americans
who remain, those things the majority of Americans want to see happen.
We have to stop a filibuster on

[[Page S14446]]

that tomorrow morning. We then have two votes potentially on stopping
filibusters on the farm bill. So my ``52'' is, as of tomorrow,
potentially 55 filibusters this year.
We have never seen the level of filibustering that we have had in the
current session of the Senate with our friends on the other side of the
aisle.
In spite of the slowdown, in spite of the blocking of efforts to vote
on amendments and to get a farm bill done last week, in spite of
efforts this week, I am proud to say that yesterday we were able to
work together to pass a reauthorization of Head Start. This is
something that was done on a bipartisan basis. It will go to the
President. We expect him to sign it. It will increase standards for
teachers and extend resources so more children can receive Head Start
funding. Head Start is so important to prepare children for school, to
give them a head start. It is a wonderful program that involves parents
being a part of the effort of preschool education. Despite what as of
tomorrow will be 55 filibusters this year, we once again have put
forward something that is important to the American people--investing
in our young children, getting them ready to go to school. The Head
Start bill did pass. I am pleased it did.
Concerning the farm bill that is in front of us, we have worked so
hard together. We have a bill that came out of committee unanimously, a
strong bipartisan effort to not only support traditional agricultural
commodities but also to move us in new directions for the future. I am
pleased, in addition to traditional farm programs that are supported in
Michigan, that we were able to add support for the 50 percent of the
crops grown that haven't been under the farm bill; specialty crops,
fruits and vegetables are now a part of this farm bill. That is
important.
We have also tied that to a partnership to expand nutrition, a
significant new program expansion--it is beyond a pilot--the chairman
of the committee has let in on fresh fruits and vegetables as snacks in
schools, rather than children going to a vending machine and getting
soda pop or candy. There are many parts of this farm bill that focus on
nutrition. In fact, most people will be surprised to know the majority
of the farm bill, over 60 percent, is in fact focused on nutrition. We
need to get this done. We need to get this done both for our growers as
well as for children, seniors, food banks that receive help, farmers'
markets, organic farmers. This is very important.
We also in this farm bill have done something very significant--I
notice our chairman from the Finance Committee on the floor who has led
us in this, he and our ranking member--and that is creating a permanent
disaster relief program as a part of the farm bill. I am very pleased
that fruit and vegetable growers will be able to participate. We need
to be able to respond quickly when there is a disaster--a flood, a
drought, other kinds of disasters.
We also have moved this farm bill more aggressively in the direction
of alternative energy, alternative fuels, biofuels. This is important
in getting us off gasoline, off oil, when we look at prices continuing
to rise every day. It is also a way to create jobs. In Michigan, we are
creating hundreds of jobs now, with thousands to come, from ethanol
plants and biodiesel plants. As we move to cellulosic ethanol, we will
be able to create new opportunities for my sugar beet growers and the
folks up north who are involved in timber and wood products, as well as
switchgrasses and other areas. This is important. It is time to get
this done, alternative energy for the future, addressing our energy
needs, supporting our farmers.
I am proud also that American car companies within the next 3 years,
by 2012, half of what they produce, half of what they manufacture will
be flex-fuel vehicles, ethanol, other flex fuels. We need to get this
farm bill done to be able to support that effort.

Rural development is a critical part as well. I have small
communities all over Michigan that would not have water and sewer
projects if it was not for USDA rural development--another critical
part of this bill.
I would simply say we have seen now, since last week, delay after
delay after delay on giving us the opportunity to move forward and get
this farm bill done. Now is the time to do that. I hope tomorrow we
will vote to stop filibustering, we will vote to proceed to a critical
bill.
Folks think the farm bill is only about rural communities, but all of
us are impacted by every part of this farm bill. We need to get this
done. It is time to get this done. I do not want to keep having to
change this chart over and over again, although I fear I will, on how
many times there is delay, how many times there is filibustering going
on.
We have a farm bill in front of us that needs to get done for all of
us. It has been done in a truly bipartisan way. It has very broad
support. Now is the time to get this done for our American farmers and
our families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from
Montana.

Drug Safety Intimidation

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I see my good friend from Iowa, Senator
Grassley, is on the floor. We will both speak on the same subject. I
have a statement, and then I think he wants to speak next on the same
subject.
Today, Senator Grassley and I are placing in the Congressional Record
a Senate Finance Committee staff report which describes a very
disturbing series of events related to the safety of the diabetes drug
Avandia.
I commend Senator Grassley for his efforts on this issue, and I
recommend this report to my colleagues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the report be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

COMMITTEE STAFF REPORT TO THE CHAIRMAN AND RANKING MEMBER

Committee on Finance

United States Senate, November 2007

The Intimidation of Dr. John Buse and the Diabetes Drug Avandia

A. Introduction

The United States Senate Committee on Finance (Committee)
has jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Accordingly, it has a responsibility to the more than 80
million Americans who receive health care coverage under
those programs to oversee the proper administration of these
programs, including the payment for medicines regulated by
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Given the rise in
health care costs and the need to maintain public health and
safety, Medicare and Medicaid dollars should be spent on
drugs and devices that have been deemed safe and effective
for use by the FDA, in accordance with all laws and
regulations.
This report summarizes the Committee Staff's findings to
date regarding GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) intimidation of an
independent scientist who criticized Avandia, a drug GSK
manufactures to control glucose levels in diabetics. This
report is based upon an intensive review of documents
provided by GSK and others.
In a letter dated May 21, 2007, the Committee asked GSK
about allegations that its company executives intimidated a
research scientist in 1999. At the time of the alleged
intimidation, GlaxoSmithKline was called SmithKline Beecham.
In 2000, SmithKline Beecham merged with Glaxo Wellcome to
create GlaxoSmithKline. Accordingly, throughout this report,
the newly formed company will be referred to as
GlaxoSmithKline/GSK.
In response to the Committee's letter dated May 21, 2007,
that first raised these concerns about retaliation, GSK
quickly issued a press release to repudiate the allegation.
Specifically, the Wall Street Journal wrote, ``[GSK] called
the suggestion `absolutely false.' '' However, internal
company documents seem to contradict that claim and reveal
what appears to be an orchestrated plan to stifle the opinion
of Dr. John Buse, a professor of medicine at the University
of North Carolina who specializes in diabetes.
In particular, GSK's attempt at intimidation appears to
have been triggered by speeches that Dr. Buse gave at
scientific meetings in 1999. During those meetings, Dr. Buse
suggested that, aside from its benefit of controlling glucose
levels in diabetics, Avandia may carry cardiovascular risks.
The effect of silencing this criticism is, in our opinion,
extremely serious. At a July 30, 2007, safety panel on
Avandia, FDA scientists presented an analysis estimating that
Avandia caused approximately 83,000 excess heart attacks
since coming on the market. Had GSK considered Avandia's
increased cardiovascular risk more seriously when the issue
was first raised in 1999 by Dr. Buse, instead of trying to
smother an independent medical opinion, some of these heart
attacks may have been avoided.
According to documents provided to the Committee by, among
others, GSK, and the University of North Carolina, it is
apparent that the original allegations, regarding Dr. Buse
and GSK's attempts at silencing him

[[Page S14447]]

are true; according to relevant emails, GSK executives
labeled Dr. Buse a ``renegade'' and silenced his concerns
about Avandia by complaining to his superiors and threatening
a lawsuit.
Even more troubling, documents reveal that plans to silence
Dr. Buse involved discussions by executives at the highest
levels of GSK, including then and current CEO Jean-Pierre
Garnier. Also, GSK prepared and required Dr. Buse to sign a
letter claiming that he was no longer worried about
cardiovascular risks associated with Avandia.
After Dr. Buse signed the letter, GSK officials began
referring to it as Dr. Buse's ``retraction letter.''
Documents show that GSK intended to use this ``retraction
letter'' to gain favor with a financial consulting company
that was, among other things, evaluating GSK's products for
investors. After cutting short Dr. Buse's criticism, GSK
executives then sought to bring Dr. Buse back into GSK's
favor.
While publicly silent subsequent to signing the
``retraction letter,'' Dr. Buse still remained troubled about
Avandia and its possible risks. Years later, he wrote a
private email to a colleague detailing the incident with GSK:

``[T]he company's leadership contact[ed] my chairman and a
short and ugly set of interchanges occurred over a period of
about a week ending in my having to sign some legal document
in which I agreed not to discuss this issue further in
public.''

Dr. Buse ended the email, ``I was certainly intimidated by
them. . . . It makes me embarrassed to have caved in several
years ago.''
GSK's behavior since the Committee first brought these
allegations to light has been less than stellar. Instead of
acknowledging the misdeed to investors, apologizing to
patients, and pledging to change corporate behavior, GSK
launched a public relations campaign of denial. Specifically,
GSK sent out a press release titled ``GSK Response to US
Senate Committee on Finance'' which stated that the
allegations raised by the Committee were ``absolutely
false.'' Further, CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier denied having any
knowledge of the alleged intimidation of Dr. Buse in an
interview that ran in July in The Philadelphia Enquirer.

B. Detailed Review of Documents

The Committee initiated an investigation into the risks and
benefits associated with the diabetes drug Avandia in the
spring of 2007. That investigation was prompted when the New
England Journal of Medicine published an article by Dr.
Steven Nissen and Ms. Kathy Wolski, noting that Avandia was
associated with serious cardiovascular risk, including heart
attacks.
Dr. John Buse is an expert in diabetes with extensive
research experience in the thiazolidinedione (TZD) class of
drugs. This class includes Rezulin (troglitazone), Actos
(pioglitazone), and Avandia (rosiglitazone). In 1999, Dr.
Buse sent a letter to the FDA stating that Rezulin should not
be withdrawn over worries about liver toxicity. He noted that
the liver toxicity and other safety issues surrounding the
alternatives--rosiglitazone and pioglitazone--were not yet
known. He noted that the three compounds ``are dramatically
different in their interaction with their proposed
receptor.''
Dr. Buse added that he was a consultant for Takeda-Lilly,
the manufacturer of Actos and had been a consultant for
SmithKline Beecham, which manufactured Avandia. Documents
from this period show that Dr. Buse was an investigator for a
SmithKline Beecham study on rosiglitazone as a treatment for
diabetes.
Also in early 1999, Dr. Buse gave speeches at meetings of
the Endocrine Society and the American Diabetes Association
(ADA). At both meetings, he suggested that Avandia may carry
increased cardiovascular risks.
In June 1999, GSK executives discussed Dr. Buse in a series
of emails they titled, ``Avandia Renegade.'' One email reads:

``[M]ention was made of John Buse from UNC who apparently
has repeatedly and intentionally misrepresented Avandia data
from the speaker's dais in various fora, most recent among
which was the ADA. The sentiment of the SB group was to write
him a firm letter that would warn him about doing this again
. . . with the punishment being that we will complain up his
academic line and to the CME granting bodies that accredit
his activities. . . . The question comes up as to whether you
think this is a sensible strategy in the future (we don't
really do too much work at UNC to make any threats).

The email series also includes threats that might be made,
including a lawsuit and contacting Dr. Buse's colleagues at
UNC. SB in this email refers to SmithKline Beecham which is
now GSK.
In response to this series of emails, Dr. Tachi Yamada,
GSK's head of research at the time, wrote in an email that he
had discussed Dr. Buse with GSK's CEO Dr. Jean-Pierre Gamier
as well as David Stout, a senior GSK executive. Dr. Gamier
and Mr. Stout are copied on the email. Specifically, Dr.
Yamada's email reads:

``In any case, I plan to speak to Fred Sparling, his former
chairman as soon as possible. I think there are two courses
of action. One is to sue him for knowingly defaming our
product even after we have set him straight as to the facts--
the other is to launch a well planned offensive on behalf of
Avandia. . . .''

Indeed, Dr. Yamada called Fred Sparling, Dr. Buse's
department chairman. Three days later, Dr. Buse wrote a
letter to Dr. Yamada attempting to clarify his position on
Avandia. Dr. Buse's letter began, ``I wanted to set the
record straight regarding all the phone calls and questions I
have received. . . .'' The phone calls that Dr. Buse referred
to were made by GSK officials including Dr. Yamada regarding
the speeches that Dr. Buse gave at conferences suggesting
cardiovascular problems associated with Avandia.
Dr. Buse continued, ``I believe as a clinical scientist
that the null hypothesis should be that rosiglitazone has the
potential to increase cardiovascular events.'' Dr. Buse went
on to say that his chairman had informed him that GSK
executives perceived him as ``being for sale'' because he
received speaking fees from Takeda. Dr. Buse added that he
heard ``implied threats of lawsuits from my chairman and
James Huang. . . .'' who was then a product manager with GSK.
Dr. Buse ended the letter to Dr. Yamada by writing,
``Please call off the dogs. I cannot remain civilized much
longer under this kind of heat.''
Along with his letter to Dr. Yamada, Dr. Buse enclosed a
separate letter. GSK officials later referred to that second
letter as the ``Buse retraction letter.'' In the ``retraction
letter,'' Dr. Buse attempted to clarify the remarks he made
at the medical conferences regarding Avandia.
On July 1, 1999, Dr. Yamada wrote to Dr. Buse, thanking him
for the detailed explanation. Dr. Yamada's email reads, ``As
you may be aware, my phone call to Fred Sparling was aimed at
being educated. . . .'' The letter is copied to CEO Jean-
Pierre Garnier.
That same day, several GSK employees discussed Dr. Buse in
an email chain that questioned whether or not Dr. Buse signed
the ``retraction letter'' that was prepared by GSK. The email
reads:

``[H]ave you heard back from Dr. Buse? Did he sign your
proposed letter? Assuming he does retract, what are we
planning to do to let the world know that Dr. Buse retracted
his statements?''

A second GSK employee responded, ``John Buse kindly signed
the clarification letter on his letterhead without any
change.''
Later that day, the first GSK employee wrote, ``I'm not
certain what damage has now been caused by the Yamada phone
call to [Buse's] seniors. . . . Maybe we can obtain
clarification of how such situations with U.S. opinion
leaders in [the] future should be handled. Yeesh!''
On July 2, 1999, several GSK officials discussed whether to
share with financial analysts, what they term the ``Buse
retraction letter.'' These financial analysts were evaluating
GSK's products for investors.
In an email, a GSK employee wrote discussed talks he had
with the financial analysts. Several GSK executives were
copied on this email, including CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier, Dr.
Tachi Yamada, and Mr. David Stout. The email reads:

``I also discussed how Dr. Buse has also confirmed that
caution should be used in comparing the efficacy data and
[adverse events] data he presented. That these should not be
taken out of context and that the study designs, baselines,
etc., etc., . . . were different. . . . As a result of our
conversation, [FINANCIAL COMPANY NAME REDACTED] will remove
the `?' under the cardiovascular events and they are removing
the John Buse table on efficacy presented at the ADA
meeting.''

But even after Dr. Buse signed the retraction letter, GSK
executives were torn over whether or not they could trust the
former ``Avandia Renegade.'' On one hand the documents reveal
that some GSK executives were eager to work with Dr. Buse.
For instance, in late November 1999, a GSK official sent an
email to several executives which read, ``We need to see John
Buse ASAP now that we know that he is involved with the NIH
[study].''
On the other hand, others at GSK never fully believed that
Dr. Buse had completely dropped his concerns with regard to
Avandia and its possible cardiovascular risks. In fact, even
though Dr. Buse remained silent in public, he continued
privately to voice his opinions about cardiovascular problems
with Avandia. For example, after signing the retraction
letter, Dr. Buse wrote to the FDA Commissioner in March 2000
where he noted:

``In short, the lipid changes with troglitazone and
pioglitazone can only be viewed as positive. They are very
similar in nature. . . . As mentioned above, I remain
concerned about the lipid changes with rosiglitazone. . . .
Rosiglitazone is clearly a very different actor. I do not
believe that rosiglitazone will be proven safer than
troglitazone in clinical use under current labeling of the
two products. In fact, rosiglitazone may be associated with
less beneficial cardiac effects or even adverse cardiac
outcomes.''

The following month, GSK officials acquired a copy of Dr.
Buse's letter to the FDA. GSK executives faxed Dr. Buse's FDA
letter among themselves with a cover note reading, ``We need
to address this as a company. . . . Looks like Dr. Buse
doesn't buy into our lipid or cardiovascular story.''
Following Dr. Buse's FDA letter, GSK drafted another letter
to Dr. Buse from one of its executives, Martin Freed. The
letter reads, ``I remain concerned about your ongoing
aggressive posture towards rosiglitazone and SmithKline
Beecham. In my opinion, you have presented to [FDA] several
unfair,

[[Page S14448]]

unbalanced, and unsubstantiated allegations.''
Later in 2000, Dr. Buse reached out to GSK officials,
asking them to sponsor a continuing medical education (CME)
program about TZD use. Dr. Buse wrote in his request:

``I spoke to Rich Daly, the head of marketing (and sales?)
for Takeda. He was going to run the idea of joint support for
the CME program by the Takeda lawyers to make sure there are
no FTC issues in what I proposed. I highlighted to him that
the benefit to Takeda and [SmithKline Beecham] would be the
potential to grow interest in the class as a whole and as a
very public display of the end of the ``glitazone wars. ''

By late 2000, GSK officials appeared to believe that they
had the former ``Avandia Renegade'' under control. Emails
from this time refer to GSK as ``SB,'' as GSK had not yet
been created from the merger. In November, a GSK/SB executive
wrote:

``Just a quick note about your comment on Buse. . . . I am
getting messages that he is really coming around to the SB
side of things. He has stopped his out-right bashing and is
now more TZD positive with kind comments on Avandia. . . .
David Pernock spoke to him and said something to the effect
that [Glaxo Wellcome] is his friend now but GSK will be the
future and he needs to realize that. . . .
``I spoke to him separately on a couple of occasions . . .
and let him know that our relationship got off on the wrong
foot but that is in the past and we want to move on from
here. . . . FYI and thanks for your help in bringing J. Buse
back to the middle and hopefully beyond.''

However, based upon the documents in the Committee's
possession, GSK executives continued to try and shape Dr.
Buse's views regarding Avandia. For example, in early 2001,
Dr. Buse contacted GSK officials, requesting citations for a
textbook he was writing. One official suggested that GSK
should both provide and interpret the information for Dr.
Buse, stating in an email:

``Our chances on having Buse reflect our views and messages
will be enhanced greatly if we tell him what they are rather
than relying on him to development [sic] on his own accord
via examining data. . . . [F]inally our view of the big
picture lipid story including LDL characteristics and fat
redistribution cannot be easily gleaned from our collection
of pieces. There is no evidence that Dr. Buse will come to
these views without some guidance and support. Of course care
will need to be taken to work any overview pieces in a way
that appears academic rather than too commercial to enhance
the probability that Dr. Buse will adopt our views as his
own.''

Concern with Dr. Buse reemerged in 2002, as his
professional stature grew. That September, GSK officials
discussed bringing him further into the fold. A GSK official
described him as the ``most powerful Endocrinologist in the
Carolinas. . . . [H]e is gaining power nationally and
internationally.'' The email continued:

``[We feel] as if Dr. Buse [is] primed to move to a more
middle-of-the-road stance concerning TZDs. The timing for
this `shift' has to be right. In my opinion, that right time
will be with the launch of Avandamet. He is very excited
about the launch of this new combo product and very critical
of [COMPANY NAME REDACTED] for not moving faster on their
combo. . . . His experience with and advocacy for Avandamet
could prove invaluable for it's [sic] in the Blue Ridge
region and beyond.''

A different GSK official responded, ``As long as we are on
the same page, we could consider him. . . .'' The following
week, another official wrote, ``It looks like marketing would
like us to move forward using Dr. Buse as an investigator in
the Avandamet program. Are you OK with this?'' Avandamet
refers to a combination drug for glucose control that
combines Avandia with metformin.
Based on the documents in the Committee's possession, it
appears that Dr. Buse remained silent about his concerns
regarding Avandia for approximately two years. However, in
2005, he once again privately voiced his opinion that Avandia
carried cardiovascular risks. In an email he sent to Dr.
Steven Nissen, chairman of the Cardiology Department at the
Cleveland Clinic, he again revealed his ongoing concerns
about Avandia and described his treatment by GSK.
Specifically, Dr. Buse wrote:

``Steve: Wow! Great job on the muriglitazar article. I did
a similar analysis of the data at rosiglitazone's initial FDA
approval based on the slides that were presented at the FDA
hearings and found a similar association of increased severe
CVD events. I presented it at the Endocrine Society and ADA
meetings that summer. Immediately the company's leadership
contact[ed] my chairman and a short and ugly set of
interchanges occurred over a period of about a week ending in
my having to sign some legal document in which I agreed not
to discuss this issue further in public.''

Later in the email, Dr. Buse confirmed GSK's treatment of
him when he wrote, ``I was certainly intimidated by them but
frankly did not have the granularity of data that you had and
decided that it was not worth it.''
Dr. Buse concluded in his email, ``Again congratulations on
that very important piece of work. It makes me embarrassed to
have caved in several years ago.''

C. Conclusions

The documents in the Committee's possession raise serious
concerns about the culture of leadership at GSK. Even more
serious perhaps is our fear that the situation with Dr. Buse
is part of a more troubling pattern of behavior by
pharmaceutical executives.
Specifically, in 2004, Dr. Gurkirpal Singh of Stanford
University testified at a Committee hearing that an executive
at Merck sought to intimidate him by calling his superiors.
Merck also warned Dr. Singh that they would make life very
difficult for him, if he persisted in his request for data on
Merck's drug, Vioxx. It was later discovered that Vioxx
increased the risk of heart attacks and it was withdrawn from
the market.
Merck's intimidation of Dr. Singh as it sought to protect
Vioxx bears striking similarities to apparent threats by GSK
against Dr. Buse to protect Avandia. The Committee is very
concerned that this behavior may be more prevalent in the
pharmaceutical industry than is evidenced by these two cases.
Corporate intimidation, the silencing of scientific
dissent, and the suppression of scientific views threaten
both the public well-being and the financial health of the
federal government, which pays for health care. The behavior
of GSK during the time that Dr. Buse voiced concerns
regarding the cardiovascular risks he believed were
associated with Avandia was less than stellar. Had Dr. Buse
been able to continue voicing his concerns, without being
characterized as a ``renegade'' and without the need to sign
a ``retraction letter,'' it appears that the public good
would have been better served.

