[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 177 (Thursday, November 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14474-S14476]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  ORDERLY AND RESPONSIBLE IRAQ REDEPLOYMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--
                           MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to H.R. 4156 and send 
a cloture motion to the desk and ask that once the motion is stated, 
the reading of the names be waived, and the motion to proceed be 
withdrawn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  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 H.R. 4156, the Orderly and Responsible Iraq 
     Redeployment Appropriations Act, 2008.
         Carl Levin, Robert Menendez, Claire McCaskill, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Richard J. Durbin, Tom Carper, Amy 
           Klobuchar, Daniel K. Akaka, Jack Reed, Patty Murray, 
           Sherrod Brown, Frank R. Lautenberg, Charles E. Schumer, 
           Sheldon Whitehouse, Debbie Stabenow, Barbara A. 
           Mikulski, Harry Reid.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory 
quorum call with respect to the cloture motion be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, let me say this: Tomorrow morning, the third 
vote in order is going to be a vote to invoke cloture on the farm bill. 
My friends on the other side of the aisle, my Republican friends, are 
near bringing this bill down. That is a shame. All those farm States 
out there--and there are lots of them--and all those farm communities--
and there are lots of them--need to look to the Republicans for killing 
the farm bill. If they vote, and they should vote cloture to stop this 
silliness that has been going on now for 10 days, 11 days, they can 
still offer amendments. Once cloture is invoked, they have the 30 hours 
to offer amendments. We can enter into an agreement. If they want to 
spend a half hour on each amendment, 15 minutes to a side, whatever 
they want to do that is reasonable, but they have been unwilling to be 
reasonable. I guess they want, as I indicated earlier, the Democrats 
not to have an accomplishment. But the fault of the farm bill is at 
their feet. You don't have to look further than down at their feet. 
They are stopping an important piece of legislation, a bipartisan piece 
of legislation, and they are doing it for what I believe are very bad 
motives.
  It is a shame. The American farm programs are good programs. This 
bill makes them better. Is this bill perfect? Of course not.
  I went over the schedule with my staff as to what we can do in 
December. We don't have the luxury of spending a long time on this farm 
bill. We could if cloture is invoked. We could come back and finish 
this bill in a short period of time. If it is not invoked, we are going 
to be hard pressed to get the farm bill completed very soon.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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. DURBIN. Mr. President, tomorrow morning, the national debate on 
the war in Iraq will continue on the floor of the Senate. The debate 
has now reached the stage where we are talking about funding for the 
war. This war, in its fifth year, has claimed almost 3,900 of our best 
and bravest soldiers. Some 30,000 have been injured, more than 10,000 
with amputations, burns, and traumatic brain injuries, serious injuries 
that they will struggle with for a long time.
  Earlier this week, I watched a television documentary. James 
Gandolfini, who has been in many movies, television documentaries, and 
shows, interviewed disabled veterans. I believe it was titled ``Alive 
Day Memories.'' It was a story of how each of these disabled vets from 
Iraq recalled the day when they believed they had been killed and their 
lives lost but somehow survived miraculously. They are extraordinary 
stories of courage, emotional stories about what they went through, and 
heartbreaking stories about some of the injuries they brought home. 
They were victims of traumatic brain injury--a young man with a video 
showing him in his youth with all the strength and vitality one could 
ask for, now struggling from a wheelchair to speak and to look forward 
to a life where he can walk and be anywhere near normal; his mother by 
his side holding his hand to calm him when the emotions overcame him.
  There were amputees talking about returning home. Many of them 
worried about whether they would be accepted. There were some 
wonderful, heartwarming stories of families who stood by them through 
this whole struggle and are with them even to this day.
  There was a beautiful young woman who was a lieutenant in the Army in 
her mid-twenties, red hair, as pretty as can be. A rocket-propelled 
grenade went off right next to her. It blew off her right arm and right 
shoulder. She showed extraordinary bravery in talking about what she 
had been through and putting her life together, and then struggled for 
words when she talked about whether she would ever have a family, 
whether she would ever have a child who would look at her as a mother.