Mr. BAUCUS. The report presents evidence that a pharmaceutical
company allegedly tried to intimidate a doctor who raised concerns
about Avandia's link to heart problems.
A few years ago, the Senate Finance Committee uncovered a similar
situation connected to the drug Vioxx.
These actions are unacceptable.
It is critical that our prescription drugs be developed based on
rigorous experimentation, the facts, and the science, not on
intimidation and threats of lawsuits.
We place a great deal of trust in pharmaceutical companies to make
safe and effective products. The health of millions of Americans, from
young children to retirees, depends on the careful work of these drug
manufacturers.
Today, as I said, Senator Grassley and I are placing in the
Congressional Record a Senate Finance Committee staff report which
describes a very disturbing series of events related to the safety of
the diabetes drug, Avandia.
The report presents evidence that a pharmaceutical company allegedly
tried to intimidate a doctor who raised concerns about Avandia's link
to heart problems. This occurred after the doctor gave speeches at 2
scientific meetings where he warned of the cardiovascular risks to
those using Avandia, a drug designed to control glucose levels in
diabetics.
To make matters worse, the company in question denied trying to
intimidate the doctor in the press. That claim is seriously challenged
by e-mails presented in the staff report.
It appears that the company labeled the doctor as a ``renegade'' and
all but silenced him by complaining to his department chairman and
threatening a lawsuit.
In an e-mail contained in the report the doctor in question describes
signing a legal document in which he agreed not to discuss the issue in
public. He goes on to say that he felt intimidated by the actions of
the pharmaceutical company.
Is this the tip of the iceberg or just an isolated case? Nobody
really knows. But just 3 years ago the Senate Finance Committee
uncovered a similar situation connected to the drug Vioxx. A clinical
professor at Stanford University said Merck scientists had tried to
intimidate him after he raised questions in public about the effects of
Vioxx.
It was later discovered that Vioxx increased the risk of heart
attacks and the drug was withdrawn from the market. Just last week
Merck agreed to pay $4.8 billion to settle Vioxx lawsuits.
As in the Vioxx case, the concerns raised by the doctor in the
Avandia case were followed by complaints by other researchers. And
yesterday the FDA added an additional ``black box'' warning to the
Avandia label.
With the Finance Committee's continued spotlight on this behavior, I
hope we can deter similar abuses in the pharmaceutical community.
Again, it is critical that our prescription drugs be developed based
on rigorous experimentation, facts and

[[Page S14449]]

science, not on intimidation and threats of lawsuits.
I, again, recommend the report to my Senate colleagues, and I very
much thank my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, for his efforts
here and, again, for his efforts on the work of this investigation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise to follow Senator Baucus on
exactly the same subject. I thank him for the period of time now, this
year, he has been chairman of the committee, succeeding my
chairmanship, because he has been very cooperative in my efforts to
finish investigations that carried over with the change of Congress
from Republican to Democratic, and also for helping us initiate new,
needed investigations.
But I also wish to take some time to comment exactly on what he had
made reference to in the very report he has now submitted for the
Record. Since he has submitted a copy, I will not ask permission to do
that.
It was about 3 years ago--in fact, the exact date was November 18,
2004--I convened a hearing on the worldwide withdrawal of Vioxx, a
blockbuster pain medication.
That hearing turned a spotlight on systemic problems at the Food and
Drug Administration. We found that the Food and Drug Administration
maintained a very cozy relationship with the drug industry and
suppressed scientific dissent regarding agency actions on drug safety.
At that Vioxx hearing, we also heard about Merck using its power, its
influence, and access to try and discredit an FDA safety expert, Dr.
David Graham--a person who is still on the staff at the FDA trying to
do the job of being a policeman for safety for the consumers of
American pharmaceutical products.
Merck also tried to intimidate a Stanford researcher, Dr. Gurkirpal
Singh. The company warned him to stop asking for more safety data on
Vioxx, despite the fact he was one of their paid consultants.
What is troubling is that 3 years later, I am here with my colleague,
Senator Baucus, to talk about yet another case where pharmaceutical
executives use power, use their influence, and use access to intimidate
a medical researcher.
In essence, another company wanted to put an end to another scientist
who was voicing concerns about the cardiovascular risks associated with
a drug.
Now, in this case--similar to Vioxx--we are talking about a diabetes
drug, Avandia.
Today, Senator Baucus and I are releasing a staff report showing how
executives at GlaxoSmithKline intimidated Dr. John Buse, a medical
researcher at the University of North Carolina.
Together, our respective staffs reviewed documents provided by the
company and by others, and they found bothersome internal e-mails that
reveal how these pharmaceutical executives think. In these e-mails,
high-level company officials discussed the possibility of threats--I am
talking about threats by pharmaceutical executives--against Dr. Buse of
North Carolina University. These threats included the possibility of
filing a lawsuit.
Company executives called Dr. Buse an ``Avandia Renegade'' and had
him sign a retraction letter they wanted to give to financial analysts.
These analysts were evaluating the company's products for investors.
So what we have are three cases--starting with Dr. Graham, then Dr.
Singh, and now Dr. Buse--where companies intimidated researchers who
dared to express concerns about the safety of what they thought were
risky drugs. In the case of both Vioxx and Avandia, the drugs actually
turned out to carry some very serious risks.
What I am here to say today is that attacks on medical researchers by
the pharmaceutical industry must stop. And it has to stop right this
minute.
Until this practice ends, I wish to let America's scientists know I
am very interested in their concerns. Scientists should feel free to
contact my office if a pharmaceutical company threatens their career or
attacks their reputation when they raise the alarm about possible
dangerous drugs.
They can also anonymously provide information and documents by mail
or by fax to the committee. Here is the fax number: 202-228-2131.
That is the warning that I put out, and the invitation that I put
out.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, it does not look like anybody else wants to speak, so
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. WEBB. 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. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Educational Benefits For Veterans

Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, my first day in the Senate I introduced
legislation that would provide educational benefits for those who have
served in our military since 9/11 that would be the equivalent of the
educational benefits that those who served in World War II received.
We are very fond in this body and elsewhere in the U.S. Government of
talking about those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan as being
the new ``greatest generation.'' Well, it seems to me very logical that
if we are going to use that rhetoric, we should be able to provide
those who have served in this difficult time with the same educational
benefits as those who served during World War II.
I was very privileged, for 4 years, to serve as a committee counsel
on the House Veterans' Committee at a different point in my life, and
was able to study the benefits that had been provided to our veterans
from the American Revolution forward.
I also noticed an interesting phenomenon; and that was, a good part
of the veterans' benefits package that was provided to those who served
in World War II was done so because of the wisdom of those who had
served in World War I--partially because they did not receive these
sorts of benefits. The World War I veterans were very adamant that the
veterans coming back from World War II be treated differently than they
were. One of the end results of that was the GI bill.
Very recently, former Senator Bob Dole testified in front of the
Veterans' Affairs Committee, of which I am a member. I asked him about
his own experiences, having been wounded in World War II, and how the
World War II GI bill assisted him in his transition to the civilian
world. This is what he said in part:

I think [the World War II GI bill was] the single most
important piece of legislation when it comes to education,
how it changed America more than anything I can think of.
[We] ought to take the same care of the veterans today.

I could not agree more strongly. The people who served in World War
II--there were 16 million of them--were offered an entirely different
concept in terms of fairness in American society when they returned.
Eight million of them were able to take advantage of a GI bill that
provided for their tuition when they went to college, bought their
books, and gave them a monthly stipend.
This education benefit has gone up and down since the enactment of
World War II GI bill. When I came back from Vietnam, the benefit was a
monthly stipend that was not very helpful to most Vietnam veterans.
That has been on my mind for years, as I think about the service of our
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just as the World War I veterans stepped forward and took care of the
World war II veterans, I believe it is the responsibility--not wholly,
but strongly--of those of us who served in Vietnam and who experienced
a lot of the disadvantages of service, once we got out, to make sure we
take care of those who are serving now and who have served in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It is for that reason I introduced this bill.

To look back on the educational benefits that were derived from this
experience, I asked my staff to take a look at those Members of this
body--our colleagues--who served in World War II, just to see where
they were able to go to school and to see how the World War II GI bill
benefitted them, and then to compare that with what they would have
been able to do today if

[[Page S14450]]

they were the same individual having served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan
and were coming back with today's Montgomery GI bill, which basically
is a peacetime GI bill that was put in place well before 9/11 and was
designed more as a little bit of a bump to assist in recruitment than a
true readjustment benefit for people who had been in war.
Our chairman, Senator Akaka, was able to go to the University of
Hawaii under that program, the World War II GI bill. Today, if one were
applying for the Montgomery GI bill, 41.5 percent of his education
would have been paid for.
Senator Inouye, who is a cosponsor of our bill, was able to attend
George Washington Law School. Today, that would cost $48,460 a year.
The Montgomery GI bill would pay for 12.4 percent of that.
Senator Lautenberg, who also is a cosponsor of this bill, was able to
go to Columbia on a full boat, graduating in 1949. Today, to go to
Columbia, it would cost $46,874 a year. The Montgomery GI bill would
pay for 12.8 percent of that.
Senator Stevens was able to go to UCLA and Harvard Law School. His
staff declined to be specific about how much of that was assisted by
the GI bill, but if one were to go to Harvard Law School today, it
would cost $54,066, which is about 11 percent of what the Montgomery GI
bill would take care of.
Senator John Warner, my senior Senator from Virginia, my esteemed
colleague and friend, has told me many times he would not be in the
Senate today if it had not been for the educational benefits of the GI
bill. He was able to go to Washington and Lee for an undergraduate
degree. Today that would cost $42,327 for 1 year, of which the
Montgomery GI bill would pick up 14 percent. He was then able to go to
UVA Law School, full boat, as a reward for his service. Today that
would cost $44,800.
Just to be fair, I am standing here today because Uncle Sam made a
bet on me. I was able to go to the Naval Academy. The taxpayers of
America paid for that. The taxpayers of America would pay for that
today, the same amount. I was also in a different situation than most
of my Vietnam war veteran colleagues because after I was wounded and
had medical difficulties with a bone infection in my leg, I was
medically retired from the Marine Corps and was able to go to law
school on a program called Vocational Rehabilitation, which was the
exact same program as the people who served in World War II received. I
was able to go to Georgetown Law School. Today that would cost $51,530
a year. The Montgomery GI bill would pick up 11.6 percent of it.
So on the one hand, we are saying this is the next great generation.
This is the next greatest generation. We never cease to talk about how
much we value their service, these people leaving home on extended
deployments again and again, giving us everything we ask, and then we
are giving them a GI bill that was designed for peacetime.
It is not because we don't spend money on education. We just passed
legislation for Federal education grants. I voted for it. I assume the
Presiding Officer voted for it. If you add up these grants--and these
are grants--this is not rewarding someone for affirmative service. If
you add up these grants, it is going to cost $18.2 billion this year.
We are having a difficult time getting an exact number on what my GI
bill proposal would add up to, but the best estimates we have had
informally are about $2 billion.
I would submit that with the cost of this war now heading well north
of $1 trillion, and with the President coming over and saying he wants
$200 billion on top of that and on top of an appropriations bill, we
could spend this money in a way that will allow the people who have
served since 9/11 a first-class future. We are saying they are that
good; let's let them be that good.
For that reason, I hope all of my colleagues will step forward and
join me so we can get this legislation passed this year.
Mr. President, 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. 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.

FHA Modernization Act of 2007

Mr. REID. Mr. President, each day that goes by, the depth and
severity of our country's subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis emerges.
It is very difficult. This week I spoke to former Secretary of the
Treasury Rubin. I spoke also to the present Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Paulson, and they both recognize we have some severe problems with
our subprime mortgages. This is very deep. It is very hard.
Hundreds of thousands of mortgages are now delinquent nationwide--
hundreds of thousands. That is fully twice as many as last year, and
last year was not a good year. The most alarming fact is this could be
just the beginning. Experts agree as more mortgage rates continue to
expire, not thousands, not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands
of American families could be at risk.
When these introductory ``teaser'' rates expire, these teaser rates
where they tease people into taking these loans, sometimes that they
couldn't afford--a lot of times that they couldn't afford--when these
higher rates arrive, the mortgages that many families can afford today
will become impossible to pay off tomorrow. This will leave many with
just two options: lose their homes or try to work something out on
refinancing.
That is what this is all about. Some say if a borrower gets into
financial trouble, it is their obligation and it is their
responsibility to find a way out. That is not true. If you have a piece
of property, and it is a home and it is being foreclosed upon, you as
the owner of that property are going to lose money. There is no
question about it. You usually lose about 35 to 40 percent of the value
of the home. So the borrower gets hurt. Also, the entity where the home
is, a county or a city, if you have that property under foreclosure,
the windows are boarded up, and it just loses value. So the tax base of
that community suffers.
So we need to do something about that. We are talking about families
losing the roof over their heads. Therefore, we need to do something
about it.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, recognized
that a sharp increase in foreclosed properties for sale could weaken
the already struggling housing market and thus, potentially, the
broader economy. He was being very deliberate. The word ``should''
should have been used, not ``could.'' But he was being, as he should be
as chairman of the Federal Reserve, very cautious.
In Nevada, this crisis is hitting very hard. In 2006, in August, the
number of foreclosure filings had gone up by more than 200 percent. We
could see another 21,000 foreclosures, we are told, by the beginning of
2009 in Nevada. That is a lot of foreclosures.
One of the things we need to do is have more money for counseling,
which the administration has cut back.
There are three items we need to work on in the near term: providing
funding for foreclosure prevention counseling, modernizing the FHA
administration, and providing temporary but necessary tools to the
government-sponsored enterprises, Fanny and Freddie--that is Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac--so they can keep funding available to make or
refinance subprime mortgages. So we need to do this.
The Senate Banking Committee passed a bipartisan FHA Modernization
Act of 2007 on September 9, 2007, by a vote of 20 to 1. This has broad
support of consumers and the industry alike.
As the name of the bill indicates, this legislation is intended to
bring needed changes to the Federal Housing Administration that will
make the agency more capable of providing the services that homeowners
need in today's all-too-perilous environment.
The FHA program encourages the private sector to make mortgages by
offering government-backed insurance for the full balance of the loan.
Traditionally, since its inception in 1934, the FHA has played a
major role in providing home purchase financing to minority, first-
time, and lower income home buyers.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, and until now, however, as more exotic
loans entered the marketplace, FHA saw its

[[Page S14451]]

overall market share drop dramatically.
In some cases borrowers considered the more exotic loans easier to
get. In many other cases, borrowers were directed into those loans by
brokers who often didn't have the borrower's best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, these exotic loans often lured borrowers with false or
misleading information and contained ``teaser'' interest rates that,
once expired, borrowers couldn't afford.
These were predatory loans--and the consequences of these shady
practices are becoming more evident every day.
This crucial reform bill modernizes the FHA program by, among other
things, lowering mortgage- down-payment requirements and raising the
loan limits for FHA-backed loans.
The result will be a better loan option for families that are having
trouble keeping up with their exploding mortgage payments. They will
have the option of refinancing to an FHA-backed loan with the peace of
mind that comes with it.
And for future homebuyers, a fully backed FHA loan with honest, up-
front terms, will help prevent crises like we now face, and ensure that
more American families will experience all the safety, comfort and
stability that comes with homeownership.
Third, the PROMISE Act would temporarily lift the cap on the amount
of loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can purchase as investments for a
period of 6 months.
The bill could bring as much as $145 billion dollars into the
subprime mortgage marketplace and prescribes that the vast majority--at
least 85 percent of these resources--be used to refinance subprime
loans.
The past decade has seen remarkable growth in American homeownership.
What's more, these gains have been enjoyed from coast to coast and
among groups that have traditionally been shut out.
We need to ensure that this progress continues.
Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request here that I have
been told the Republicans will object to. I will make the request and
then withdraw it. As I said, I have been told they will object.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2338

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 481, S. 2338,
the FHA Modernization Act of 2007; that the Dodd-Shelby amendment at
the desk be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read the
third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider laid upon the table;
and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I now will withdraw that request.
What a shame that there is an objection to a bill that passed the
House overwhelmingly, came out of committee over here on a vote of 20
to 1, and now there is an objection to it. That is really too bad. We
will renew this request before we leave here for Thanksgiving. This
will be much-needed relief. Even though the President hates the
Government, this Government that was created many years ago has been a
lifesaver for home building in our country, and we need to modernize
it; it is long overdue. I hope the Republicans will withdraw their
objection to this bipartisan, much-needed legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The unanimous consent request is
withdrawn.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. 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. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I heard the majority leader's speech. I
wanted to put him on notice that I will object to the bringing forward
of this bill. It was introduced September 19 and reported out of the
Banking Committee on November 13, 2 days ago. We received notice, via
hotline, that they were attempting to clear the bill by unanimous
consent yesterday afternoon.
This bill addresses a very delicate and complicated area of housing
policy on which we cannot afford to make mistakes. I know many
Senators, including myself, are strong advocates of how we can help
those who find themselves in trouble now. I know the authors of the
bill would like to pass it expeditiously. However, it is a big bill. It
is an important bill. Under the unanimous consent request, that would
mean we would not debate it and offer amendments. For those two
reasons, I object, as a Senator from Oklahoma, and I know several other
Senators would as well.
The problem with hotlining bills is they don't get due deliberation.
Here is a stack of bills that were offered by unanimous consent in the
Senate before the August break. Most of the Senators had never read the
bills, didn't know what was in the bills. Thankfully, many of them were
objected to by Members of the Senate. It is not a good way to
legislate.
This is an important issue. We seem to have a tendency that we are
afraid to do the real work we need to do because we will be criticized
as the one stopping the bill. I am not afraid to stop a bill. I believe
we need to get things right. It is not about not wanting to help those
in need today, but there are several significant things in this bill.
First of all, the bill changes it so that if you have a $417,000
home, you can get a mortgage; if you are in trouble, we are going to
take care of that. That is twice the median price of a home in this
country. It lowers the downpayment to 1.5 percent. It exposes American
taxpayers to $1.6 billion over the next 5 years. We can solve this
problem. We cannot solve this problem by blowing a bill through here
without good debate, rigorous discussion of the issues, and alternative
options, via amendments, which will address, No. 1, how we got where we
are in terms of the subprime mortgage mess; No. 2, how we restore
confidence in that market; No. 3, how do we work to secure better
oversight on the mortgage industry that put people in the position of
owning property they could not afford; and the predatory lending
practices Senator Reid talked about. We can address those. Doing it
under a hotline, under unanimous consent, where we don't have an option
to study the bill and think about what other options there can be or
how many hearings were held on the bill and what is the response, is
not the way to legislate.
I believe the President has not said he would not support this bill.
I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that from the past.
I also would like to put in the Record an article from the Roll Call
of September 17 entitled `` `Hotlined' Bills Spark Concern.'' I ask
unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From Roll Call, Sept. 17, 2007]

``Hotlined'' Bills Spark Concern

(By John Stanton)

Senate conservatives are upset that the leaders of both
parties in the chamber have in recent years increasingly used
a practice known as ``hotlining'' bills--previously used to
quickly move noncontroversial bills or simple procedural
motions--to pass complex and often costly legislation, in
some cases with little or no public debate.
The increase was particularly noticeable just before the
August recess, when leaders hotlined more than 150 bills,
totaling millions of dollars in new spending, in a period of
less than a week.
The practice has led to complaints from Members and
watchdog groups alike that lawmakers are essentially signing
off on legislation neither they nor their staff have ever
read, often resulting in millions of dollars in new spending.
In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority
Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous
consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then
inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines
installed in each office and give Members a specified amount
of time to object--in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If
no objection is registered, the bill is passed.
According to a review by Roll Call of Senate records, from
July 31 to Aug. 3, of the 153 hotlines put out by leadership,
75 of those

[[Page S14452]]

were legislative measures, 61 were nominations, and 17 were
post-office-naming bills. While a number of the legislative
hotlines were routine procedural motions--such as reporting a
House-passed bill to a particular committee for
consideration--others were for bills authorizing hundreds of
millions of dollars in new spending.
According to GOP aides, that run of hotlined bills
concerned the chairman of the conservative Republican
Steering Committee, Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), enough that he
made the issue of hotlining the topic of discussion during
last week's regular RSC luncheon. Although these aides said
DeMint and other conservative lawmakers have yet to broach
the topic with their leaders, it likely will become an issue
if the trend continues. ``It's inevitable that it will come
up,'' one aide said.
According to the Library of Congress' legislative database
THOMAS, of the 399 bills or resolutions passed by the Senate
this year--which range from recess adjournment resolutions to
the Iraq War supplemental bill--only 29 have been approved by
a roll-call vote. The rest have been moved via unanimous
consent agreements, the vast majority of which were brokered
using the hotline process.
Critics also point out that hotlining is often done during
``wrap-up'' at the end of the day--which can occur well after
Members' offices have closed for business--and is
particularly popular in the runup to recesses.
In a March 2006 floor speech, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
harshly criticized the practice. ``The calls are from the
Republican and the Democratic leaders to each of their
Members, asking consent to pass this or that bill--not
consider the bill or have debate on the bill but to pass
it,'' Sessions said.
``If the staff do not call back . . . the bill passes.
Boom. It can be 500 pages. In many offices, when staffers do
not know anything about the bill, they usually ignore the
hotline and let the bill pass without even informing their
Senators. If the staff miss the hotline, or do not know about
it or were not around, the Senator is deemed to have
consented to the passage of some bill which might be quite an
important piece of information.''
During that brief pre-recess period this summer, the
chamber passed S. 496, a bill sponsored by Sen. George
Voinovich (R-Ohio) making changes to the Appalachian Regional
Development Act of 1965. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, those changes will cost $294 million over five
years.
In many cases, bills are placed before the Senate for only
a few days or even hours before they are hotlined. For
instance, the Senate received H.R. 727--a bill sponsored by
Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) amending the Public Health Services
Act--from the House on March 28, according to THOMAS. Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hotlined the bill the
following day. According to CBO, the bill is expected to cost
$40 million between 2008 and 2012.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said hotlining bills is not
necessarily a bad thing but that Members have increasingly
seen the process as a right. ``People think they can hotline
[a bill] and you have to agree,'' Coburn said, adding that
``a lot of Members are offended'' if anyone raises an
objection or wants to offer changes to a bill.
Coburn also said that because of limited floor time, ``we
don't have time to debate everything . . . but if you object,
they ought to be willing to negotiate with you. But usually,
they put the press after you.
``They accuse you of being against veterans, of being
against breast cancer patients . . . I've been accused of so
many things,'' Coburn lamented. But he insisted that when
sponsors of bills he has objected to take his concerns
seriously, they often are able to work out an agreement.
For instance, he points out that earlier this year, when
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) brought a small-business bill to
leaders to be hotlined, Coburn initially objected because of
problems with the bill. He and Kerry entered into
negotiations to resolve their differences, and the Senate
ultimately passed the package by unanimous consent. ``We gave
a couple of things, he gave a couple of things and we passed
the bill,'' Coburn explained.
Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the government watchdog
group Sunlight Foundation, said the process of hotlining has
added to the lack of transparency and accountability in
Congress. ``Hotlining bills diminishes the accountability of
Congress. Senators are forced into an `all-or-nothing'
posture--place a secret hold on legislation and negotiate in
the back room, or keep their objections to themselves. The
Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, and those
deliberations should occur in the light of day and be part of
the public record,'' Allison said.