  I watched that show and thought about my role as a Senator, and I 
thought about this war. I was 1 of 23 who voted against it in the 
Senate. It seems so long ago, 5 years. A vote that was at the time 
politically hard, but a vote that I never ever questioned or regretted.
  Now 5 years later, here we are still--still--with these stories, this 
handful of stories we saw on the documentary just representing a small 
percentage of the heroism and suffering of this war.
  I have had the opportunity to speak with this President directly 
about these men and women. I have talked with him about Eric Edmundson 
from North Carolina, a young man, a victim of traumatic brain injury 
who has become close to me through his family and visited with me just 
this last week in my office in Washington. I have seen his family up 
close, and I know the extraordinary love they have for their son and 
father of their granddaughter. The sacrifices they have made for him, 
his wife and baby daughter, are extraordinary.
  We have a Capitol guide--I wish I knew his name, and I will make it a 
point of finding it out--who makes a special effort to offer tours late 
at night for disabled veterans from Walter Reed. I run into him in the 
corridors after everybody is gone, and it is dark outside. He is giving 
special, personalized tours to veterans and their families. He always 
stops and introduces them and asks if we will pose for a picture. Of 
course, it is the least we can do, and we agree to do it.
  He came by last week to Senator Harry Reid's office and brought a 
young man from New Jersey. I believe his name was Ray. Ray had his 
young wife and beautiful little daughter with him, Kelsey. Kelsey was 
about 16 months old, 17 months old. She was running everywhere. She was 
just a bundle of energy and happy as could be, as her mother worried 
she might break something.
  Ray was in a wheelchair. He had lost both of his legs and lost a few 
fingers on his left hand. He had served in Iraq. He came back and 
considered himself lucky. He talked about what he was going to do from 
this point forward. So many stories of bravery.
  Tomorrow morning we will have a vote, and it will be our chance to 
speak as a Senate about this war. Some people will view it as just 
another routine vote, predictable outcome, and be on with their lives 
and head home for Thanksgiving. But for me, it is a chance, just a 
small chance, to return to a debate which I know consumes the hearts 
and minds of so many Americans.
  I can't tell you how many people I run into, particularly the 
families of these soldiers, who want this war to

[[Page S14475]]

end. I want to, too. And tomorrow we will have a chance to do that.
  Tomorrow we will have two votes. Senator McConnell is going to try to 
move a spending bill which will provide $70 billion for this war in 
Iraq with no strings attached. He will hand over this money, if he has 
his way, to President Bush, and we know what the outcome would be. The 
war would continue unchanged until this President walks out of office 
January 20, 2009. That is unacceptable to me, and I think it is 
unacceptable to many in this Chamber.
  We have to change this war. We have to start bringing these troops 
home. We have to tell the Iraqis: We have given you as much time as you 
could reasonably ask for to build your country and govern your country 
and defend your country.
  This morning's Washington Post has a front-page headline: ``Iraqis 
Wasting An Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say.'' Wasting an opportunity. It 
is an opportunity created by the lives and blood of our soldiers, those 
who were there dying on the ground to give the Iraqis a chance, and our 
military leaders have said they are wasting an opportunity.

       Brig. Gen. 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,'' he said. ``They don't know 
     what the hell is going on on the ground.'' Soldiers standing, 
     fighting, and dying while these political ministers twiddle 
     their thumbs and waste their time--that is unacceptable. I 
     cannot imagine how we can continue to ask our soldiers to 
     walk into that hell hole in Iraq and risk their lives and 
     come home severely injured while these Iraqi politicians 
     cannot do the most basic things to put their country 
     together.

  If Senator McConnell has his way tomorrow, we will hand this 
President $70 billion and say: Mr. President, more of the same; just 
keep it coming. I will not be part of that.
  There is a second choice. Senator Harry Reid, our Democratic majority 
leader, will offer a chance to provide $50 billion to this President 
with the understanding that within 30 days, American soldiers start 
coming home in a meaningful way, with a goal that by the end of next 
year, all of our combat forces will be out of Iraq. There will be some 
remaining. It would not be a complete cutoff, but they will be there 
for specific reasons--to fight counterterrorism and to protect 
America's remaining civilian and military personnel, to train the 
Iraqis with a limited responsibility because we put so much into this 
so far.
  I think that is the reasonable way to go. That bill we will vote on 
will also say that the President cannot send military units overseas 
until they are combat ready unless he certifies they are combat ready 
or gives good reason why they do not have to be combat ready.
  I have been there. I have talked with these soldiers. Fifteen months 
is too long. We had a briefing just the other day from one of the 
leaders in the Marine Corps. He conceded that point. Fifteen-month 
deployments are too long to maintain the morale, to maintain the 
readiness, to separate these soldiers from their families for 15 
months. He said something that will stick with me.

  He said: Can you imagine what goes through your mind when you are a 
soldier on the ground in Iraq at Christmas, realizing you are going to 
be there for another Christmas? That is what these soldiers are facing. 
That is what this President has put us into, a situation where we have 
pushed our brave men and women to the limit.
  Oh, support our troops and love our soldiers. Well, I do. I want to 
support our troops by bringing them home as soon as possible in an 
orderly, responsible way. Not what Senator McConnell wants: to let this 
President continue with 187,000 American soldiers currently on the 
ground and no end in sight. That is unacceptable.
  Some will say it is just another vote and nobody will notice. Maybe 
that is so. But for those of us who believe very strongly this war 
needs to come to an end, tomorrow morning is an opportunity. I hope the 
American people who can follow this debate through C-SPAN, who can 
follow our votes by referencing Congress on the Internet, will take a 
look at that rollcall tomorrow morning and will judge which Senators 
from which States want to change this policy in Iraq and see this war 
come to an end. We will have our chance tomorrow morning. It is a 
chance we should not miss.
  For all those brave men and women who have served us so well in Iraq 
and those who may be called tomorrow, we owe them a ``yes'' vote on the 
Reid cloture motion tomorrow, and I will be voting that way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                             The Farm Bill

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I come here at 7:30 p.m. eastern time one 
more time to implore my colleagues, when we get to the cloture motion 
tomorrow on the 2007 farm bill, that we vote yes on that cloture 
motion. I fear if we do not move forward with that cloture motion on 
the farm bill tomorrow, there is a great possibility that the farm bill 
is, in fact, dead.
  So many people have worked on this farm bill for such a long time--
Senator Harkin, who has led the effort as chairman of the committee; 
Senator Chambliss, who has worked on this now for 3 years; Senator 
Baucus, who led the efforts in the Finance Committee with Senator 
Grassley to provide a very robust package that is very important for 
the future of America. It is important that we move forward and we 
bring this matter to a close. The only way we are going to do that is 
if we get cloture tomorrow where people voted yes.
  When we do that, what that will then set up is a postcloture 
timeframe where germane amendments can then be considered to the farm 
bill, and we can move forward through an orderly process to bring the 
farm bill to a just conclusion.
  For me, what is at stake, when I think about the farmers and ranchers 
in the San Luis Valley, across the eastern plains of Colorado and Weld 
County and Adams County and across the western slope, is the future of 
family farmers and family ranchers, many of whom work much harder than 
anybody in Washington, DC, or in America; for those farmers and 
ranchers know the day does not end at 5 or 6 o'clock in the 
evening. For most farmers and ranchers, their day ends at 10, 11, 12 
o'clock at night. Their day begins long before people go to work here 
in Washington, DC. Their day begins at 4 and 5 in the morning when they 
get up to tend to the cows or when they get up to make sure they are 
baling their alfalfa, with dew still on the leaves of their alfalfa so 
that they have a quality product at the end of the day. Those are the 
men and women who really are the salt of the earth of America.

  Those are the men and women, when you shake their hands, you know 
they are the hands of working men and women because you feel the 
calluses and the cuts. These are the men and women who, after they have 
worked for an entire year, wonder whether they are going to have enough 
money to pay off their operating line at the bank. These are the men 
and women who know the weather better than anybody here in Washington, 
DC, will ever know the weather and will be able to understand the 
seasons and the days better than most people who stand here on this 
floor and debate about the issues of the farm policy because these are 
the men and women who know, when they see a cloud of a certain color 
coming in their direction, that there is a hailstorm on the way, and 
they wonder whether or not that hailstorm is going to hit their field 
or their neighbor's field. They wonder whether they are going to be 
able to have enough at the end of the day to pay their operating 
expenses or their mortgage at the bank.
  So it is the farmers and ranchers of rural America in all our States, 
Democratic States and Republican States--South Dakota, the State of my 
good friend who served with us on the Agriculture Committee and has 
contributed mightily to the content of this bill. It is all of those 
men and women in farm country whom we owe this to, to move forward with 
a process that brings about a conclusion to this farm bill, that sets 
an orderly process for us to consider amendments, both Republican and 
Democratic amendments, so that we can bring this legislation to a 
close.
  For me, it is personal because I know many of these people. Many of 
these people are my family. I spent a lot of my own time as an 
irrigator on a farm, on a Heston windrower, on John Deere tractors and 
John Deere balers. I spent