Mr. COBURN. The increasing practice of this body of passing bills by
unanimous consent rather than debate and knowledge about what we are
agreeing to does the Senate a disservice. All you have to do is watch
C-SPAN and see how much time is spent in quorum calls in this body. I,
for one, would never object to unanimous consent for us running several
bills at the same time so we can continue to discuss them. We should
not be passing bills without good thought, good debate, and an
amendment strategy that will improve the bill and protect the future
taxpayers of this country. That has to be a requirement as we address
it.
I thank Senator Reid for his attention to what is truly a real
problem. But the process is really what matters on this issue. We need
to get it right. There is too much risk. Therefore, if we decide to
bring this request back up, I will come back down and object.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak 10
minutes as in morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the bridge
fund bill that passed the House of Representatives last night. I don't
know why it has to be so hard to pass an emergency supplemental to
assure that our troops in the field get the money they need to support
them in the job we are asking them to do.
The President has asked for almost $200 billion to get us through
some point in January or possibly into the spring. But the bill that
has come over is roughly in the $50 billion range and it has all kinds
of constraints and strings and mandates from the Congress.
Our military strategies should not be determined by events 6,000
miles from the theater where our young men and women have boots on the
ground. This bridge fund bill is the latest attempt in a year-long
effort to constrain the ability of our generals and our brave men and
women in uniform to fight this war effectively.
During the past year, the Senate has been forced to vote 40 times on
bills limiting the generals' war strategy. None of those bills passed
but one, and it was vetoed.
Since this assembly line of bills started last February, the
situation in Iraq has changed so much. General Petraeus has implemented
a strategic readjustment that has produced encouraging progress. Last
week, U.S. commanders and the Iraqi Government proclaimed that al-Qaida
had been routed in every neighborhood in Baghdad, citing an 80-percent
drop in the murder rate since its peak.
The British Broadcasting Corporation reports:

All across Baghdad . . . streets are springing back to
life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in
business. People walk in crowded streets in the evening,
where just a few months ago they would have been huddled
behind locked doors in their homes.

This is from the BBC.
Some 67,000 Iraqis have joined U.S.-organized citizens watch groups.
Roadside bomb attacks have receded to a 3-year low, while finds of
weapons caches have doubled in the last year. The progress has been so
impressive that General Petraeus has recommended a drawdown of troops
because conditions on the ground merit such action.
In the last 10 months, so much has changed in Iraq, and yet on the
floor of the Senate, nothing has changed at all. We are still voting on
bills for premature withdrawal, not taking into consideration what is
happening on the ground, even when victory is in sight.
This is a new day in Iraq, and the Senate should recognize that fact
by providing a vote of confidence in our generals instead of
threatening to pull the rug out from under them.
If there are Senators who believe the war is lost, they should vote
to defund the war instead of threatening to tie the hands of our
commanders which would needlessly endanger our troops.
We know from our troops in the field that we must keep our
commitment. This war has been costly for America in lives and dollars.
The consequences of failure, after all we have spent in our treasure
and our young men and women, would be catastrophic. If we abandon Iraq
prematurely, it will become a sanctuary for terrorists, and they will
launch attacks on the American people.

[[Page S14453]]

There is also a real danger that Iraq could become a satellite of
Iran. The Iranian Government has a long record of sponsoring terrorism
and arming the insurgents who are killing our brave soldiers in Iraq.
For all these reasons, we cannot abandon Iraq. We can leave when the
generals say it is safe to leave because Iraq will be stable, that it
will not be a terrorist training ground, and that is the only way we
can leave Iraq, if we are to uphold the integrity of the United States
of America.
We must persevere and succeed in this war, just as generations before
us have done when we fought and defeated fascism, communism, and
nazism. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Coast Guard have
sacrificed greatly to keep us safe and free, and we must support them
in this mission. The mission of a stable Iraq rather than a breeding
ground for terrorists must be accomplished.
The bill is coming to the Senate from the House which passed it after
a long, arduous debate last night. I urge my colleagues not to do
something that would so damage the integrity of the United States of
America and hurt our troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan by
putting them in danger by underfunding them, by not giving them the
vote of confidence they deserve. It would be unthinkable.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

The Farm Bill

Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss one
of the issues we have been talking about an awful lot recently, and
that is the farm bill; more specifically, the unique nature of
agricultural production in the United States.
We are all going to leave next week and go home, hopefully, to
celebrate Thanksgiving with our families, to talk about this wonderful
blessing we have in this great country of ours--the enormous bounty
that exists, the blessings of living in a free country, living in a
place where we do not have to worry about going to the grocery store
and finding the shelves empty or we do not have to worry about those
things that are produced here not being safe or acceptable. That is
because we have not only very conscientious producers and farmers, but
we have a system and respect in our Government that recognizes how
important it is to the American people to maintain that bounty.
As we all go home to celebrate Thanksgiving and give thanks for this
wonderful country in which we live and the bounty that it provides us,
I think it is so important to talk about the big tent that exists in
this country, the big tent that encompasses all of the diversity of
agricultural production in different regions across our Nation. It is
an important aspect that we should embrace, and I hope my colleagues
will think about that as well.
As we discuss the farm bill and agricultural production, my
colleague, the Presiding Officer, is representing a wonderful
agricultural State, beautiful and vast, and it is very different from
mine in terms of its assets and what it contributes to this great land.
My State is different than Colorado. It is vast and different, just
within the boundaries of my State, but certainly in terms of what it
brings to the table in our Nation in terms of the bounty that it
provides.
Perhaps one of the most frequent questions from so many, particularly
of my urban colleagues--because I do share a seat with so many other
farm Senators on the Agriculture Committee, but a lot of times the
question from my urban colleagues is, why are farms in Arkansas
different from, say, farms in North Dakota or Michigan or Indiana or
Colorado or other regions of our Nation?
Although the answer is pretty simple, it does require quite a lot of
time to talk about. It looks as if we have a good bit of time today, so
I thought I would seek this opportunity and, for the benefit of those
inquisitive Senators who sometimes ask why are things different in
different parts of our country and in all of our different States,
offer an explanation that I give, certainly, to my colleagues and to
others who are interested and concerned about us as a nation
maintaining the safe and abundant and affordable supply of food and
fiber that exists in this country for which we are all so thankful.
First, and this should come as no surprise, each of our States
produces the agricultural products for which its climate and its soil
are best suited. That is one of the things we do in Arkansas. It,
obviously, has been that way for years. Farms in Arkansas might be
older than those in some of the States that exist to our west. As our
country was explored and discovered, many of those lands in the West
were discovered, and their climates and their soil types were
different. As we have grown as a nation, they have adapted themselves
to the crops for which they are best suited. For the colder climates of
the Midwest, it makes sense to produce corn and wheat and sugar beets.
For us in the South, with our more humid climates, and given,
certainly, our soil types--we have a large clay content and often sandy
soil along our river bottom--we are suited for cotton and rice
production. So that is the first explanation I try to give people, to
talk about those differences so we better understand what the
differences are.
Second, you have to take into consideration what the markets are for
our commodities. Again, we are a vast country, full of so many
blessings and diversity. As we have grown, international markets have
grown and changed as well.
Let's start with corn. By now I think everyone in this body is
familiar with the fact that we mandate a corn ethanol market through
the renewable fuels standard. It is important that we move toward a
renewable fuel. It has multiple purposes. Renewable fuels will help us
clean up the environment and will certainly lessen our dependence on
foreign oil. It also gives secondary markets for our growers. But so
far we have only gotten pretty far on corn-based ethanol.
We have mandated this market for corn, and it has done quite well. We
make sure those corn growers' prices stay up because there is a market.
There are tax incentives that are built in to ensure those markets are
going to be there for corn.
In addition to the creation of the market, we place a prohibitive
tariff at the borders of our country to ensure that only American
farmers have access to that corn market. That is for good reason. That
marketplace has really matured in terms of ethanol production and the
direction we are going to the point we are now realizing that renewable
fuels are going to need to come from other sources as well; that we
cannot just depend on that corn-based ethanol program but that we have
to start looking toward cellulosic and biodiesel and biomass and a
whole host of other renewable energy sources. But the fact is, we still
protect that corn market to a tremendous degree.
For sugar, we have a unique program that doesn't make payments to
farmers, but, like ethanol, it limits the international competition,
and it supports the processing of these commodities.
Sometimes sugar is supported in the processing facilities, and
therefore those protected markets and that payment coming down to those
farmers is a little bit trickier to understand than the regular
commodity program.
Rather than offering a whole lot of detail on a program that does not
directly impact my State, I would rather direct folks to the
individuals who represent the States here that are affected by those
crops. I think it is most important to let those who understand crops
in their States give their descriptions because they have a better
intuitive idea of how those programs work and how their growers benefit
and how the economy benefits from it and certainly how the American
people benefit. There are a lot of Members who can tell you about that.
As the President knows, we on the Ag Committee--everyone has their
specialty and certainly their best understanding when it comes to corn
and sugar. I kind of focus on the folks who know those the best to be
able to provide you the details. But, in short, sugar has an entirely
separate program

[[Page S14454]]

subject to different disciplines but with a market that is very
domestic and exclusively limited to American sugar farmers. So you have
two of these products now, or commodities, that have very different
disciplines in terms of what protects them or what provides them that
very defined as well as insured marketplace through both the
constricting of the marketplace without allowing imports to come in and
also the incentives they have in the way those safety nets are provided
to them through their processing.
Now, here is a market that I do know about and that I can talk about,
and that is what comes from my region of the Nation, which is cotton
and rice.
First and most importantly, I need to point out that these two
commodities are subject to very intense global competition. Rather than
simply state that as a fact, I will offer a couple of explanations.
Rice is a stable commodity globally, all over the world. As such, it
is produced in many regions, including the developing world, those
nations which are not as developed as we are or as old and efficient as
we are. The same is true for cotton.
What is also true is that our market is open to direct competition
from international producers while our access into their foreign
marketplace is extremely limited. Now, that means our border is open to
their rice and cotton being shipped into our country. So our growers
not only have to compete to get into our marketplaces, but they have to
compete here with products that are allowed to come in from other
countries--the rice and cotton, specifically.
I think the best example or one of the best examples is Japan.
Japan's rice tariff comes in at over 400 percent. That is more than
enough to keep American rice out of their marketplace, I have to tell
you, a 400-percent tariff on rice going into Japan. Yet our markets are
open. Our markets are open to commodities coming into this country.
Another good example that can be used is the treatment of rice in the
recently negotiated Korean Free Trade Agreement. For every product
produced in the United States of America, we reduce the Korean tariff,
limiting our access into theirs immediately or phased in over 20 years,
every one with the exception of one commodity--it is rice, one
commodity that is not allowed to be exported into the Korean
marketplace.
So it just goes to show you the fact that our commodities, although
they are different and grown differently and a whole host of different
things, also are treated differently in the global community and in the
global economic venue. At this point, you should start to be seeing a
pattern here in terms of the differences not only in how we grow our
commodities but also how our commodities are dealt with in the
marketplace. Our market is open to competition, while our export
markets remain closed to our growers of our commodities.
Now, do not get me wrong, I am not here advocating that we need
unabashed free trade for agriculture because I know that to expose the
Third World to our productivity would decimate vulnerable parts of
their economies that support the poorest of the world's poor. So that
is not what we are talking about. This dynamic is more than a reality
for U.S. farmers; it is a part of America's obligation within the World
Trade Organization.
Now, I will summarize that point just briefly. In the WTO, the United
States and other developed nations must report their subsidy level, and
they must restrict their tariff level. The conversion is true for the
developing nations that are members of the WTO. They are not subject to
even reporting their subsidy, and they have little to no obligation
with respect to opening their markets.
Now, again, I am not saying this is a total and complete outrage; I
am merely trying to paint a more comprehensive picture of what American
agriculture is up against in the global economy. Without a doubt, as we
have heard in multiple different meetings across the Hill that many of
us go to, whether it is our lunch groups or our hearings in committee
and others, we hear all of the talk about global trade and about the
global economy and developing countries and where they are going,
placing priorities in education and infrastructure investment and a
host of other things, and we see our trade deficit growing. Yet
agriculture has always been one of those areas where not only we as
Americans feel it is important to maintain that domestic production of
a safe and affordable and available food supply, but we also know it is
a big issue to other countries that they can maintain some domestic
production and hopefully as much as they possibly can grab hold of in
terms of that domestic production.
With that said, it simply cannot be ignored that these disparities in
international competition contribute to the world in which the U.S.
cotton and rice producers must compete and therefore influence how they
must structure their operations. So, again, for us, in meeting
different demands, in looking at the global marketplace and trying to
figure out how we structure ourselves as growers, it is not just about
the soil type or the weather and the climate; it is also about the
international marketplace, which leads me to the explanation of the
last question which is posed to me; that is, Why are Arkansas farms so
big?
It should not be difficult for Members of this Chamber to understand
that when you face intense competition and your foreign markets are
closed, you have to create efficiencies. You have to create
efficiencies elsewhere in your business operation in order to be able
to compete because you do not set the world market price. You have
to be able to compete on that international global stage by your own
efficiencies.

It is the good fortune of everyone in America that our farmers are
the most efficient farmers in the world. Certainly, we are the
beneficiary of that in this great country, but people all across the
globe understand that, that not only are we the most efficient and can
do it the most affordably, but we produce the safest and set a standard
in many instances across the globe of what is going to be produced in
future generations in terms of sustenance of life. We have improved our
efficiencies in ways that cannot be described here in a short period of
time, but suffice it to say that the American farmer is the most
efficient on Earth, and are we not all glad? That is something for us
to be proud of in this body and across this land. If you are not or if
you take our bounty for granted in this great Nation, you should be
ashamed of yourself. That is the reason this bill is so important, is
that we have been handed this blessing. We have worked hard on this
Earth in this great land of ours. But we certainly have reason to be
proud.
Despite our efficiency in cotton and rice country, we are still
operating on very thin margins of profit. In some years, we merely hope
for profit that really never comes.
What we have done to help level that playing field is to expand our
operation to further reduce our per-unit cost and, in turn, create a
competitive economy of scale. Now, that means we have to spread our
risk out over a greater abundance of production because that is one of
the only ways we have to get the efficiency to be able to be
competitive in a very restrictive market, and that is to have a large
economy of scale and mitigate our risk over a greater area.
Now, unfortunately, many newspapers and some of my colleagues
attribute USDA statistics for commercial-size operations to many of our
Arkansas and southern farms and assume we are no longer family farms
simply because of our size. What a terrible misrepresentation. I think
it really diminishes what we are about in this body, which is to
embrace our diversity and embrace the good work all of these hard-
working farm families do across this Nation. And without a doubt, it is
simply untrue. I do not know of too many nonfamily farms in my State.
There are a lot of people who are going to tell you that because they
belong to a cooperative or because they maybe farm more acreage, they
are not a family farm. In fact, I do not even know of one.
What I do know a lot about is fathers and sons, wives, daughters,
brothers and sisters who work the land with one another. They have to
come together. They have to build their operation, come together, and
stay together if they are going to survive. Even when that generation
upon generation finds

[[Page S14455]]

that one of those brothers or sisters happens to move to the city to
become a doctor or maybe an electrician or maybe a fireman or maybe a
lawyer, they still help share the risk of what that farm has to do,
which is to create that economy of scale in order to be competitive.
So hopefully we can still consider those people a family farm,
because, guess what, they are still a family, and they are still
farming and they are all carrying the risk of what it takes to be
competitive in that global marketplace. Now, their operations may
exceed several thousand acres, and they most certainly are still family
farms.
In fact, I cannot imagine a definition of a family farm that does not
include the overwhelming majority of Arkansas farmers, but apparently
such a definition exists. USDA seems to come up with these definitions,
and they print them out up here in Washington, inside this bubble, and
they fail to realize that there is a lot of diversity in this great
country. There are a lot of family farms that exist. It is not just
family farms in the Midwest, it is not just family farms on the east
coast, but it is family farms in other regions of the country too--yes,
in our region of the country too.
Now, I will go ahead and put my colleagues on notice that until those
misrepresentations cease--and I have to tell you, they have been long
and hard for many years in terms of the misrepresentations of what a
farm is and who constitutes that farm. You know, I am a daughter of a
farmer, but I cannot imagine the way I get labeled as having been this
huge farmer when I am not even farming. Yet that misrepresentation
continues to come out there just because it is convenient and it is
sensational and people can use it.
Well, I have to say that it does not matter to me what happens to me,
but it does matter what happens to those hard-working farm families who
are working so hard to make sure we enjoy that safe and abundant and
affordable food supply regardless of what happens in the international
community. My colleagues know they are going to hear a lot more from me
on farm policy that supports farmers throughout this great country as
the debate goes on.
It is my opportunity to describe and talk about the individuality of
each of these areas. I will hone in on my part of the country because I
leave how other commodities are farmed up to those who farm them. But I
can definitely tell you, having walked rice levees and scouted cotton
and chopped down coffee bean plants in a soybean field, how our farms
run and why they run that way, I understand the markets. I understand
the global trade implications that exist. I understand that all of the
programs we design oftentimes in the farm bill don't fit us.
For example, take disaster assistance. I was glad to work with my
colleagues in the Midwest who wanted to see a disaster assistance
program, even though it doesn't benefit my farmers that much. When you
have a farm in the South and you are farming rice, you have to control
your environment. Have you ever seen a rice field that has no water on
it? Unless it is being harvested, you haven't. The reason is, you have
to control that environment. When it comes to disaster assistance,
those counties get the same national disaster declaration on a drought.
But guess what. They are never going to get that disaster assistance
because they hardly ever hit the 35-percent yield loss that comes with
another stipulation in disaster assistance, because they have
controlled their environment.
I will tell you what: They have spent twice the effort and resources
and money in plowing into that crop what they needed to combat that
drought and that disaster that was occurring. So they need another
tool. They need another tool within the confines of our farm
legislation that allows them to market their crop, to market their crop
in this competitive global marketplace so the Government doesn't have
to do it for them.
As I plow through this--and I know I will have many other
opportunities to do so--I hope I have answered some questions or at
least demonstrated some of the differences in our ag land down in the
southern half of the Nation. We are all a little different. I have to
tell you, for that we should be extremely grateful and proud, and we
should embrace that diversity. As a nation, that is what makes us
strong, our diversity and our willingness to embrace it and our
willingness to respect it. That is what makes us Americans. Despite
these differences, it has always been my view that regardless of the
type of crop or the region of the country you live, if you contribute
to the production of safe agricultural commodities, I consider you a
farmer. I consider you an American farmer. I don't judge that and I
don't judge you as an American farmer based on whether you are in one
region or another or how big your family is or how big your farming
operation is. I judge you by the fact that you are willing to go to
work and work hard every day to do the best you can, to be as efficient
as you possibly can, not only in this country but in the global
marketplace, with tremendous respect to the environment, the
conservation of land, and the ability to produce a safe and productive
food supply. That is who farmers are.
If we let other people define who a farmer is and a farm family is,
then we will be sorely disappointed when we start to outsource our food
to other countries. I think we have become sorely disappointed to find
ourselves dependent on foreign oil, to have outsourced our need for
energy in the oil arena to other parts of the world. We will find
ourselves once again in the next several years with a trade deficit in
agriculture, outsourcing our food supply. I don't think Americans want
to go there; I really don't. I think they are willing to listen for the
diversity and expertise and the hard work that goes on by America's
farmers to continue to produce that safe and abundant, affordable food
supply. As a farmer, regardless of the region of the country, we have
to help our farmers keep meeting that competition.
I have the reputation of being that kind of person, of reaching out
and working with people, understanding differences, accepting
differences and accepting other people's ideas. I hope we all have that
attitude. But mostly, I try to be respectful of people. Unfortunately,
my farmers and I have not been given that same respect by everybody. I
am going to continue to work hard to prove my point because I am going
to earn that respect. I am going to earn that respect not only in what
we have done in this underlying bill, in creating the greatest, most
substantial reform in decades. We started over here in current law and
most of the extremes that people want are way over here. Guess where we
have moved. In terms of providing the reforms that the media and others
all clamor about, we have come from here all the way over here. That
last little bit people want to ask of us will outsource the food supply
that southern growers have so proudly provided this country for many
years.
I am proud to be here to defend and support and be proud of Arkansas
farm families. They have worked hard. They will continue to work hard.
I have fought this fight for several years, and I will continue to
defend the programs and my farmers who use them within the limits of
the law. Creating greater reform is important. Our farmers want to make
sure they are in compliance with the law and that they are working hard
within the parameters to do their very best. But they also want to be
able to be competitive, because they want to continue to provide that
safe and abundant supply of food and fiber. And they can--most
efficiently, most effectively, most safely, as well as with the
greatest respect to the environment. I hope people will not continue
the sensationalized stories and misrepresented facts in order to get
something done that does nothing but move forward in outsourcing our
food and fiber supply.
I hope I have brought some clarity here today. I will continue to try
to do that. I look forward to working with my colleagues. We have a
long road ahead of us to get something done. But I think everybody will
agree it is worth it. It is well worth it, as we return home to be with
our families, to give thanks for this wonderful Nation we live in and
the bounty it provides. I hope we will come back and sit down and get
to work supporting America's farm families and the hard work they do,
recognizing all of the tremendous challenges they face, mostly
challenges they have no control over. Whether it is the trade
agreements they operate

[[Page S14456]]

under, whether it is the environment and the weather they deal with
that they have no control over, it is certainly within the confines of
the requirements and the regulations we present them to empower them to
do a better job or certainly the best possible job in taking good care
of the land and being good stewards of this great land we have.
I thank the Chair. I look forward to working with my colleagues.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The Senator from New
Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I understand the Senator from Idaho
intends to speak. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak
after he is concluded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Before she leaves the floor, I commend my colleague
Senator Lincoln. I agree with her strong defense and support of
America's farmers, particularly our family farms and the need for a
farm bill. She and I may come from different parties, but we have shown
that you can work together. I consider her to be one of my very good
friends and allies as we work toward good policy. I appreciate the
opportunity to sit here and hear her remarks. It is great to see
someone stand up and respond to the attacks we see coming against
American agriculture. It seems every time we have a farm bill, the
attacks begin again. Yet it is in America where the American consumers
spend the lowest percentage of their disposable income on food and
fiber because we have such strong farm policies.
I also agree with her comments about the need for us to remember we
are in global markets. Those who produce food and fiber in other
nations have tremendous subsidies from their governments where their
governments enable them to compete unfairly against our producers. In
fact, not only do their governments provide unfair, extensive subsidies
to their producers, they also erect significant anticompetitive trade
barriers, both tariff and nontariff trade barriers, so that the
products they send to us are subsidized and the products we try to send
to them are stopped at the border because of these barriers. It is
because of these kinds of international market circumstances and the
global competition we face these days that it is important for us to
recognize the role of the farm bill in helping American producers level
that playing field.
Again, I appreciate so much the opportunities I have had to work with
Senator Lincoln on this and many other issues. We have worked together
to strengthen and improve American policy.
I came to talk about the farm bill, and I will do that. But before
doing so, I want to talk a little bit about the process, because I am
very disturbed by the position the Senate is in right now. We could
have been debating amendments to the farm bill for a week or two now.
Instead we have been stalled by a procedure that has filled the
amendment tree, for those who don't follow the rules of the Senate. The
amendment tree has been filled up so no one can file amendments to the
farm bill. Yet I understand there are over 260 amendments that have
been prepared and which are out there waiting in the wings from
different Members of the Senate. We are not going to see all 260 of
those amendments debated and voted on. That never happens. But we
should see a significant number of them debated and voted on.
Those of us who serve on the Agriculture Committee or the Finance
Committee have seen both pieces of this farm bill be very vigorously
debated at the committee level with all sorts of amendments and work
developing the right kinds of process. Now it is time for that same
process to occur here on the floor. Yet we have not seen one amendment
allowed to be brought forward. The farm bill affects so many people's
lives through providing food and fiber and security and enabling global
competitiveness and ensuring a better environment. I could go on. But
we must allow all Senators the opportunity to bring forth amendments
they believe need to be debated before we have the final vote on the
farm bill.
We have all heard by now the debate here in the Chamber and in other
places about numbers, highlighting the multiple rollcall votes we have
had on previous farm bill debates. Let me review a few of those.
According to the information I have, during the 2002 farm bill debate,
which is the most recent farm bill we have had, there were 49 amendment
votes, including 25 rollcall votes. In 1996, on the farm bill preceding
the current one, there were 26 amendment votes, including 11 rollcall
votes. And during the farm bill debate previous to that in 1990, there
were 113 votes, including 22 rollcalls. In 1985, there were 88 votes,
33 of which were rollcalls. Yet now during this debate or nondebate, we
have had zero votes on any amendments because the amendment tree has
been blocked.
I am discouraged by that because we could have made significant
progress on this farm bill. Now what we see is a maneuver which is
proposing that cloture be entered which would cut off debate on the
farm bill and push it forward without giving us the opportunity for a
full and robust debate on amendments.
I encourage our leadership on both sides to get past this impasse. I
know there has been a lot of progress made in terms of an effort to
limit the number of amendments and try to get a determination of how
many amendments will be allocated to each side and allow us to move
forward. But for whatever reason, we haven't been able to get that
agreement resolved. The farm bill is too important for these kinds of
partisan politics and maneuvers. I know there are concerns about
certain amendments that may be brought. There are some on either side,
depending on the amendment, who would prefer not to see the amendment
brought because it could cause an embarrassing vote on behalf of some
Members. I will face that same dynamic as amendments are brought
forward. There will be amendments that will be difficult to face. But
it is something we must do. It is the tradition of the Senate that we
fully deliberate on matters such as this and that debate is not closed
down.
I say again to our majority leader and our minority leader, we need
to work together, avoid cloture votes, and avoid restrictions that
prohibit Members from bringing their debate forward in this Chamber and
allow us to have a full and robust debate so we can move the farm bill
forward.
I remain committed to working together to move this farm bill forward
in the Senate through a full, fair, and open process, and I hope we can
get to one soon.
Now, let me turn to my comments on the farm bill itself. Many people
say we should not call it the farm bill--in fact, I think it actually
does have a different title now--because the farm bill is much more
than just a bill that deals with commodities programs.
In fact, the farm bill, with the new addition of the Finance
Committee title, will have 11 titles in it, only one of which is the
commodities title. There are other titles dealing with rural
development, with energy policy, and, as most people are not aware,
with the food programs of our Nation.
In fact, if you look at the allocation of resources in the farm bill,
only about 14 percent of the cost of the farm bill is truly allocated
to the agricultural commodity programs. Over 60 percent--I think around
66 percent--of the cost of the bill goes to our Nation's food programs,
such as our Food Stamp Program and the other programs that we have in
international aid.
Then there are the programs dealing with conservation, which I am
going to talk about in a minute, which is probably the most significant
conservation effort in which this Congress gets engaged in any kind of
an ongoing basis. Yet far too few Americans realize the commitment to
the preservation and conservation and improvement of our environment
that is contained in the farm bill.
There are more than 25,000 farms and ranches in Idaho producing more
than 140 commodities statewide. Idaho leads or is ranked among the top
States in the production of potatoes, peas, lentils, mint, sugar beets,
onions, hops, dairy products, wheat, wool, cherries, and other
commodities. Therefore, the farm bill is of vital importance to a more
than $4 billion Idaho agricultural industry, which is an essential part
of Idaho's economy.
In preparation for this farm bill authorization, like Chairman Harkin
and

[[Page S14457]]

Ranking Member Chambliss, the House Agriculture Committee and former
Agriculture Secretary Johanns, and others, I sought input from
producers and those interested in the farm bill throughout the townhall
meetings and hearings I had in Idaho, and I listened to many of my
constituents voice their criticisms, bring forward their suggestions,
and bring forward their praise of the last farm bill--the current farm
bill under which we are operating.
What I heard loudly and clearly was that the basic structure of the
2002 farm bill is solid, and rather than starting from scratch, we
should make changes to it and improvements to that basic structure as
needed but not lose that structure that has been so helpful to our
farmers and to our rural communities in particular throughout America.
I have been pleased to work with my colleagues on the Senate Ag
Committee and in the Congress in general to craft a bill that I believe
sticks with that principle.
The bill before us today does not wipe away existing farm policy but
builds on it for a stronger Federal farm policy. As Senator Lincoln
indicated, it makes some very significant and needed reforms to move in
the direction of addressing the concerns that many have raised about
some inequities in the farm bill processes.
The legislation includes essential provisions, such as the new
specialty crops subtitle that strengthens specialty crop block grants
and other important programs. I have appreciated working with Senator
Stabenow, Senator Craig, and others on this effort, and I thank
Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Chambliss and Senator Conrad and
others who have worked with us in shaping Federal farm policy that
bolsters U.S. agriculture through provisions such as these specialty
crop programs.
Additionally, I thank Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley on
the Finance Committee for the time they spent in crafting a tax title
for the farm bill that enables us to make some additions and tweaks
that were needed. It has been an honor to be one of the Senators who
serves on both the Finance and Agriculture Committees, the two
committees with products that will be merged together on the floor of
the Senate to make up this year's farm bill.
There are a number of highlights in the tax title of the farm bill I
want to mention. In the tax title of the farm bill, I worked with
several Senators to include improvements to the Endangered Species Act
through incentives for landowners to assist with species recovery. For
years we have struggled with the burden that the Endangered Species Act
puts on private property owners. Notably, about 80 percent of the
endangered or threatened species in America are found on private
property. Yet we have put the burden of protecting and preserving and
recovering those species unduly on our private property owners.
This bill I have introduced and worked on with many others in the
Senate will provide participants with the option of a tax credit
instead of the Conservation Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program,
and Grasslands Reserve Program.
This farm bill also provides support for wheat, barley, sugar, wool,
and pulse crop producers. Pulse crops would become eligible for
Counter-Cyclical Program assistance.

The Noninsured Assistance Program would provide coverage for
aquacultural producers who are impacted by drought.
There are significant investments in energy programs that would
assist producers with efforts that support energy independence.
Changes to Project SEARCH would allow financially distressed rural
communities in Idaho and nationwide to access increased Federal
assistance for their water infrastructure needs.
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program would be significantly expanded
to enable all States to participate. Expanding this program nationwide
will further the effort to provide healthy food choices for our
children. This program is a win-win for children, students, and
producers.
I have visited Idaho schools and have seen firsthand how the Fresh
Fruit and Vegetable Program has been a big support to our students, and
I look forward to seeing the additional benefits brought through this
program by making it available to more students.
There are many other provisions of importance in this extensive
legislation that I could bring up and review, but instead I want to
just focus on one vital area of the bill--the conservation title--
before concluding my remarks.
I have appreciated having the opportunity to work with my colleagues
on the conservation title, which provides landowners with both the
financial and technical assistance necessary to achieve real
environmental results.
As I said earlier, no Federal policy contributes more to the
improvement and protection of our environment than the farm bill,
through the incentive-driven conservation programs. The conservation
title provides $4.4 billion in new spending for conservation programs.
The title continues with the current combination of conservation
programs with improvements to make them work.
For example, the Senate farm bill makes changes to the EQIP, or
Environmental Quality Incentives Program, to ensure that private forest
land owners receive the help they need to better manage their land.
Chairman Harkin made numerous changes to the Conservation Security
Program, which has been renamed the Conservation Stewardship Program.
The Senate farm bill provides $1.28 billion in new spending for that
program.
There are also adjustments made to increase participation of
specialty crop producers in the Conservation Stewardship Program,
dedicated conservation program resources and higher technical
assistance levels to increase participation of beginning and socially
disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. The title also provides added
emphasis to encourage pollinator habitat improvements on agricultural
and forest land.
Funding is provided for the Wetlands Reserve Program and the
Grasslands Reserve Program, which did not have baseline funding
starting in 2008. The Wetlands Reserve Program would be provided with
funds to enroll 250,000 acres per year through 2012. The Grasslands
Reserve Program would be provided with $240 million for fiscal years
2008 through 2012.
The Conservation Reserve Program would be maintained at 39.2 million
acres. The Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program would be continued with
$85 million per year for fiscal years 2008 through 2012. The Farmland
Protection Program would be reauthorized at $97 million per year
through the duration of the farm bill. The conservation title provides
for the creation of a framework to facilitate the participation of
farmers in greenhouse gas reduction and other environmental services
markets.
Now, I understand the challenges faced in writing this farm bill and
the significant investment that has been made in conservation programs,
especially having to cover baseline shortfalls for the Wetlands Reserve
Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program. However, a broader
investment is needed in our conservation programs, such as the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Grasslands Reserve
Program, so we can better capitalize on the conservation interest and
needs across this Nation.
I will continue to work for investments in working lands
conservation, such as the EQIP program and GRP, or Grasslands Reserve
Program.
With any legislation that is as comprehensive as this, there are
always provisions that each of us would like to see come out
differently. However, on a whole, this bill before us builds upon past
farm bills and sets U.S. agriculture on the right course. Throughout
the crafting of this bill, it has been refreshing to see that more
people are starting to understand each aspect of this important
legislation. Truly, there are few pieces of legislation that have the
ability to impact so many lives. This bill affects our Nation's food
security, our global competitiveness, the condition of our air, water,
and land, as well as many other aspects of our lives.
I look forward to getting past the impasse we face on the Senate
floor and moving forward to a timely debate and the enactment of a farm
bill that enables sound Federal farm policy.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise to address the issue which has
been noted by the Senator from Idaho,

[[Page S14458]]

which is the process under which the farm bill is being considered in
the Senate.
A number of the Members on the other side of the aisle, primarily the
leadership, have spoken on this process and have made the
representation that in some way we, on our side, are slowing down this
bill. Nothing could be less accurate, in my opinion.
I know, although I do not happen to support the farm bill because I
think it is bloated in many ways and essentially ignores the concept of
a marketplace, the farm bill is going to pass. It always does pass. It
always passes with a very large majority, which is assured by the fact
that enough commodities are put into the subsidy system so that you can
add up enough people to support it, so it will always pass with a large
majority. And there will be 20 or 25 people who will vote against it.
So I have never held any belief or even thought for a second this
farm bill was not going to pass the Senate. It is going to pass the
Senate. It has not been my intention to either slow it down or try to
defeat it because I know I cannot do either--or I did not think I could
do either.
My intention was to improve it and to address issues which I think
are relevant to it or which are appropriate to the issues which the
Senate should be addressing today generally.
But, unfortunately, on the procedure that has been structured by the
majority leader, all Members of the Senate, but especially members of
the minority--the Republican Members of the Senate--have been shut out
of the ability to amend this bill.
The majority leader has essentially created a system which you could
call the ``permission slip'' approach to legislating. If he does not
give you a blue permission slip, you cannot bring forward an amendment
on this bill.
Obviously, that does not work for those of us who wish to amend the
bill. But, more importantly, it does not work for the institution. The
essence of the Senate is the ability to amend legislation when it is on
the floor.
Washington described the Senate as the place where the hot coffee
from the cup--referring to the House--it is the saucer into which that
hot coffee is poured, so it can be looked at, thought about, and
reviewed to make sure there is not hasty action, to make sure there is
not precipitous action, to make sure there is not action which will
come back to haunt us because we did not try our best to anticipate the
consequences.
So the Senate was structured to be a deliberative institution. That
was its purpose. Our Founding Fathers designed it with that intent in
mind, as expressed by George Washington. It has always worked that way.
We have always, when we have had major pieces of authorizing
legislation on the floor, had the opportunity to amend that
legislation. Even if they are not major pieces of legislation, in many
instances we have had the ability to amend it in just about any way we
wanted. There was a statement that you have to do relevant amendments.
Well, under the rules of the Senate, there is no such thing as relevant
amendments. Everything is relevant. Irrelevant amendments are relevant
because that is the way the Senate is structured. That is the way we
work. If there is an issue of the time which a Member wants to bring
forward to discuss and have voted on, the idea is the Senate will do
that. Now, there is a procedure to cut off and go to relevant or
germane amendments, but that procedure is a very formal procedure known
as cloture and it takes 60 votes. That should not be done on a bill of
this size until there has been adequate debate and a reasonable number
of amendments considered.

I noticed that the Senator from Michigan, whom I greatly admire and
enjoy working with, had a large chart today which talked about the fact
that there have been 55 filibusters by the Republican Party since the
Senate has convened. That is sort of like, as I have said on occasion,
the fellow who shoots his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the
court because he is suddenly saying he is an orphan. The simple fact is
the only reason there have been 55 cloture motions filed around here is
because the majority party has decided to try to shorten debate and
shorten the amendment process at a rate that has never occurred before.
Bills are brought to the floor and cloture is filed instantaneously.
That never used to happen around here. It is not our party which has
been trying to extend these debates; it is the other party which has
been trying to essentially foreshorten the debates in an extremely
artificial and premature way and limit the capacity of the minority to
make its points and to raise the issues it considers to be important.
On almost every one of these bills--the 55 that are noted--agreement
could have been reached, timeframes could have been agreed to, an
amendment list could have been set, and we could have proceeded under
regular order. But regular order was not allowed because the other side
of the aisle wants to manage the Senate the way the House is managed:
Where the majority party essentially does not allow the minority to
offer amendments to the bills unless the majority party agrees to the
amendments. Well, I can understand that in the House. There are 435
people there and it would be pretty much chaotic. But in the Senate, we
are not designed that way. The whole purpose of this institution is to
allow extensive discussion of legislation and amendments on
legislation, whether the amendments are relevant or irrelevant.
So the process that is being put in place is harmful, in my opinion,
to the fundamental institution of the Senate, when you have a majority
leader who comes forward, immediately fills the tree, and then says the
majority leader is not going to allow any amendments to the bill unless
the amendments are accepted by the majority leader which, of course, on
its face is a little absurd. Obviously, if we were all going to offer
amendments that agreed with the majority leader, we would all be in the
majority leader's party. That is why we have a two-party system. The
idea is a two-party system. The one party sometimes disagrees with the
other party and tries to make the points we feel are important to
govern us. But the majority leader closes the floor down, says we have
a permission slip process where you have to get his blue slip of
approval before we can move forward, and then he files cloture on the
bill after having not allowed any amendments to move forward. I think
that does fundamental harm to the institution. It creates a precedent
around here that may well be a slippery slope for us as an institution.
I remember a couple of years ago there was a big debate about whether
we should do cloture, or needed cloture, on the issue of Supreme Court
judges. On our side of the aisle, because there was a lot of foot
dragging about some of the Supreme Court judges who were being
nominated, there were many who felt we should go forward and have a
ruling of the Chair which says it only takes 51 votes; the Constitution
does not allow filibusters against Supreme Court judges. Well, some on
our side of the aisle felt that was a slippery slope, that that type of
a procedural heavy-handedness by the majority would harm the
institution and would lead to serious ramifications down the road when
the parties changed governance.
This institution will not always have a Democratic majority. The
facts are pretty obvious. We change around here. The American people
like to have Government change. They like change. They get frustrated
with the way things are going, so they make a change. There will be a
Republican majority; I absolutely guarantee that. But the Democratic
leadership, the majority leader, is in the process of setting a
precedent, if he is successful, which will be extraordinarily harmful
should a Republican majority take control and use that same precedent.
So I think it is a huge mistake that this process has proceeded in this
way and it is inconsistent with the facts on the ground.
The majority leader has said we can only have relevant amendments--
relevant, ironically, as defined by the majority side. Well, history
has shown us that is not the case. Even on farm bills--even on farm
bills--especially on farm bills, amendments are brought forward which
are irrelevant to the farm bill all the time. In fact, ironically, the
majority leader has brought forward a number of those amendments. In
1996, for example, he offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding
the importation of tea and the Board of Tea experts. In 1990, he
offered an amendment to the bill regarding

[[Page S14459]]

testing consumer products containing hazardous and toxic substances. In
the year 2000, he offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding the
Social Security trust fund and tax policy. In the year 2000, the
majority leader offered an amendment to the farm bill regarding pest
management in schools. The manager of the bill, Senator Harkin, in the
year 2000, offered an amendment regarding fees on pesticide
manufacturing. In the year 1985, he offered an amendment regarding the
creation of additional bankruptcy judges in the State of Iowa.
I would argue that none of those amendments, under the most liberal
interpretation of what is relevant, would be defined as relevant in a
postcloture exercise and, therefore, by the actions of the majority,
and specifically the majority leader and the chairman of the committee;
they have set a precedent that even if it weren't the right of the
membership of the Senate, they have set a precedent that amendments
which are not--which are irrelevant to the underlying bill can be
brought forward, and they should be brought forward.
For example, today the majority leader came down and made a very
compelling statement relative to the dire straits that people are in
who are having their mortgages foreclosed on because of this subprime
meltdown we are having. It is serious. It is very serious. It is
serious to those people especially, but it is also serious to the
Nation as a whole because it is affecting the credit markets and it may
be contracting the economy. I filed an amendment which would address
that issue. Some farmers I suspect are caught up in this subprime
foreclosure exercise, unfortunately. I bet there are some farm families
who have been hit by this. I know there have been. So I think it is
probably pretty relevant to these people who are farmers and,
therefore, an argument could be made it is relevant to the bill. But I
am not making that argument. I am saying that issue should be raised
right now--we shouldn't wait--that the amendment I have offered which
would essentially say that if your home is foreclosed on, you don't get
hit with a tax bill for phantom income, which is what happens today. If
you happen to be unfortunate enough to have your home foreclosed on,
you get a tax bill from the IRS, even though you lost your home and
even though you didn't get any income out of the foreclosure sale. That
puts a little more pressure on the person who has had their home
foreclosed on. That is a traumatic enough event, but to then have the
IRS come after you, that is horrible. So this amendment would basically
stop that practice. It would say to the IRS: No. You can't deem that as
income.