[[Page S14476]]

a lot of time on a horse. So I know what the life of a farmer and a 
rancher is all about. But this legislation on the farm bill, Mr. 
President, is much more to America than just about these farmers and 
ranchers. Yes, it is important to stand up for them and for them to 
have champions here on the floor of the Senate, both on the Democratic 
side as well as on the Republican side. That is why it should not be 
even close as an issue in terms of us getting to a 60-vote margin 
tomorrow. It ought to be done easily because we ought to be champions 
for these people.
  But it is more than about the farmers and ranchers in America. It is 
about a lot of other things. It is about making sure we embrace the 
clean energy economy of the 21st century. Nowhere in America is there 
more excitement and enthusiasm than there is in rural America today 
about how rural America will help us pioneer our way to energy 
independence the same as with Brazil, a Third World country, through a 
20-year dedication to the cause of energy independence, to become 
energy independent. There is no reason why we in America cannot do the 
same thing if we put our minds to it and we have the courage to put the 
right policies in place. And rural America will play a very significant 
role in creating that energy independence.
  This legislation we have brought to the floor of the Senate from both 
committees, the Finance Committee as well as from the Agriculture 
Committee, makes a very significant step in the right direction of 
getting us off the addiction of foreign oil and opening a new 
opportunity for energy security for America. When I look at the issue 
of energy, yes, we will be debating and be having votes on the issue of 
Iraq tomorrow, but part of why we are involved in these issues in the 
Middle East is because of the fact that oil has been a driver in our 
foreign policy. We ought not to let that ever happen again in America. 
We ought not to let oil be a driver in our foreign policy.
  So as we embrace this ethic of a clean energy economy for the 21st 
century, that is part of what is at the heart of the farm bill in title 
IX. As we look at dealing with the environmental security of our globe, 
of this planet, that also is at the heart of this legislation. When we 
look at creating a new economic opportunity, a new tomorrow for rural 
America, that is also in this legislation.
  But it goes beyond energy. It also deals with nutrition. We need to 
keep reminding the people who are critical of this farm bill that they 
are wrong because they are aiming at the wrong parts. They aim at the 
14 percent of the bill that creates the support, the safety net for 
farmers and ranchers who are out there in the fields, but we have to 
recognize that it is almost 67 percent of the money that is set forth 
in this bill that goes into all the nutrition programs. Those nutrition 
programs help our children make sure they have the food in their 
stomachs to be able to learn while they are in school. Those nutrition 
programs are the ones that help the most vulnerable here in America.
  It goes beyond nutrition. It also deals with the issue of 
conservation and how we take care of our land and water. This bill is a 
very important step and makes a very important statement in making sure 
we help take care of the crown jewels of America with the best stewards 
of our land and water.
  So if you are a champion of the farmers and ranchers of this country, 
you are going to vote yes on cloture on this bill tomorrow. If you are 
a champion for the new clean energy economy, you are going to vote yes 
on this cloture motion tomorrow. If you are a champion of taking care 
of those who are most in need, the most vulnerable in America in our 
nutrition programs, you are going to vote yes on this cloture motion 
tomorrow. If you are a champion and a fighter in protecting our land 
and water, then you will vote yes on this cloture motion tomorrow. 
Because it is only by getting to yes on this cloture motion tomorrow, 
with 60 votes, that we can then create the orderly process that can 
have us consider amendments that will improve this farm bill and get it 
across the finish line and then moving forward with the rest of the 
process to get it to the President's desk for signature.
  Mr. President, tonight, I urge my colleagues to think about their 
vote tomorrow, and I ask them to vote yes on this very important motion 
that will come before us.

                          ____________________