There are going to be some farmers who are going to need that
protection, and there are going to be a lot of Americans who are going
to need that protection, unfortunately. So we should take that
amendment up. I would be happy to offer that amendment right now, but
if I offered it right now, it would be objected to under the proposal
because the majority leader has deemed it is not relevant to the farm
bill and, therefore, he is not going to allow it to be debated. I
happen to think it is a pretty darned important amendment.
There are a couple of other amendments I have suggested. I have
suggested 11 amendments to the bill. That is not outrageous. Some of
them I think could probably be negotiated. I even suggested I would
take 15 minutes of debate on them, 7\1/2\ minutes divided equally on
each one of them. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle rejected
that idea--or they didn't formally object to it, but they told us we
would want to talk a little bit more about some of these amendments.
But the assistant majority leader on the Democratic side of the aisle
came down to the floor and specifically called out a few of my
amendments and said that they were the problem. They were the problem
because they shouldn't be heard on this farm bill. He mentioned the
mortgage amendment which we discussed.
He also mentioned an amendment which I happen to think is pretty darn
relevant to this bill, especially to rural America and farm
communities, which is that in most of rural America today, there is a
crisis relative to the ability of baby doctors to practice their
profession. It is virtually impossible, for example, in northern New
Hampshire to see an OB/GYN unless you drive through the mountains and
down to the southern or mid part of the State. That is true across this
country, because OB/GYN doctors--baby doctors--people who deliver
babies in rural communities can't generate enough income because the
populations aren't large enough to pay the cost of their insurance
against frivolous lawsuits or lawsuits generally. So I have suggested
that for those doctors specifically, so we can get more of them into
the rural communities delivering babies for all the people who live in
the rural communities but obviously for farm families, that we give
protection to them--protection which tracks--it is not outrageous
protection--the California protection for doctors which occurs
generally under California law so the cost of their premium for
malpractice insurance will not drive them out of practicing and
delivering babies in rural America and especially to farm families.
The Senator from Illinois said that was a frivolous--he didn't use
the term ``frivolous''--he implied the amendment wasn't a good
amendment; we shouldn't have to debate that amendment on this bill. Why
not? Why not take up that amendment? Fifteen minutes I am willing to
debate that amendment, 7\1/2\ minutes on both sides, and vote on it.
Well, it is not because it is not relevant and it is not because it
shouldn't be taken up; it is because there are a number of Members on
their side of the aisle who said we don't want to vote that issue. It
is a hard vote. Why? Because it makes sense. That is why I think it is
a hard vote. But there are other people on the other side of the aisle
who simply don't want to have to cast that vote. It is not about the
relevance of that amendment; it is about the desire to avoid casting a
difficult vote. Well, you were sent here; you should make difficult
votes on public policy that is important, and that happens to be a
fairly significant point of public policy that is important, whether
women in rural America can have adequate and prompt access to an OB/
GYN. I think that is pretty darn important.
Then the assistant leader said an amendment I had on the list, my 11
amendments--a small number of amendments--was not appropriate because
it dealt with the Gulf of Mexico. Well, this amendment says, as a
follow-on to the Oceans Commission, which did a very large, extensive
study of the status of the ocean and America's involvement and what we
should be doing relative to the ocean, which was completed about 2
years ago and which was created, authorized, and funded as a result of
an initiative by Senator Hollings from South Carolina, with my support
as a member of the appropriations subcommittee that had jurisdiction
over NOAA, and the conclusion of this Commission, which was filled with
the best and most talented scientists and leaders we have on the issue
of how the ocean was being impacted, was that the Gulf of Mexico is
being uniquely impacted by fertilizer runoff from the Midwest coming
down the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the other tributaries of the
Mississippi and going into the Gulf of Mexico, and we are getting a
dead zone there, a very significant dead zone because of the phosphates
and I think the nitrates. The Commission called for action. It said: We
have to do something as a country about this.
But what does this farm bill do? It expands dramatically the
incentive to put more acreage into production, and I say: Fine. That is
great. But it doesn't address the runoff issue, which is that
additional production is going to occur, or the runoff issue that is
occurring as a result of already existing production. So all this
amendment does is say let's give NOAA the ability to go out and study
this problem and see if they can come up--working with the Department
of Agriculture--with some ideas on how we might be able to abate the
harm we are doing as an unintended consequence of expanding our
agricultural community, the harm we are doing to the Gulf of Mexico.
But no, no, we can't take up that amendment. No, no. It doesn't get a
blue slip, permission slip from the majority leader.
Then the fourth amendment which was mentioned or cited by the
assistant leader as being something that was

[[Page S14460]]

problematic--and that is sort of a conservative description of the way
he addressed the issues--was an amendment I have that says the
firefighters should have the ability to pursue collective bargaining.
Now, maybe farms don't have fires. Maybe barns don't burn down and
silos don't blow up. Maybe there weren't any wildfires in San Diego.
Maybe I missed all that. But it seems to me that fire protection is a
pretty big part of everybody's lifestyle in this country, and having
fire departments that know what they are doing and are properly paid,
have proper equipment and training is really important whether you
happen to be in New York City or on a farm somewhere in the Midwest or
the West. So I cannot imagine under what scenario it is deemed that
this amendment should not be discussed and voted on.
Again, I am willing to do this for a briefer period of time. I am not
trying to slow the bill down. I want to get a few issues up that I
think are important to the definition of the problem as I see it in the
farm region.
Then I had a series of amendments--well, I only had 11, but 5 of the
amendments I had dealt with the budget process.
This farm bill does fundamental harm to the concept of responsible
budgeting. It plays games with our budget process. We hear so much from
the other side of the aisle about how they use pay-go to discipline
spending around here. That is the term, the motherhood term we hear,
``pay-go.'' It turns out that it is ``Swiss cheese go'' as far as the
other side of the aisle is concerned regarding spending restraint. On
15 different occasions, they have gimmicked pay-go, played games with
it to the point where they have spent almost $143 billion in this
Congress which should have been subject to pay-go but was not subject
to a pay-go vote because they managed to gimmick their way around it.
This farm bill is a classic example of that procedure occurring
again. By changing dates--1 day--so that they shift years and take
items out of the pay-go--what is called the pay-go scorecard--they are
able to avoid pay-go charges in this bill to the tune of $10 billion.
That is not small change, by the way. We should have a pay-go vote on
that $10 billion if we are going to maintain the integrity of the
budget process. That is reasonable. I have asked for that vote.
In addition, they have created a new emergency fund--a $5 billion
emergency fund. The way we have handled emergencies--and there are, I
admit, many emergencies in farm country--is that we have always paid
for those emergency costs through an emergency supplemental, whether it
is because of a flood or if there is a drought or if there is a
hurricane. We fund the costs after they have occurred, and we pay the
costs of the emergency. What this would do is set up what amounts to a
slush fund--what I am afraid will become basically walking-around
money--of $5 billion and a floor so that we are going to be guaranteed
that every year for the next 5 years at least a billion dollars will be
spent on emergencies, whether there is an emergency or not. You know,
if a large wind blows a mailbox over in North Dakota, it is going to be
declared an emergency because somebody is going to want to get their
hands on that billion dollars. That makes no sense from a budget
standpoint. We know that human nature--especially legislative nature--
will spend that money once it is allocated, and we should not do it up
front, create a floor; we should do it the traditional way, which is to
pay for emergencies when they occur. Now, some people here obviously
disagree with me. I suspect I will not win that vote. But it doesn't
mean we should not have a vote on that point of budget discipline and
the importance of budget discipline.
In addition, on the budget issue, there is a $3 billion gimmick in
here that is so creative it sets a new standard for creativity. There
always has been movement of money from the discretionary side of the
account to the mandatory side, and vice versa, to free up more
spending. That is a game that has been played a long time, where an
expenditure that is discretionary will suddenly find out it is being
put under a mandatory account, so the money being spent in the
discretionary account can be freed up to spend it on something else. If
you get it into the mandatory accounts here, you basically put it on
autopilot and don't have to worry about it ever again.
This bill takes this concept to a new dimension. It takes a mandatory
spending responsibility and moves it over to a tax credit, so that we
now have a $3 billion tax credit where we used to have a $3 billion
mandatory expenditure, and then it takes the $3 billion that was being
spent on the mandatory side of the account and spends it on a new
program. So, essentially, by using the tax law in a very creative way,
you have generated new spending of $3 billion. I think that is terrible
budget policy. I think we should address it, debate it, talk about it
on the floor, and definitely vote on it before we allow this bill to go
to cloture.
Obviously, there are a lot of issues raised by this bill; otherwise,
there would not be 240 amendments filed. The majority of them have been
filed by the other side of the aisle. But the fact that the procedure
has been structured in a way that these amendments, which are totally
reasonable, which are parts of significant issues of public policy,
such as whether women in rural America will be able to see an OB/GYN or
whether farmers get the equipment they need or whether a person whose
home is foreclosed on will get hit with an IRS tax penalty or whether
the Gulf of Mexico should be looked at relative to maintaining its
vitality as a environmentally sensitive area--we are not going to be
allowed to look at all of these issues because the majority leader set
up a blue-slip permission process, which is totally antithetical to the
system the Senate historically works under and undermines the capacity
of issues to be debated and voted on. I just think, as I said, it is
doing fundamental harm to our institution. Even if I didn't want to
bring these amendments forward, I would not want to have a process that
denied the right of other people to bring amendments like them forward.
The fact that the leadership on the other side of the aisle wants to
insulate its membership from making tough votes on things like baby
doctors being available to farmers and farms getting the equipment they
need and people whose homes are foreclosed on not being subject to IRS
penalties--the fact that they want to protect their membership, that is
understandable. That is their leadership. Their leadership is clearly
trying to protect them in their jobs. To abuse the process of the
Senate to accomplish that, to create a procedure where you basically
foreclose amendments in a manner that actually is even more strict and
more contracted than what the House does, does more harm than good to
the institution. As I said earlier, it puts us on an unnecessary and
inappropriate slippery slope, and it is a fundamental change in the way
the Senate works.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.

Senate Choices

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, on tomorrow, we will be voting on
several items. Two are going to be related to our policy on Iraq.
Tonight, I wish to express my views on the choices that are before the
Senate and the American people. I know later in the evening a number of
colleagues will speak to this issue. I welcome the chance to now
express my view.
Madam President, I oppose the minority leader's effort to provide a
$70 billion blank check to President Bush for his failed Iraq policy. I
will support legislation approved yesterday in the House of
Representatives requiring the President to begin to bring our combat
troops out of Iraq in 1 month and complete the withdrawal by December
of next year. I hope the Senate will support it, and I hope President
Bush will sign it into law.
Earlier this month, we reached another tragic milestone in Iraq. We
have lost more Americans in Iraq this year than in any other year. It
is another painful and somber reminder of the enormous price in
precious lives the Iraq war continues to impose. It is long past time
for the administration to change course and end the national nightmare
the Iraq war has become. Our military has served nobly in Iraq and done
everything we have asked them to do. But they are caught in a

[[Page S14461]]

continuing quagmire. They are policing a civil war and implementing a
policy that is not worthy of their enormous sacrifice.
The best way to protect our troops and our national security is to
put the Iraqis on notice that they need to take responsibility for
their future so that we can bring our troops back home to America
safely. As long as our military presence in Iraq is open-ended, Iraq's
leaders are unlikely to make the essential compromises for a political
solution.
The administration's misguided policy has put our troops in an
untenable and unwinnable situation. They are being held hostage to
Iraqi politics, in which sectarian leaders are unable or unwilling to
make the difficult judgments needed to lift Iraq out of its downward
spiral.
BG John F. Campbell, deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry
Division in Iraq, spoke with clarity about the shortcomings of Iraq's
political leaders. He said:

The ministers, they don't get out. . . . They don't know
what the hell is going on on the ground.

Army LTG Mark Fetter said that ``it is painful, very painful''
dealing with the obstructionism of Iraqi officials.
About conditions on the ground, Army MG Michael Barbero said:

. . . it's not as good as it's being reported now.

All of these military deserve credit for their courage in speaking
the truth. We should commend them for it. These are courageous, brave
military speaking the truth.
Yet the President continues to promise that success is just around
the corner. He continues to hold out hope that Iraq's leaders are
willing and capable of making essential political compromises necessary
for reconciliation.
The American people know we are spending hundreds of billions of
dollars on a failed policy that is making America more vulnerable and
putting our troops at greater risk. The toll is devastating. Nearly
4,000 American troops have died, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been
killed or injured, and over 4 million more have been forced to flee
their homes. Nearly a half trillion dollars has been spent fighting
this war.
It is wrong for Congress to write a blank check to the President for
this war. It is obvious that President Bush wants to drag this process
out month after month so he can hand off his policy to the next
President. It is time to put the brakes on this madness. It is up to us
to halt the open-ended commitment of our troops that President Bush has
been making year after year. We need to tell the Iraqis now that we
intend to leave and leave soon. Only by doing so can we create the
urgency that is so clearly necessary for them to end their differences.
We cannot allow the President to drag this process out any longer.
This war is his responsibility, and it is his responsibility to do all
he can to end it. It is wrong for him to pass the buck to his successor
when he knows thousands more of the courageous members of the Armed
Forces will be wounded or die because of it. Every day this misguided
war goes on, our service men and women and their families continue to
shoulder the burden and pay the price.

If this issue were only about the tragedies of the war, there would
be reason enough to end it. But it has become about so much more. Now
we are also starting to see the fallout at home as the President
refuses to deliver the relief our families need.
Earlier this week, the President signed a Defense appropriations bill
that includes a 10-percent increase in funding compared to last year,
but he vetoed a bill that includes an increase half that big that would
fund cancer research, investments in our schools, job training, and
protection for our workers. That bill included $4.5 billion more than
the President proposed for education. He said that $4.5 billion more
for students is too much. Yet he has asked for 35 times that much more
for the war in Iraq. He wants us to say yes to $158 billion for Iraq
when he says no to $4.5 billion for American children.
In Iraq, anything goes. The sky is the limit. Billions and billions
of dollars for Iraq. But here in America, right here at home, a modest
investment in our school children gets a veto.
The bill included $3 billion to improve the quality of our teachers.
Those funds would have been used to hire 30,000 more teachers, provide
high-quality induction and mentoring for 100,000 beginning teachers,
and provide high-quality professional development for an additional
200,000 teachers. One week of the failed policy in Iraq is the cost. We
could do all of this for our teachers for the cost of a single week in
Iraq, but the President says no.
The bill that he vetoed included $7 billion to provide high-quality
early education through Head Start. Yesterday, the Senate approved a
Head Start bill to strengthen the program and make Head Start even
better. The bill goes a long way in strengthening the quality of the
personnel, tying Head Start to kindergarten and other education
programs in the States and consolidating all the various programs in
the States that are available to children to make them more effective.
Each of these improvements make an enormous difference in the lives of
Head Start children. Funds the President vetoed would be used to build
a basic foundation for learning that will help low-income and minority
children for the rest of their lives. We can improve this foundation
for the cost of a little more than 2 weeks in Iraq.
But even as we work in Congress to improve this vital program, the
President says no. No, no, no to this program, no to the Head Start
children. We are only reaching half of those who are eligible for the
program at this time. We have over 4 million poor children under the
age of 5 in the United States of America; we only reach 1 million of
them. We all know what a difference early intervention makes for
children in education. It is critically important for us to continue
strengthening the academic programs, socio-emotional support, and
health services delivered through Head Start and yet the President
continues to say no.
The same misguided rationale applies to other investments in this
bill. The President's choices cast aside urgently needed research on
heart disease, diabetes, asthma, infectious disease, and mental health,
and many other areas that could find cures and bring relief to millions
of our fellow citizens.
This chart shows $4.9 billion in cancer research which would fund
over 6,800 grants; diabetes research, pandemic flu, with all the
dangers we are facing with the potential for a pandemic flu--that is
necessary--support for the CDC, one of the prime health agencies to
help protect Americans. It does such a good job in terms of
immunizations and community health centers, which is a lifeline for 15
million of our fellow citizens, so many of whom have lost their health
insurance. And the answer is no to those individuals.
It is true, in terms of American workers, the President rejects
funding to enforce the labor laws that keep workers safe and to give
them a level playing field. Instead, the President's veto takes bad
employers off the hook and puts the safety and lives of American
workers at risk. The President's choices are devastating to veterans as
well. Listen to this, Mr. President. Each year nearly 320,000 brave
servicemen return to civilian life, many coming from Iraq and
Afghanistan. Tens of thousands--here is the chart. These are the
returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. Tens of thousands of
reservists and National Guard have lost their benefits and even their
jobs because they served their country. That is why the appropriations
bill provided $228 million to help veterans find jobs, obtain training,
and protect their right to return to former jobs. They are guaranteed
now under existing law, but what is happening is that law is not being
implemented. We found that three-quarters of returning veterans do not
even know about their rights and, in many instances, they are losing
their jobs, they are losing their overtime pay, and they are losing
their pensions. That is why today one out of four homeless people in
the United States is a former veteran. The bill we approved would help
address this issue, but that was also vetoed.
The bill we will have a chance to vote on tomorrow in the Senate,
which was approved by the House of Representatives yesterday, also
takes an important step in reining in the Bush administration's use of
torture. It is difficult to believe that in this day and age, Congress
needs to legislate against the use of torture to prevent the President
of the United States from abusing prisoners. Torture and cruel,
inhuman, and

[[Page S14462]]

degrading treatment are already prohibited by law. Yet, once again, we
must legislate, not because the conduct we would prohibit is somehow
unlawful, but because the Bush administration continues to twist and
distort existing law in its misguided, immoral interrogation practices.
The Nation was shocked by the horrible images from Abu Ghraib prison,
and America was shamed in the eyes of the world. The administration
tried to whitewash the episode by blaming it on low-level soldiers, but
the truth about our use of torture couldn't be concealed. Led by
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld,
and Attorney General Gonzales, the administration had set a course that
undermined fundamental American values in the craven belief that
torture could somehow make us more secure.
Our interrogators were authorized to shackle prisoners in stress
positions, induce hypothermia, and use sleep deprivation, extend
isolation, bombardment with lights and loud music, and even now the
infamous practice of waterboarding. The Justice Department's Office of
Legal Counsel--listen to this, Mr. President--the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel gave its approval to the legality of these
practices in the morally outrageous Bybee torture memorandum. The Bybee
torture memorandum was in place for more than 2\1/2\ years until Mr.
Gonzales appeared before the Judiciary Committee when he wanted to be
the Attorney General of the United States. He could look over that
committee and tell that if he had to defend that memorandum, he would
never make it, and he was right.
What happened? The administration repealed the Bybee torture
memorandum, and Mr. Gonzales got through the Judiciary Committee,
although there were more than 40 votes in the Senate against his
confirmation.
Under the Bybee memorandum, if the President approved the use of
torture, no one could be prosecuted for breaking our Nation's laws or
international obligations.
Do my colleagues understand? Under the Bybee memorandum, if you were
going to prosecute an individual for using torture, you had to
demonstrate a specific intent that the purpose of the torture in which
you were involved was not to gain information but just to harm the
individual. Unless a prosecutor would be able to demonstrate that the
purpose of torturing an individual was not to gain information, you
were effectively let off, free.
As the distinguished Dean of Yale Law School, Dr. Koh, said, it was
the worst piece of legal reasoning he had seen in the history of
studying laws in the United States and legal opinions.
The administration withdrew the Bybee memo in embarrassment when it
became public. Indeed, the now-Attorney General Mukasey refused to
denounce waterboarding as torture.
Only leaders who fail to understand the founding principles of
America could approve such behavior. Our country needs to stand beyond
reproach for the sanctity of each individual, for freedom, for justice,
for the rule of law. But the administration turned its back on all
these traditions and on the ideals of America itself.
In 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act to ensure that
all interrogations conducted by the Department of Defense would comply
with the Army Field Manual, a comprehensive and effective approach to
interrogation that prohibits the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and
degrading techniques in favor of techniques that are most likely to be
effective in gaining necessary information.
LTG John Kimmons said, when releasing the manual:

No good intelligence is going to come from abusive
practices. I think history tells us that. I think the
empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells
us that. The Manual itself tells us that the use of torture
is not only illegal, but also it is a poor technique that
yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection
efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks
the [interrogator] wants to hear.

Last May, General Petraeus echoed these statements in a letter to all
our servicemembers in Iraq saying that ``torture and other expedient
methods to obtain information'' are not only illegal and immoral, but
also generally ``neither useful nor necessary.''
We now know, however, that the 2005 act left open a loophole that
undermines the basic safeguards against torture and cruel and degrading
treatment. We applied the field manual to the Department of Defense,
but not to the CIA.
Last year in the Military Commissions Act, Congress left it to the
President to define by Executive order the interrogation practices that
would bind all Government interrogators, including the CIA. The
President's Executive order drove a Mack truck through this small
loophole. The vague terms of the order permit many of the most heinous
interrogation practices.
The provisions of the bill we will have an opportunity of voting on
tomorrow closed that loophole. They require that all U.S.
interrogations, including those conducted by the CIA, conform to the
Army Field Manual. This very simple and easily implemented reform means
no more waterboarding, no more use of dogs or other extreme practices
prohibited by the Manual. There will still be great flexibility in use
of interrogation methods and our interrogators will be able to
effectively get the required information, but torture will be off the
table.
This bill is an opportunity to restate our commitment to the ideals
and security of our Nation. It is an opportunity to repair the damage
done to our reputation by the scandal of Abu Ghraib and the abuses of
Guantanamo. It is an opportunity to restore our Nation as the beacon
for human rights, fair treatment, and the rule of law. It is an
opportunity to protect our brave service men and women, both in and out
of uniform, from similar tactics. It is a simple but vital step in
returning our Nation to the rule of law and the ideals on which America
was founded, and it deserves to be enacted into law as soon as
possible.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
allowed to speak as in morning business.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Subprime Lending Crisis

Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to express my
strong support for modernization of the Federal Housing Administration.
As you know, there is a serious financial issue affecting a lot of
Americans. The subprime lending crisis is driving up foreclosure rates
in Florida and across the country.
The problem is that from 2004 to 2006, financial institutions gave a
lot of people mortgages they could not afford. These were low-interest,
nothing-down, sometimes no-document loans that made the initial monthly
payment very affordable. But because these were adjustable rate
mortgages, a lot of people soon found themselves in a lot of financial
trouble. After 24 months, or whenever the initial low downpayment
period was over, the next market-driven rates set in and monthly
mortgage payments climbed substantially.
Another factor compounding the problem, especially in places such as
Florida, is that housing prices are stagnant or declining. So with no
equity, higher monthly payments, and no chance to sell without taking a
substantial loss, a lot of homeowners who have subprime loans are
finding themselves in the perfect storm and, sadly, they are facing
financial foreclosure.
Imagine the heartbreak of a family losing a home to foreclosure.
About 2 million families in America are in that predicament today. This
summer we saw the first wave of foreclosures, and because of the lag
time between interest rate adjustments, we are likely to see another
wave before too long. But the good news is that there is a strong
public-private partnership offering help.

The Federal Housing Administration is offering certain homeowners an
option to refinance their existing mortgages so they can make their
payments and keep their homes. Additionally, FHA is coordinating a wide
variety of groups that offer foreclosure counseling. This is to
identify homeowners before they face hardships, help them to understand
their financial options, and allow them to find a mortgage product that
works for them.
I commend President Bush and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson for

[[Page S14463]]

stepping in to help with this difficult situation. I also commend the
private institutions that are helping families avoid foreclosure. But
where we need more action right now is right here in the Congress.
I am pleased we have put together a bipartisan FHA reform bill that
will lower downpayment requirements, allow FHA to insure bigger loans,
and give FHA more pricing flexibility. These reforms will empower FHA
to reach more families that need help. It would also help first-time
home buyers, minorities, and those with low to moderate incomes.
Over the past 72 years, FHA has been a mortgage industry leader,
helping more than 34 million Americans become homeowners at no cost to
the taxpayer. With this legislation, we build an even better program
that complements conventional mortgage products and allows FHA to
continue to serve hard-working and creditworthy Americans.
I commend Senators Dodd and Shelby for their leadership on this issue
in the Banking Committee. The legislation we have before us is the
result of a lot of time and dedication from members of that Senate
Banking Committee. It isn't an easy process to get legislation through
this committee, but it is a fair one. With this legislation, we have
the opportunity to use the resources of the Federal Government in a
reasonable and responsible manner in order to mitigate against future
home losses.
As former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, I know this
program well, and I would ask my colleagues who may have questions or
concerns with this legislation to talk to me about it. I would love to
tell you why this is a good idea for America.
I would also add that Senators Dodd and Shelby and I have worked hand
in hand with the administration throughout this process, and that this
legislation that was reported from the Banking Committee--and, as I
said, has bipartisan support--also enjoys the support of the President
and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In fact, I have a
letter from Secretary Jackson to Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member
Shelby dated September 19 expressing enthusiastic support for the bill.
This is a bill that will help families. At a time when America seems
to be looking to Congress for answers on issues from energy to the
crisis that is going on with the foreclosure problem, to so many other
issues, here is a time when we can come together and get something done
that is good for the American people.
To make the argument this legislation has not been given due
deliberation is both unfair and unfounded. FHA reform is an issue that
has been debated here in Congress for many years. In fact, I know we
debated this issue here when I was Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development.
The Banking Committee has had hearings and Members have been an
active part of the process. At the markup in September, members voted
21 to 1 in favor of reporting the legislation from committee. I believe
the one Senator who did object in committee now supports the
legislation.
So, again, I ask my colleagues to take a good look at the merits of
this legislation and support our efforts to provide hard-working,
creditworthy Americans with an avenue to safe, sound, and affordable
mortgage lending.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.

Tribute to Senator Byrd

Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to honor the
President pro tempore, our great friend, the senior Senator from West
Virginia. Senator Byrd will celebrate his 90th birthday next Tuesday.
In Alaska, we call this a significant milepost. Milestones in Alaska
get covered with snow too often.
I remember watching from the gallery in 1959 when Senator Byrd took
office. I was a member of the Eisenhower administration at the time. He
had been here for nearly a decade by the time I came to the Senate in
1968. Senator Byrd and I have worked together on the Appropriations
Committee now for 36 years. We have each chaired that committee and we
have each had the honor of becoming the President pro tempore. He has
been President pro tempore twice.
Senator Byrd has been called a symbol of our history, and those of us
who served with him, and continue to serve with him, rely on his
knowledge of the Senate and its history and traditions. I wish I had
the time to go into some of the times I have listened to Senator Byrd
recite poems or history, or tell of his times of researching the
history of the Roman Senate. I served as the whip here for 8 years when
Senator Byrd was giving his history lessons, and it was my honor to sit
here and listen to those history lessons, and I learned a great deal
from him.
His devotion to the Senate and to those of us who serve with him are
reasons for us to call him the patriarch of the Senate family. I know
of no one who has done so much to keep the spirit of the family alive
in the Senate. Over the years, Senator Byrd has come to the floor many
times to honor me personally and to honor my family. He comforted me
here on the floor when my wife Ann passed away. He comforted me in
times of sorrow; he comforted me in times of joy.
He came to me on the day I first became a grandfather. And I will
never forget that, because he gave a speech about the meaning of
becoming a grandfather, and he told me I had my first taste of
immortality because I was a grandfather. Those words have stayed with
me for a long time. I now have 11 grandchildren, but I will never
forget that speech about the first one.
I also remember the kind remarks he has made to me on many other
occasions. He came to the floor and offered congratulations of the
Senate when I remarried, and he came again when Catherine and I had our
first daughter, our only child, Lilly. Earlier this year, he came to
the floor to congratulate Lilly on her graduation from law school. And
with Lilly, I remember when she was young and a baby, and I was the
whip, we had a birthday party for Lilly every year here, and Senator
Byrd never missed one of those. He became Uncle Robert to Lilly. He has
had a marvelous relationship with the children of Senators who have
served with him.
The nurturing and caring quality that Senator Byrd has brought to
this Chamber for so many years reminds us we are a family. We had the
sad occasion to gather with him and support him when he lost his
beloved wife. But I have come here today to congratulate the Senator
from West Virginia not only for his service to our Nation and to the
Senate, but for his longevity. He is the only Senator who is older than
I am, and I thank him for his friendship and for all he has done for me
and my family personally.
Catherine and I wish him a very happy birthday, and we hope the
Senate will join in extending to the President pro tempore our sincere
congratulations on his birthday.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana.

National Adoption Day

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to be
recognized to speak for a moment with my colleague Senator Coleman on
National Adoption Day, which is this Saturday.
Before I do that, let me thank the Senator from Alaska, the senior
Senator, for his beautiful remarks relative to our other colleague from
West Virginia, a man whom we have all come to know and love and respect
for his years and quality of service to this body and to our country.
Many of us will have other words to say on behalf of Senator Byrd on
his birthday, which is coming up very soon.
I wanted to come to the floor with my colleague from Minnesota to
speak about a very important issue that we try to remember and reflect
on through the whole month of November, but particularly on National
Adoption Day on November 17. I also wanted to take this opportunity to
remind ourselves of the importance of family and the laws we try to
pass here in Congress to encourage families to be strengthened and
expanded through the miracle of adoption.
Many Members of Congress, including myself, are adoptive parents. We
have personally experienced the joy of building our families through
adoption. We are proud promoters of this practice that is not uniquely
American, but is embraced by Americans in a way

[[Page S14464]]

that it is not embraced in most countries in the world. And we are
proud of that. In America, we like to believe it is not the color of
our skin or even being from the same part of the world that makes a
family. It is a bond, a love that can be shared between people and
families and children, even if those children are of a different race
or a different background. It is a very unique aspect of America that
is quite open and quite extraordinary.
In America, we adopt many children, thousands of children. Over the
last decade, the numbers have increased every year, in good measure due
to the work that has been done in the United States, right here in
Congress.
Let me back up a minute to say that, obviously, our ultimate hope and
wish is that all children could stay with their birth families. In an
ideal world, you would want all children born in every country, every
day and every year, to be able to be born into families who want them,
can care for them, can nurture them, and will stay whole and permanent.
But we know in the reality of the world in which we live, that is not
possible. War, famine, disease, addiction, violence, and gross neglect
separate families, separate children from their birth parents every
day.
I think it is one of our primary responsibilities as responsible,
functioning governments, particularly democracies, to do what we can to
connect those children who are separated from that special bond with a
birth parent to another nurturing, loving adult as quickly as possible.
It would seem that the most natural thing in the world is to understand
that a child without a parent is very vulnerable. Even children with
parents who are educated and able to navigate through life still have
great challenges. So, you can imagine the vulnerability of children
with no parents to protect them, alone to raise themselves. Children
don't do that very well. And governments don't raise children. Human
beings--parents--do. So we need to do our best.
We are working at it, but we have a long way to go. That is why every
November, our Presidents, President Clinton, and before him President
Bush, take a minute, as our current President will tomorrow at the
White House, to acknowledge that November in America is National
Adoption Month. We focus the attention of our country on our efforts
and we congratulate ourselves on our progress, but there is still a
gap. We have 514,000 children who have been removed from their birth
families and placed in the care of the community, in foster care.
Today, over 115,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted, and
the majority of their parents already have had their parental rights
terminated. These children are waiting to be placed in a permanent
family through adoption, whether kinship or regular, or long-term
guardianship.
So I come to the floor today to recognize some of these children who
are waiting today, and to say that while we are making progress, we
have some beautiful children who are still waiting to be adopted. There
are many misconceptions about some of the children who are in our
public child welfare and foster care systems. The survey recently
conducted by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption indicated that the
majority of Americans mistakenly believe that many of the children in
foster care are ``juvenile delinquents.'' According to the survey, an
unbelievable number of Americans, have thought about adopting a child
from foster care, but because of their misperception that there is
something wrong with these children, that they are damaged goods, they
back up or they back away.

The facts will show that it is not the children who are in foster
care who are delinquent. It was a problem from the parental end; that
the parents somehow failed to step up or were unable to step up. These
children are not damaged goods. They are doing beautifully in school.
Many grow up to be quite successful, but they, like all children, need
parents and protection.
This is a young girl, Natalyia, who is 8 years old. She has been in
foster care since 2001 and is one of the children in Louisiana who is
waiting to be adopted.
This is two siblings. Sometimes a child is an only child and
sometimes a child has brothers and sisters. I am one of nine children.
I know, Mr. President, you came from a fairly large family. Sometimes
the unfortunate thing is that parents walk away, or disease or violence
separates them from groups of children.
These are two young boys, Terron and Montrell, who are about 7 and 8
years old. They are in foster care in Louisiana, looking for parents
here in the United States.
This is two other brothers who have been in foster care for a while.
Their names are Ronnie and Kody. They are 11 and 13 years old, also
looking for a family here in the United States.
We have thousands and thousands of children of all ages in the United
States looking for families. We have millions of orphans around the
world. As I said, there are tens of thousands of children right here in
the United States who are waiting to be adopted. I am proud of the laws
we have tried to pass here on the floor of the Senate, giving
appropriate tax credits and providing other opportunities for children
to move into loving and permanent families.
I think our time is limited. I don't want to take any more time, but
I ask unanimous consent to allow the Senator from Minnesota to finish
up our talk here on the Senate floor, to acknowledge National Adoption
Day and National Adoption Month, and then turn to the leadership, if I
could.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am wondering if my friend from Minnesota
will be kind enough to allow the two leaders to engage in a little work
here on the floor? As soon as we finish, he would retain the floor.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I graciously yield the floor to the two
leaders.
Mr. REID. My friend is gracious in everything he does. I appreciate
that so much.

Conditional Recess or Adjournment of the Two Houses of Congress

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed
to H. Con. Res. 259, the adjournment resolution.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the
concurrent resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 259) providing for a
conditional adjournment of the House of Representatives and a
conditional recess or adjournment of the Senate.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, could
the majority leader tell me what the schedule is likely to be for
tomorrow?
Mr. REID. Yes. We will do a unanimous consent request in a minute for
your approval or disapproval. What we are going to do is come in in the
morning. I want to come in early because of requests from both your
side and my side that we vote first on an Iraq matter that the minority
has brought to the floor; then we would vote on a motion to proceed to
the bridge bill that the House voted on last night; and then we would
vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the farm bill. At that time,
hopefully, we would be ready to wind things down until after
Thanksgiving.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
concurrent resolution.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent the current resolution be agreed to
and the motion be laid upon the table.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 259) was considered and
agreed to.
The concurrent resolution reads as follows:

H. Con. Res. 259

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That when the House adjourns on the legislative
day of Thursday, November 15, 2007, or Friday, November 16,
2007, on a motion offered pursuant to this concurrent
resolution by its Majority Leader or his designee, it stand
adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, December 4, 2007, or until
the time of any reassembly pursuant to section 2 of this
concurrent resolution, whichever occurs first; and that when
the Senate recesses or adjourns on any day from Thursday,
November 15, 2007, through Thursday, November 29, 2007, on a
motion offered pursuant to this concurrent resolution by its
Majority Leader or his designee, it stand recessed or
adjourned until noon on Monday,

[[Page S14465]]

December 3, 2007, or such other time on that day as may be
specified by its Majority Leader or his designee in the
motion to recess or adjourn, or until the time of any
reassembly pursuant to section 2 of this concurrent
resolution, whichever occurs first.
Sec. 2. The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader
of the Senate, or their respective designees, acting jointly
after consultation with the Minority Leader of the House and
the Minority Leader of the Senate, shall notify the Members
of the House and the Senate, respectively, to reassemble at
such place and time as they may designate if, in their
opinion, the public interest shall warrant it.

ORDERS FOR TOMORROW

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote
at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow on the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to
S. 2340, the Senate Iraq Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill; if
cloture is not invoked, the Senate then vote on cloture on the motion
to proceed to H.R. 4156, the Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment
Appropriations bill; if that cloture is not invoked, the Senate then
vote on cloture on the substitute amendment to the farm bill; I further
ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on H.R. 2419, the
underlying bill, be delayed to occur, if needed, upon the adoption of
the substitute amendment; I further ask unanimous consent that the time
for debate prior to the first vote be equally divided between the two
leaders or their designees; that the last 10 minutes be reserved for
the two leaders, with the majority controlling the last 5 minutes; and
that there be 2 minutes for debate before the second and third votes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, it is my intention to come in in the
morning at 8:30. That would allow any Senators who wish to talk about
the farm bill and Iraq to do that tonight and in the morning we have a
few speakers and you would have some speakers, and that should conclude
the events tomorrow. I think we need to come in early because we have
had a number of requests, as you know.
I do say this, I appreciate the understanding of my friends on the
other side. As they know, there is a debate tonight of all Democratic
Presidential candidates, and they needed to be here in the morning.
That is required. They probably needed the time anyway, but I couldn't
push forward on that tonight, especially with the debate starting in 2
hours in Las Vegas.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, let me say a couple of things before the
distinguished Republican leader leaves. We had a brief conversation
here in the well of the Senate a couple of minutes ago. I am
disappointed we cannot proceed to the Transportation appropriations
bill. The President tells us he wants bills. We do everything we can,
and it is difficult to get them done, but we have now completed an
extremely difficult conference. It has been open. Republicans have
participated. I am not going to go into the details of the bill, but it
is a transportation bill. It deals with such important parts of
America's infrastructure which are so desperately needed.
I hope, I say to my friend, that maybe before we leave here tomorrow
there will be another thought given to this. It would be nice if we
could send this bill to the President and do it before we leave here
for recess. Senator Bond and Senator Murray on our side, the managers
of this bill, have worked very hard trying to get everything done. They
worked today. We got a hold on it here taken off. Somebody objected
here. We took that off. I am so grateful for their hard work, their
bipartisan work on this legislation.
I do say this, Senator Bond, who has been one of the members of the
Appropriations Committee for some time, has been pretty easy to work
with over the years. He has been very reasonable. Senator Murray told
me he has been extremely reasonable during this most difficult bill. I
am not going to ask unanimous consent to go forward on it. I have been
told by my friend, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, there would
be an objection. I do feel sorry we have not been able to do that.
Finally, I will say a few words on an important issue, breast cancer
and environmental research. I indicated earlier this year I was going
to move forward, if necessary, on cloture. There is one Republican
Senator who has held up this extremely important bill. This legislation
would authorize money for 5 years to study the possible links between
the development of breast cancer and environment. One key provision in
the legislation would create an advisory panel to make recommendations
about these grants.
Over the past 6 years, this bill has enjoyed very broad, bipartisan
support. During the 109th Congress, this bill was reported out of the
HELP Committee, but one Senator on the other side, one Republican,
objected to our request to pass it.
I am bound and determined to pass this legislation. Why I have not
moved on it earlier is the following reason: We have gotten great work
on a bipartisan basis out of the HELP Committee. Senators Kennedy and
Enzi--one would not think they are political soulmates, but they are.
They balance each other out. Senator Enzi confided in me--I don't
necessarily mean confided in me, but he told me that he was going to
have a hearing on this very soon, before the first of the year, to see
if he could work out the problems the one Senator had. If that in fact
is the case, this matter could be brought out of the committee to the
floor and passed very quickly rather than my taking a week or so on the
legislation. So I want all those who are so concerned about this
legislation to know I have not forgotten about it, but based on Senator
Enzi's representations, I am not going to try to invoke cloture on this
bill at this time. If we do not get something done during the first few
months of the next year, we will do that. Hopefully we can pass it in
December.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, could the majority leader yield for a
question?
Mr. REID. I am happy to yield for a question.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am listening carefully to what you
said. I am here on the floor working very hard trying to get the
Transportation and Housing bill to the President, as he has asked us to
do. We worked together in a strong bipartisan way. All of the
Republicans and all the Democrats in both the House and Senate signed
the conference committee report. This is critical infrastructure. I
note the Senator from Minnesota is on the floor. He had a bridge
collapse in his State. We have had a housing crisis we addressed within
this bill. We know airport expansion is a critical infrastructure
piece. I see the Senator from Louisiana is on the floor. There is very
important infrastructure there.
If I heard the Senator correctly, we are not going to be able to move
forward on this critical piece of legislation that only has one hurdle
left to get to the White House. If I could, in effect, clarify it, my
understanding is there is an objection and we will not be able to move
it past the final hurdle?
Mr. REID. I answer to my friend who has done such an outstanding job
on this bill, as she does on everything, this bill did have in it $195
million to replace I-35 West, the bridge in Minneapolis. We all
witnessed the tragedy of the collapse of that bridge. A picture is
worth 1,000 words so I will not give 1,000 words, other than to say I
ask everyone to call up in their mind's eye the devastation that took
place when that bridge unexpectedly collapsed. The bill also, I say,
includes an additional $1 billion for urgent bridge repairs in all
States in the wake of that tragedy. That is only a small part of that
legislation and it is unfortunate we couldn't send that to the
President before the recess. We still could, maybe when we get back in
the morning, and we could do it before we leave here. That is still
possible.
Mrs. MURRAY. I say to the majority leader, I thank him for trying to
move forward. I hope our minority leader will work with his caucus to
try to help us move this forward. It is critical infrastructure that
thousands of communities are counting on this week, heading for a
jampacked Thanksgiving holiday. Everyone is going to realize the impact
of not investing in our infrastructure. I hope we can continue to try
to work something out.
I thank the majority leader.

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 3996

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, after
consultation with the Republican leader, may turn to the consideration
of H.R.

[[Page S14466]]

3996, the Tax Extender/AMT bill, and that it be considered under the
following limitations: that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided
between Senators Baucus and Grassley or their designees prior to a
cloture vote on the bill; if cloture is invoked, there be no amendments
in order to the bill; if cloture is defeated, there then be 1 hour for
debate on Senator Lott's amendment No. 3620, providing for AMT repeal
and 1-year extension of expiring tax provisions; that following that
vote there be 1 hour for debate on Senator Baucus's amendment providing
for a 1-year AMT patch and a 2-year extension of expiring tax
provisions with the cost of the expiring tax provisions offset; that
each amendment vote would require 60 votes in the affirmative; that
following those votes, if an amendment is agreed to, the bill be read a
third time and the Senate vote immediately, without any intervening
action or debate, on final passage of the bill. If neither amendment
achieves 60 votes and cloture is not invoked on the bill, then the bill
be returned to the calendar; if cloture is invoked on the bill, then
the Senate proceed to complete action on the bill under the provisions
of rule XXII.
Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Reserving the right to object.
Mr. McCONNELL. I know Senators Grassley and Baucus are here to
discuss this issue. I believe the majority leader knows I am going to
be offering another alternative consent agreement to his here
momentarily. I ask we both be allowed to do our respective consent
agreements and then let others discuss the AMT.
Bearing that in mind, Mr. President, I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Senate Republicans have time and time
again voted to reform and repeal the alternative minimum tax, a stealth
tax that was promulgated in 1969 to ensure some 155 wealthy Americans
paid at least some level of Federal tax but which today threatens to
entrap more than 20 million American taxpayers this year alone.
I know the majority leader shares my desire to fix the alternative
minimum tax and to extend other expiring tax provisions later this
year. In fact, as the IRS has told us, the inexplicable inaction at
this point has already the potential to wreak havoc on the tax-filing
season. I have been encouraging my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle to work with us to do this for quite some time.
So both my friend, the majority leader, and I know this is an issue
that must be addressed. That is common ground, and that is good. But
let's be clear. Republicans want to extend the alternative minimum tax
patch and expiring tax provisions without increasing taxes on other
Americans. Furthermore, we want to protect 90 million American
taxpayers, including small business owners, from a massive tax increase
that will soon take effect if Congress does not act to extend rate
reductions contained in the tax relief measures we passed in 2001 and
2003.
I would suggest that there are fundamental differences of opinion
between the two parties on tax policy. This is not a surprise; we all
know this. And it is a debate we have been having for years. But on
this there is much we can agree on. Let's begin with a base bill that
accomplishes what is noncontroversial, what we mutually agree upon;
that is, extending the AMT patch for 1 year and extending expiring tax
provisions for 2 years.
In view of the differences between the parties on tax increases,
let's allow two amendments per side to be in order, each of our own
choosing. I can tell you now that our amendments will be focused on
ensuring tens of millions of Americans do not face tax increases. While
I would not presume to tell my friend, the majority leader, what
amendments his side should offer, I would suggest it would be an
excellent opportunity for him to offer the tax increases that are
included in the Baucus proposal and the Rangel AMT bill as passed by
the House as the other. Since we object to the majority's efforts to
increase taxes, as they apparently will object to our efforts to extend
tax relief, let's require that all amendments be subjected to a 60-vote
hurdle.
In summary, I propose we start with common ground and say
controversial pay-fors and add-ons must get 60 votes.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, with the
concurrence of the Republican leader, may turn to the consideration of
H.R. 3996; provided further that there then be a substitute amendment
in order, the text of which is the 1-year alternative minimum tax fix
with a 2-year extenders package without the tax-raising offsets; I
further ask unanimous consent that each side be allocated four tax-
related amendments to be offered to the substitute, and that each
amendment under this order and passage of the underlying bill require
60 votes for adoption or passage as the case may be.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, during the
past 7 years, we have had an interesting financial program in this
country led by President Bush; that is, spend whatever you want, just
use a credit card. That is, he wants new programs. He has had plenty.
Just write out one of the IOUs that came from the credit card. Or if
you want to reduce taxes, do not pay for it, just call for the credit
card, which it seems the limit on that never runs out, just more and
more.
When this man, this man, President Bush, took office, there was a $7
trillion surplus over 10 years. Now there is a deficit of $9 trillion.
That is what the Bush fiscal policy has done to this country.
We in this Democratic-controlled Congress believe things should be
paid for. We have done that working with the House on everything. We
believe we are going to do our very best to do it on this legislation.
But I would suggest to my friend that one of the requests I had is
that we vote on--have every opportunity to vote on--what the House sent
us.
But without belaboring the point, I think we have two different ways
of how this Government should run. One should be on a pay-go basis. If
you want to increase spending, you pay for it. If you want to cut
taxes, pay for that. For 7 years the Republicans have not agreed with
that. As a result of that, we find ourselves in a difficult situation.
So I respectfully object to my friend's request.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I regret that the Republican side has
objected to the request offered by the majority leader. But I am very
pleased, frankly, with the objection by the majority leader to the
minority leader.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. If the Senator from Montana would
suspend for just a moment.
Under the previous order, the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator
from Minnesota had the floor for a few minutes before the leadership.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, if I might ask my colleagues to indulge me
a little because this is an important subject on the issue at hand. I
ask their indulgence for 5 minutes.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. I thank my friends. Mr. President, the goal is to try to
fix the alternative minimum tax and to try to get these tax extenders
passed. The goal is not to relitigate the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which
I think would be the subject of the amendments that the minority side
would offer if their consent requests were granted. We are not here to
relitigate that; we are here to figure out some way to make sure this
Congress allows the alternative minimum tax patch to pass so Americans
do not have to pay an alternative minimum tax for tax year 2007, which
is the goal.
I am very disappointed, frankly, that we are not allowed to get to
that point because the other side objected to the request offered by
the majority leader to set up a series of votes which would enable us
to get to that point--namely, where this body could pass the
legislation, probably an amendment by Senator Grassley and myself--
which would accomplish most of the objectives by the other side;
namely, dealing with the alternative minimum tax, not paid for, but pay
for the extenders.
That would have been the third vote if we were to get there; that is,
if the

[[Page S14467]]

minority party allowed us to get there. But, apparently, they do not
care about that. Apparently, they do not care about the alternative
minimum tax. Apparently, they want to relitigate the 2001 tax cuts, the
2003 tax cuts, to have it extended with mischievous amendments.
I remind my colleagues we are here today because back in 1969,
Congress passed the alternative minimum tax because so many wealthy
taxpayers were not paying any taxes. So we passed AMT. But we made a
mistake, frankly; we did not index it. And lo and behold, after all of
these years, now taxpayers between $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 of
income, many of them are going to have to pay the alternative minimum
tax very soon.
But, ironically, it is the most wealthy taxpayers in America who are
not affected by the alternative minimum tax. It does not hit them. It
does not affect them. It does not affect the most wealthy. It just
affects those with incomes between, say, $100,000 and $200,000 in
income.
Why does it not affect the most wealthy? Because on the alternative
minimum tax, the capital gains rates are not the alternative minimum
tax rates, rather the capital gains rates under the AMT are the regular
capital gains rates, and most wealthy people get most of their income
paying capital gains taxes because their income is passive rather than
ordinary income.
So it is a bad provision, the AMT, and we have to fix it. And mark my
words, we are going to try to find a way to fix it because it has to be
fixed. I am very disappointed, frankly, that the other side would not
let us fix it now. It is important we fix it now because the IRS is
going to send out forms. The programmers who do the programming for the
Tax Code, for the tax provisions in the Tax Code, have to get the right
programs out to the American people.
If we dally, if we wait--it looks as if now we are going to wait
until certainly after Thanksgiving. It looks as if probably we have to
wait to the end of the year. Who knows when? Maybe the day before
Christmas. That is not the way to do business. So we will find a time.
We can bring up legislation to make sure there is a so-called AMT
patch, that we do not have AMT affect taxpayers for this year. And we
also have to bring up these so-called extender provisions.
I think we should pay for those extenders. But we may not be paying
for the AMT, and that was going to be the third amendment that was
going to be offered today so we can get moving. But I guess that is
going to come up another day. I am very disappointed we are not there.
Mr. President, the journalist Norman Cousins once said: ``Wisdom
consists of the anticipation of consequences.''
By this or any measure, the alternative minimum tax is the most
unwise of policy. Congress plainly did not anticipate the AMT's
consequences. And the wise course now is plainly to stop it from
increasing the taxes of millions of Americans.
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 created the AMT. Congress saw that under
the tax code of that time, 155 high-income households took advantage of
so many tax benefits that they owed little or no income tax. So
Congress responded with the AMT.
But Congress did not anticipate the consequences. Notably, Congress
failed to index the AMT for inflation. And now an increasing number of
middle-income Americans are finding themselves subject to this tax.
Now, the AMT punishes people for having children. The AMT punishes
people for paying high State taxes. And the AMT punishes people with
complexity.
And many taxpayers who owe the AMT do not realize it until they
prepare their returns. Worse yet, many do not realize it until they get
a letter from the IRS. Many never see it coming.
Listen to what the Congressional Budget Office has reported:

[I]f nothing is changed, one in five taxpayers will have
AMT liability and nearly every married taxpayer with income
between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe the alternative tax.

But oddly enough, the AMT would have less effect on households higher
up the income scale. Surely these are not the consequences that
Congress intended.
Protecting working families from the alternative minimum tax is my
top tax priority this year. And it remains my goal to repeal AMT
altogether.
We could do something about it, today. We have a chance to anticipate
the consequences, today. We could enact wiser policy, today.
Last week, the House passed the bill that was the subject of the
unanimous consent request that the Leader just made. It would protect
more than 23 million families from a tax increase this year under the
AMT. It would extend a number of important tax cuts for research,
college expenses, and other priorities. And it is paid for. It is
fiscally responsible.
Under the unanimous consent agreement just propounded, the Senate
could have acted. If we had agreed to this unanimous consent request,
we could have prevented the AMT from wielding its unintended
consequences 1 more year.
I'm disappointed that the Senate did not consent to consider this
bill today. But I am not sorry for choosing to protect taxpayers from
the AMT, even at some cost. Too many folks are at risk of an unfair tax
increase, if Congress fails to act on the AMT.
Provisions like the college tuition deduction, State and local sales
tax relief, and the research and development tax credit are also in
this bill. Those provisions make a real difference for America's
families and businesses. I am disappointed that we were not able to
extend these expiring provisions. People deserve greater certainty
about their tax relief.
Now I don't support all of the provisions in the House bill. I would
not have written it this way. There are certain targeted provisions
that are not strictly extenders that I would not have put in the bill.
There are some offsets that I would not have used or that I would write
differently.
But I do support tax relief. And I support fiscal responsibility. And
this was our chance to both ensure tax relief for 23 million Americans
and also to avoid saddling our children and grandchildren with debt.
Mr. President, many of my colleagues have insisted that we pay for
extending the Children's Health Insurance Program. Many have insisted
that we pay for extending the farm bill. And many have insisted that we
pay for preventing cuts to doctors under Medicare.
Well, if paying-as-you-go is good enough for children's health, if it
is good enough for America's farmers, and if it is good enough for
Medicare, then it ought to be good enough for tax cuts, too.
So I regret that there has been objection to considering the House-
passed AMT bill. I regret that those who are objecting have prevented
us from saving 23 million Americans from the unintended consequences of
the AMT. And I regret that those who are objecting have prevented us
from moving forward to enact wiser tax policy.

National Adoption Day

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I take the opportunity to turn this body
to the attention of a matter that has bipartisan support that will
bring us together. There are some very contentious and challenging
issues that we have to deal with, but what I am going to talk about now
in the moments I have is something that is not a Democratic or
Republican issue. It is an issue that concerns all of us.
It was the poet Carl Sandburg who said: Each young child is God's
opinion that the world should go on. In our busyness and preoccupation
that we have with the affairs of state, we should remember there is
probably nothing more important to the future than making life better
for a child, something we all agree with.
I am talking on the floor today to share a simple way we can all do
that in the Senate and in the country. I am pleased to have the
opportunity to join my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, in
supporting a resolution to recognize National Adoption Day, which is
coming up this Saturday, November 17.
I would say my colleague from Louisiana brings not only the passion
and the intellect to this issue, but she brings a lot of heart to the
issue. And I think that is most powerful. I applaud her for her
leadership. It is a

[[Page S14468]]

pleasure to work with her on issues of adoption.
National Adoption Day is an annual series of events designed to draw
attention to this crucially important social service of uniting kids
who need loving families and families who need kids to share their
love. Adoption is one of the greatest win-wins because it fulfills two
of the greatest needs of human kind: receiving and giving love.
Adoption, since it involves the welfare of the vulnerable children, is
a process that must be handled with care. The challenge is not to make
it so legalistic and bureaucratically demanding that it keeps needy
kids apart from worthy families.
Many legal professionals and nonprofit agencies put in countless
hours to facilitate adoption. This is a day to thank them for their
efforts and focus our attention as a society on what we can do to
create greater opportunities for adoption.
Last year, for the first time, National Adoption Day was celebrated
in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. In total,
more than 300 events were held throughout the country to finalize the
adoptions of more than 3,300 children in foster care and to celebrate
all families that adopt.
This year, the partners are anticipating an even greater number of
finalized adoptions as a greater number of cities and communities
participate in NAD events.
This Saturday, hundreds of volunteer lawyers, foster care
professionals, child advocates, and local judges will come together to
celebrate adoptions and to draw much needed attention to the 114,000
children in foster care still in need of adoptive homes.
I am thankful my friend from Louisiana showed us the faces of those
kids so we understand it is flesh and blood that we are dealing with.
I would like to encourage my colleagues in this Chamber to invest
more of their time and effort into this special area of constituent
service throughout the year. Each December, my staff and I hold a party
in Minnesota to gather and celebrate all of the families, Minnesota
families, that we have assisted in adoption. It is the most joyous
event that I participate in. The expressions of love and gratitude are
simply overwhelming.
One by one, as I see the kids and imagine the circumstances they have
come out of to the place where they have found a home, it makes all of
the frustrating and seemingly futile hours of this job just melt away.
I also thank my colleagues for their support earlier this year in a
provision that Senator Landrieu and I championed to ensure adopted
teenagers who seek an education were not forced to choose between a
loving family and financial aid for college. Previously, youth who
``aged out'' of the foster care system qualified for virtually all
loans and grants, while those who were adopted were essentially
penalized in terms of college financial aid eligibility. Our measure
simply amended the definition of ``independent student'' to include
foster care youth who were adopted after their 13th birthday. This will
ensure that a student does not see his or her financial aid eligibility
decline as a result of being adopted.
Since taking office, I have taken great satisfaction in helping
hundreds of families navigate the international adoption process. Many
of my colleagues are aware of the potential crisis relating to the
completion of over 3,000 adoptions between the United States and
Guatemala.
Due to the implementation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry
Adoption, which is an internal agreement intended to safeguard adopted
children from trafficking, significant and necessary changes are taking
place in adoption law in the United States and Guatemala.
The Government of Guatemala previously announced their nation will
implement The Hague Convention standards as of January 1, 2008, and
will require all adoption cases to meet those standards. This would
have effectively stopped the processing of all adoption cases with non-
Hague countries, including the United States. The United States is
expected to complete Hague implementation this spring. However, in the
meantime, it is imperative we work to ensure that families currently in
the process of adopting have the ability to continue with that
adoption. To highlight these concerns, 52 of my Senate colleagues
joined with Senator Landrieu and me in sending a letter to the
President of Guatemala encouraging an interim measure for pending
adoption applications in Guatemala. This action by the Guatemalan
Government will help ensure that orphaned children do not remain
outside the care of a loving family for lengthy periods of time.
Additionally, I have been in close contact with the Department of
State, the Guatemalan Government, and anxious Minnesota families as
this issued progressed. The Guatemalan Government is currently debating
provisions that would allow U.S. adoptions that are in process to
continue, despite the implementation of The Hague Convention in
Guatemala. I know that matter was being debated. I received a message
from the State Department. Originally, I thought the measure was
passed, and then I was told they hadn't. The State Department informs
me there will be no action taken today, as it was not on the agenda,
but both versions of the law are under consideration and do contain
grandfather clauses that would protect the in-process cases. This bill
apparently will be coming up next week. We have been in touch with the
consular general, with the Ambassador. If no bill is passed, The Hague
Convention will become effective on December 31. But we have assurances
from senior Government officials responsible for implementation that
pipeline cases will continue to be processed under the old system.
I will be traveling to Guatemala right after Thanksgiving in order to
discuss these critical issues with key United States and Guatemalan
officials. They have a new President-elect who was elected in November,
President Colom. We will continue to work on this. I will not be
traveling alone. Traveling with me will be countless stories of
affectionate Minnesota families who are hoping to complete this process
so they can receive and give love. I have also had the privilege of
working with families on other international adoptions. Many are
unaware of the devastating human tragedy of decades of unrest and civil
war in Liberia. Recently, I had the honor to escort a new young
Minnesotan, Miss Patience Carlson, adopted by a Chaska, MN, family to
the White House to be in the Oval Office and to meet with the
President. The Carlsons had been within days of completing the adoption
of their soon-to-be daughter Patience--what a perfect name for this
young lady--when violence broke out in Liberia. As rebel forces moved
into Monrovia, the orphanage began to run low on supplies and the
Carlsons became desperate to unite with their new daughter. It was an
honor to work on their behalf with the U.S. Embassy in Liberia to help
complete the adoption.
I have traded stories with Senator Landrieu about how we have both
been in those situations. We said we are going to get the kids out of
the war zones and do what has to be done. That is the passion she
brings.
The Carlsons got to meet the President of the United States. I have
often related the story about an event in northern Minnesota called the
Great Think-Off. Scholars, religious leaders, and regular people gather
together to debate the great issues of the day and search for a common
solution. One year the question was: What is the ultimate meaning of
life? After several days of long-winded attempts by great philosophers
and professors and others, a young girl who had patiently waited her
turn went up to the microphone and said: The ultimate meaning of life
is to do permanent good. She sat down and the meeting was adjourned.
Adoption is such a permanent good. It changes the lives of kids who
have been through more in their short lives than most people could
handle in a lifetime. It changes the lives of parents and siblings who
make room in their lives for another, through which they learn the more
you love, the more love there is to give.
I urge my colleagues and those who read this record to find time to
reflect on the importance of adoption, visit the Web site at
www.nationaladoptionday.org, and find a way they can contribute in a
small way to this unique social service that makes such an important
difference in the lives of so many people.

[[Page S14469]]

I am grateful for the work that the partners of National Adoption Day
do. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, the Alliance for
Children's Rights; Children's Action Network, Casey Family Services,
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the Freddie Mac Foundation have
once again come together to provide resources, guidance and
encouragement to the cities planning events this November.
In the end we all have a responsibility to make sure the world goes
on and we do that every time we give a child access to the love every
child needs.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to conclude our
presentation with a few wrap-up remarks. Before my colleague leaves the
floor, I wish to say that orphans everywhere have found a bold, brave,
and articulate champion on their behalf. I am so pleased that Senator
Coleman has joined me as a co-chair of the Adoption Caucus to help lead
the 213 Members of Congress who have joined our coalition. As the
Senator pointed out, it seems that around this place adoption is the
only issue on which we can all agree and work so well together. I don't
know if it is a tribute to us or to the children who bring us together
in a very special way. I thank him.
The States of Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, and Wyoming have more than quadrupled the number of public
agency adoptions in their States. It takes a lot of effort, not only on
what we do in Congress, but for Governors, legislators, caseworkers,
social workers, and judges. I wish to call those States out today to
thank them for their extraordinary work. All States are making
progress, and we are happy with what the statistics will show. But
those seven states are making special progress.
Secondly, we want to be sensitive in our movement, if you will, to
the role of birth parents and to honor the choices that birth parents
make to the process of making good decisions and creating good
outcomes. Sometimes we focus a lot of attention on the adopted child
and the adoptive family. I am not sure we spend enough time honoring
the role of the birth parents who make this very brave and generous
choice. I would like our Congress to be sensitive this coming year to
what we can do to honor and highlight birth parents who also are part
of that great triangle of adoption.
Finally, I urge our State Department to support adoption. I know they
are preoccupied with many important, significant and grave issues, from
international diplomacy to conducting wars, which are very important
and consequential actions. However, our State Department has taken 7
years to implement the rules and changes required by the Intercountry
Adoption Act of 2000 that Congress passed. Every day and every week and
every month that these rules are delayed, there are literally thousands
of children who die. Without these rules, we can't keep open the
avenues of international adoption. I will say this to our critics--
there aren't many, but there are a few--every time there is a bad story
about someone, maybe an agency, maybe a lawyer, maybe a disreputable
person--and you know there are many disreputable people in the world,
unfortunately--who does something wrong, does not fill out a document
correctly or does not go through the proper procedures, and there is a
big scandal in international adoption. The whole system is shut down
under the guise of trying to get the ethics right.
Nobody is more committed to ethics and adoption than the two of us.
We work every day to make it transparent, make it relatively easy,
reduce the challenges associated with it, and have it meet every law
and cross every T. However, every time a bank is robbed in this
country, we don't shut down the banking system. We go after the bank
robber. We find them and put them in jail. The banking system stays
open. Every day people cash checks and deposit money and take money out
and make loans and keep this economy going. Every time we shut down
adoptions from a country, millions of children die. That is the
consequence of our action. We need to focus on the roots of the
problem. We need to find solutions that address the problems and their
causes, but which also meet the best needs of the children in that
country. I want the State Department--and I hope they are listening--to
understand that those of us in Congress understand about ethics. We
understand about laws. We want things to be as appropriate and as legal
as possible. When mistakes are made in a country, the answer is not to
shut down the adoption of children from there. When we do this, we not
only break the hearts of thousands of our constituents who are waiting
to receive these children and believe they are doing God's will by
taking in orphans who would die otherwise and have no one to care for
them, we also hurt the children who we are trying to protect. Our State
Department very callously brushes that aside. They are going to hear
from us this year. They need to finalize the rules required by the law
that we passed long ago. We need to continue our efforts to improve our
system of international adoption. We have to get the State Department's
attention. I intend to work with my colleagues to do so.
I thank the Senator from Minnesota. He will be traveling to Guatemala
over the holidays, which is a great testament to his leadership and
dedication to helping us do the right thing by the children of
Guatemala. We pledge to this Congress to give the best leadership we
can on an issue that we all can come together on. It is quite
refreshing.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Jersey.

Iraq

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, more than 3,860 men and women of the
American military have died in the war in Iraq. At last count, 21 were
killed in November alone, and we are only halfway through. In the
Senate, we are worried about getting out of work in time for
Thanksgiving. In Iraq, they are worried about making it to
Thanksgiving. As I speak today, more than 28,450 American soldiers have
come home from Iraq with their lives changed forever by wounds, with
missing arms and legs, with traumatic brain injuries that will forever
alter how they cope with everyday life, with more cases of post-
traumatic stress disorder than ever seen before, with life-altering
blindness that cuts light from their lives forever.
As I speak, American taxpayers are footing a $455 billion bill for
this war, with long-term estimates soaring well beyond $2 trillion. At
the same time, children are going without health care. Students are
being denied proper education. Our bridges are going without repair.
Our borders are going without being completely secured, and we heard
today of a case in which we still can't get our screening down pat to
secure the possibility of someone bringing an explosive device into our
airports. That is the legacy of the war in Iraq.
In the context of this set of grim statistics, while watching images
on television of horrific explosions and bloody bodies, Americans were
asked at the beginning of the year to accept a so-called surge of our
troops into that country, an additional force that was supposed to
provide the breathing room for the feuding political factions to
achieve reconciliation. Those factions, of course, are Iraqi factions.
The Bush administration knew that peace could not be achieved solely
militarily, that it had to be achieved politically. The administration
unilaterally decided that more troops, more weapons, more military
would make the political reconciliation happen. So we have to ask: What
has been the result? Our men and women of the military have carried out
their mission with unparalleled skill and bravery. They have sacrificed
life and limb for their country. That is why we must ask these
questions. Because they always respond, no questions asked. But it is
our obligation to ask for them.

Through their excellent work, they have achieved results. But has it
brought Iraq closer to a lasting peace? Has the political
reconciliation--the very purpose of the additional troops--been
achieved? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
The front page of today's Washington Post paints a startling picture,
a picture of the hard truth. Our generals--our generals on the ground--
tell us

[[Page S14470]]

that a political settlement remains elusive. In fact, their concern
over this failure is growing. Let me quote from this morning's article
in the Washington Post:

Senior military commanders here now portray the
intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the
key threat--

``As the key threat''--

facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda
terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

Let me read that again.

Senior military commanders here--

U.S. military commanders--

now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated
government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq,
rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-
backed militias.

So here we are, 6 months into the surge, with more troops in Iraq
right now--175,000--than ever before, and the main purpose of adding
these troops remains just an aspiration, well out of our reach.
So I ask my colleagues who supported the surge of troops, is this the
result you envisioned? A situation in which dozens of Americans are
still dying every month despite a reduction in violence? A situation in
which the sons and daughters of America are more than ever acting as
the police force--as the police force--in a country that remains
volatile and deadly? A situation in which the people we need most to
achieve stability--the leaders of the various Iraqi political
factions--look at a never-ending American military presence in their
country and see little reason to reconcile?
Are we going to remain in the middle of an internal struggle for
power, as General Petraeus reported in September? I was shocked when
General Petraeus had as part of his testimony that the main conflict in
Iraq was a struggle for power and resources within the different
factions of Iraqi society. Are we sending our sons and daughters to
create the space for the Iraqi politicians to fight over power and
resources? That is what we sent our sons and daughters for? That is why
we keep them there? Is that what we bargained for?
We cannot accept the status quo in Iraq. When our military commanders
say that, in fact, the biggest challenge to us is the intransigence of
Iraqi leaders to come together, more so than al-Qaida, more so than
Sunni insurgents, more so than Iranian influences, that is one
incredible statement.
Things must change, and to change it will take strong action. It
requires a choice: Do we stay the course when we know that peace and
political stability cannot be achieved looking down the barrel of a
gun? Military presence does not achieve political reconciliation.
Remember, former General Pace of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said once:
Well, we need the Iraqis to love their children more than they hate
their neighbors. That is a powerful truism, but that does not come at
the point of a rifle. That comes about through reconciliation. It comes
through power sharing. It comes through revenue sharing. It comes
through all of those things that, notwithstanding the arguments that we
are creating the space for the Iraqi leadership to do, the Iraqi
leadership has failed to do, and there is no movement in sight toward
that goal. Or do we choose a course that impresses upon the political
leaders in Iraq that they must reconcile and bring peace to their
country swiftly?
We need to make them understand the true urgency of this task. We
need to make them understand America will not always be there to play
policeman. Instead of continuing to enable an endless and unchanging
involvement in Iraq, we can set a timetable to begin bringing American
troops back home. I believe that only then will we have the Iraqis
understand that we are not there in an endless occupation, that they
are going to have to make the hard choices for compromise, negotiations
necessary to achieve a government of national unity on those issues of
reconciliation, power sharing, revenue sharing, on the core issues that
possibly can create the opportunity for a strong federal government in
Iraq to survive. But as long as they believe we will stay there in an
open-ended set of circumstances--shedding our blood and spending our
national treasure--what is the urgency, the impetus for them to stop
jostling over power, influence, and resources? Not only could we
preserve the lives of countless American troops, not only could we save
billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, we also could make certain
that the Iraqis know they will have to stand up to achieve the peace we
all seek, the opportunities we would love to see for the Iraqi people,
because until the Iraqi Government and military actually believe we
will not be there forever, they will not actually take charge of their
own country.
Transitioning our troops out of Iraq, that is what I choose. It is
what the American people have continuously said they have chosen. It is
what I urge my colleagues to choose. We have that opportunity coming
tomorrow on the vote on bridge funding. That creates an opportunity to
begin such a transition. I hope we will avail ourselves of that
opportunity because if we have to read more and more of our generals
saying that the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated Government is
the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq rather than al-Qaida
terrorists, Sunni insurgents, or Iranian-backed militias, we are in
deep trouble--we are in deep trouble.
We have to have an opportunity to change the course, and pride--
pride--I hope is not the impediment for people recognizing that. We
have lost too many lives already. We have spent an enormous amount of
money. It is time for change. It is time for a change in course. It is
time to make sure the Iraqis know they have to stand up for their own
future, they have to make the hard decisions possible to have a
government of national unity. That opportunity comes tomorrow for the
Senate. I hope we will avail ourselves of it.
With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today we had a very interesting hearing
where we had General Casey and Secretary Geren and others before the
Armed Services Committee. I want to make sure that before we leave on
this recess we have one more chance to talk about the significance of
the McConnell-Stevens emergency supplemental appropriations bill. It is
vital to our troops overseas, and it is important to the future of our
Armed Forces.
As Senator McConnell stated earlier today--and I am quoting now--he
said:

Because we have a responsibility to provide this funding to
our men and women in uniform as they attempt to protect the
American people, we need to get a clean troop funding bill to
the President.

I would like to associate myself with these words and these remarks
and also express my support for the supplemental he has sponsored.
The emergency supplemental offered by the Democrats, on the other
hand, is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the 110th
Congress. It is a bill we all know does not have the 60 votes needed to
pass. This is not new to this Congress. We have had 61 votes related to
Iraq measures; 29 of those votes were here in the Senate. If those on
the other side of the aisle want to continue to play politics, now is
not the time to do it.
The current war supplemental expires in 2 days--now, the reason I
know that is true is that happens to be expiring on my birthday--which
I hope I don't--and the Department of Defense will be required to start
pulling from their nonwartime budget to pay for ongoing operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
I understand that some of my colleagues want us out of Iraq
regardless of what the facts on the ground may be, but not sending a
clean supplemental bill to the President before we go home for the
Thanksgiving recess is an absolute travesty. Forcing the Department of
Defense to start reprogramming funds to keep our brave men and women
fully equipped in Iraq and Afghanistan will jeopardize our efforts to
maintain, sustain, and transform our Armed Forces, not to mention
create an accounting nightmare. We went through this once before and we
saw the trauma that resulted from it.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, in a November 8 letter,
stated

[[Page S14471]]

that a delay in war funding would force us in December to begin
preparing to close facilities, laying off Department of Defense
civilian employees, and delaying contracts. According to England, it
would completely drain the Army's operations and maintenance accounts
by the end of January, and the training of the Iraqi security forces
will be delayed without this supplemental.
While fighting the war on terror, we cannot forget about our efforts
to sustain and transform our Armed Forces. Pulling money away from such
projects will cost us dividends in the future. We talked about that
this morning, that we have a lot of things that are happening for our
ground forces. We have the future combat systems we are involved in
right now, and we cannot allow FCS to keep sliding as it does.
Other countries that are potential adversaries would be in a position
actually to have better equipment than we do. A good case in point
would be our best artillery piece happens to be called a Paladin. It is
World War II technology. It is actually one where, after every round,
you have to get out and swab the breech. People do not realize that.
There is an assumption out there in America that America has the best
of everything--the best strike vehicles, the best lift vehicles--and it
is just not true. We do not. But this is one of the problems we will
have if we do not continue to fund these efforts.
I have a hard time understanding why now, of all times, we would
withhold funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why now, when
we are turning the corner in Iraq and our troops are making remarkable
progress under the leadership of General Petraeus, would we hand the
enemy off, tell them to lay low until December of 2008, and you can
have the country then?

This proposed emergency supplemental by the Democrats sends the wrong
message to our troops fighting in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It tells
them: We will give you the funding to fight your war, but we don't
believe in what you are doing.
I do not presume to speak for every American service man and woman
fighting overseas, but I have met with a great many of them and have
spoken with many of the families back home. It is kind of interesting
that I have had the opportunity--and I say opportunity in a very
sincere way--to have visited the area of responsibility of Iraq more
than any other Member; actually, some 15 times, and I will be returning
there in 2 more weeks. So when I talk about the military, these are the
ones whom I have talked to on the ground. I watched Ramadi change from
the al-Qaida declared capital to Iraqi control. That was a year ago
right now when they declared Ramadi would become the terrorist capital
of the world. I can remember Fallujah, when we were going from door to
door, our marines, who were doing a great job. It is now completely
secure, but not by Americans. It is secure by the Iraqi security
forces.
I visited the Patrol Base Murray south of Baghdad and met with local
Iraqis who came forward and established provisional units of
neighborhood security volunteers. These individuals heard that the
Americans were coming and were waiting to greet them when they arrived.
I watched these Neighborhood Watch and Concerned Citizens groups take
root in Anbar Province--I think everyone realizes now that Anbar
Province is kind of the success story over there--local civilians who
were willing to take back their cities and their provinces. These
citizens actually go out and paint circles around undetonated IEDs and
RPGs, and it is something they are doing so we don't have to do it. Now
in Iraq, in visiting the joint security stations, you see that our
kids, instead of going back to the green zone in Baghdad, for example,
go out and actually live with the Iraqi security forces and develop
intimate relationships with them. When you see these operations take
place, it is very gratifying.
We had the report yesterday up in 407 in a security environment about
the successes in Iraq, and while that was a classified briefing, the
information they gave is not classified. When you look, you can
compare, as shown here--and I wish I had a chart so it could be shown--
October of 2005, the Iraqi security forces had 1 division headquarters,
4 brigade headquarters, and 23 battalions they were leading in their
own areas of responsibility. Now, 2 years later, in October of 2007,
the Iraqi security forces have 10 division headquarters, 33 brigade
headquarters, and 85 battalions. It shows that two-thirds of the entire
area we have in Baghdad is now under control and under security. More
than 67,000 Iraqis are serving as the concerned local citizens
assisting coalitions and Iraqi security forces to secure their own
neighborhoods.
Locals in Baghdad's east Rashid district are helping secure forces
and locate IEDs. All of these things are going on right now.
I want to wind up. I know the majority leader has time he wants to
share with us. But I have to say that Lieutenant General Odierno stated
on November 1:

Over the past four months, attacks and security incidents
have continued to decline. This trend represents the longest
continuous decline in attacks on record.

None of this is to say the war is over. We understand that. But I
would have to say this: When I listened to my very good friend, the
senior Senator from Massachusetts, talk about the doom and gloom, the
facts that he cited just flat aren't true. We are winning. We are
aggressively winning. Good things are happening. I have to say you
don't get that from reading reports. You need to go over there and look
for yourself.
The senior Senator from Massachusetts and I agree on a lot of things.
He has been very active with me on doing something about the western
Sahara problem. He is concerned about what Joseph Coney is doing in
northern Uganda. We are together on a lot of things. But as far as Iraq
is concerned, he has never made a trip--not one. I have been to A.O.R.
15 times. You have to go over there. I see it as our responsibility as
Members of this Senate body. We are encouraged to go over by the
military because this encourages our troops who are over there. When
you go, they look at you in the eyes and they say: Why is it a lot of
the American people don't agree with what we are doing over here? They
know there were actually several terrorist training camps in Iraq prior
to the time we were over there. In one they were teaching people how to
hijack airplanes. All of those are closed down now. It has been a very
significant thing. Nothing is more important than continuing along the
lines of victory as we are today and finishing the job we have been
carrying on in Iraq.
I applaud all of the young people over there. I said today in this
hearing that I was a product of the draft and I always felt we would
never be able to conduct this type of activity unless we had compulsory
service. I have always supported compulsory service. But when I go over
and I see these young volunteers, all of them total volunteers who are
over there, the dedication they have, the commitment they have, I get
very excited and I realize I was wrong. Those guys are doing a great
job and we don't need to have compulsory service because we have great,
dedicated Americans who are volunteering on a daily basis. The
retention rates have never been higher than they are right now. Those
individuals who come to the end of their term are reupping in numbers
and in statistics we have never seen before. So good things are
happening. We need to get this supplemental finished so we can have the
continuity of funding over there and not have to rob other areas of our
defense system. I am hoping we will be able to do this.
I thank you very much for the time.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend from Oklahoma
yielding the floor. I appreciate it very much. He had the right to the
floor and I hope he was able to complete his statement.

Golden Gavel

Mr. President, first, I want to recognize the Presiding Officer. One
of the accolades that we are allowed, and certainly look forward to
giving to the Members of the Senate, is for those people who preside
over the Senate for 100 hours a year. My friend from Colorado has
reached that pinnacle an hour or so ago. That is a tremendous
accomplishment, 100 hours presiding over the

[[Page S14472]]

Senate. I congratulate my friend and look forward to the first time we
get back after Thanksgiving recess on a caucus day where we make the
presentation of the very fine golden gavel. As I have said before, it
is a very nice presentation. You will be able, for many years to come,
to talk to your children and grandchildren about presiding over the
Senate for 100 hours in 1 year.
So thank you very much, I say to my friend from Colorado, who does an
outstanding job not only presiding but being the Senator he is
representing the people of Colorado.

Transportation Appropriations Conference Report

Mr. President, it is interesting; one Republican Senator said, when
we were trying to clear something earlier, to one of my Democratic
friends, the reason they couldn't clear our appropriations bill, the
Transportation appropriations bill is that they were told the situation
with the Republicans is they don't want us to do anything, so they
object to everything they can, and that is pretty obvious. So we were
prevented from going to the Transportation appropriations bill. It was
quite unique that in the time we were doing this the Senator from
Minnesota was on the floor. He, above all others, should be weighing in
and trying to help us get the Transportation appropriations bill
passed. There is money in it to rebuild the bridge in Minnesota.
But we have something else that is vitally important: terrorism
insurance. We are arriving at a point where construction cannot go
forward. Now construction is already taking place--certainly it can--
but construction projects that are on the drawing boards in a month or
so will not be able to go forward because they can't get terrorism
insurance because we have not provided it. We have been ready for some
time to do that. There is a bill that has been cleared on our side that
the Republicans are holding up--a bill dealing with the very foundation
of this country--whether the business community in our country is going
to have the benefit of terrorism insurance. Without that, it is a
dramatic hit to what we need to do in this country for the business
community.
I think it is unfortunate. We asked our staffs to check with the
minority and they said no, they couldn't clear it; maybe tomorrow.
Well, we have a lot of tomorrows around here that seem to never come.
It would be a real shame if we could not clear tomorrow the terrorism
insurance that is so extremely important to this country.

Iraq

It was interesting to hear my friend from Oklahoma speak about the
war in Iraq. But I would ask everyone to look at--and I am sure it is
not only in this newspaper--a daily newspaper that I had the
opportunity to read today, the Washington Post, the front page
headline:

Iraqis Wasting An Opportunity. Brigadier General John F.
Campbell, deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry
Division, complained last week that Iraqi politicians appear
out of touch with everyday citizens. ``The ministers, they
don't get out. They don't know what the hell is going on on
the ground.''

If you turn over to page 22, which is carrying this forward--and
there are also some interesting things said in this article.

So how to force political change in Iraq without
destabilizing the country further? ``I pity the guy who has
to reconcile that tension,'' said Lieutenant Colonel Douglas
Ollivant, the chief of planning for U.S. military operations
in Baghdad whose tour ends next month.

Mr. President, the situation in Iraq is very desperate. This
newspaper article says, among other things:

The Army officer who requested anonymity said that if the
Iraqi government doesn't reach out, then for former Sunni
insurgents ``it's game on--they're back to attacking again.''

We have supported the troops for the entire duration of this war. We
are the ones who recognized that there wasn't body armor for our
troops, that mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and wives
were writing personal checks to send armor to the valiant troops in
Iraq. We are the ones who recognized that. We are the ones who did
something about the situation we have at Walter Reed, which was a
scandal, how our veterans were being taken care of, but the President
wouldn't sign our bill: $4 billion more for these valiant men and women
who are suffering from things that have never been suffered in any war
ever before. It is a war that has never been fought before. It is a war
where these men and women are subject to these phantom attacks, and
when they go home after their tour or tours of duty end and they have
all their limbs and they can see, they are not paralyzed, they haven't
been shot, they still have to get over this post-traumatic stress
syndrome, because they have seen their friends get killed or blown up
and injured.
I think it is very important to talk about how good our soldiers are,
and that is what my friend from Oklahoma is doing. We agree. We have to
understand that Iraq is in a state of crisis. You can't have it both
ways. The President said he needed these extra troops to get the
political situation in tow in Iraq. He has gotten the troops and now he
wants to keep them longer. The troops in Iraq now are--because there
are some people who are coming home and some who have just gone over
there--there are about 180,500 some troops are there now to be exact,
right now in Iraq. We don't know how many contractors are there, but
there are estimates of up to 150,000. How much longer, Mr. President?
How much longer do the American taxpayers have to take care of a
country that is the richest or the second richest oil country in the
whole world? How much longer?
Yesterday we were told that Iraq has a balanced budget. Isn't that
nice. I am glad they do. Why do we need to keep pouring money into
them--$12 billion a month. Infrastructure. We have spent billions and
billions of dollars on infrastructure in Iraq. How much are we spending
here in America? Our President has to look beyond Iraq and look at
America.
Earlier today my friend, the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator
Feingold, came and asked unanimous consent that we could move forward
on the Feingold-Reid legislation, which, in effect, says we have to get
our troops out of Iraq very quickly, except those who are there for
counterterrorism, force stabilization, and limited training of Iraqis.
We are a coequal branch of government. That is why we believe, Senator
Feingold and I, that after June 30 of next year, funds would only be
used for the programs I have mentioned: counterterrorism, protecting
our assets, and limiting training of Iraqis.
But in our legislation it is not a suggestion, not a goal, but
binding policy. That legislation recognizes our strong national
interest in Iraq and the Middle East, but brings to an end the
rubberstamp and unwavering loyalty in a never-ending war which is the
hallmark of the Republican-controlled Congress. That legislation
fundamentally changes course in Iraq and this almost unimaginably high
price that grows every day. And there are 4,000 dead Americans.
(Mr. SANDERS assumed the Chair.)
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I was talking about how unusual this war is.
Twelve and a half percent of the wounded have eye injuries. I don't
know how many we have lost track of because we don't have recent
reports, but more than 35,000 have been injured, and 12\1/2\ percent of
them have eye injuries. That is how this war is different than other
wars in one way.
Last week, a young marine came to my office, 21 years old. He entered
the Marines when he was 17. He came to my office with his wife and baby
daughter. He had been on his second tour in Iraq. His legs were blown
off. I said, ``What happened?'' He said, ``We went to a house where we
thought there were some people doing some things that we needed to take
a look at. We walked out and somebody detonated a bomb and blew me
up.'' He said it had been difficult to adjust. He was holding his baby
in the wheelchair. His wife was over his shoulder. Senator Durbin was
with me when we visited this young man. Senator Durbin told me today in
the cloakroom that he has trouble getting this image out of his mind.
We all do. A 21-year-old hero, who will live the rest of his life with
these debilitating wounds of war.
He is not the only one, as we know. As if the toll of lives and limbs
were not enough, this war also costs billions from our Treasury. We
were told by the Joint Economic Committee earlier this week that the
war--with the $200 billion he requested--all borrowed money, with a
credit card that has no expiration date and certainly no limit. And

[[Page S14473]]

that is only the direct costs. We were told by the Joint Economic
Committee what the cost of extra borrowed money is doing to our energy
policy in this country, and the other things they list is double that.
To this point the war has cost America $1.6 trillion. That is a lot
of money. We are not just spending our money; we are maxing out on our
children and grandchildren's credit cards. But perhaps the most
dangerous cost of this war will be measured in the damages done to our
Armed Forces' ability to protect and defend our country. Military
readiness is at a 30-year low. Our flexibility to respond to emerging
threats beyond the borders of Iraq is greatly hampered. I am not saying
this, and the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Vermont, is not
saying this; this comes from General Casey, the head general of the
Army. He said:

The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable
supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the
current fight, and are unable to provide ready forces as
rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies.

That is the lead general of the Army saying that. What is more, we
have heard time and time again during the last few months what is
happening with recruitment. I have to tell you, I am offended when I
hear people from the Pentagon tell us ``we are meeting our recruiting
goals.'' You can meet any goal if you keep lowering the standards. You
don't need to be a high school graduate anymore. You can have a
criminal record. Our military has been hit hard. Not only is
recruitment not heading in the direction that I think is appropriate,
but what is happening to our officers? These people who go to our
military academies are the best and the brightest. I have the
opportunity to select people--and I have for a long time--to go to
these academies. The best and the brightest of Nevada go to these
academies. They finish their mandatory term, and then they are
quitting. We are 3,000 captains short right now, and it is going to get
worse.
Mid-level officers are so hard to come by. We are doing everything we
can to keep them. Huge amounts of money are being given to these people
to have them stay in the military.
Let's not forget the cost of the war on the men and women in our
National Guard and Reserve. These are men and women we need protecting
us and responding to emergencies here at home. But we know, as was
exemplified in the storm that hit Kansas, when the Governor said most
of his National Guard is in Iraq and the equipment they have is
ruined--that is the way it is all over the country. These citizen
soldiers have already had 2 to 3 tours of duty of 12 to 18 months each.
Our men and women in uniform have performed more than admirably; they
have performed heroically. But these troops--now more than 180,000--
awake each morning on that foreign sand to face another day of risk
they cannot predict, and the appreciation they get from the Iraqis is
that we do everything we can to protect the Shia, the Sunni, and the
Kurds, and they all try to kill us.
It is no wonder GEN Colin Powell said that ``the Army is about
broken.'' He was being generous.
If Senators cannot find the courage to stand against the President's
failed war policy, I fear GEN Colin Powell might be right. The cost of
the war extends beyond Iraq. The whole Middle East has been
destabilized. There is a civil war going on in Israel with the
Palestinians. Lebanon--could we call that a civil war? It is not much
of a stretch. They cannot even hold a Presidential election. Iran is
basically thumbing their nose at the world, and we are standing by
saber rattling with almost no diplomacy for Iran.
What is going on in Iraq? An intractable civil war that has become
even more pronounced in recent weeks, when the Turks gathered 100,000
troops on the northern border of Iraq. The crisis in Pakistan
exemplifies what is going on. We not only have trouble in the Middle
East, but we have lost our moral standing throughout the world as a
result of this. The Bush administration focused on a person and a
country, and now we have the situation we have in Pakistan.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has become less stable.
Musharraf now seems intent on derailing the path toward democracy.
Billions of dollars of American taxpayer money is not fully audited or
accounted for. And perhaps as bad as any of this, bin Laden is still
wandering around and sending, when he feels like it, a tape to us so we
can look at that. He continues to make these tapes taunting us, and his
al-Qaida network, according to the President's own intelligence, is
regrouping and is stronger than ever.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, conditions in
Afghanistan--once hailed as a victory--continue to unravel. Ten
American soldiers were killed this week.
Now Afghanistan supplies 93 percent of the world's opium. This year
is going to be another all-time high production year. The people of
Afghanistan suffered through the most violent year since the U.S.
intervention. This year, 2007, is the bloodiest year in the history of
the war for American troops in Iraq. In Afghanistan, violent incidents
are up 30 percent. There is a rapidly rising influx of foreign
fighters, and there was a report this morning that the Taliban has
vastly stepped up the number of improvised and suicide attacks.
We cannot send more troops there. Listen to what General Casey and
General Powell said:

Many costs of the war in Iraq have been quantified:
American deaths, Americans wounded, trillions of dollars in
taxpayers dollars.

The other costs are not easy to calculate. How long is it going to
take to repair our military? The estimated dollar value is hundreds of
billions of dollars. How many additional troops and dollars will it
take to win in Afghanistan? How do you calculate that?
The risk is that the next national security threat becomes a national
security disaster because we don't have the troops to take care of it.
And all for a war that our troops are fighting harder to win than the
Iraqi politicians, who, after months and months of our troop
escalation, have failed to achieve any meaningful political benchmarks.
Now the Secretary of State is saying those benchmarks don't mean
anything anymore. But they did at one time, and they do to the American
people--$12 billion a month, and they have a balanced budget? Ours
isn't balanced. They are doing infrastructure development there. We are
not. They are building hospitals over there. We are not. So now in this
war--soon to be in the sixth year--our troops are no safer, national
security is no better protected, Iraq is no closer to reconciliation
than in the fifth or the fourth or third years.
We must not forget that we sent our troops to Afghanistan following
9/11 to go after those who attacked us, break up terrorist cells, and
stop future terror plans from becoming reality. Now, 6 years later, we
have moved far away from that critical fight.
It is long past time to get our national security strategy back on
track, and the only way to do that is to stand up to our President. It
is our constitutional duty, and our moral responsibility, to do so.
I compliment my friend from Wisconsin for offering his effort today
to move forward on the Feingold-Reid legislation. That is what we need
to do--bring our troops home.
Mr. President, I am going to be here in the morning and I will talk
about the bill we got from the House. I appreciate the work they did.
It wasn't easy to get it over here. It is not nearly strong enough for
me. I am going to support it. Earlier this week, we gave the President
of the United States $470 billion for the troops. We were all happy to
do that. He signed that bill and, on the same day, within minutes, he
vetoed a bill for the American people--the Labor-HHS, a bill that takes
care of some of the education needs of this country, a bill that allows
medical research to go forward for dreaded diseases in this country. He
said no. So many things for our communities were in that bill. He said
no. But to Iraq, he says yes. Don't you think it is appropriate, I say
to the American people and the Presiding Officer, that to this man, who
wants an additional $470 billion, we say, OK, but we want some
accountability? Don't the American people deserve accountability for a
war that has already cost the taxpayers $800 billion directly, and
twice that in indirect costs? I think so.

[[Page S14474]]

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending motion to
proceed be withdrawn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________